When this interview was being conducted, Sherri Williams had just recently completed an interview with a Berlin newspaper who was writing a piece on “shock value” as it outlined the stark differences between mentalities concerning sexuality from the U.S. and our European counterparts. “Here’s a woman who’s taken upon herself to go against the state because they banned sex toys; that’s so absurd and unheard of [to them],” said Williams. Certainly, any woman who’s ever felt the effects of the Rabbit would agree no matter the political climate of where they reside.

Williams is the proud owner of two adult stores in Decatur, Alabama: Pleasures and More Pleasures, the latter which she affectionately calls a “porn and pipes” store as it caters more along the lines of men’s needs and was established in case the Alabama sex toy ban brings forth the ruin the law threatens to do on a daily basis. What’s remarkable is not the ludicrousness of the law, or that it violates the Fourth Amendment—although those are very close ties—but that it’s turned into a one-woman crusade for the right to experience pleasure and give other people the chance to encounter it as well. However, after speaking with the fiery, spirited and defiant Williams, the universe couldn’t have chosen a finer person to stand up for what’s right as is evident in her concluding statement: “What are you going to do? Prosecute me?”

SexHerald: You’ve had this—in your own words—“rollercoaster ride” in terms of the Alabama sex toy ban. There were wins and losses but who’s counting anymore since it keeps going up and down, up and down. Tell us a little about that.

Sherri Williams: Back in 1998, the law was passed; it’s a law in the books. From that day forward, they could have enforced it at any given point in time. From that day on, as soon as I could possibly muster—find an attorney that would actually represent me—I have challenged it. It makes it very difficult for the local authority to prosecute someone on a law that is currently being challenged. It’s less likely they’ll win the prosecution. So, they haven’t prosecuted me in these 10 years, partially due to the fact that it’s been challenged.

SH: Are you still challenging it?

Williams: No, I prepared my last appeal to the Supreme Court because I had lost in the federal court. The federal court is the lower court and the District Court of Appeals is the higher court and of course the Supreme Court is the last court. [laughs] You can’t go any farther than that. So what happened was, I had lost in the lower court which had never happened before; I had always won in the lower court. So when I lost in the lower court and then I appealed to the Appeals court and I lost again, the only appeal that left me was to appeal to the Supreme Court. And it was at that point in time, the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] who was assisting me in fighting this battle, bailed on me. ‘Nope, nope, sorry. We can’t help you on this anymore,’ which meant I had to go and find a law firm that would prepare the file for my final appeal to the Supreme Court, which I did. I was fortunate to find a very reputable law firm that prepared that.

My last defeat was on Valentine’s Day of 2007. It took from Valentine’s Day until about 3-4 months later to file that petition to the Supreme Court. They heard it and denied it in October 10, 2007. They announced that they would not hear my case, which was very upsetting because the focus of the Supreme Court—which they’re designed to do—is to settle disputes between all the other courts. Since Lawrence v. Texas came down, none of the courts in the land have been able to agree on how to apply people’s rights to privacy, which is what Lawrence v. Texas was all about. When they failed to apply that in my case, as they were expected to do because my case claimed this was a violation to people’s rights to privacy, and Lawrence v. Texas decision very clearly defined that that’s not allowable and yet the courts still ruled against me. So, when the Supreme Court refused to hear my case, which was just an example of the many cases that are floating around the U.S. in the last year or two—basically, privacy rights cases—it was like, ‘There’s no one forcing them to do their jobs and they don’t have to,’ but by all rights and their designations they should have. That’s why it’s so disappointing. I should be at this point in time in front of the Supreme Court.

The decision in Lawrence v. Texas set a precedent for future decisions. To prevent future laws like that from being passed, they would literally have to amend the Fourth Amendment and strengthen people’s rights to privacy to do what the heck they want to do in their own home and make their own choices and have those products available to them so that they could choose them. In other words, selling toys is not a direct correlation to using them in your bedroom but by preventing access to such toys, that impacts what you can and cannot do in your bedroom. So it was a correlation that my lawyers were trying to prove was pertinent to the Fourth Amendment and the fact that no, it’s not a direct violation to a person’s rights to privacy of not being able to sell those toys but it does impact them; if you can’t get ‘em, you can’t own them, you can’t use them. So to prevent those laws from being passed, you’d have to amend the Fourth Amendment although that’s so unlikely to happen.

SH: So, that’s it?

Williams: That’s it; the law stands. There’s no appeal left for me. You only get one chance.

SH: What happens to your stores now?

