A recent survey indicates that about 16 percent of men who have access to the Internet at work acknowledged having seen porn while on the job. Eight percent of women said they had. Another survey indicates that 20 percent of men and 13 percent of women watch porn at work.
What about the women who produce porn?
"I have absolutely no time for my sex life any more," writer-director Candida Royalle said. "I'm just working too much, and I'm engaged."
Susie Bright has reported on her interview with porn director Tristan Taormino, whose Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women won AVN's "Best Anal Sex Release" award: "Tristan has a knack for arguing with powerful men in the movie business. Spike Lee asked her to be his sex/dyke consultant for his movie, She Hate Me, a comedy about - among other things - predatory lesbians on the Baby-Making March. Spike would tell her things like, ‘I really don't know any lesbians that well,' and then she'd look around at everyone who was working in his office and blink. ‘Hello! Are you blind?' He was flabbergasted at what she suggested, that vaginal orgasms are not the primary way women orgasm.
"She fought so hard to get some realistic female sexiness in this movie, and after I saw the film, I was impressed with the battles she won and biting my lip at the ones she lost. Thank god, she got a real vibrator in."
This brings us to Sherri Williams, a casualty of the war on pleasure. She was acquitted of the heinous crime of selling non-prescription vibrators. She had violated an Alabama statute that bans the sale of vibrators and other sex toys. The law prohibited "any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs."
But the not-guilty verdict in her case was overturned by a 2-1 decision. In the Court of Appeals, the state's attorney general defended the statute, arguing that "a ban on the sale of sexual devices and related orgasm-stimulating paraphernalia is rationally related to a legitimate interest in discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex." Rationally related?
Additionally, he said, "There is no constitutional right to purchase a product to use in pursuit of having an orgasm." There isn't? This country was founded by pioneers with a lust for freedom and by puritans with a disdain for pleasure. The problem is that those who are still burdened by that streak of anti-pleasure keep trying to impose unnecessary restrictive laws upon those who are pro-pleasure. What ever happened to "the pursuit of pleasure" mentioned in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence?
Ironically, journalist Gita Smith wrote in August 2007, "In Alabama, you can sell guns on any street corner, but you can't sell sex toys. In other words, we are free to blow ourselves up at will. We just can't blow up a dolly with big red lips and openings in her lifelike vinyl self. Alabama is a vibrator-free state. Well, technically, you can go across state lines and buy sex toys in Georgia and Tennessee and carry them home.
"Today, the U.S. Supreme Court has shown a gleam of interest in this controversial state law. At the very least, this case seems to be a restraint-of-trade case as much as anything else, since the devices are sold in all the neighboring states. I would like to be a fly on the wall when oral arguments are heard.
"Justice Antonin Scalia: You say that the sale of the Twizzler-Twister should be banned?
"Alabama guy: Yes, your honor.
"Justice Samuel Alito: And the Buzzer-Master?
"Alabama guy: Yes, that too.
"Justice Clarence Thomas: What about the Coke can with the fake pubic hair?
"Alabama guy: That one doesn't vibrate, so that one's OK.
There is, and always has been, a strong strain of paternalism among lawmakers down here. And that paternalistic attitude makes them believe that they are the keepers of the moral keys. Us wee folk need protecting from sexual pleasures derived from plastic thingies made in China."
But on the first Monday of October 2007, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to Alabama's ban on the sale of sex toys. A three-judge panel had upheld the guilty verdict of the appeals court on Feb. 14. Happy Valentine's Day to the roots of fascism in the private parts of America.
Sherri Williams, who faces a $10,000 fine and one year of hard labor, said the Supreme Court's decision to not review the law is "further evidence of religion in politics." She plans to sue again, this time on First Amendment free speech grounds. "My motto," she said, "has been they are going to have to pry this vibrator from my cold, dead hand. I refuse to give up."
This article initially appeared in the May 2008 edition of AVN Online. To subscribe, visit AVNMediaNetwork.com/subscriptions .
