Sexual freedom under religious fire in Paris, Abbotsford and… LA?

By Kim H.

Yesterday at a lovely cafe in Echo Park, I was told to take my suitcase of sex toys out of there after  discreetly giving one of my buddies a small Screaming O ring when he bought a FKMYSELF t-shirt. In liberal Los Angeles. As if I were a drug peddler or something! I quietly did as I was told and harbor no ill will towards the friendly staff, but it was another perfect example of how uptight we still are around sex in this country.

Meanwhile, our neighbors up north in Abbotsford, Canada were recently deprived of the  Taboo Naughty But Nice Show after opposition from the Christian Community. British Columbia’s CTV News reports:

Former Abbotsford mayoral candidate Gerda Peachey was happily stunned when Canwest Productions called off the sex show scheduled to begin at the end of March. For months, she had been speaking out against the event because of religious reasons. ”That Taboo Naughty But Nice Sex Show is a perversion; it’s a distortion of what the man-woman relationship is to be,” Peachey told CTV News.

A distortion according to what? What is the man-woman relationship supposed to be? Are we to look to the Bible for answers, the same text that tells us: “Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence”? If anything this silent submissive role seems perfectly in line with some of that BDSM stuff that is supposedly so “perverted.”

Across the globe, a court in Paris is preparing to rule on whether sex toys are to be classified as erotic or pornographic; according to The Telegraph, Catholic groups there have been complaining that the sale of toys at a “love shop”, 1969 - Curiosités Désirables, 100 yards from a school violates French law that forbids a business from operating within 200 meters of an educational establishment if it sells or displays “pornographic” objects:

“One can call a sex shop a “Love shop”, a vibrator a ‘sex toy’ and a fellatio simulator a “gourmand pleasure object’, but these are just words. The truth is this we have a sex shop selling pornographic objects,” he told the court.

“There are as many possible definitions of pornography as there are individuals,” countered defence lawyer Richard Malka…Mr Malka began by arguing the law used to prosecute his client was anti-constitutional as it was contrary to the freedom of trade.

He said that a study geocoding the 200m perimetre around primary and secondary schools found that the “only place this type of business could still set up shop would be cemeteries, public gardens and railways”.

If such a strict interpretation of the law were applied, he went on, “they’d have to shut not just all sex shops but also Galeries Lafayette”.

This in a country where photos of sexy naked women are featured on giant billboards for all men, women and children to see.

All I have to say is

RELAX… IT’S JUST SEX.

Sheesh.

Image from http://www.socialshopper.com/