Mississippi Sex Toy Laws

Tuesday, March 23, 2004 The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a state law banning the sale of sex toys. Section 97-29-105 of the Mississippi Code provides that: knowingly selling, advertising, publishing or exhibiting any three-dimensional device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genitalia ("sexual devices") is illegal. Justice Bill Waller Jr., writing for the court, said that the state has a fundamental interest in "protecting public physical and mental health and supporting public morality."

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld a state law that bans the sale of sex toys. The justices said that the advertising of sexual devices is not protected by the right to free speech. Such advertisements, the court said, promote an illegal transaction.

Adam and Eve and ZJ Gifts LLC, the Memphis-based owner of Christal's chain of adult stores, sued the state of Mississippi in 2000. The company claimed the law barring the sale of certain adult devices was unconstitutional.

ZJ Gifts said its Southaven store, open for about a year, had to close in 2001 because it could no longer sale certain "intimate devices." ZJ Gifts contended that state law thwarted the rights of customers who wished to purchase adult toys.

The Hinds County Chancellor Bill Singletary ruled in 2003 that state law does not extend the right to privacy to the sale of sexual devices. He said state government had an interest in "protecting public physical and mental health and supporting public morality."

Presiding Justice Bill Waller Jr., writing Thursday for the court, said state law provides that physicians and psychologists may prescribe sexual devices for their patients, and the patients may buy them from the physicians and psychologists. "The novelty and gag gifts which the vendor plaintiffs sell have no medical purpose," Waller wrote.

Can we pause here and ask why wanting a sexual device should be considered a medical need? Since when did being "horny" become a medical diagnosis?

This is just another example of uptight conservative religious leaders thinking that it is all right to merge church and state into one dictatorship rather than the free democracy that the USA is supposed to be.

Tell me what our soldiers are spilling their blood for? What are the sons and daughters of the USA dying for? So that church leaders can influence our legal system to keep people from experiencing sexual pleasure while being educated about the sexual devices they are using?

Waller said there is no fundamental right of access to buy sexual devices. Waller said while a federal court found a similar Alabama law was unconstitutional, other courts - including ones in Georgia, Louisiana and Texas - have rejected attempts to expand the right to privacy to include the commercial sale of sex toys.

Texas Sex Toy Laws

If you haven't been following our story, Joanne Webb, a former fifth-grade teacher, is a Burleson, TX, suburban mother and part-time saleswoman for a company called Passion Parties, Inc. She is also in the middle of one of the most ridiculous criminal cases. Joanne provides adult novelties that are sold at Tupperware-type house parties. These parties are educational and great for people who feel more comfortable buying marital aids in a private home than at an adult bookstore.

Acting on a tip in November 2003, two undercover officers got a warrant for her arrest on charges that she had sold obscene devices, a violation of state law.

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