On its face, the "Adult Party 'Toy' Box" for sale on Sherri Williams' website may not appear threatening. It contains innocuously naughty things like body glitter, massage oil and even a pair of his and hers g-strings. However, it also contains one vibrator, and that makes it contraband in the state of Alabama.

That sex toys could be banned, in a country which prides itself on freedom no less, may seem shocking to most Americans. Yet that's exactly what the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals did on July 28th. In a 2-1 opinion, the court overturned an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith, whose decision had deemed the ban "overly broad."

Sherri Williams, owner of the adult Boutiques Pleasure I and Pleasure II and the website mypleasurestore.com, has been fighting the ban ever since it was introduced six years ago. She and her lawyers have alternately lost and won their case, and are currently attempting to appeal.

Williams' boutiques, both located in Alabama, are a far cry from the neon-lighted, black-windowed, XXX porn shops that may come to mind when one thinks of adult stores. On the contrary, Williams' boutiques are bright and inviting. The word "Pleasures," scrawled across the storefront in pink lettering ending in a red heart design, is more "Modern Bride" than "Hustler." As a matter of fact, her store's motto is "Adventures in Romance." The word "sex" is nowhere to be found out front.

Williams' website is similarly mild in its appearance. Banners of pink satin frame the "Pleasures" logo, and a design of intertwined male and female symbols decorate the page. Williams even refers to her toys by the old-fashioned term "marital aids."

Her first store opened in 1993. For five years, Williams never had a problem. Then, in 1998 she saw her livelihood come under attack. "Eleven words were added to the obscenity laws, along with provisions to enforce it; that made it illegal to sell an adult toy," she recalls. Additionally, the law "made the penalty equal to selling drugs," Williams says. "I would be better off selling marijuana because the penalty is the same."

The ACLU became involved in the case, calling on the Alabama court to recognize sexual privacy as a fundamental right. Mark Lopez, the ACLU attorney representing Williams, was "deeply disappointed" by the decision, he said in a press release. "The majority ruling was rather condescending," says ACLU public relations representative Paul Silva. "I don't know that they necessarily took [this case] very seriously."

Judge Rosemary Barkett strongly disagreed with her fellow judges. Barkett, a former nun, wrote in her dissent "this case is not, as the majority's demeaning and dismissive analysis suggests, about sex or about sexual devices. It is about the tradition of American citizens from the inception of our democracy to value the constitutionally protected right to be left alone in the privacy of their bedrooms and personal relationships."

According to Williams' lawyer Michael Fees, the sex toys ban wasn't even supposed to be drafted into law. The ban was attached to another law that dealt with topless dancing.

"One of our local legislators was in a running battle with dance clubs in the rural part of the county," explains Fees. The legislator, Senator Tom Butler (D-Madison), is still a key player in the sex toys case. This was, apparently, a problem that rankled Butler for many years.

Butler did not return SexHerald's phone calls.

Initially, these venues were more like "swimsuit" clubs, as Fees describes them, featuring scantily-clad dancers but no actual nudity. And then the clubs started to go topless.

There was no law prohibiting topless dancing at the time. "And so in order to get them shut down their liquor licenses were pulled," says Fees. This plan did not have its intended effect. "The dance clubs decided that if they weren't going to have alcohol they were going to have full nude dancing."

"It was more popular than ever before," recalls Fees, laughing. "People were having a grand time down there."

A frustrated Butler looked to local prosecutors to find him a law criminalizing topless and nude dancing. "What he was given was a Xeroxed copy of another states indecency ordinance," according to Fees. Butler took the copy, later known as Senate Bill 607, to Montgomery and promoted it "as being a law that would help him stop nude and topless dancing in the rural areas." But it was a little broader than that - the bill also illegalized the production, distribution or sale of "sexual devices that are marketed primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs."

Nevertheless, the Bill passed unanimously in Montgomery. "Frankly," says Fees, "my guess is that [Butler] never read the law and apparently many people in the legislature didn't either." Later, he says, some legislators were surprised to find that they had voted to ban the sale of sex toys.

"After the law passed there were a number of legislators quoted as having felt somewhat deceived because they had no idea that this language was in the statute," says Fees. "Shortly after the law passed there was even some confusion on Tom Butler's part whether there was language in there criminalizing the sale of adult toys. I think it came as much of a surprise to him as to anybody else."

Williams describes her experience since the 1998 ban as a "roller-coaster." "When you've won twice and lost twice and then lost again, you know it's hard to predict what kind of year I'm going to have," she says. "I've got to tell you, Lawrence v. Texas, when the Supreme Court handed down that ruling we celebrated," Williams recalls.

"I mean, they threw out Bowers," says Williams, "and Bowers was half of what the state rested their case on. Lawrence set the precedent for the government not arresting people for sexual acts within the privacy of their own home, which was, by God, half of what our case was based on."

"So when that decision came down we were just jumping for joy," remembers Williams. "I spent thousands of dollars renovating my stores thinking 'the end is near' and then of course they throw this curveball."

That curveball would be the 11th Circuit's July 28th decision to uphold the ban. The panel of judges did not believe that Lawrence extended into the current case.

Many Alabamans may not even be aware of the ban. News of the court's ruling came as a surprise to Dr. James Allen Briley, an Alabama state licensed psychologist and board certified sex therapist. "I just barely heard about it," says Briley, "it didn't make big news here."

Briley is against the ban. "Anything that people can do to enhance their pleasure in private seems okay to me," he says. The ban, he believes, has the potential to hurt some people.

Despite the recent decision, however, there is no need for Alabamans to run out and stock up on Pocket Rockets and Nubby G's... at least not yet. The ban has not gone into effect because Williams and her lawyers are still fighting it in court, and because Williams has applied for an injunction which allows her to keep her store open.
Silva is confident that Williams will ultimately prevail. "Especially now with the Lawrence v. Texas it's a whole different playing field from when the case was originally brought," he says. "It's not over"

Fees remains "cautiously optimistic" that his en banc will be accepted and the ban will be eventually lifted. Otherwise, he predicts a return to "the old days when you go to Walmart and you buy cheap vibrators and use them for purposes that do not appear on the box. We'll go back to sittin' on the dryer."