All the Single Ladies
Posted on July 3rd, 2009 by clint_vibrator
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18663903/
WASHINGTON - The owner of adult stores in Alabama asked the Supreme Court on Monday to throw out a state ban on selling sex toys, calling it an unconstitutional intrusion into the bedroom.
If the court declines to take the case — as it did in 2005 — Alabama residents shopping for sexual novelties could soon have to look outside the state’s borders.
“A person should have the right to make their own decision to explore their sexual boundaries outside what some government official says is moral,” Sherri Williams said outside the Supreme Court before filing the appeal.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1090180191546
Americans do not have a fundamental right to sexual privacy, a 2-1 decision of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said on Wednesday.
The split panel upheld an Alabama law — nearly identical to one in Georgia — that made the sale of sex toys a crime punishable by up to a year in prison.
The decision extends an emerging division in the court over sexual rights, with Judges Stanley F. Birch Jr. and Rosemary Barkett leading opposing factions.
USERS, SELLERS OF TOYS SUE
Just after the law went into effect in 1998, a group of plaintiffs sued then-Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr., who is now an 11th Circuit judge. They claimed the new law violated a host of civil rights, including ones guaranteeing free expression, due process and safety from unreasonable government searches of homes.
The plaintiffs included six people who used sex devices — some on the advice of therapists as a means to combat depression and improve their marriages. One woman used a device because she suffers from a chronic disability that makes intercourse painful.
Two sellers of the sex devices, one who owns two “Pleasures” stores in the state and the other who conducts “Tupperware-style” parties to sell the products, also were plaintiffs.
A federal trial judge in 1999 found the law unconstitutional, but an 11th Circuit panel vacated the ruling, seeking a broader examination of how sexual laws had been enforced over time. After concluding that sexual privacy was “deeply rooted” in American legal tradition and practice, the trial judge again found the law unconstitutional.
DECISION BELONGS TO ALABAMA
But on a second review before the 11th Circuit, Birch repeated his argument from the Florida gay adoption case, writing that the U.S. high court did not address the issue of sexual privacy in Lawrence last year.
He also reiterated a point conservatives make in the culture wars throughout the country — that judges should not become embroiled in making social policy. Without a fundamental right at stake, Birch wrote, only the people of Alabama could decide “that a prohibition of sex toys is misguided, or ineffective, or just plain silly … .”
Oh, BTW, Racy now has the Berman Aphrodite, which was raved about by Oprah in February and outstripped supply like some new tickle me elmo.
http://racy.com/berman-aphrodite-infrared-rechargeable-massager-w-3-sleeves.html
Great thing to plan: Have a surrender Date
Lots of info about latex body paint: http://latexbodypaint.info
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/26/venice-female-gondoliers
Alexandra Hai, first working female gondolier, but not licensed. A new woman got the certification.
After nine centuries of keeping women on dry land, Venice broke with tradition today by approving its first female gondolier.
Giorgia Boscolo, 23, a mother of two, came through a gruelling course, which included 400 hours of instruction, to enter an all-male club that has resisted admitting women. “I am immensely happy and proud, but today my day starts like every other, taking the children to school,” she said. “I’ve always loved gondolas and unlike my three sisters I preferred to row with my father instead of going out with my friends.”
She denied that she would not have the physical strength to manoeuvre gondolas, saying: “Childbirth is much more difficult.”
http://www.livescience.com/health/090629-vibrator-use.html
About half of American adults indicate using a vibrator, according to a new survey that sheds light on acts that take place beneath the covers and behind closed doors.
The survey was funded, however, by Church and Dwight Co. Inc., maker of Trojan brand sexual health products. It finds it’s not just women taking advantage of the battery-operated tickle toy. Forty-five percent of men said they’d employed a vibrator, with most heterosexual men doing so during foreplay or intercourse with a female partner. About 17 percent of men said they used a vibrator for solo masturbation.
“The study about women’s vibrator use affirms what many doctors and therapists have known for decades — that vibrator use is common, it’s linked to positive sexual function such as desire and ease of orgasm, and it’s rarely associated with any side effects,” said study researcher Debby Herbenick, associate director of Indiana University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion.
The new results are based on two studies, one surveying more than 2,000 women and the other more than 1,000 men (ages 18 to 60), both of which are published this week in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Some other findings included:
* More than 50 percent of women participants had used a vibrator, with nearly one in four having done so in the past month.
* More than 70 percent of women reported having never experienced any side effects associated with vibrator use. (Those side effects that were reported were typically rare and of a short duration, including mild genital numbness, irritation, or inflammation.)
* About 45 percent of men, both gay and heterosexual, reported incorporating a vibrator into sexual activities.
* Of men who have used vibrators, 10 percent had done so in the past month, about 14 percent in the past year and about 21 percent more than one year ago.
* Men who reported having used vibrators, particularly those with more recent use, were more likely to report participation in sexual health promoting behaviors, such as testicular self-exam.
* Men who had used vibrators recently also scored themselves higher on four of the five factors used to measure sexual function (erectile function, intercourse satisfaction, orgasmic function and sexual desire).
