Wouldn't you love to have had a set of biometric readings on Kenneth Starr as the "Starr chamber" interrogated various members involved in the Clinton sex scandal -- or rather, various people involved with Clinton's member? The readings would go something like this: "You put your mouth on his penis?" (Temperature: woop-woop-woop.) "Could you show us how?" (Pulse: rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat). "And could you describe what you did next?" (Heart: boom-boom, boom-boom). "And then?" (arousal index: boi-oing, boi-oing.) Or something like that. Surely, if you wanted to collect hormones in that courtroom, you could have squeezed them from the air.

Lately, the city of Phoenix, AZ, has given lucky law enforcers a similar chance to spice up their workaday world by "cracking down" on swingers' clubs. An ordinance passed in 1998 says "operating a business where live sex acts occur" is "inimical" (as in "public enemy") to the "morals of the inhabitants." According to the Assistant City Attorney, policemen in the December sting "found patent sex acts, open and obvious, occurring on the premises." Oh, my! Wonder how long they spent finding these acts before, as the report says, they "had to ask people to stop fornicating."

Only the husband-and-wife owners along with the club's manager were to be arrested, but of course a policeman needs plenty of back-up in these troubled times. One of the patrons who were at the club during the arrest said that the uniformed police basically mulled around the place, while scantily clad couples continued dancing, bump-and-grind de rigueur. "I wonder if when the order comes down for a raid on the club, do they ask for volunteers?" she commented. "The guys who got the job sure seemed to enjoy the view. Don't take me wrong. I love a man to stare at my ass and smile as I walk by....it is just a bit weird when he is wearing a gun."

Perhaps it's a lucky thing police uniforms are a little baggy around the crotch because a lot of policemen were probably making a clear stand as to where they'd like to put Phoenix's morality ordinance.

A few years earlier, in the Fort Lauderdale swinger club arrests of '99, officers invaded the private back rooms. Oddly enough, when the Broward police raided the Trapeze II, they felt it necessary to explore the private back rooms where they found, lo and behold, a fellow member of Fort Lauderdale's finest in the buff with his wife, going at it. This officer caught with his pants down eventually filed a law suit against the city. The case had ended up on national TV and turned some lives of the Trapeze patrons upside down. Needless to say, it made excellent talk show fodder.

Can you say law suit?
There in Broward county, the crime was not about running a sex-oriented business, but about "intent to offend" (which puts the behavior at the clubs under the definition of lewdness). So, first someone has to be offended; then prosecutors have to prove that the whole reason these happy sex partners were getting down was so they could offend some onlookers. "Gee, Mabel, sex just isn't the same when you can't make someone gasp in horror -- let's head on down to the Trapeze and see who we can offend." Of all the people at the club that evening, including police, only one male officer could say he was "offended" by what went on at the club. The next closest complaint prosecutors could come up with was a female officer who used the word "embarrassed," rather than "offended." Apparently that wasn't enough, and the case was dropped. It's just possible the city considers the hundreds of thousands of dollars in law suits fair compensation for the officers' thrilling evening. And can you blame officers for wanting a break?

Shortly after the Phoenix law first took effect in 1998, policemen dropped in on several of the private clubs, wandered around checking ID's and generally getting a good view without paying the admission. (Shouldn't the department be billed for that show?) At that time, the guy who wrote the anti-sex club legislation, city attorney Jim Hays, seemed rather anxious to shore up his law. Having written it, he also prosecuted the cases. He tells a Phoenix New Times reporter, "You can't say they're [swingers clubs] private[just] because someone fills out a membership form and then, poof -- private club, five bucks a year. Come on now. The law is not so easily evaded."

Yes. It's the law. But wait. Later in the same article, New Times reporter David Holthouse writes, "Hays seemed to enjoy himself in several stormy depositions preceding the March 4 [1999] hearing, as he prodded club owners to explain precisely what message sex acts in their businesses deliver."

Club owner Dutch Van Brunschot admitted to having sexual relations with his wife at the club, and Hays kept pressing him to tell the court what message such an act might be sending...
[to be continued next week]