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COLUMBIA Lucys Love Shop employee Wanda Gillespie said she was flabbergasted that South Carolinas Legislature is considering outlawing sex toys.
But banning the sale of sex toys is actually quite common in some Southern states.
The South Carolina bill, proposed by Republican Rep. Ralph Davenport, would make it a felony to sell devices used primarily for sexual stimulation and allow law enforcement to seize sex toys from raided businesses.
"That would be the most terrible thing in the world," said Ms. Gillespie, an employee the Anderson shop. "That is just flabbergasting to me. We are supposed to be in a free country, and were supposed to be adults who can decide what want to do and dont want to do in the privacy of our own homes."
Ms. Gillespie, 49, said she has worked in the store for nearly 20 years and has seen people from every walk of life, including "every Sunday churchgoers."
"I know of multiple marriages that sex toys have sold because some people need that. The people who are riding us (the adult novelty industry) so hard are probably at home buying it (sex toys and novelties) on the Internet. Its ridiculous."
The measure would add sex toys to the states obscenity laws, which already prohibit the dissemination and advertisement of obscene materials.
People convicted under obscenity laws face up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
South Carolina law borrows from a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling to define obscene as something "contemporary community standards" determine as "patently offensive" sexual conduct, which "lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."

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