Reason.com
Paging Joycelyn Elders
Reader Mark Lambert sends word of an Iowa bill to restrict "the exhibition or dissemination of certain sexual devices to minors," with the devices defined as "any three-dimensional item designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs." In other words, the legislators want to keep the kids safe from dildos -- aside, that is, from the dildos currently serving in the Iowa General Assembly. Comments Lambert: "By Gosh, we want our teenagers masturbating BY HAND, not by some newfangled device!"
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|2.1.06 @ 9:32AM|#
Am I the only one giggling over their use of the word "dissemination"?
|2.1.06 @ 9:38AM|#
Yup. I'm laughing out loud. Good catch!
|2.1.06 @ 9:39AM|#
Am I the only one giggling over their use of the word "dissemination"?
You've just coined a new verb! I appreciate the truthiness of your observation ...
|2.1.06 @ 10:13AM|#
"You've just coined a new verb!"
What new verb?
|2.1.06 @ 10:38AM|#
I just hope that the bill is not underinclusive- Jergins lotion and detachable shower heads have been overly available to minors for years. I am glad that the government is finally taking a stand.
Warren|2.1.06 @ 11:39AM|#
Oh, there's nothing halfway,
About the Iowa way to treat you,
When we treat you,
Which we may not do at all!
There's an Iowa kind,
A kind-a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude,
We've never been without that we recall!
|2.1.06 @ 11:50AM|#
I am having a hard time understandng what a 1,2, or 4 dimensional item would be. Therefore, the detachable shower head counts.
I have always believed that it is my soap and my penis and I can wash it as fast as I want. Are they going to ban soap in Iowa? Would anyone notice?
|2.1.06 @ 11:52AM|#
This bill prohibits any person, other than a parent or guardian, from ... disseminating, i.e., giving or selling, to a minor certain sexual devices designed for sexual stimulation...Also, a person who violates Code section 728.2 for displaying a sexual device to a minor commits a criminal offense against a minor and must register as a sex offender.
Do we need to show ID for ribbed condoms now?
Avedon|2.1.06 @ 12:15PM|#
I guess they want to go back to the good old days when horny boys thought they were too good for masturbation and would spend the whole night hectoring some woman to fuck them as a public service so they wouldn't have blue balls.
Or do they still do that? The guys in my generation seem to have outgrown that.
|2.1.06 @ 12:47PM|#
Do gerbils count?
|2.1.06 @ 12:51PM|#
Dildos are for old women; young girls should be getting plenty of the real article. Maybe they should be calling this the "Penis Employment Act."
By God, I'm moving to Iowa!
|2.1.06 @ 2:23PM|#
So, we'll see alot of new postings to the state's sex offender website just because some parents don;t want to have to answer thier 4 year old's "What's that?" query.
Wonder if parents can have children removed from their home by the state for not keeping mommy's strap-on under lock and key? Wouldn;t that make them sex offenders too?
|2.1.06 @ 4:46PM|#
I'm sure glad that the Iowa legislature has apparently fixed ever single real problem in that state, so that they have time to think about dildo-wielding teenagers.
Larry A|2.1.06 @ 5:03PM|#
Talk about "Man bites dog."
"Iowa outlaws corncobs."
|2.1.06 @ 8:28PM|#
Chalk up another reason for me to hate the Christards and their collective anti-sex neurosis.
Fuck them all up the ass with a dildo wrapped with razor wire!
|2.1.06 @ 9:45PM|#
There should be an extra penalty if the 3D device employs any kind of body harness, strap, belt, or conspicuous grip.
|2.2.06 @ 12:12AM|#
"Wonder if parents can have children removed from their home by the state for not keeping mommy's strap-on under lock and key? Wouldn;t that make them sex offenders too?"
The bill has an exemption for parents or guardians. Thus, it gives parents the sole legal prerogative of deciding when and whether their minor children will be exposed (so to speak) to these devices. Iowa's law already has similar provisions for obscene material.
Will the bill, if it becomes law, be universally enforced? Of course not, but it will give parents an extra legal tool (wait for snickering at the word "tool" to subside) with which to reinforce their authority over their own children. It might encourage some people to be slightly more careful about what unsupervised kids get to see.
It's not a question of which parenting decisions are best. Some parents may want to shield their children as much as possible; others may want to have long and graphic talks with their kids about the birds and the bees ("and when Mommy needs some stimulation, she puts this device . . ." "OK, Mom, I get it!").
The point is that *parents* should be making these decisions, and should have recourse against those who try to deprive them of this decision-making power.
Most attacks on parental authority are "objectively anti-libertarian," because the family is one of those "little platoons" aka "intermediary institutions" interposing themselves between the individual and the awesome power of the State. In a battle between the state and an isolated individual, guess who wins? The state. In a battle between the state and an individual who's supported by a family, a private school, a mutual-aid society, etc., the individual at least has better odds.
"Liberating" kids from the authority of their family tends to leave them ripe for the plucking by the state.
|2.2.06 @ 11:42PM|#
chriso, I know I've always got time to think about dildo-wielding teenagers. well, female ones, anyway.
|2.2.06 @ 11:44PM|#
bigbigslacker:
can my punishment be to be spanked by the teen to whom I exhibited the device?
Akira: right on, dude