Guns good, Viagra good, Dildos bad... or, there's no O in Alabama

It seems that the 11th circuit court of appeals has upheld an Alabama law outlawing the sale of sex toys.

Now... as someone who has always been curious as to why dildo's, vibrators and the like have to be labeled as "novelty items," this is really just the end all be all of Puritan absurdity. Or male insecurity. The thing that really gets me though- as far as the sexism in this decision goes- is that they specifically mention in the opinion that drugs for "virility" (ie: Viagra) are quite legal. The best the ladies are allowed are condoms "ribbed for her pleasure." Sweet.

But really- am I missing something here? In the opinion, they go on and on about how it's an issue of public morality and that that outweighs a right to sexual privacy (which, they are sure to let us know, really isn't a right.). I'm not actually sure what kind of public morality this is supposed to be. I mean, unless you were repeatedly beating someone over the head with "The Rabbit." Are they using vibrating underwear as a torture device down at Guantanamo? Or is the female orgasm in and of itself immoral? I really don't get it.

It really seems to me that the only "morality" Americans care about is "sexual morality." I mean, there is just no part of me that understands why there is more outrage in this country over seeing a nipple, or a woman using a dildo, or gay marriage, or an HPV vaccine, or unmarried people fucking than there is over the fact that we are in an unjust war bombing the fucking crap out of people who really didn't do anything to us. Or the fact that there's no healthcare for so many people. Or the fact that we are the "richest nation in the world" (I guess the national debt doesn't figure into that) but there are so many people here starving to death. I don't know why it's more ok for a kid to see someone's head getting blown off than it is for them to see a woman breastfeeding, or to go to a sex education class.

They are so concerned with fucking, and vicious hatred of women's bodies that no other kind of moral or ethical outrage is possible. If half of the energy devoted to trying to prevent people from having satisfying sex lives was used to take care of this country's worst off citizens, or preventing war, or protecting the environment, or human rights, or AIDS, or fuck- just making sure that every single person in the country was able to have a job that would support themselves and their family, we'd be living in a much better, and frankly, much more moral place. Or, uh, Europe, actually.