In Small-Town Georgia, Getting a Sex Toy Requires a Doctor's Prescription

You might need a doctor’s signature if:

• You’re sick and have to miss work.
• You’re applying to take your driving test.
• You want to buy a sex toy.

Wait - buy a sex toy? I need a note for that?

Yup.

Well, you do if you live in Sandy Springs, Georgia, where it’s illegal to buy or sell sex toys unless you’re doing so "for a bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial, or law enforcement purpose." In other words, you need a prespription.

Basically, that means you have to prove that you’re going to use the toy for one of those reasons. Not so much fun if you want to keep your playtime to yourself, not to mention a giant invasion of privacy.

Bans on sex toy sales are hardly new, although usually they’re statewide, not citywide. But one thing that all these bans have in common is that they’re rooted in this country’s long history of governing "morality" around sex. There have been numerous moral panics around people’s sexuality, around what clothing one can and can’t wear in public, and any number of regulatory laws aimed at controlling people’s relationships with their own or others’ bodies.

You might be surprised by some of the laws still on the books in much of the United States.

Many of these laws aren’t common knowledge until someone gets caught breaking them, or a savvy citizen decides to challenge them.

People have generally gotten around bans on sex toy sales and purchases by marketing sex toys as novelties, but there’s still been that ever-present fear of inadvertently breaking the laws. Marketing toys as novelties also takes away customers’ choices around making safe, high-quality, affordable purchases.

What really jumps out about this ban in Sandy Springs, though, is that both the complainants and defendants in this lawsuit have some ideas about sex toys that are pretty far off the mark. Let's have a look at a few of them.

Sex Toys Are Serious

A quick search of other news sources covering the sex toy ban in Sandy Springs shows an emphasis on the disabled, married woman who filed the lawsuit because, in part, sex toys helped restore her sexual relationship with her husband. Many versions leave out mention of the male artist with whom she filed. "Man sues for legal right to jerk off with toys and make art with them" isn’t the most scintillating headline, I guess. As usual, reporters are moved by an inspirational story - how sex toys fixed a marriage and helped with disability. In usual media fashion, fun and creativity (never mind sexiness) just don’t make for good copy.

Yes, toys do solve problems. Or, as I like to put it, they provide more sexual options. For someone whose body doesn’t work the way it used to, or doesn’t work the way they’d like it to, that’s pretty serious stuff. That’s exactly why we need to keep the focus on playfulness, why so many toy shops put great effort into presenting an inviting image.

But, toys are also fun. They’re toys after all. Children’s toys are educational and they help with things like hand-eye coordination, but they wouldn’t do any of that if they weren’t fun to play with in the first place. Why shouldn’t we look at grown-up toys the same way? (Learn more in How Sex Toys Can Help You Play Nice With a Partner.)

Toys Are Dirty (Unless Used Within a Marriage)

The No. 1 problem with this assumption is that it goes directly against another commonly held belief, which is that people only use sex toys because they can’t get, or don’t have, a partner. Ever heard of BOB - battery-operated-boyfriend? He’s the mysterious boyfriend (vibrator) folks spend their nights with, filling the void left by a partner away on business or keeping one company during one’s lonely single days. Once a partner returns, or magically appears in one’s life, BOB goes obediently back into the drawer and hides. Or so the belief goes.

When they’re not being elevated to boyfriend status, toys are often called "marital aids," reinforcing the idea that they’re just fixers. Clearly, prevailing wisdom is telling us two contradictory things. So which one is it? Are sex toys exclusively the domain of married people, or are they best used to comfort the hearts and loins of singles?

The answer: All of the above. All kinds of people - married, single, polyamorous, gay, lesbian, straight, curious, you name it - use sex toys. Some use them for comfort. Some use them for enhancement. Some use them for pleasure. And yes, some use them because, to them, using toys feels dirty.

Contrary to popular belief, sex toys never replace a human partner, whether a person has one of those or not. Vibrators can’t cuddle, share a meal, or engage in stimulating (mentally stimulating, that is) conversation, and people can’t generally rumble at tremendous speeds, or form themselves into elaborate shapes, or stay hard for just the right amount of time on any given day. Some toys are made specifically for couples. And while they might help bring couples together, those little gadgets still don’t cuddle or wash dishes.