Totalitarian

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=50 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> <B>LeKnight at Bluewater</B><B> </B><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FFCC99" FACE="Arial" >    </FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#CCCC66" FACE="Arial" >|   <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="LeKnight at Bluewater"><U><B>home</B></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="042f4010.png" border=0 width="500" height="1" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Totalitarian</div> <bR> <bR> <div> News     </div> <div>   </div> <div> DALLAS, Texas (Reuters) -- Joanne Webb is a mother of three, a Baptist, a booster of the town of Burleson, Texas, and a former schoolteacher. She also faces trial for being a smut merchant. </div> <div> Webb, 43, was arrested in November by two undercover police officers for selling sexual toys and charged with violating Texas obscenity laws. She could face up to a year in jail and a fine of $4,000 if convicted. </div> <div> Webb is a representative for Passion Parties, a California company marketing potions, lotions and sexual toys sold at gatherings that mimic Tupperware parties. </div> <div> Women over 18 meet in a private home for what the company calls a "girl's night out of giggles and fun," during which products designed to enhance sex lives are sold. </div> <div> It was not a secret in Burleson, a small town near Fort Worth, that Webb sold vibrators, edible creams and racy lingerie. </div> <div> But not everyone was happy about it. </div> <div> According to reports in the local media, police said a few residents, who they declined to identify, lodged complaints. A few prominent citizens with strong Christian beliefs were angered by Webb and her activities and asked police to investigate, local media reported. </div> <div> Two undercover police officers posed as a couple trying to spice up their love life and Webb sold the woman a vibrator. Webb instructed her on its use and explained how it could enhance lovemaking. </div> <div> That's where she got into trouble. </div> <div> Texas law allows for the sale of sexual toys as long as they are billed as novelties, BeAnn Sisemore, a Fort Worth attorney representing Webb, told the Houston Chronicle before a gag order was issued by the judge presiding over the case. But when a person markets sex toys in a direct manner that shows their actual role in sex, then that person is subject to obscenity charges, she told the newspaper. </div> <div> Webb said she turned to Passion Parties to supplement her family's income when her husband's construction business went into a slump. </div> <div> "For women to become self-confident in their sexuality ... that's what I'm in this for," Webb told the Dallas Morning News before the gag order was imposed. </div> <div> She added that because of her arrest, she has found herself in a role she never imagined -- a public advocate for allowing women and couples to make personal decisions about their sex lives. </div> <bR> <div> Sex, lives and passion parties</div> <div> Police and Johnson County prosecutors declined to discuss the case, even before the gag order was issued. </div> <div> Gloria Gillaspie, a pastor at Lighthouse Church in Burleson, said she has met and counseled some women who had talked to Webb about the products she sold. </div> <div> "It was causing problems with their marriages," she said. </div> <div> Gillaspie said Webb and her family were asked to leave two churches in town. She did not name the churches. </div> <div> "They didn't want to comply with what was really Christian conduct and that is why they were asked to leave those churches," Gillaspie said. </div> <div> But James Brown, a member of the local chamber of commerce and an acquaintance of Webb's, told Reuters: "Most of the people in town support Joanne." </div> <div> Sisemore said she wants to use this case to overturn obscenity laws in Texas and other states. </div> <div> "I will fight this all the way with her," Sisemore told the Houston Chronicle. "This is the first time I have felt that my government has overstepped its boundaries." </div> <div> Sisemore has said she plans to file a federal lawsuit challenging Texas obscenity laws, which she said are so vague that they could be used to prosecute anyone who uses or sells condoms designed to provide stimulation for sexual pleasure. </div> <div> Patricia Davis, a 59-year-old grandmother and president of Passion Parties, said: "We are very proud of Joanne Webb. She believes in the mission of the company and she is doing a really nice job of representing us." </div> <div> Passion Parties has been doing booming business. The company racked up $20 million in sales in 2003 and saw 30 months of consecutive growth above the 50 percent mark. </div> <div> The company has representatives in every