Fake Private Parts Are No Joke, Myers Says
Delegate Wants to Ban Vehicle Displays of Plastic Genitals

By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 23, 2007; B03

Maryland Del. LeRoy E. Myers Jr. to truckers: If you've got 'em, you
don't need to flaunt 'em.

As the General Assembly debates global warming and the death penalty,
Myers (R-Washington) has something else on his mind: the outsized
plastic testicles that truckers dangle from the trailer hitches of their
pickups.

To some truckers, they are manly expressions of rural chic. But Myers,
who says his Western Maryland district is brimming with giant fakes on
the roadways, calls them vulgar and immoral -- and filed legislation
this week to outlaw them.

"People are making a joke out of it," Myers said yesterday. "But I think
it's a pretty serious problem. You have body parts hanging from the
hitches of cars. We've crossed a line."

His bill would prohibit motorists from displaying anything resembling or
depicting "anatomically correct" or "less than completely and opaquely
covered" human or animal genitals, human buttocks or female breasts. The
offense would carry a penalty.

A hunter could still throw a freshly killed and uncovered deer in the
back of his pickup, though, because the deer's body parts would be real,
Myers said.

Myers, 56, said he's trying to match the standards of Gov. Martin
O'Malley (D), who has pledged to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. "We have a
governor whose agenda is, 'Let's make us the best,' " the delegate said.
"So let's clean up what our children are seeing on our roads."

Myers, a general contractor with four grown children, represents
Washington and Alleghany counties in Maryland's most rural corner. He
said he acted at the request of a constituent who was distressed by what
he saw as he drove down a highway.

Since Myers submitted the bill Tuesday, it has been the brunt of jokes
from radio and TV interviewers. "But my office has gotten 100 phone
calls from grateful parents," he said.

Civil libertarians say the bill is misplaced. "The solution to speech we
don't like is more speech," said Meredith Curtis of the Maryland
American Civil Liberties Union. A sticker of the Venus de Milo statue
would be illegal if the legislation passes, she said.

Myers's fellow lawmakers seemed bemused. "Hmmm. Is this what the framers
had in mind?" Del. Tom Hucker (D-Montgomery) asked jokingly.

The truck ornament industry is not amused. "It's not a perverted sexual
thing at all," said David Ham, founder of Your Nutz, a San Diego-based
business that sells more than 200 kinds of fake testicles. "It's a sense
of humor. This lawmaker is looking out for two or three old women in
tennis shoes. He's got too much time on his hands."

Ham said he shipped about 100 orders last year to customers in Maryland
and Virginia. He said those who support a ban would do well to recall
that 50 years ago, many people in the nation lived on farms. "Did all
the little donkeys and sheep walk around with their panties on so
children wouldn't see their bodies?" he asked.

The bill is now in the House Rules Committee. "I think it's a terrible
bill," Chairman Hattie N. Harrison (D-Baltimore) said yesterday, but she
agreed to defer to her colleagues on whether to let it die a quick death
in committee or assign it to another one for a full debate.