Jody Serrano
Editor in chiefEditor in Chief at Xataka On. Before joining Webedia, I was a tech reporter at Gizmodo and The Messenger. While I've covered all sorts of things related to technology, I'm specialized in writing about social media, Internet culture, Twitch, and streamers.
Many things can be considered vulgar if you think about them long enough, apparently, even truck nuts. While some people may use them to give their inner child a good laugh, it’s probably not a good idea to hang them up in Idaho—where lawmakers recently voted to make these kinds of displays illegal.
What the heck are truck nuts? It’s a type of decoration that people put on trucks. More specifically, they’re fake balls meant to resemble male testicles that truck owners hang over their back bumpers. After all, there’s nothing that says that your truck is manly more than a pair of swinging cojones.
Truck nuts were created in ‘90s but experienced a sharp rise in popularity in the in the mid-to-late 2000s, popping up on TV shows and becoming more widely known.
Idaho bans truck nuts. Not everyone thinks truck nuts are funny. In late March, the Republican-controlled Legislature in Idaho passed HB 270, an indecent exposure law largely aimed at preventing the exposure of “adult female breasts” and “male breasts altered to look like female breasts.” Interestingly, the law also banned displaying “toys or products intended to resemble male or female genitals.” (Breastfeeding is exempt).
Exposing one’s genitals was already illegal in the state. This update just adds breasts and toys to the books.
HB 270 applies to public places or any place where there is another person offended by the display. First offenses of the law are considered misdemeanors, but authorities can charge anyone with more than three offenses over five years with a felony. The law has already been signed by the governor and gone into effect.
What supporters say. Sebastian Griffin, a local city council member in Idaho, helped draft HB 270, according to the Idaho Capital Sun. He told lawmakers that he felt the bill was necessary after an experience at a Pride event in Nampa, a city west of Boise. At the event, Griffin said he saw a “woman who was topless exposing herself.”
“Shocked by this, I went over and saw a local Nampa police officer and said, ‘why hasn’t this individual been asked to either number one, cover up or number two, leave?’” Griffin said when recalling the incident. “And to my surprise, the officer said what that person’s doing isn’t illegal.”
Griffin explained that this is because it’s not illegal for a man to go around topless.
What detractors say. However, opponents of the law say that it’s more harmful than it appears. They claim it could be used to punish transgender people in the state and males undergoing hormonal treatment to enlarge breasts.
Melissa Wintrow, a Democrat and the state Senate Minority Leader, said the law violates the First Amendment by criminalizing expression that “we don’t like.” That includes truck nuts.
“They’re gross, they’re offensive, and kids on the road see them. So why wouldn’t the police get a call and say, ‘That offends me, pull it off the truck?’” Wintrow stated. “Because now this bill will allow it. And I talked to police, and they said, ‘Indeed it would.’”
The bottom line. This isn’t the first time lawmakers have gone after truck nuts. In the late-2000s, lawmakers in Florida, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina tried to ban them or impose fines on people for displaying them, but none were successful.
In recent years, lawmakers around the country have been trying to regulate what they consider to be explicit or obscene content. In Texas, for instance, some want to ban sex toys at Walmart while others try to classify anime as child porn.
Maybe truck nuts are next in the Lone Star state, too.
Images | whizchickenonabun | Devlin Thompson
Related | Texas Prevents People From Owning More Than 6 Dildos. Now Lawmakers Want to Ban Sex Toys at Walmart
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