01 October 2009

bad vibrations in Alabama

Alabama's criminal code Section 13A-12-200.2 prohibits the distribution, sale and production of "any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for any thing of pecuniary value".

Love Stuff, an adult store, sued the City of Hoover, arguing that the ban was unconstitutional. On 11 September 2009, the Supreme Court of Alabama ruled in favour of state Attorney General Troy King and the City of Hoover.

See Alabama Press-Register and Birmingham News.

Coincidentally, Sarah Ruhl's play In the Next Room or the vibrator play opens in November at the Lyceum Theatre located at 149 West 45th Street (Between Broadway and 6th Avenue) in New York - tickets to the public are on sale from 3 October.
A provocative, funny, touching and marvelously entertaining story about a young doctor and his wife set at the dawn of the age of electricity in the 1880s. Back then hysteria was a real diagnosis, and women were commonly treated with electrical stimulating machines to ease their condition! Playwright Sarah Ruhl wondered what exactly doctors were thinking when they used vibrator therapies on their female patients. And what did women think was happening to them? In the Next Room or the vibrator play looks at a young technology-obsessed doctor and the devoted wife who longs to connect with him -- but not electrically.
As Jacob M Appel wrote in Huffington Post
Families will come to the show. So will tourists. Even Alabamans. They will enjoy themselves. I'd be thrilled if Attorney General King came to the opening as my guest. Not a date, just two grown men enjoying a lively, tasteful play about vibrators. We can even pick up a souvenir or two for Mrs. King, maybe something she can't buy in Alabama.
It might even be appropriate for Troy University's Davis Theatre for the Performing Arts in Montgomery AL to host the play. Maybe even the Governor might attend.

*with thanks to Sarah Ruhl's mother-in-law for drawing this to my attention. ;-)

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