I'd be a serial offender in Texas

It does make me wonder how dildos are sold in such a place. Do the sellers have to order in quantities of 5 or less? Do they spread the ownership on several holding companies to maintain stocks? What if a customer returns a faulty product, do they have to destroy a dildo or two to comply with legal requirements? How is ownership of dildos determined or registered? Is there a background check to see if you already own enough dildos?

Lol. It does conjure all these pictures of out of state sex toy owners using “leases” to circumvent the law, maybe “straw purchases” of Tengu’s or perhaps a toy rolling out from the glove box in a traffic stop and a tense officer saying: “do you have a license for that?”
In truth, this is one of many examples in “moral states” of laws that get selective enforcement- different than those “silly old laws” that aren’t enforced at all- instead, laws like these are basically weapons to be used when someone crosses some personal threshold of morality or manners.
Common work arounds for laws like this are things like to carefully select and market products so you can classify them as “medical devices” etc.
a lot of sex toys in the world get sold as “personal massagers”- these USUALLY are non phallic to lend some air of credibility to the claim. Humorously, at least in the USA, many foreign made manufacturers package and sell sex toys as “massagers” which helps the entire thing work.

It’s much harder to say you are selling a massager when the package says it’s a sex toy right on it lol. Although to some degree this can be either to circumvent one of the numerous morality laws world wide, or an attempt to appeal to modesty, the main reason in the IS so many foreign made sex toys are labeled as massagers or other things comes done to money. At least to the most recent I was aware, sex toys being imported into the United States carry a higher import fee than many other types of products such as massage devices.

So selling a sex toy as other than a sex toy can be one way to take the system, but there are other sort of loop holes. Often such laws are overly concerned with the “display or promotion” of “lewd” items- in other words a sex toy shop might skirt legality by keeping most of their stock where it can’t be seen and not advertising.
As recently as 2005 you can find records of prosecutions of businesses or private individuals for selling sex toys- but at least that part of the Texas law had been relaxed with the most recent update of the Texas obscenity codes.
Basically, the law is mostly on the books so that:
1. If someone complains about a shop or individual displaying sex toys or is upset such as a sex toy store is too near to their dosing routing for their comfort- it gives legal ground to do something.
2. If there is someone law enforcement wants to charge or harass it gives a potential charge which can be used as pretext.

It does seem quite a bit ridiculous- not just for being overly puritanical and immature, but for a state that often prides itself on personal freedom or where the right to own guns and limitations on gun ownership are often staunchly challenged being fearful of unregulated proliferation of sex toys….
While these sorts of laws are often used to give pretext for searches or harassment and often are mechanisms for targeting certain groups (at the core anti sex toy laws and laws about the covered display of male genitals do have a disproportionate bias towards groups like homosexuals, drag queens, and other groups) there IS an element of “goodwill” to such silliness. The flip side being that the law often has gray areas where people can be a nuisance without a specific legal remedy- “well… they aren’t doing anything illegal…”

I once had a neighbor who would say and even shout racial slurs. He’d do it to himself when people were in war shot or shout out when certain people were walking by etc. asides general laws on noise, there wasn’t really much to be done. It wasn’t illegal inherently and even when other neighbors called the police, they tended to either not come or basically show up and tell the guy “you’re causing problems, could you please stop?” Since they really couldn’t do anything about it.
The double edged sword there is that blanket law against “hate speech” or “harassment” could stop the behavior, but it could also be used in a frivolous, abusive, or even targeted way against people who weren’t really doing what the law was meant to stop.

So of course another irony there beyond the freedom paradox is places like Texas which do have these sort of community enforcement laws to give legal teeth to people who get their feelings hurt or are offended by things much if the world consider normal (like sex toys..) is also a state known for its resistance to “cancel culture” and ideas that it is tyrannical to restrict speech or actions for the “feelings” of people like trans individuals etc. it does sort of highlight the hypocrisy common in left and right leaning politics- where ultimately things are often less about “right and wrong” and more about enforcing personal politics or morality. Both groups will often happily use the same “unjust” methods to enforce their will- it’s more just their goals for using those means that differ.

