OTH, to work for a state school in Georgia, you have to sign an oath of loyalty to the state, so it's not all about the perks. I'd be in real trouble if Georgia ever went to war with Florida.

I recall reading about a Missouri judge (or maybe Kansas) who used sex toys on the bench. Courtroom staff reported they could hear the puffing noise as he inflated the whatever under the bench while a glazed look came over his eyes.

Well, maybe the judge had a prescription.

DK: I really hope I signed no such thing when I was a TA/RA at Georgia Tech! I don't recall doing so, anyway... *paranoid*

Far be it from me to contest with Prof. Volokh on any point, but I think he is drastically misunderstanding the point behind the "member of the faculty or a matriculated student" exception. An explanation of the history of the thing will help shed light on it and help those (even those who care not a whit about “original intent”) come to terms with the statute.

You see the large majority of students in the Peach State, especially at the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, had been for years under the mistaken impression that they were, you'll forgive me, getting things rammed or crammed up or inside them. This was known by a variety of terms, the classic being "That professor just shove (item) up my (orifice)."

Now, this lead to some confusion on the part of the faculty. They were doing no such thing you see to their students. On the contrary, the faculty argued, it was they that were having objects placed with great force into them by deans, trustees, boards and occasionally (only whispered mind you) department chairs.

And so confusion and chaos reigned until final the faculty and students en masse petitioned the General Assembly for some way to rectify this great misunderstanding as to precisely what was getting shoved into who and precisely by whom.

The General Assembly, having no particular interest and favoring neither side in this dispute, though it best to return the problem to the professors and students themselves. Let them use various and sundry devices upon their egg-head selves to determine just precisely whatever it was they were doing in that high falutin’ education type place. The members of the General Assembly were far too busy to worry about what some Poindexters were prattling on about. They had important tasks to accomplish. Like Whittling. And Spitting. (Standing committees for which began with the body's founding in 1777 and remained until the mid 1900s when it was realized that the true mark of a "gentlemen" was to be able to do both at the same time, at which point the committees merged.)

But there was a problem, for you see in order to let the students and professors cram-away in their ivory towers and what not, the little problem of the obscenity law came up. The nerds and geeks simply could not, by law, thrust things to their brainiac hearts’ content. So, the General Assembly took time away from the Great Spelling Debate of 1876 (the origins of which came from a misunderstanding as to how one spelled the name of the fruit that made the state so famous; the proponents of the “No ‘A’s in Peech” movement would eventually fail by one vote as one of their number choked on a pit of the aforementioned fruit and no one the chambers would deign to use that their foreigner Heimlich’s maneuver or what not, leading to the Georgia colloquialism “He choked like a ‘merican”) to modify the obscenity law and permit the pinheads to jab away.

Thus, two great Georgia traditions were born: the practice of professors and students associated with institutions of higher learning attempting to shove things up the various openings of one another and the Legislative practice of blaming all that obscene stuff on things kids were taught at “lie-beral” colleges and universities.

I look forward to the usual suspects making fools out of themselves by going on a crusade against vibrators, which are surely the downfall of civilization as we know it.

I look forward to the usual suspects making fools out of themselves by going on a crusade against vibrators, which are surely the downfall of civilization as we know it.

I'm rather curious to know what provoked Georgia to pass such a law, and when. (One of the electrical engineering magazines had an article in the 1970s about the patent history of this device, from the close of the 19th century.)

You can at least come up with some sort of public health rationale for a sodomy law (preventing the spread of AIDS, which at least in the case of anal sex is high risk). I can't quite see the public health rationale for a dildo ban. You could even argue that to the extent that it reduces the amount of sexual activity that could spread STDs, allowing vibrators should not only be lawful, but praiseworthy.

SB, I had to sign a loyalty oath in '97 at georgia tech to be an RA. The requirement may have been different before or since. But it was buried among I9 and other forms in a big packet the HR office passed me, so, it could also be easy to miss (or easy for them to miss someone not signing it).

Kieran, the response is laughter, not fear. This is just another silly blue law, less harmful than the ban on sunday beer sales. The Atlanta area has no shortage of stores openly advertising these products. (However, I have not checked whether the merchanise lives up to the ads).

Vibrators used to be used by doctors to masturbate "hysterical" patients; possibly the medical profession resented patients' taking matters into their own hands. It wouldn't be the first time.

From having read an article about the invention, I recall that part of why doctors took care of this for "hysterical" patients was that masturbation was highly, highly frowned upon--and certainly proper Victorian women would not even think of this (or at least, not follow thorugh without guilt). Once they reached a certain point of tension, doctors would "treat" the patients with an early version of the current device, although I don't think they were battery-operated.

It sounds like a very bad parody that Firesign Theater would do.

One of the tapes made the point that vibrators and similar sex toys, if used repeatedly, put you at risk of becoming dependent on them for orgasm

I believe Xaviera Hollander made the same observation in The Happy Hooker. Probably true, but also probably true of any sexual practice relied upon exclusively.

Anyway, when Anderson, Clayton, the Church of the Nazarene, and Xaviera can all agree, that just makes the Georgia law even more absurd.

How do these laws get passed?

It usually only takes one legislator to propose it, and then everyone else either has to support the bill or case a vote in favor of vibrators.

Honestly, I can't tell if you gathered my point, so I'll try again, sans sarcasm.

Guns kill other people. Guns also fall accidently into the hands of children who hurt themselves or others. No consent is involved with those people. The costs are not internalized via market forces.

Vibrators (according to the stupid rationale we're imputing to the law) can cause those who choose to use them to become dependent. Maybe their consensual partners too. Those costs are not borne by 3d parties. Thus this law is different than gun control.

Because this is a fairly libertarian group, I'll refrain from making too much out of the fact that the same stupid argument that we are imputing to the vibrator law motivates (mostly) all drug laws. Thus, vibrator law is much closer to drug laws than gun laws.

How about the Sheriff's department that goes after prostitutes by giving them business?

Sheriff's Have Sex in the Line of Duty