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Women’s sex toy maker sues New York City subway, calls ad ban sexist – Metro US

Women’s sex toy maker sues New York City subway, calls ad ban sexist

A new lawsuit asks why New York City’s subway accepts advertisements depicting erectile dysfunction, bare buttocks, inflatable plastic breasts, “Kyng”-sized condoms and cactuses shaped like phalluses, but is refusing ads for women’s sex toys.

Dame Products, a women-owned startup that promises to “close the pleasure gap” for women by selling “toys, for sex,” sued the Metropolitan Transit Authority on Tuesday, accusing it of sexism and illegal censorship for refusing its ads since last November.

The complaint faulted the MTA for deciding to “privilege male interests” through irrational, arbitrary advertising choices that violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guaranteeing free speech.

It said these have included allowing ads from bedding company Brooklinen featuring sexual double entendres, and a travel booker urging travelers to “Get Wet (on the beach, not from the guy next to you).”

Dame said the MTA even allowed an ad sponsored by the city’s health department for the “Kyng”-sized condoms.

MTA Chief Executive Pat Foye and Janno Lieber, an official overseeing the agency’s ad policy, are also defendants.

“The MTA is living in a Victorian era,” Richard Emery, a lawyer for Dame, said in an interview. “It has a male-oriented censorship scheme that is discriminating against women’s sexual pleasure, and emphasizing male control of women’s sexuality.”

Dame, he added, “has nothing titillating about its ads.”

The complaint filed in Manhattan federal court seeks unspecified damages, and to require the MTA to run Dame’s ads.

New York City’s subway in 2017 carried about 5.58 million riders on an average weekday, and 1.73 billion riders overall.

The subway occasionally faces lawsuits over its refusal to place ads, including those containing political content.

Tuesday’s complaint suggested possible sympathy for Dame from Andy Byford, president of the New York City Transit Authority, after Dame Chief Executive Alexandra Fine wrote to him about the MTA’s resistance to her ads.

“While I can’t change the whole MTA, I am determined to make my bit, New York City Transit, responsive and transparent,” Byford responded, adding: “I cringed when I read of your experience.”

Emery said: “It sounds like Andy Byford is at least reasonable about this, and frustrated with his own bureaucracy.”

The MTA responds to sex toy ad ban lawsuit

In a statement emailed to Metro, MTA Chief External Affairs Officer Maxwell Young said: “We have not been served with this lawsuit and cannot comment on it directly, but their public statements are clearly inaccurate as the MTA’s advertising is in no way gender-based or viewpoint discriminatory. The MTA’s FAQs about its advertising policy clearly states that advertisements for sex toys or devices for any gender are not permitted, and advertising for FDA approved medication – for either gender – is permitted.”
 

“In its proprietary capacity as the operator of a transit system used by all New Yorkers, the MTA is constitutionally entitled to draw reasonable content-based distinctions between different types of advertisements and to consider its diverse customers. We intend to vigorously defend this lawsuit and will be represented by the preeminent First Amendment lawyer Victor Kovner and his colleagues.”