Thank you, A fascinating read as always @guest_
I'd love to see the faces of some of those legislators walking past Mshop in my town. It's located in a good spot down town and displays a varied selection of dildos, butt plugs, vibrators and lube in the window. It's a really well stocked shop and quite popular. Last time I saw anyone around here upset about it was in the nineties when groups of feminists protested the sale of porn.

Re: The effects of hate crime legislation ..
In Sweden the legislation has changed a lot in the past twenty years to include LGBTQ and other minorities. The effects you mentioned where discussed before and I was quite concerned about them myself for pretty much the reasons you mentioned. In hindsight I can say that the effect had been mainly that certain groups of people complain that they can't scream faggot and use the n-word and other racial slurs anymore. Apart from that no one else really cares.

Thank you for your kind words. Also- yes! Lol. It blows my mind. You can go to a place like Finland and see a sex toy commercial on late night TV, or go to some more “liberal” parts of America even when I was much younger and see a very open and mature attitude towards sex- and then a few hours travel away or less are people who live in fear of a nipple.
There is a show called “Ru Paul’s Drag Race” featuring drag queens. They’ll often use breast forms to simulate breasts- and the nipples get censored. When the plus sized queens with actual breasts go topless… no censoring. It’s like- a plastic nipple becomes taboo if it is “female” even if fake- but real and male is ok…?

There is an irony in where the conservative views of gender collide. Like- if gender is biological and a trans woman is a “man…” then a post operative trans woman could walk around topless with her breasts since they are male right? But somehow I don’t think that would fly with conservatives… and what is the difference between a silicone transgender breast and a silicone non trans breast? If we can’t have trans bathroom rights because someone with a penis could enter the girls room… but gender is biological… wouldn’t that put F>M trans in the woman’s room? And if the danger is not being able to tell if a biological male entered the women's room… doesn’t the fact you have F>M trans going in already make it impossible to tell by looking if a “man” is entering the woman’s room unless you card everyone going into the bathroom? Stuff like that…

As for the anti hate crime speech- I think that mostly you’re right- there aren’t many of any legitimate misunderstandings I can think of to cause problems- and mostly it would just be people upset they can’t use slurs anymore. That said- I love my country but it is a very different place than Europe and very different than Nordic countries- for better and worse in places.
The place where the American obsession with freedom really becomes a problem is that so many people will do things just because they can. Many Americans don’t see any responsibility in freedom- they see it as what they get but aren’t concerned about responsibility or civility. If you can buy a rocket launcher, an American somewhere who has no use for one will do it just because they can. Even if it is the most irresponsible or thoughtless or destructive thing- we will do it because we can.

But where there is a law- someone will figure out how to game it or abuse it. Just because they can.
Where we ban something, people who never would have done that thing will start doing it just because they are mad someone said they can’t. By the time we get done writing laws to try and stop people from doing stupid things- those laws have to be so restrictive that you basically can’t sneeze and 20 special interests will have twisted them for their own agenda or to build loop holes for their friends.

Things get very messy very fast. I 100% support laws that protect people from
Sexual predation. I believe that most of the time in America these laws are applied in the intent to help people as intended, and if anything they are not strong enough or broad enough and the systems in place often fail those at risk or having suffered sexual assaults.
That said- these laws in America and the way society and those laws interact are good examples of where Americans can just mess things up. False accusations and convictions, innocent lives ruined on even the insinuation of wrong. We have actual convicted offenders who go free with little or no response because their futures are “too promising to throw away…” gaps that don’t protect people and gray areas and double standards.

