Lap dance ad 'too provocative'

2007-04-03 15:42

Cape Town - A Mavericks billboard showing a scantily clad woman performing a lap dance has been given the thumbs-down by the Advertising Standards Authority.

The ASA ruling followed a complaint by a Cape Town woman, Jeanne-Marie Webb, about the billboard, which was located at the Koeberg interchange in the city.

According to the ASA, it showed a woman dressed in lingerie, straddled across a man during a lap dance.

Two more men were watching and laughing. The payoff line read: "A true gentlemen delights in the fortune of his fellows."

Although the advertisement has been removed since the complaint, strip club Mavericks told the ASA it intended to use it on a billboard again.

The directorate said it had asked for an opinion from child psychiatrist Dr Lynda Albertyn, who noted there was increasing evidence that children's exposure to sexual or pornographic images turned them into sexual predators.

Wrong place for the ad

Albertyn had said the Mavericks ad was not necessarily pornographic, but was sexually suggestive, and it would not be in the interest of small children to be exposed to it.

In its ruling, the directorate said the Koeberg interchange was a busy public road used by people of all ages.

"While such an image might be appropriate in different media, where children are not readily exposed to it, it cannot reasonably be argued that placing a visual representation of an activity reserved for adults only in a prominent and public domain would be beneficial to children," it said.

It said it was not condemning advertising of adult entertainment venues.

However, this advertising should be placed in suitable surroundings and in an appropriate medium.

- SAPA