The Adult Obscenity Squad

Good news!  The FBI and the Attorney General have plenty of spare time and resources to spend on placating BushCo's Religious Right base.  From the pro-war WaPo via Americablog:

Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

Of course the story gets a key fact wrong:

Federal obscenity prosecutions, which have been out of style since Attorney General Edwin Meese III in the Reagan administration made pornography a signature issue in the 1980s, do "encounter many legal issues, including First Amendment claims," the FBI headquarters memo noted.

From the Sunday Herald Online 11 April 2004:

Pornography in the US is a $12 billion business – revenue from porn exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS and NBC television networks ($6.2bn), and also that of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises put together.

But the US administration, in which John Ashcroft is a key policy-maker, now wants hitherto infrequently used obscenity laws to be a key priority for law enforcement officers across the US.  Ashcroft recently hired Bruce Taylor, the country’s foremost prosecutor in obscenity cases, to work for the department of justice – Taylor’s star outing was the 1981 action he took against Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, a case he eventually lost. He has tried more than 600 obscenity cases.

 

And it buries the lede:

Popular acceptance of hard-core pornography has come a long way, with some of its stars becoming mainstream celebrities and their products -- once confined to seedy shops and theaters -- being "purveyed" by upscale hotels and most home cable and satellite television systems. Explicit sexual entertainment is a profit center for companies including General Motors Corp. and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (the two major owners of DirecTV), Time Warner Inc. and the Sheraton, Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt hotel chains.

But WalMart knows where the money is as it  dips a giant retail toe  into the sexy (Canadian) waters:

Shoppers Drug Mart, the country's largest drugstore chain, Wal-Mart Canada and a slew of other stores have entered into agreements to stock their shelves, coast to coast, with a new line of sex toys, discreetly called "sexual well-being products."

The move is especially surprising for Wal-Mart, which doesn't sell video games rated "adult-only" and recently removed a magazine from one of its stores after a customer complained that it was too sexual.

But Wal-Mart Canada spokesman Kevin Groh said the product line is a good fit, as the company caters to the Canadian mainstream and, as such, carries products that reflect mainstream tastes.

No word yet on whether WalMart has decided if vibrators and intimacy gels have made it into the American mainstream yet.   

Comments

[Pepper]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I thought those "back massagers" were in face "sexual well-being products."

But the FBI threats are all talk because no one would dare go after the moneymaking distributors. They'll just do another ultra-expensive roundup in the San Fernando Valley and be done with it.

[DavidByron]

How's this for obscene: 1.8 billion bullets used in Iraq

[Scott Lemieux]

I'm waiting for Amy Sillivan et al. to comemnt about this. Now that we have the government actually reflecting their alleged priorities, are they willing to defend it?

[doghouse riley]

What Pepper said. They'll wind up snagging one or two Mom and Pop operations and run 'em out of business under threat of massive legal bills. Then they'll announce how difficult it is to get obscenity convictions, like it came as a shock to them.

Just like Ashcroft did. (Interesting how some news flies under the radar at the Washington freakin' Post, ain't it?)

[Agi T. Prop]

Just to let you know, the Gonzales/FBI project is no longer being referred to as The War On Porn. They're now calling it The Global Struggle Against Sexually Explicit Indecency.

[eRobin]

Condimelda reports that TGSASEI does NOT make a tongue-friendly acronymn. It's the Popular Offensive on Reprehensible Nudity now.

[Christine]

http://www.adult-toy-mart.com - World’s Best Online Sex Toys & Novelty Store. Over 5000 adult toys, sex toys, vibrators, dildos, lubricants, condoms, DVDs, and other novelties at the lowest prices on the Internet.

[sex toys]

We now have over 10,000 novelties

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