Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was against sex toys, but now he is for them.
The Republican presidential candidate was forced to clarify his position on sex toys after a reminder earlier this week that he once advocated for a ban on dildos.
On Friday, Cruz was asked by WABC’s Curtis Silwa if, as president, he would try to legally prohibit “the sale of sexual toys, dildos or anything that sexually stimulates you.”
“Look, of course not. It’s a ridiculous question, and of course not,” Cruz responded. “What people do in their own private time with themselves is their own business, and it’s none of the government’s business.”
The issue of Cruz and sex toys has been thrust back into the spotlight because of a Mother Jones story about Cruz, who is battling Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, defending a law criminalizing the sale of dildos as Texas’ solicitor general.
In 2007, Cruz’s legal team filed a 76-page brief which compared buying sex toys to “hiring a willing prostitute or engaging in consensual bigamy.”
Cruz’s argument included the asseration that Americans have no right masturbate.
“There is no substantive due-process right to stimulate one’s genitals for non-medical purposes unrelated to procreation or outside of an interpersonal relationship,” reads the brief.
