Should adults play?

[Guest guest]

Should adults play?

Rakesh Bhatnagar, Sunday, September 03, 2006

Get ready for yet another controversy. This time, the bone of

contention is whether adults have the fundamental right to play with

sex toys and traders the right to sell them. So far, the trade has

been booming in underground markets like Palika in Delhi's Connaught

Place. Now, an enterprising phoren-returned gentleman in Amritsar

has opened up the border market for the needy.

Policing is a problem with this business too. But hush-hush

transactions across the counter have started. " Some of these toys

are selling for as low as Rs 300, " ' says a news dispatch from the

holy city. " Indian minds are opening up to a higher level of sexual

freedom, " says a report quoting the dealer.

There are indigenous inflatable dolls at a price of Rs 2,000

onwards, erotic foreplay kits and so on. All these products are

brought from Mumbai and Delhi, the report says. With a population of

1.3 billion, slightly ahead of India's, China's sex toy market is

worth £6.6bn and expanding at 30 per cent annually.

According to People's Daily study, only 21 per cent of Chinese men

knew where to find the clitoris. There had been rapid increase in

new HIV cases among teenagers, many of whom were unaware of how the

disease was transmitted, it says.

As we're struggling to determine the legal definitions

of `obscenity', `patriotism', `promiscuity' and `national pride', an

American court has already upheld law-banning sales of `sex toys'.

It rejected the argument of `sexual privacy' saying the US

Constitution doesn't guarantee it. " If we craft a new fundamental

right today by which to invalidate the law, we would be bound to

give that right full force and effect in all future cases including,

for example, those involving adult incest, prostitution, obscenity,

and the like, " the US court added.

The law, first adopted by Albama in 1998, allowed the sale of

ordinary vibrators and body massagers those aren't designed or

marketed primarily as sexual aids. It exempted sales of sexual

devices " for a bona fide medical, scientific, educational,

legislative, judicial or law enforcement purpose " .

Georgia and Texas are the only other states that restrict the

distribution of sexual devices. American Civil Liberties Union that

questioned the ban had argued that private, consensual sexual

conduct among adults is constitutionally protected and beyond the

reach of government regulation. The US Supreme Court's decision in

2003 striking down a Texas law didn't have Alabama's explanation why

sale of performance enhancing drugs like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra

was not similarly prohibited. " On the face of it, sex toys are

illegal to sell, " a dissenting Judge had said, adding, " shops can

survive prosecution if they can prove their products are for novelty

use only. "

A physician may prescribe the use of a sex toy, but the allowance

does not apply to a therapist who has only a PhD, said the judge.

Let's see how Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who recently

heard Khushwant Singh throwing choicest Punjabi abuses accepted by

authoritative English dictionaries, would use the `phoren' laws for

a likely legislation. Khushwant was the Guest of Honour.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1050978