BDSM MEDIA NEWS!!!!
08 june 2011
Yarra bondage gag order no joke
Source: www.melbournetimesweekly.com.au - Melbournetimesweekly.com.au - Australia
AUSTRALIA - YARRA - YARRA Council has censored advertising because one person has found it offensive.
The Polyester Books A-frame which depicts a "consensual bondage" scene has been on Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, for 18 years. But a single complaint lodged with the Advertising Standards Bureau last year led council to ban it unless, it is altered.
"Essentially we know exactly where they stand, they want the gag off [the girl in the cartoon]," store owner Joanne Emslie said.
She refuted the ASB and Council's view that the sign contained "implied violence".
"It's a cartoon, it's consensual and it's been there for 18 years without anyone objecting to it until now," she said.
A "censored by Yarra City Council" sticker was placed over the sign, but despite the alteration, the council rejected a permit to renew the street space for the A-frame sign on Brunswick Street last September.
Yarra Councillor Jackie Fristacky said the street sign had the potential to offend families with young children, however she said the council did not object to the same design being used inside the store.
"I just want to make it clear that council does not object to anything within the store itself, we are concerned with what is on the street," she said.
Mrs Emslie said the reaction from the council was proof of Fitzroy's rising conservatism caused by gentrification. She said she and Polyester co-owner husband Adam Emslie were torn between "not wanting to offend" and maintaining the "true spirit of counter culture Fitzroy".
Mrs Emslie said while a "Save the Polyester Girls" Facebook page got more than 900 fans, the store was working with artists to find a solution that did not detract from the artistic merit of the original design.
