I was reading the internet today (when I ought to have been paying attention to class formation in Civil Procedure) and I saw something I thought was unbelievable. Texas has a ban on vibrators? Sure enough, Texas has a ban on vibrators. Huh. Vibrators can be sold as novelties, and presumably also as "Personal Massagers" (scare quotes inserted because I believe that that is the convention used when trying to sell vibrators that you don't want people to know are vibrators), but if you tell somebody it's for sex, you've violated Texas's obscenity laws.
So: Formerly no birth control. Until a couple of years ago no sodomy (defined as anal and oral sex, but limited in enforcement to gay men). And still no sex toys. It seems like it'd be easier for them to just mandate what kind of sex is legal, rather than naming all the sex acts and products that are illegal. They could even use a Federal Register-style administrative regulation! "Sex shall be defined as the following: 1. Featuring one (1) man and one (1) woman. 2. It shall involve the insertion of the male sexual organ into the woman's vagina. 3. No other orifices or protrusions may be involved in sex. 4. The positioning during sex must involve the man on top, facing downward, with the woman on bottom, facing upward (Henceforth, the "missionary position."). ... All deviations from the standards defined herein shall be punishable by fines and other administrative actions."
An erstwhile blog-buddy of mine posted on this subject a year or two ago. A 40-something Texan woman, with, you know, a family and normal law-abiding life and all, was arrested and charged with something like trafficking in illegal goods because she was hosting pleasure parties (far from being as kinky as they sound, they're just Tupperware parties for sex toys).
I'm now going to have to trawl the internet to find the comment I posted in regard to it. I can't remember it verbatim. It was quite vehement and the next two posters had to excuse themselves after reading it.
Ahem.
"That's depressing as fuck. Rather, it's depressing as silent, somber, foreplay-less missionary-style fuck with no lube, vibrators, dildos, harnesses, nipple clamps, butt plugs, kitchen tables, oral sex, ear-nibbling, fisting, toe-sucking, fingernail-scratching, lustful words breathed ticklishly against shivery skin, the taste and smell of your own cunt on your partner's face, lips, tongue and throat, the taste and smell of your partner's cunt covering you from nose to chin, begging for mercy, begging for more, moaning, biting, ejaculating all over the carpet, having a dildo in your ass and a tongue on your clit and screaming orgasmically around a mouthful of cock, and the thousand and one other sick and depraved acts that make up real sex for those of us who know how to have it.
Which I'm sure everyone in the state of Texas is much happier and better off without. So thank goodness the state's legislation is protecting them from it."
I can't believe I'm reposting this on a public blog. But is this not a war against prudishness? It is.
Ahem. Reading that reminded me of Amanda Marcotte's post on Pandagon, which in turn linked to The Guardian's annual Bad Sex in Fiction Awards. Which is not to say your sex writing is bad, just, you know, it's all sexy-like, and reminded me of the sex fiction referenced in that post. But not because it was bad.
I think the fact that you felt no need to refer to legs in "The M of receptivity" means you're already a better writer than John Updike.