I find myself this Fourth of July pondering the 4th and 14th Amendments of the Constitution – not as a legal eagle but as a citizen. Regardless of what originalists or textualists on the courts may say, it seems clear to me that both amendments are meant to ensure that individual citizens have a right to be left alone by their government except when the government has a legitimate interest in the activities of the citizen. So, while the 4th Amendment asserts that a citizen has the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizure, the 14th demands that when such activities are undertaken, the citizen is entitled to due process.
This then brings me to the intimate lives of citizens – their relationships, their consensual sexual activities behind closed doors, and dildos. Of course, dildos. That is, one needn’t have a partner to experience sexual pleasure.
You may recall that a 1973 Texas law made it illegal to sell sex toys in the state of Texas. They were termed obscene devices. Such devices are alternatives to the male and female genitalia intended for auto-erotic use. There was also a provision that stated that anyone having more than six such devices would be presumed to be marketing them – putting the individual in violation of the prohibition against selling dildos or other sex toys. Why six? Who the hell knows! I thought people collected such things as they collect chess sets, guitars, guns, fishing rods, and whatnot.
It seems that sometime in 2003, at a private party, a 40-something year-old lady shared her dildo collection with friends at an event akin to a Tupperware party – an opportunity to see these items up close rather than just in an brochure. The State filed criminal charges against her; I suspect that one of the party goers ratted her out. In Texas, we have now codified vigilantism into some of our laws. I think that our lawmakers have done this believing that it strengthens the piety of our society. Sigh.
What followed is that out-of-state manufacturers of sex toys filed a suit against the State. Texas Attorney General Gregg Abott (yes, the current Governor and Dildo in Chief of Texas) appointed one of his legal lackeys Solicitor General to represent the State of Texas in the case. The case against the dildo lady was dropped – probably because now facing a federal suit from dildo manufacturers outside of Texas, Texas had bigger dildos to fry.
That Solicitor General was Ted (I’m an even bigger dildo now than I was then) Cruz. Ted dildo Cruz argued in federal court that the US Constitution did not guarantee that citizens had a right to self-pleasure and that the State of Texas had a legitimate interest in suppressing auto-erotic activity.
Let me pause here to observe two things. First, Ted dildo Cruz’s line of argument seems built on the same premise that was used to strike down Roe v Wade. That is, “If it isn’t explicitly in the Constitution, then it isn’t a protected right – screw you and the right to privacy you rode in on.” See, Ted dildo Cruz was just ahead of his time. The second thing is that, as a practical matter, telling 150-million American males that wanking is illegal isn’t going to change anything. As a brother-in-law of mine says, “Give any guy 15-mintes with nothing to do, and he’ll think … Hmmm, I know what I can do.”
Back to our story. After years, in 2015, the State of Texas argued and lost the manufacturer’s lawsuit in a federal appeals court. The court reasoned that the 14th Amendment gave citizens the right to privacy which included how they expressed/enjoyed their sexuality. It was a symbolic victory for the right to be left alone. I’m sure that I’ve left out many important legal and salacious details; this item is meant as a simple contemplation rather than a treatise on either privacy or dildos.
So, here we are today, about to celebrate our independence from what the founders decided was an oppressive government. And our Supreme Court appears to have adopted the position that all these pesky amendments and their interpretations have given US citizens too many rights – including this troublesome right to privacy which opens the floodgates for people to do whatever the constitution doesn’t explicitly deny them. The high court has taken us this far down the path of government intrusion into our private lives. Next come the right to marry whomever we want, the right to engage in whatever form of sexual pleasure we want with a consenting partner, to use contraception, and maybe even to marry a person of a different race.
I just hope that they don’t allow Texas to reinstitute the stupid ban on dildos.