The decriminalisation of pornography has opened a serious loophole: Pornographers (like Steve Crow) can market hardcore porn to indiscriminate audiences, including children of any age, provided the advertisement is not pornographic in itself. (Advertising Standards Authority decision 08/034 re. Vixen Direct promotional vehicle.)

We organised a protest against Erotica Expo advertising in Palmerston North (2007) after realising that the advertising billboards for the Expo and promotional vehicles in the 'boobs on bikes' parade displayed website addresses that hosted, or led to, hardcore online pornography.

Children could access these websites as a direct result of seeing the Expo billboards, or watching the 'boobs on bikes' parade.

Children who access these websites, particularly the Vixen Direct website, will be immediately exposed to images of men and women engaged in vaginal, anal, and oral sex.

The Erotica Expo site has previouly (November 2007) linked to an American hardcore porn website that would allow children to access a plethora of hardcore pornographic images and movies. The Erotica website now gives contacts for brothels, but there is no guarantee that it will not again be linked to hardcore porn sites in the future.

It would be illegal for us to show this hardcore porn to our own under-aged children.

In addition to the above, the parade legitimises gang activities, and gang exploitation of women, as the sex industry is largely gang-controlled, and women from the local sex industry are usually involved in the parades.

Parents are having a hard enough time trying to keep their kids safe online without Mr Crow and his parade grooming them as future porn consumers.

Parents don't need gang culture promoted to their kids, either.

There are restrictions on where pornographic magazines may legally be displayed, and stringent regulations around advertising for commercial sex. Consistent with these restrictions, legislation needs to be introduced to prohibit the direct marketing of porn to children.