Are Sex Toys Illegal in the US? The State Laws Still on the Books (2026)

The Short Answer

Yes, in a few places, and the laws are older than most of the toys. In Alabama and Mississippi it's a crime to sell a sex toy, and courts have upheld both laws. Georgia's sale ban is still on the books, and its supreme court last upheld it in 2000. Kansas rewrote a ban its supreme court struck down in 1990, with an exception for therapy, and no court has ruled on the new one.

Texas and Louisiana still print bans that courts struck down, and Colorado lost its ban in 1985. The District of Columbia still has a law, going back to 1901, against selling anything "for indecent or immoral use", and Massachusetts repealed its law against articles "for self-abuse" only in 2018.

Every one of these laws goes after selling. None of the ones we found makes it a crime for an adult to buy, own or use a sex toy, and Alabama's supreme court put it plainly in 2010: it is the sale of the device "and not the use of it" that the law forbids. There's no federal ban on selling them to adults either. The one kind of sex toy that's illegal to own in ten states is a doll made to look like a child.

We're not lawyers, and this isn't legal advice. It's what the laws and the rulings say, read on October 31, 2026, with a link to each one.

Every Law We Found

Alabama

Alabama's ban came in with a 1998 change to its obscenity law. It makes it a crime to "distribute, possess with intent to distribute, or offer or agree to distribute" any device "designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs" for money. Selling one is a misdemeanor with a fine of up to $10,000 and up to a year in jail. A second conviction is a felony.

It has survived every challenge. A group of sellers and users fought it for almost a decade, and in 2007 the 11th Circuit held that public morality is still a rational basis for the law, even after the Supreme Court struck down Texas's sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case. In 2010 the Alabama Supreme Court ruled against a store in Hoover called Love Stuff and held that the ban does not violate the Due Process Clause.

There's a way around it in the law itself. It's a defense if the sale was for "a bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial, or law enforcement purpose". And it doesn't reach owning or using one, or giving one away for nothing. Repeal bills came up six times between 2000 and 2008, and none passed.

Stores feel it. Le Wand's support page says plainly that it doesn't ship to Alabama.

Mississippi

Mississippi's law reads almost the same. It's a crime to sell, advertise or exhibit "any three-dimensional device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs", or to possess one intending to sell it. A first offense can cost up to $5,000 or six months in jail.

Adam & Eve's parent company, PHE, challenged it with a Southaven store and a group of users and lost. In 2004 the Mississippi Supreme Court held that the sale of sexual devices is not protected by the right to privacy in the state constitution. The exceptions are narrow: a toy prescribed in writing by a licensed physician or psychologist, college courses that study it, and some museums and libraries.

Mississippi sits in the same federal circuit as Texas, whose ban that circuit struck down in 2008, so a federal court might well side with sellers. We found no one who has brought that case. We found police raids on Jackson stores in 2004 and 2005 and nothing since.

Georgia

Georgia does it in one sentence. Its obscenity law says that "Any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs is obscene material under this Code section." Selling or giving one out is then a high and aggravated misdemeanor.

The ban on selling has never been struck down. The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of a Georgia conviction for selling vibrators in 1978, and the Georgia Supreme Court upheld eight convictions under the current law in 2000. What fell was the ban on advertising them: the 11th Circuit held in 2002, and again in 2006, that banning the advertising violates the First Amendment.

The exceptions are the same kind as Mississippi's: college teaching and research, and a sale "authorized in writing by a licensed medical practitioner or psychiatrist". The city of Sandy Springs added its own ban in 2009 and repealed it in 2017, while the full 11th Circuit was rehearing the case.

Kansas

Kansas is the odd one. Its supreme court threw out the device part of its obscenity law in 1990, in a case over a vibrator, because it reached people using toys in therapy. The legislature then put the ban back with an exception for devices "disseminated or promoted for the purpose of medical or psychological therapy".

That's the law Kansas prints today. It defines an obscene device as "a device, including a dildo or artificial vagina" made to stimulate the genitals, and makes promoting one a class A misdemeanor. We found no ruling on the new version and no charge under it since 1990, so most lists that say Kansas's law was struck down are right about the old one only.

Texas

Texas banned promoting "a device including a dildo or artificial vagina" for genital stimulation, and its law presumed that anyone holding six or more meant to sell them. In 2008 the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the statute had provisions that violate the Fourteenth Amendment, because after Lawrence v. Texas public morality alone can't justify it. Texas didn't appeal, and both sides later agreed in court papers that the device ban was unenforceable statewide.

The law is still in the penal code, and state courts haven't let go of it. Months after the federal ruling, a Corpus Christi appeals court upheld a woman's conviction for selling a vibrator to an undercover officer and wrote that "Fifth Circuit precedent is not binding on Texas courts". Texas lawmakers wrote in 2025 that state law "currently criminalizes" possessing obscene devices to promote them, and two 2025 bills tried to restrict how they can be sold. Neither passed. We found no prosecution for selling a toy in Texas since 2008.

