Battle Over T-shirts
In 1996, City Council specifically defined and outlawed what it found to be obscene in the corporate limits of Myrtle Beach. The ordinance was almost as titillating as anything a T-shirt vendor could print. It prohibited selling or wearing “any depiction or description . . . of any sexual intercourse; masturbation; sadomasochistic abuse; sexual penetration with an inanimate object; sodomy; bestiality; uncovered genitals, buttocks or female breast; defecation or urination; covered genitals in an obvious state of sexual stimulation or arousal; or the fondling or other erotic touching of genitals, the pubic region, buttocks or female breasts.”
With that perfectly clear, Boulevard T-shirt vendors were reduced to peddling tamer material. Today, the T-shirt trade celebrates Myrtle Beach and Southern culture, as well as such hedonistic and working class ideals as Fords, Chevrolets, spring break, biker rallies, drugs (“Why Go To High School When You Can Go To School High?”), alcohol (“One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor!”), misogyny (“Treat Me Like the Bitch That I Am”), alcohol and misogyny (“15 Reasons Why A Beer Is Better Than A Woman”). But no breasts, buttocks or pubic regions.
