Skip to main content

Arrest Startles Saleswomen of Sex Toys

NYT: "Passion Parties, which is holding its annual convention here, represents a subset of the sex industry that uses Tupperware-style marketing and underscores how mainstream sex toys have become. What may have once been purchased from burly guys behind the counter in seedy pornography shops is now for sale in the living rooms of teachers, nurses, grandmothers and housewives who say their business is more educational than titillating.

So it came as a shock to this sales cadre when one of their own was recently arrested by two undercover police officers in Burleson, Tex., and now faces a misdemeanor obscenity charge that could send her to jail for up to one year.

No one is more surprised than the woman herself, Joanne Webb, 43, a Passion Parties representative whose business had even joined the local chamber of commerce before law enforcement officials got an anonymous call about her in October.

'It's ludicrous,' said Ms. Webb, who is married, has three children and was welcomed here with hugs and donations to a defense fund. 'Just the idea of being convicted of something like this is disgusting.'

Ms. Webb is accused of violating a state law that prohibits the sale of obscene devices, defined as items 'designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.'

Johnson County prosecutors in Texas refused to comment on the case, but Ms. Webb's lawyer in Fort Worth, BeAnn Sisemore, plans to challenge the law as unconstitutional. Ms. Sisemore said that even condoms could be considered an obscene device by the logic of the law.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Artist turns animals into everyday objects

Ananova - A Chilean artist is making a name for herself with an exhibition in which stuffed animals are transformed into household objects. Artworks on display include a chick turned into a lamp, and 'sheep bag' - a lamb carcass fitted with handles. Artist Caterina Purdy says her exhibition at the Experimental Arts Centre in Santiago is intended to be humorous but also makes a serious point. She told Las Ultimas Noticias online: 'It is possible to see my work as something scary, but I find it beautiful. 'There is also irony and humour in my objects as well as a criticism of the way animals are treated by society.'"

Josh Nimoy @ ITP - BallDroppings

Josh Nimoy @ ITP - BallDroppings : "BallDroppings is an addicting and noisy play-toy. It can also be seen as an emergence game. My brother Marc takes this software seriously as an audio-visual performance instrument. Balls fall from the top of the screen and bounce off the lines you are drawing with the mouse. The balls make a percussive and melodic sound, whose pitch depends on how fast the ball is moving when it hits the line."

W Ketchup™

W Ketchup™ : "You don’t support Democrats. Why should your ketchup? W Ketchup™ is made in America, from ingredients grown in the USA. In side-by-side taste tests of five leading brands, we found that W Ketchup is second to none. You'll never go back to Heinz again! W Ketchup is America’s Ketchup™"