Gold Coast gay club’s ‘highly sexualised’ ad banned
Image: Photo: Facebook / MP's Night Club.
A Gold Coast gay club’s new public ad signage has been deemed too raunchy by the advertising standards watchdog.
A member of the public complained about the MP’s Night Club ad, which was placed in an arcade, Mumbrella has reported.
“Strip clubs that are selling sexual related services should not have signage which I have taken a picture of and can send the Ad Standard authority of the naked men and women barely dressed in a shopping centre and viable from the Street [sic],” read the complaint.
The ad image showed a pair of women and a man wearing underwear and in provocative poses.
Ad Standards has upheld the complaint, saying the ad was in a public place and could have been seen by anyone, including children.
“The poses of the women were highly sexualised, with one woman leaning towards the wall with her legs spread and the other woman standing pressed against her holding a riding crop to her buttocks,” it said in its ruling.
“The Panel determined that the advertisement did not treat the issue of sex, sexuality and nudity with sensitivity to the relevant broad audience.”
Reopening earlier this year after a major makeover, MP’s Night Club is the Gold Coast’s second LGBTI-friendly venue.
It offers entertainment from DJs and drag queens—but not the “sexual related services” that the ad complaint alleged.
Claire Kingston from MP’s Night Club said the venue had not been contacted by either the complainant or Ad Standards, hearing about the complaint only when they saw it in the media.
“We’ve had no contact from Ad Standards at all,” she said.
Regardless, the club is in the process of changing its signage, after being asked to by the management of its building complex—which is owned by the Catholic Church.
