A headline that caught my eye recently was one about a town in Florida wanting to ban adult bookstores/novelty shops. This really puzzles me! People who want to ban stores like that make me wonder. I can never figure out why certain people feel so threatened by stores that sell sex toys. Why make someone drive to another county to by a vibrator? Will crotchless panties and scented condoms lead to the unraveling of a community? I guess I have to claim ignorance in the matter of how heated massage oil poses a menace to the very moral fiber of our safe and sane society. For that I apologize.

One thing I am sure of is that many of the places where these adult shops are banned are probably the very places which need these risqué shops the most. It might sound a little silly to say such a thing but I can only imagine the kind of sex these "straight lace" couples might be engaging in. I really feel for them. Is their sex life so bad that they have to try and bore down mine too? Someone should explain to these people that it is never too late to try new things. They don't have to advertise what it is they discovered (and we prefer they don't) because stuff like that IS private. So why do these people want to keep us from fun in the privacy of our own homes?

If all these people and politicians feel that it is wrong to own items that are sold in adult bookstores then all they have to do is not purchase anything from there. I practice this almost every day. Rarely do I set out from my house to buy postage stamps and milk and end up purchasing handcuffs and a whip. I admit: it happens every now again but it's pretty unusual. And when this does happen, it never has affected the people next door in any way, shape, or form.

I will concede: there are stores in our community which do destroy the fabric of America. WalMart, KMart, Target, chain/fast food restaurants, and tourist traps (to name just a few). Each of these places not only erode what makes America what it is, but additionally destroy what makes St. Augustine so great. Do these people who so vehemently oppose adult novelty shops also oppose the stores mentioned above or army navy stores and businesses that sell firearms? Children are far less likely to do harm to themselves or anyone around them if they were to find a pornographic film rather than a gun under mom and dad's mattress. Furthermore, I am sure that if you were to talk to the parents of kids who died because of accidental gun fire- they would tell you that it would have been far easier to explain sex to their child, because of what their son or daughter found, than to bury them.

This issue just seems so easy to solve to me. Let the adult novelty shop/bookstore open. If people don't go there, it will leave (it's not like a WalMart in the sense that it doesn't have the bankroll to stay open forever even if it is not doing good).

In closing I would like to add one more thing. People try to sell me things every day. Stuff like: there needs to be ban on gay marriage, an armed citizenry is a safe citizenry, privatization will save social security, the war in Iraq is a just war, global warming is a leftist myth, we need to drill in ANWR, FOX news IS fair and balanced, if your against the war then your against our troops, the people of Afghanistan hate us because we are free, the Michael Jackson trial is real news, etc., etc....

The difference between all that and an adult novelty store is...I'm not buying any of the s**t they're sellin'.