If a sober person has sex with an intoxicated person it is a sexual crime- but often if two intoxicated people have sex, it is still a crime which usually a man is in legal danger for. I’m not here to advocate “mens rights” and women have things worse for the occasional double standard in law that doesn’t favor men- my point is that we have already seen several high profile cases where hate crimes were faked by the supposed victims to implicate or discredit a supposed perpetrator or as a tool for an agenda. That is the minority of cases I’m sure- a few falsehoods in a sea of legitimate complainants and issues. That said- it still builds public distrust in the ability of the system to govern such things and does raise the question of what protections or burdens of proof must be required?

That’s where the real rub comes in. If the hurdle is too high to prove something like a hate crime, the law is toothless. Cases won’t be prosecuted or won’t be convicted because the hurdle is too high.
If we allow the accused to sue accusers in cases where a case isn’t proven- we create a barrier where victims are inclined not to speak out unless they are CERTAIN they can prove things, under fear that if they happen to lose, they may be financially ruined. That also just really isn’t justice- a situation where a poor legal defense or interpretation of evidence by a jury could see a legitimate victim end up without justice for their injury and a perpetrator who then can sue them into destitution as a second victimization- this time with the law as their partner in the act.

So there are these things to consider. False accusations, misunderstandings, cultural differences and such. A BIG hot topic in such law would be how to handle the “N” word. It’s a polarizing debate already even amongst black Americans- but that word is largely used by black Americans towards each other and members of other groups. Often it isn’t used as a slur or even in a negative way- but there is a sort of implicit understanding in the USA that word is not ok for some people to use and other people can generally use it.
Now how do we handle a situation where two black friends are joking and using that word and a white or Asian etc. or black mixed person overheard and takes offense and wants to report it? Other races or ethnicities often “co-opt” slurs or use them as slang amongst their group to refer to each other as well- but the “n word” is probably the most prolific and charged example.

Now a law that only allowed the TARGET of a slur to bring a charge or only allowed a charge where a person or specific group of individuals was the target of a slur could mitigate that- but then one could spout slurs all they wanted so long as it was done indirectly.
The fundamental problem becomes how to outlaw a word or set the parameters under which a word is outlawed?

Compounding the issue is that there are all manner of slurs including innocuous words that are only slurs in a specific context. There are gestures and symbols used to spread hate or undermine protected classes. Slang is an evolving lexicon ad well, and as we have seen in politics and memes and with censoring and restrictions to social media etc… the groups and people spreading hate messages and hate constantly evolve and find dog whistles or co-opt terms to be able to convey the same ideas and emotions while staying ahead of mainstream and legal recognition of the evolving lexicon.
So to be effective as intended, a law would have to outlaw the concept of racial or protected class disparagement- but our legal system makes it very hard to argue such intent. Does a person wearing a blue stripe support the “thin blue line,” do they just like blue? are they legitimately unaware of the context of that symbology in the current climate?

We get into arguments that rely a lot on common sense and proving a person knew or believed or intended something. That gets very sticky very quickly, especially with how our justice system is designed to work. A very European approach to many such things is to apply common sense- but our system is essentially designed not around common sense but a concept that a prosecutor must prove beyond all reasonable doubt their case. A lawyers primary job at trial is to create any sort of doubt that an accusation is true. They do not have to disprove the accusation, merely that there could be some alternative interpretation, or that the law can be interpreted differently. Our constitutional guarantee of free speech makes it very hard to restrict speech outside very specific context and where direct material harm can be demonstrated.

So I like the idea of anti hate legislation and I think it works decently other places and can work- but I have very little faith in our legal system and leaders to design an effective law that functions as intended and isn’t wide open to abuse. American law is full of laws that on the surface seem great and well intended but often end up hurting the people they are supposed to protect either through poor construction and self serving compromise; or through being weaponized by individuals and institutions. Our drug laws and many crime laws advertised to help the most at risk communities for example mostly became tools to further impress those communities and targeted groups. Their harsh enforcement created worse cycles of crime and poverty- and just finally we are seeing many of these laws wiped from the books. So I am generally cautious of even the noblest intent in American law. Americans are why America can’t have nice things.