Sex and the USA
I knew it all along.
I'd speculated in a previous entry that it was the show Sex
and the City that was responsible for removing the stigma
of owning sex toys on the part of women. This article just reaffirms what I'd suspected.
(So Target is selling sex toys now? Hmmm...)
How weird is the sexual climate in this country right now? On
the one hand you have super online and offline retailers - such
as Amazon.com and Target, respectively - now openly providing
sex toys. On the other hand, you have President Bush and the
Department of Justice breathing fire down the neck of the adult
industry (taking actions against legal, consensual porn, mind
you).
Furthermore, over here you have so many mainstream celebrities
like Eva Longoria confessing candidly to
using sex toys; even as the bosses at her television network
(ABC) are telling her to ixnay on the talk about vibrators-ay
(granted, her station is a very family-friendly outfit).
So what happens after Miss Longoria's public confession? Boxes
and boxes of vibrators get shipped to her home by admiring fans.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch (figuratively and perhaps literally
speaking in some cases), it's still illegal to sell sex toys in
the states of Texas, Alabama, and Georgia (I'm not sure who the
governor of Texas was when the edict initially came down in that
state, but I have a pretty good guess...)
Moreover, Jenna Jameson seems to make every mainstream female
celebrity toplist from FHM magazine to IMDB.com. Conversely,
it's possible that sometime in the near future you might have to
pay an extra sin tax
in order to get her best-selling book or any of her videos
online.
As far as sexuality is concerned in this country, all of these
things remind me of the opening remarks from A Tale of Two
Cities : "It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times." And it doesn't matter what side of the fence you happen
to fall on for this statement to be true. Whether you're
pro-pornography and all about frank discussions of bedroom
behavior; or you hope that porn goes the way of the dodo bird,
and your policy is "Don't ask, don't tell" towards
experimentation with adult devices.
Just as an aside: In a way, the Bush administration has made the
adult industry a sympathetic figure in all of this, if that's
possible. Ever since I first weighed in on the decision of the
Attorney General's office to make the
take-down of the industry Job #1, it seems that all the notable
quotes (such as that of political pundit Arianna Huffington ) I see on the
issue are about lambasting that decision.
I often wonder what kind of progress sex researchers Alfred
Kinsey, William Masters, and Virginia Johnson would have made in
this country under this present administration. My thoughts? Not
much. No wonder all of the good sexuality studies right now are
coming out of Great Britain.