To Recoup Taxes, Kansas OKs Sex Toy Auction

In the market for love, ahem, accessories? Try shopping with the state of Kansas, which is behind an online auction of a large volume of sex toys—ranging from vibrators and handcuffs to a "fantasy love swing" and pornographic films—in an effort to recoup the $163,986 an erotic chain store owes in back taxes. Department of Revenue agents began to seize the inventory at shops across the state in July after the owner of United Outlets LLC, aka Bang, failed to pay the delinquent bill, reports the Topeka Capital-Journal.

Kansas Senate Democratic leader Anthony Hensley, who says allies of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback had just recently accused Democratic gubernatorial nominee Paul Davis of being in a strip club 16 years ago, says the governor is "so desperate" to balance the budget "that the state of Kansas is now in the porn business." But a Brownback spokesperson says the state is simply selling business inventory to compensate for taxes owed—a common and typically boring practice. A spokeswoman for the revenue department, meanwhile, tells the Kansas City Star that the state itself isn't selling the items because the property had been released back to the owner, who had contracted with the auction company to sell the items and pay the bill. (Meanwhile, how do sex toys and gun safety belong in the same story?)