Looks Like A Market Opportunity To Me...

Via billmon, it comes to my attention today that the U.S. Supreme Court has chosen to let stand an Alabama law banning the sale of dildos and devices intended for similar purposes. It's a "state's rights" thing, you see. If the government of the people of Alabama wants to make a local black market in the trade of sex-toys, then it's not the place of the Federal government to interfere with its plans.

Georgia and Texas also have laws against the commercial trade in sex-toys. All three are Southern states, which may just be coincidence, but it provokes in me a genuine curiosity about whether there is something peculiar about Southern culture— about which, I confess I know very little— that makes people there prone to fight imaginary social problems by passing laws that make black markets out of perfectly functional and legitimate ones.

Never mind that, though— here is the line from the Reuters story that caught my eye:

The appeals court said it agreed with Alabama that the law exercised time-honored use of state police power to restrict the sale of sex.

We here on S9 station are keen to note that Alabama is very quick to ban vibrators, but continues to allow its citizens to purchase Viagra and Cialis. Indeed. Say it with me: the time-honored use of state police power to restrict the sale of sex to women.

So now the fine entrepreneurs at Good Vibrations will probably have to stop taking orders for shipments to Alabama, Georgia and Texas if they want to stay a legitimate business. Sucks for them, but those are the breaks. Anybody have any guesses about the margin to be made in exchange for taking the risks associated with smuggling?