For residents of Sandy Springs, Georgia procuring sex toys is not as easy as walking down to one’s friendly neighborhood Walgreens and picking up a “personal massager” in the toiletries aisle. In fact, residents can’t buy any type of sex toy unless they have a prescription for one. Now, a woman is suing the city over the ban because she says sex toys have saved her marriage.
Melissa Davenport is a Sandy Springs resident who lives with multiple sclerosis. The disease, which attacks the central nervous system interfering with both arousal and orgasm, has unfortunately caused Davenport to lose feeling in her genital area. By 2003 she and her husband had no sex life and it was tearing their marriage apart. The couple found that using sex toys in the bedroom helped them recover some of the sexual spark in their relationship, but a 2009 ordinance that banned anyone without “bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial or law enforcement purpose” may not buy such items. Davenport’s doctors refuse to prescribe sex toys for her. Davenport told WSB-TV the following.
“(Some people) have this dirty mind about how people are going to use it. People really do need devices because they need it for health reasons and to have a healthy intimate life with their spouse…
Yes, well, did you ever consider how much money the doctors are losing when you buy sex toys instead of visiting them for your weekly session of hydrotherapy? Sorry, I forgot we were in 2014 for a second.
Davenport wants the ban lifted so that she and her husband, along with all residents who’d like to use any manner of sexual device in the privacy of their own home, can do so. She isn’t requesting money, only that the ordinance be ruled unconstitutional. Davenport’s lawyer Gerry Weber agrees that the ban is unlawful and violates the fourteenth amendment. He told WSB-TV:
“People have the right to decide for themselves whether these devices help their intimate life, and the government has no business being (in) the bedroom and second guessing that decision.”
The city will file a response in June.
Image via Shutterstock
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