Texas sex store owners similarly adapted their linguistic model, mimicking polite society, today’s medical references, while keeping within the law’s dictates; effectively, they changed nothing beyond the organizational structure of the store, and the names attached to the devices, stocking them on shelves according to their categorical division: “marital aides / dildos” and “personal massagers / vibrators.”  These two separate categories, each establish its own loophole in the Texas State Penal Code.  For instance, marital aides / dildos resemble penises, and therefore must not contain any sort of vibrating device; because items that resemble penises also resemble the human genitalia, which could possibly come into contact with the anus violating the anti-sodomy law, these devices must not contain any overt notion of giving pleasure (i.e. vibrating).  Likewise, vibrators cannot look like penises, because they contain the ability to vibrate and therefore hold the possibility of producing physical pleasure, and could possible come into contact with the vagina (a legislatively recognized ‘sexual orifice’); therefore, vibrators in Texas remain legal only so long as they don’t appear to be replicas of a penis.   To help guarantee the Texas government doesn’t mistake a vibrator for a penis, Texas vibrators  come with faces or other images imprinted along the base, or with vibrating animals attached somewhere along the phallic structure.  While the black letter designations of these two categories grounds each within the legal dictates of the anti-sodomy and anti-dildo laws, strangely enough there exists a third category of sex toys that remains free from legislative scrutiny: “butt plugs.”  “Butt plugs” may be sold as “butt plugs,” without the linguistic manipulation forced upon the other two areas, “marital aides” and “personal massagers,” only because the legislature continually refuses to recognize the anus as a valid sexual orifice.  

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