Do We Have A Legitimate Right To A Orgy?
The town of Duncanville, Texas that is neighborhood of Dallas has been drawn in its own small Jerry Falwell manner bible belt fight with the founders of a privileged ”swinger couples club” named “The Cherry Pit“. The Cherry Pit is a private manor tucked in away in an fashionable Duncanville housing area. The Cherry Pit promotes on the web and according to advertised reports draws as many as 100 members to a weekend party.
The Cherry Pit has been holding sexy orgy parties where guests pay a cost for entrance and are allowed engage in mosly any type of sex actions they want on the premises. It is the position of the owners that this does not constitute a “business” as the entry fee is to cover the cost of snacks, beverages etc and not a cost for the opportunity of engaging in sex from the tame to the “Pulp Fiction” apple in the mouth brand of entertainment…. It is rumored for an additional service charge they could even “bring out the gimp“….(just kidding)
The entire thing happened latein October of 2006 when past some years of Cherry Pitt neighbors complaining about the crime, noisy visitors and “unsavory element” “the pit” was bringing to the community, the City of Duncanville approved the following regulation:
“the operation and maintenance of a sex to be illegal and a public irritation. Violation of the new decree can effect in a fine of up to $3,000.”
The city of Duncanville after that decided that the gatherings at the Cherry Pit were more than just a party of “friends and family” looking for some fun and resoluted that it was in fact a sexually oriented industry and subject to the ordinance. The reaction of Julie Norris, one of the owners of “The Pit” was as follows:
“I do not recognize what their classification of a commerce is, but to my understanding a business is public – anyone can simply walk into it and you have to pay to get in and we are none of that,” Norris said. “I accept contributions. Have you ever had your friends over for a grill and asked everyone to pitch in $10 or bring a bowl? That is exactly what we do. The only condition to get into my residence is that anyone call and let me know that you are coming and you are on my reservation list.”
Ms Norris continued to state that she believed that the ordinance is a guise to attack their way of life and beliefs and that the decree regulating the club violated their First Amendment Rights to Privacy.
“It boils down to people want to put their principles into my personal territory and I am going to stand against that,” Norris said. “That is not what the Constitution allows.”
The founders of the Cherry Pit subsequently counter sued the city claiming the ordinance banning sex clubs violates their privacy and due process rights. They are mainly using the same argument under which a right to privacy was found under Roe v. Wade. They have to use this method in making the right to privacy argument because there is basically no right to personal privacy spelled out in the Constitution.
The Cherry Pit’s lawer, Ed Kline, said the city tries to regulate private acts in a private dwelling using the public irritation law as a “pretext” to do so….
The Cherry Pitt has stayed open while all the legal squabbling has taken place… Only now the City of Duncanville broadened the decree meant to lock the club down by making the explanation of a adult club more universal and add a local petition procedure for couples clubs that the city orders to shut down.
***October 29, 2008 A jury proclaimed the owners of the Cherry Pit accountable of illegitimately operating a sexually oriented industry.
So what do you think? Should private citizens be permitted to “swap pits” at the Pitt without the government getting its’ rocks off?
You obviously can not do drugs in the isolation of your home. These things are illegal regardless of where they are engaged in.
Let us also keep this in mind. Duncanville is NOT trying to order the nude women Texas showing up at the venue. They are attempting to regulate the owners of the club in allowing the “Piters” to engage in sex for a fee at their home…. The state is NOT regulating where and with whom you can have sex with. They are telling the owners of the Pit that if they are charging you to do it, they are subject to government punishment. There is a big difference…
No one is going to advice you that you can not go down to your local red light quarter and get a BJ from Mollie the local crack addict or Jimmy the cross dressing pimp or even take any of mujeres maduras to the Cherry Pit for some entertainment. We of course are aware of nonetheless that the act of handing over a dollar in trade for the quickie makes the otherwise agreeable doing illegal prostitution on one end and the illegal action of soliciting a prostitute on the other end no matter where it happens (in addition to whatsoever other disgusting stuff goes with “the other end”). The state has decided that there is a undeniable state awareness to normalize and/or criminalize such acts…
***October 29, 2008 A jury found the owner of the Cherry Pit guilty on 10 counts of running a sexually oriented business. The Cherry Pit has since been closed. While warnings for the owners stated that the decree would be appealed and the statute challenged, it is unclear if either of those was ever pursued.