state and is doing some of its best business in California, New York and the Bible Belt, a section of the United States where Christian beliefs and clergy are influential. </div> <div> "Women are looking for ways to enhance their relationship, enhance their sensuality and they have nowhere to go," Davis said. </div> <div> When women get together at a friend's home to peruse body lotions, shower gels and battery-operated devices the company calls "passion toys," Davis said many are able to overcome embarrassment and talk openly about sex. </div> <div> "We are doing a lot to help women, to help couples and to help families," Davis said. </div> <bR> <div> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div> <bR> <div>   </div> <div> 11-21, local: Police find 17 sex toys in local woman's car during DUI traffic stop</div> <div> By JOHN LYNCH</div> <div> WHITE OAK — A Longview woman who sells sex toys has been charged with felony obscenity after White Oak police found some of her wares in her car during a traffic stop </div> <bR> <div> The arrest report describes the 17 items as "obscene materials and obscene devices," but Police Chief Charlie Smith said the items were mostly lotions and objects defined in a dictionary as having the shape and often the appearance of the male genitalia, used in sexual stimulation. </div> <bR> <div> How illegal is that? Prosecutors will have to decide when White Oak investigators forward their findings to the district attorney's office sometime in the next week, Smith said. </div> <bR> <div> "We'll see what they do with it," Smith said. </div> <bR> <div> Kathleen Elizabeth "Kathy" Grubbs, a distributor for the national company Slumber Parties Inc., calls the charge, which carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail, "kind of ridiculous." </div> <bR> <div> State law appears a little less forgiving: It's illegal to "wholesale promote" obscene materials or devices. Texas statute says an obscene device is a simulated sexual organ or an item designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs. The law allows investigators to assume that anyone with six or more of the items is intending to promote them. </div> <bR> <div> In April, Kilgore police raided the Adult Book Store/Video Store at 1907 Industrial Blvd., seizing 12 large trash bags full of devices police said were being sold illegally. The raid came after an undercover officer visited the shop twice before the raid, making at least one purchase. An 11-page inventory compiled by police estimated the materials were worth $19,082. The sexual devices on the 11-page inventory ranged in price from a "Climax Band" that sold for $5.95 to a "Wild and Crazy Tickler" for $11.95; a "Hyper Sonic G" for $69.95; a "Plush Playmate" for $89.95; and a "Cyber Sexploration Kit" for $44.95. </div> <bR> <div> The store owner, Robert Duggan III, was never arrested, but he agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of obscene display, a charge equivalent to a traffic ticket, and agreed to pay a fine and let police destroy the items. </div> <bR> <div> Grubbs, 47, said she has been selling the items for about two months as a distributor for Slumber Parties Inc., a national sex toy party business that operates out of Ohio and Louisiana. </div> <bR> <div> Slumber Parties is where the Tupperware party meets Victoria's Secret, the company says on its Web site. The distributors host women-only parties in private homes to show off their merchandise. Grubbs stresses the parties are only for adults, meaning no one allowed under age 18, and men are definitely prohibited. </div> <bR> <div> "Believe it or not, there's a lot of women who go to these parties," Grubbs said. "It's very popular." </div> <bR> <div> Company officials did not return a call Wednesday, but Slumber Parties claims its network of distributors sold $15 million in "romance-enriching" products, including lotions, powders, lingerie and private bedroom accessories, with prices ranging from $2.50 to $139. Sales this year are expected to reach $20 million. </div> <bR> <div> The seizure of the items occurred during a traffic stop on Texas 42 on Old Highway 80 in White Oak at 10:27 p.m. Monday. Police stopped Grubbs' truck after seeing her driving erratically, an arrest report said. She failed or refused to perform field sobriety tests and was charged with driving while intoxicated, and a breath test showed she had blood-alcohol levels of 0.228 percent and 0.22 percent, the report said. </div> <bR> <div> Police searching her truck after the arrest found the box of erotic items. The White Oak police chief said investigators are used to finding drugs and guns, but sex toys are the first in his 22 years of experience. </div> <bR> <div> "There's no telling what you'll find on one of these stops," Smith said. </div> <div>  </div> <div>  </div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>