Louisiana and Colorado

Louisiana's supreme court struck its ban in 2000, in the case of a woman arrested three times for selling toys at her dancewear shop. It held that the law "bears no rational relationship to a legitimate state interest". The legislature amended the section's penalties a year later and left the ban in, so it's still in the code, unenforceable.

Colorado's went in 1985, when its supreme court held that the obscene-device rules burdened the right to privacy. The state's code still defines an "obscene device", but no offense uses the definition anymore.

Indiana, DC and Massachusetts

Indiana passed a law in 2008 that made sellers of sex toys and other "sexually explicit materials" register with the state. A federal court blocked it the same year as vague, overbroad and an undue burden on the First Amendment, and it's still printed in the code.

The District of Columbia still bans selling "any article, thing, or device which is intended for or represented as being for indecent or immoral use", under a law that goes back to 1901. We found no case using it against a sex toy, and the city's own criminal code commission called the clause vulnerable in 2019 and left it out of its rewrite. Congress disapproved that rewrite in 2023, so the old clause stands.

Massachusetts had a law against selling an "instrument or other article intended to be used for self-abuse" until 2018. The same section limited contraception, which is how the wording ended up quoted in the Supreme Court's 1972 birth control case, Eisenstadt v. Baird. The NASTY Women Act, signed in July 2018, repealed it along with the state's old abortion ban. Most lists of sex toy bans never mention it.

Laws That Look Like Bans and Aren't

A few laws turn up on lists of sex toy bans and aren't. Virginia's obscenity law covers an obscene "novelty device", and Florida's covers "any article or instrument for obscene use". Arizona and Tennessee have similar wording. All four apply the usual obscenity test, so they reach a toy only if the toy itself is obscene, and we found no case using any of them against an ordinary one. The 5th Circuit listed Virginia with Alabama and Mississippi in 2008, but Virginia's text doesn't ban devices.

Nebraska and New Mexico ban selling a device "having the appearance of either male or female genitals" to a minor. Adults aren't affected. Arkansas's obscenity law covers writings and pictures, not devices. Tennessee and South Carolina both considered device bans in 2006, and neither got out of the legislature.

Cities can have their own rules, and many states and cities zone stores that mostly sell sex toys as adult businesses. Those are outside this page.

Child-Like Sex Dolls

The one sex toy that's illegal to own in parts of the US is a doll made to look like a child. Ten states we confirmed ban possessing them as well as selling them, and every one of those laws came in since 2019.

There's no federal law on them yet. The House passed the CREEPER Act in 2018, and it died in the Senate, and the latest version, H.R. 1186, was sent to committee in February 2025 with no action since. We only rank and link to sex doll makers whose catalogs sell adult dolls only.

Federal Law

No federal law bans selling a sex toy to an adult. What's still in the U.S. Code is the 1873 Comstock Act's wording: it's a crime to mail, import or ship by carrier any article "for any indecent or immoral use", and customs law bars importing any article that is "obscene or immoral". The Supreme Court read the mailing law's list of words as limited to obscenity in 1974, and the Justice Department's own guide to federal obscenity law doesn't mention devices. We found no modern case using these laws against an ordinary sex toy.

The FDA regulates sex toys only when they're sold as medical devices. A genital vibrator "intended and labeled for therapeutic use in the treatment of sexual dysfunction" is a Class II device, and so are vacuum pumps and "constriction rings" sold to help with an erection. The same toys sold for pleasure fall outside those rules. We didn't research whether another agency covers them.

What This Means for You

If you live in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia or Kansas, buying a toy for yourself is not what these laws punish. They're aimed at sellers. Le Wand says on its support page that it doesn't ship to Alabama at all. The laws also make room for medical use: a store in Alabama can sell a toy to a buyer with a bona fide medical purpose, Kansas exempts toys sold for medical or psychological therapy, and in Mississippi and Georgia a doctor's written authorization makes the sale legal.

If you run a shop or sell toys at parties in one of those states, talk to a lawyer there. A Texas appeals court upheld a seller's conviction in 2008, Mississippi police raided stores in 2004 and 2005, and every challenge to the Alabama and Mississippi bans that we found has failed.

And if you just want a toy, our beginner rankings and body-safe materials guide are a better use of your evening than the Alabama Code.

How We Did This

We read each law on the state's own code site where it loads, and on FindLaw's or Justia's full-text copy where the state's site blocks automated readers. Wisconsin's site wouldn't load at all, so its row rests on the bill's record and the AP's report on it. The court rulings were read on the courts' own sites, on govinfo or in full-text copies, and every quote on this page was checked against one of them on October 31, 2026. We started from the states named in the 2008 Texas ruling and a 2006 Tennessee Attorney General opinion, searched every state code for the standard phrase "stimulation of human genital organs" and for the older Comstock wording, and spot-checked ten more states' obscenity laws. A state with an unusual clause outside those searches could still exist, and we'll add it if you know of one.

We're not lawyers. This page reports what the statutes and rulings say and how courts have treated them, not how a prosecutor or court would treat a case today.

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