Some students at the University of Texas in Austin are fed up with the Lone Star State’s friendly attitude toward firearms, which has led to new state laws relaxing rules for carrying guns on campus. The students are skipping old-fashioned acts of dissent like marching and carrying signs. Via social media they’ve begun planning for an in-your-face, sex-positive protest of the new laws: “Campus (DILDO) Carry.”
On the Facebook page set up to organize the protest—which is set for August 24, 2016—Jessica Jin wrote that under Texas laws there are heavier penalties for bringing sex toys into classrooms than for carrying firearms, because “Heaven forbid the penis.”
S.B. 11 is the Texas “campus carry” law that has Jin and others so pissed off. A Houston Chronicle report explained the protest’s timing and why S.B. 11 has stimulated some hot, heavy and throbbing complaints:
Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 11, the campus carry law, in June. Starting in August 2016, the law will allow properly-licensed firearms owners to carry concealed handguns into most buildings on campus. The law also gives a certain amount of latitude to campus presidents, however, to designate so-called “gun-free zones.”
In her Facebook post, Jin quoted University of Texas rules that do clearly prohibit expressing “obscenity” on campus to emphasize why dildoes were a logical choice to display objections to the campus carry law. Jin ended on a helpful note: “I know that quality dildoes, especially super large ones, can be a little pricey. If we can gather enough willing participants, I will personally take it upon myself to put in the time and legwork to find a dildo supplier sponsorship.”
Using sex toys to make some kind of point about gun safety isn’t a new idea—in May, BuzzFeed highlighted an unsettling campaign by a gun safety organization that used photos of kids innocently playing with sex toys to make a point about keeping guns secure in the home.
Whatever your opinions on open-carry firearms or dildo-wielding protesters, we can probably all agree the UT-Austin protest could become dangerously confusing if someone decides to pack a plastic personal private poker that looks like this.
Photos by Wikimedia Commons