Under the Texas Penal Code § 43.23. (Obscenity) any person who “wholesale promotes or possesses with intent to wholesale promote any…obscene device” is guilty of a “state jail felony” (punishable by imprisonment for between 180 days and two years, or such imprisonment and a fine not to exceed $10,000) and any person who “promotes or possesses with intent to promote any…obscene device” is guilty of a “Class A misdemeanor” (punishable by a fine of not more than $4,000 or imprisonment for not more than one year or both). An “obscene device” is defined as “a device including a dildo or artificial vagina, designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs”; “wholesale promote” means “to manufacture, issue, sell, provide, mail, deliver, transfer, transmit, publish, distribute, circulate, disseminate, or to offer or agree to do the same for purpose of resale”; “promote” means “to manufacture, issue, sell, give, provide, lend, mail, deliver, transfer, transmit, publish, distribute, circulate, disseminate, present, exhibit, or advertise, or to offer or agree to do the same”. Simple possession of an “obscene device” does not appear to be illegal, although anyone who possesses at least six of the things is presumed to do so with the intent to “promote” them. There is also a loophole for “bona fide medical, psychiatric, judicial, legislative, or law enforcement purpose[s]”.
That said, I don’t know how likely your teacher’s story of the Texas fuzz nailing people at the border is. Unless they were trying to bring back six or more “devices” it doesn’t appear they’d be breaking the law, and I’m not sure how aggressively the law is enforced even against those who “promote” such “devices”.
Georgia has a similar law (Official Code of Georgia 16-12-80: “A person commits the offense of distributing obscene material when he sells, lends, rents, leases, gives, advertises, publishes, exhibits, or otherwise disseminates to any person any obscene material of any description…Any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs is obscene material under this Code section…A person who commits the offense of distributing obscene material shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature.”) I believe Alabama also has an “anti-dildo law” of some kind on the books.
Texas Penal Code § 21.06. (Homosexual Conduct) makes “deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex” a “Class C misdeamnor”, not a felony. (Incidentally, I think they mean “deviant”, not “deviate”.) By contrast Georgia law makes “any sexual act involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another” a felony punishable by “imprisonment for not less than one nor more than 20 years” (the maximum penalty for a Class C misdemeanor in Texas is a $500 fine). Note that the Georgia statute gets straights as well as gays. Fortunately, the Georgia Supreme Court has struck down the enforcement of the Georgia sodomy law with respect to private consensual acts (Powell v. State).
) I’d assume there are similar stores in other cities. While in the Montrose district, an area of numerous such stores, I have never seen police staked out in front of them looking to see what comes out of there.
There is the written law, then there is enforcement.