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SCMP Reporter

THE only place you will find a whip in Lancaster, California, is at the local saddlery. And if you have a fetish for handcuffs you will have to break the law.

 Kinky sex is banned in this desert township, just 100 kilometres north of Hollywood - a place where every whim of the flesh is catered for.

 ''If you want a whip and harness the only place you'll get one around here is at the livery stables,'' says Mr George Root, the rather inappropriately named mayor and moral guardian of Lancaster.

 Two months ago the local council passed a law which has outraged many of its 100,000 residents. Ordinance 619 - adopted unanimously by the town's five- member council, which includes a Baptist priest and Bible school teacher, makes it illegal for merchants to sell any kind of ''sado- masochistic devices'' such as whips, chains, handcuffs and leather harnesses.

 Ironically, in the town of Palmdale, a mere 13 kilometres from Lancaster, bondage accessories are legally for sale.

 California beach girls are not welcome in Lancaster either - the ordinance also effectively outlaws the wearing of bikinis.

 The law states that clothing which exposes more than 25 per cent of the breasts or buttocks is not permissible. Lancaster is inhabited by mainly military families as it is situated only 30 kilometres from Edwards Air Force Base, the landing location for the space shuttle missions.

 It is also the town where the US Air Force's top-secret Stealth bomber was developed - residents regularly complain of earthquake-like jolts apparently caused by the superfast fighter's sonic boom.

 Chief opponent of the ordinance is Mr Greg Poulin, 38, who for the past five years has operated the Fun Zone, the only store in town which sells sex devices.

 He says religious fanatics have moved in under Lancaster's radar net undetected.

 ''This ordinance did not start in Lancaster - it comes from a group of well-organised fundamentalist Christians at the National Family Law Centre in Washington D.C. who want to take away Americans' right to control their own bodies and what they do with them in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

 ''These people are well-financed and their single objective is to eliminate pornography and convert people to their religion. I've been to one of their meetings and they want to take over the government with their own candidates.''  The mayor says the ordinance was drawn up after a Los Angeles businessman applied for a permit to build a porno theatre in town. He denies the council is being prudish.

He said that sex shops lowered property values. Under the new law which prevents a sex shop operating within 60 metres of any school, church, public building or place where children may see it, Mr Poulin must relocate his business within a year.

 ''There's nowhere in town that's far enough away from any of those places - I would have to open in the middle of the desert where there is no water or electricity,'' said Mr Poulin, who claims to get more than 2,000 customers a week.

 He is not budging and after consulting a group of First Amendment lawyers he organised a petition to force a local referendum to repeal the law.

 Needing 10 per cent of registered voters he says in two weeks he got double the figure required and took 8,000 signatures to city hall.

 A bitter battle is being waged between council chiefs, who claim they are acting as moral guardians and some townsfolk who claim their basic human rights are being taken away.

 Lawyers from both sides are ready to argue the right and wrongs of the ordinance in court.

 During his signature campaign, Mr Poulin claims religious opponents were intimidating townspeople who signed his petition by videotaping them.

 Not willing to call an expensive poll which would cost an estimated US$300,000 (HK$2.34 million) in taxpayer's money, the council backed down and agreed to amend a clause which banned the sale of marital aids.

 Originally the ordinance would have prohibited the sale of some aids because the council argued that their shared use spread the AIDS virus.

 ''Of course, we spoke to health experts that had never heard of a single instance where this had happened anywhere and supported their use as abstinence is the best cure for AIDS,'' said Mr Poulin.

 Vice-mayor and Baptist minister the Reverend Henry Hearnes, said: ''Sex is the root of all evil and we are doing something about it. This council wants to be the first to stand up for family values and morals.''  Mr Poulin says the main problem is that the council is being controlled by religious fanatics. ''They say they brought in the law because sex promotes violence. They use shocking words like rape and child abuse but if you take away porno tapes and men's magazines you will have worse problems.

 ''This will become a town of frustrated people who will not be able to release their frustrations in their own home. They will go out on the streets and there will be an increase in sexually-motivated crime.''  Mr Hearnes says he believes the council has started a movement that will grow throughout the world in the '90s.

 ''Decent citizens are fed up with the corruption that sex brings,'' he said.



The town where kinky sex is taboo