We can all sleep more soundly now.
Harris County Commissioners Court on Tuesday unanimously adopted new rules to prevent so-called “robot brothels” from opening and more strictly regulate sexually oriented businesses in unincorporated areas.
The county already had been revising its sexually oriented business rules, first adopted in 1996, but decided to specifically address lifelike sex dolls for rent after Toronto-based company KinkySdollsS considered opening a Houston branch where patrons could try out human-like “adult love dolls” in private rooms at the shop.
[…]
Assistant County Attorney Celena Vinson said the county largely adopted language Houston’s legal department had written.
“We wanted to address the sex robot shop that was allegedly going to open in the city, and wanted to ensure our regulations were consistent with what the city of Houston was doing,” Vinson said.
The changes now clearly define sex dolls like the ones advertised by the Toronto firm as “anthropomorphic devices” and prohibit companies from renting them out to customers. Residents of the city and county remain free to purchase such devices for use in their own homes.
See here, here, and here for the background. Despite my best efforts, I still don’t have anything useful to say about this. I just can’t resist blogging about it, and Lord knows we can use the occasional respite from the real news. You’re welcome.
How is Harris County going to progress if it continues to retard the progress of sex dolls?
We have always been backwards, until recently all devices for artificial stimulation were illegal.
“The Obscene Device Law is a Texas statute prohibiting the sale of sex toys. The law was introduced in 1973, and was last updated in 2003. While the law technically remains in effect, in 2008 a U.S. District Judge released a report declaring it to be “facially unconstitutional and unenforceable”
Thank you for the blog. I to feel like I can sleep just a little bit better.
Good to see the CoH has their priorities in order ! City Hall employees paychecks should be docked for the time they spent pushing this through.
Well, I guess the sex robot folks need to locate in Montgomery, Ft. Bend, and Brazoria counties.
Plenty of lonely hearts from Harris County will make the drive.
Easter, nobody cares if you just want to buy one of these creepy dolls, it’s the whole brothel or “renting” aspect that they want to prohibit.
CL: The article refers to the county ban, not the city ban so do you want the county employees to be docked for working on this?
Bill: They aren’t robots, they are dolls, and I doubt many lonely hearts are going to bother driving further than where they can “rent” a live human, otherwise they can order online.
City, County, I don’t care. What a colossal waste of public money and public servant time.