Williams: Well, that’s when I took the next step and I hired Marty Klein, who is author of the book America’s War on Sex and also very well-renowned sexologist, and I called him up and said, ‘Look, this law clearly states that it is unlawful to sell anything primarily designed for the stimulation of human genitals for pecuniary purposes, but there’s an exception to that rule in that—as an affirmative defense—you may sell this for a medical, judicial, law enforcement, educational, or scientific purpose.’ Knowing that, and reading that, I asked my attorneys: ‘If I don’t sell toys primarily for the purposes of stimulating human genitals, and I instead sell them primarily for medical purposes, then would it be a fitting defense to request that all of my clientele fill out a questionnaire that dictates that they have a medical purpose for purchasing such an adult product?’ They said, ‘Well, we can’t answer that for you—only the courts can decide; that is not our position.’ But ultimately at the end of the day, if they were to prosecute you, it’s not who wins or loses, it’s who has the most money. They’ll break you financially, dragging you through the court system because you have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend yourself when in reality, you were right all along. Even if the courts rule in your favor, it doesn’t matter because you’re too broke to do anything.

Ultimately, the law stands on the books and ultimately, I have to prepare my own defense by requesting that Marty Klein provide me with this questionnaire that I ask my clientele to fill out and to establish a medical purpose so that if I’m ever prosecuted, at least I have some sort of defense. Long story [laughs].

SH: When you first opened up your stores, you probably didn’t think it was going to be such an issue. Why did you decide to open them?

Williams: It was a personal decision for myself. I was so far ahead of the curve 14 years ago when I opened my stores. I was ahead of the curve in that I thought women and couples needed a place to shop, because the toys are primarily designed for women and couples. The only places to shop back then were in back alleys, the neon lights, the bad side of town, sticky floors… there was no such thing as customer service. So I set out on a mission to open a very high-end, very classy, in the best neighborhood, well-lit store catering to women and couples. I took all the offensive boxes down—I had to take the products out of the box because the box was too offensive. And I put the product out on the shelf with the battery in it and I put a little place card in front of it, describing what the product did.

That was 14 years ago; I opened a little 2,000 square feet store. From that, the community readily embraced my store. They were like, ‘This is great! A place we can talk about our sexual issues. We can shop and not feel dirty!’ And it was just me; I was just one woman who wore a business suit and high heels and worked every day and I greeted people, [was] personable, I talked to them about their issues, I helped them, I gave them vibrators… Obviously, I’m not a sexologist but [I’m] logical, open-minded and unbiased and it just took off. My god, it was my first year and I had to expand and grow. It did so well, and then it caught the eye and ear of all the local politicians. ‘Oh my god, this woman, she’s opening stores and growing this… this is terrible! We’re going to have sex everywhere; this is awful!’ Of course they passed a law to, you know, get rid of me.

SH: It’s funny. The law was first proposed by a politician, Tom Butler, who first saw a copy of the Georgia ban on sex toys but what he REALLY wanted to ban were nude, or topless, strippers but it expanded to sex toys in Alabama.

Williams: Tom Butler went under fire from the media saying, ‘Why did you propose to pass this law?’ In his defense, and somewhere I’ve got his article, his comment… actually, I quoted him on a flyer and I printed 20,000 copies and sent it out. On the flyer, I quoted him saying: ‘Well, it really wasn’t my intention. I didn’t really mean to. It was someone else who drafted it.’ It’s hilarious because he blames it on the other person who drafted it. The irony is, it wasn’t him who drafted it but sure we’ll let you off the hook but aren’t you supposed to freakin’ read these things before you vote on them? [laughs] Obviously not [laughs].

He’s probably gotten no less than 1,000 postcards mailed to his house with his comment on it and a request for him to sponsor a bill to correct that ‘cause he admittedly didn’t read it and he admittedly says, ‘Well, I kind of fucked that up, someone else wrote it, it wasn’t me.’ So he’s got at least 1,000 postcards in his mailbox today saying, ‘Please, please go sponsor a bill to fix your stupid screw up.’

A John Roberts, who pushed the corrective bill through the legislature in the years that I was able to pay the lobbyists to do so, also just—supposedly on his own accord—he took it upon himself to reintroduce that exact same corrective bill. So, there is currently a bill before the Alabama legislature that does correct the ban on the selling of sex toys. It simply deletes the 11 words that state it’s unlawful to sell these products. Hopefully, with enough pressure, the Alabama legislature would actually freakin’ vote on it and approve it. I’ve been trying to call John Roberts and say, ‘Look. Is there anything I can do? Are there any postcards, campaign; is there anything I can do that will pressure the Alabama legislature into voting favorably on this?’ So far, I have not gotten a response from him.

SH: Going back to Marty Klein and the questionnaire he’s going to draft for your clientele, isn’t it true women in Alabama first need a prescription to legally purchase sex toys?

