One state lawmaker is sponsoring legislation to put adult “sex toys” out of the reach of kids. Representative Dawn Pettengill, a Democrat from Mount Ashburn, says it all began when she went into a store at the mall. “In the store there were some of these sexual devices and a young boy, probably 15 (years old), was showing it to his girlfriend, who was 14 or 13, and she looked so uncomfortable,” Pettengill says. “When I got up to the counter, I said ‘Why is that stuff out here in the front of the store like that?’ and the clerk said ‘Well, there’s no law against it.'”
Pettengill says that’s when she decided to do something. Pettengill says she doesn’t want her kids seeing stuff like that when they go to the mall. She wrote a bill that would force stores to put “devices…designed for sexual stimulation” in a place where only people over the age of 18 can see or buy them. Pettengill says sexual devices had never before been defined in Iowa law. “I had a few hair raising experiences…I would get (the bill) back from the drafter and I would say ‘No. No. I’m not going to be responsible for that,'” Pettengill says. “We came out, finally, with a definition that I think I can be proud of, if you know what I mean.”
Pettengill anticipates the bill will generate “quite a discussion” if it passes committee and come up for debate in the full House.