Dual-Use Technology

Many people are aware that the state legislatures of Alabama, Georgia and Texas have laws forbidding the marketing of vibrators. Now, however, it transpires that cellphones are being used as vibrators.

So what's the solution, if you're someone who wants to crack down on machine-aided forms of self-stimulation? Do you outlaw downloads of programs like Purring Kitty? Do you outlaw phone attachments like the ones offered at Dial-An-Orgasm? Or do you force phone manufacturers to stop offering "vibrate" alerts?

And what about the children? When you give your teen daughter a cellphone, aren't you running the risk of turning her into a compulsive masturbatrix? Would you not reproach yourself if, thanks to your thoughtlesness, she forsook childhood's wholesome amusements, and became yet another slack-jawed, hollow-eyed victim of unbridled lubricity? Shouldn't there be parental controls that will block the phone's ability to vibrate unless a code is entered?

I suspect that absurd questions like these are currently bedeviling the brains of our nation's most prominent busybodies.