Williams: There’s nothing in the law that states you have to have a prescription from the doctor. There are no guidelines for that. It just simply says you need to establish a medical purpose. Now, had they called them “medical devices” or whatever… The problem is that the FDA—well first of all, the FDA sees absolutely no reason to investigate vibrators because there’s nothing to sanctify. Despite that, for insurance billing purposes, there have been a couple—literally two or three—companies that have gone FDA approval so that a doctor can prescribe something like a pump, typically male products, and have the insurance company for it. However, the insurance companies have billed something like $900 for the exact same product we sell in our store for $65. So had they called it medical devices, there would have been three whole toys we could have sold… very limited amount of products are actually FDA-approved. So, there’s no real reason to do that unless you’re planning on billing the insurance company. Ultimately, you need to have a medical purpose for purchasing but it doesn’t say that a doctor has to create that. It simply says that you need to have one.

So, I asked Marty to create the questionnaire. There are questions like, ‘Are you and your partner’s sexual difficulties part of the reason for anxiety, depression or reduced sexual appetite or loss of libido?’ There are 10 questions on the list and basically just answer “yes” to one of them; therefore, you create a medical purpose for having purchased an adult toy. And, it’s smart.

SH: You seem to be well versed in the legalities and procedures and seem well educated about the law, so I’m wondering what your background is.

Williams: [laughs] Ah, I didn’t even finish school. I’m a high school dropout with a GED. I dropped out of the 12th grade. I’m educated but I never had any formal training; I’m just your average common-sense approach kind of person. I’m not book-trained; I’m simply life-trained. I’ve lived a lot, done a lot, learned a lot along the way but so far as actually being well educated or well versed in politics, governmental or legislative proceedings… truly, I’m not. I’ve just learned from the experiences I’ve had in the 10 years and that’s how I could speak about it but I don’t keep up with current events and who’s in the news and I couldn’t tell you who’s in Congress. I don’t choose to spend my time following that; I have other things I’d rather do, but about this particular issue I understand it. It was a rude awakening to realize this fantasy of “we’re the people, we’re a democracy and our vote counts”; it’s all BS. We don’t run the country anymore; they do.

SH: I suppose you’ve become very jaded after your ordeal...

Williams: Yeah, you can say I’ve become very cynical and jaded. Could you go imagine after 10 years of this and not obtaining the justice any lawyer in this land will tell you was due in this case? I chose the most highly respected, the most highly experienced law firm in all of U.S. It’s Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria [LLP]—they have the most successful track record in fighting privacy rights issues. And they took the case partially on a pro bono basis; they reduced their fees because they were so confident that this would pass—that justice would be done. You could imagine how cynical and jaded I am when even the best lawyers in the land felt that this wrong should be righted and it wasn’t, and then to learn how the political system REALLY worked. It’s enough to discourage anyone. Also, my dad is as cynical as they come and I think it’s hereditary.

SH: Up until now, we’ve been discussing your fights but nothing about you. Let’s talk about your accent for a bit. It doesn’t have that heavy southern drawl.

Williams: I was born and raised in Kentucky and I moved to Chicago in the 12th grade when I dropped out of high school. And I moved there with $250 and everything I owned crammed into a ’73 Nova with a jacked-up rear end. [laughs] I literally grew up in the big city of Chicago though I was raised in Kentucky. By the time I was 18 until I was 22, during that time I got pregnant; I had a child at the age of 21, married the man and divorced him all in the same breath, I think. I married him when my daughter was born and she was four months old when I divorced him and moved to Alabama. My sister was going to college [in Alabama]; I sent her some money to find me an apartment. I said, ‘I’m gettin’ outta here and I’m bringing my one-year-old baby with me,’ and she’s now 22 years old. From there, I went into property management and took the money and opened my first store. I was only 26 years old when I opened my first store.

SH: How old are you now? I’m guessing 37.

Williams: I’m 43 now.

SH: What made you drop out and move to Chicago?

Williams: A boy. He was an older man and he had this really cool job in Chicago and he was dating me when he was there doing business in Kentucky. I was still going to school; he was probably 24, 25 years old. He didn’t know this wide-eyed, independent spirit that she was was going to say one day, ‘Screw this school thing’ and pack up everything she had into a car. That kind of put a dent in his marriage. I soon discovered that when I arrived there but it didn’t dissuade me from staying. I just stuck around. ‘Eh, let’s see what Chicago was all about.’

SH: Why didn’t you go back to Kentucky?

Williams: You can never go back. My family loves me and wanted me to come back. ‘Oh, come back. We’ll take care of you.’ I’m too independent. I’ve always been an independent spirit. I just have to go and explore.

For more information, visit mypleasurestore.com.