LAPD Cop-Turned-Sex Toy Mogul Reminisces About Choking Suspects Until They Defecated
Steve Shubin, the Austin-based maker of the popular mens pleasure device known as the "Fleshlight," was the subject of a fascinating profile in the Austin Chronicle last month. The focus of the story is Shubin's complete domination of the fake vagina market, but there's also a section about Shubin's days working for the Los Angeles Police Department; days he sorely misses, because he used to be able to slap and choke people:
If you'd told Steve Shubin circa the late Seventies that at 59 years old, he would be running a company that manufactures discrete artificial vaginas, he'd have laughed. Back then, Shubin was a member of the Los Angeles Police Department – he spent six of his seven years in the force on the SWAT team – and he loved it. "I used to joke when paychecks came in, 'I feel bad about taking this!' In college, I was a defensive lineman and linebacker, and I went right from there to the police academy and chasing bad guys – and I got paid for it! It was amazing."
Shubin gets giddy talking about being a cop. "I couldn't do it today," he says, but not just because he's 59. "Today, everybody's got a camera, and everybody's got a lawyer. Steve Shubin would be fired in a month." He describes his days as a cop as "the best job I ever had," and that's up to and including his current gig raking in a bazillion dollars by selling Fleshlights. Shubin gushes about it.
"If somebody needs their face slapped, they're getting their face slapped," he says, talking about his style of policing – but, he laments, "You can't do that anymore." He talks about this stuff so openly, I almost wonder if he remembers that my recorder is on. "I've killed people before. I've done everything. I have choked hundreds of people unconscious. Did I enjoy it? No," he says – and when he explains why not, he says that it's because a person who's choked out poops their pants. Why'd he stop? The pay was bad. "There wasn't much money in policing," he says.
The profile ran on May 11. Several days later, the Austin Chronicle published a letter from Shubin trying to walk back some of what he said about his policing career:
After reading the story, I thought, "This sounds like a pissed-off ex-cop that missed choking people out, had a lot of money, a lot of fancy cars, was misunderstood, mistreated by bankers, rejected by organizations that needed donations, whose neighbors would not wave to him. What an idiot!"
Wow. I thought, "If I gave that impression, I don't know what I was thinking," but that is not correct at all!
The truth is, I had a seven-year, action-packed law enforcement career 30 years ago. I loved police work and could not do the job today. Officers are watched and judged through every step of their day-to-day duties. This level of constant scrutiny hinders their decision-making process under pressure and puts them at major risk.
The world is a better place now that Shubin is making fake vaginas and not arrests.