Sex and How It Sells
February 28, 2004
SEX is sweeter than sugar. And it doesn't rot your teeth or make you fat.
In fact, according to the inaugural (2001) annual report of Queensland's Prostitution Licensing Authority, the sex industry in Australia is of equivalent economic significance to Australia's sugar industry.
And sugar, according to industry group Canegrowers, contributes more than $4 billion a year directly and indirectly to the Australian economy.
Remember that the PLA's sugar comparison relates to just the prostitution side of the sex business in Australia.
Nick Inskip, the president of the Queensland Adult Business Association – which represents legal brothel owners in the state – estimates that the prostitution business in Queensland is worth $300 million to $400 million a year, "and that's probably on the lean side".
Indeed, with only 13 licensed brothels in Queensland (Inskip is one of Purely Blue's licensees), the QABA believes that some 75 per cent of the state's prostitution business is illegal.
But then so is much of the sunshine state's vast and rapidly growing adult industry: an industry where highly restrictive legislation – or outright prohibition in some areas – tends to nurture a profitable underground economy.
Queensland now boasts more than 100 adult stores, almost all of which brazenly flout the state's strict censorship laws.
These are not dingy little shops hidden at the back of seedy arcades where men in raincoats slink out with brown paper bags full of risque magazines.
Today's Queensland adult retail outlet is more likely to be conspicuous in its presence – often advertising in newspapers and on radio. It's usually brightly lit, with a small supermarket feel to it, and sales staff who probably consider themselves more as "lifestyle consultants" than porn peddlars. There is very little embarrassment in the adult business in Queensland today.
Take this weekend's Sexpo at the Brisbane Convention Centre, where some 25,000 people are expected to pay $18 each to visit a trade show with more than 70 exhibitors.
That's close to $500,000 in gate takings alone – before you consider the sales inside the exhibition where stands include adult retailers, body piercing, brothels, sex toys, lingerie and leather goods, intimate photography, strippers and website dating.
It is a vast industry that spans everything from erotic DVDs to herbal aphrodisiacs to adult internet sites, and seemingly dozens of strip clubs in the style of Bad Girls.
The wider public acceptance of the industry is illustrated by the fact that three "adult" groups are now listed on the Australian Stock Exchange: brothel owner Daily Planet; and retailer/distributor Gallery Global Networks and adultshop.com.
Adultshop.com was the first of the adult groups to go public, and was built around a chain of adult stores (Barbarella's) in Western Australia and online retailing. Since then it has acquired mail-order video/DVD distributor AXIS, and wholesale group Calvista Australia.
Calvista general manager Hui Newnham says it produces about 10,000 DVDs a week for distribution in Australia. That's some half a million X-rated movies a year, from just one company.
Groups such as Calvista estimate the bulk of the adult retail market in Australia (books, toys and films) to be worth $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion a year.
But Newnham says legally compliant operators such as Calvista and Gallery make up only about 40 per cent of the wholesale market. The rest at best operate in a grey zone, or at worst, just flog pirated material that would be unlikely to pass muster with the Office of Film and Literature Classification.
Federal law permits X-rated material; states and territories ban its sale – well, sort of – which has given rise to Canberra's thriving mail-order business.
X material censorship guidelines, are so strict Calvista takes three months to get a new DVD title approved and on the shelves. Bootleggers distribute imported unclassified (illegal) material direct from dock to retailers.
It's the same at the retail end, where OFLC-approved material often makes up only a small proportion of titles on sale.
And remember that everywhere except the ACT and Northern Territory it is technically illegal to sell such material.
Queensland has by far the most draconian laws, and outlaws the sale of any X material as well as banning the sale of category 1 or 2 classified literature (explicit magazines and books such as American Psycho).
This flies in the face of federal censorship legislation providing for a more pragmatic, albeit heavily regulated, environment.
In Queensland, in a legal brothel, you can pay for sex with a total stranger, but it is illegal for a retailer to sell you an erotic video depicting the same act, to take home and watch with your partner. You can log on to the Internet and view all manner of unfiltered material ranging from the suggestive to the depraved, but are not allowed to buy a magazine any more explicit than People or Picture.
But virtually no one in Australia heeds the laws, and the police (in Queensland the Office of Fair Trading) usually have better things to do than try to ping people for selling naughty books or movies. The bottom line is that, without explicit material, an adult retailer would go out of business.
Adult Retailers Association state president Malcolm Wylie says the industry hopes to move state censorship laws into the 21st century via a High Court challenge.
The case is being brought by retailer John Lark (who founded the Australian version of Hustler magazine). Lark was nabbed for selling banned material, and has been fighting the charges all the way from a Brisbane magistrate's court. He is now seeking leave to appeal to the High Court, arguing that Queensland's censorship laws are in breach of the Consitution.
The High Court challenge is based on a legal precedent set in 1994 when the Keating government challenged Tasmania's anti-homosexual laws. Basically the laws were overturned because the court found they breached the sexual rights of consenting adults in private which is what Lark argues Queensland's censorship laws do.
"If we keep bending over rather than fighting back we'll be back in the dark ages," Lark says. "The irony is if they (governments) legalised and regulated (explicit material) you would get rid of a lot of the demand, as well as getting rid of the disreputable operators."
Wylie estimates the adult retail industry in Queensland (excluding mail order) conservatively represents a business of about $25 million a year and employs more than 500 people.
"We are somewhat unique in that we are an industry that actually wants regulation.
"I just wish the Government would realise that we do exist. People buy our products regardless, and if they moved the laws out of the Victorian era the only things that would change is more tax revenue for Queensland, more employment, and less backyard operators selling questionable material."
Wylie describes the visible – legitimate but still illegal under Queensland law – side of the industry as "the tip of the iceberg".
In this week's South East Advertiser there is a classified ad for "Absolute adult mobile video. Exchange VHS DVD. 7 days. R18 ".
"Ross" answers the mobile phone number and assures you that the movies he sells are actually X-rated.
"I'm sort of a black marketeer," he says. "None of this has been chopped (censored)." He home delivers. Just check your local paper.
National adult industry lobby group Eros says some 13 per cent of the Brisbane Central federal electorate is on its mailing list: that is, households which have bought adult material from one of their member companies in recent years.
Eros executive director Robbie Swan says there are now more than 1000 adult shops in Australia and the industry segment is the fastest growing retail sector in Australia.
And that's what Eros can track. It doesn't include our back-of-the-car bootleggers, or the many suburban video stores selling prohibited material under the counter.
As well as a thriving adult retail trade Brisbane is also a world leader when it comes to internet pornography.
Some of the biggest website operators in the adult arena have come out of Brisbane – names such as Greg Lasrado who pioneered much of the world's adult content on the net. These days Lasrado has largely withdrawn from site-hosting in favour of other IT service ventures such as billing systems.
Still, others have stayed in the game, with suggestions in the industry this week that one well-known local operator was the major online beneficiary of hosting the notorious Paris Hilton sex video.
Local online adult entrepreneurs have an international reputation as the Brisbane porn mafia.
Online, even companies such as TransACT BroadBand – in which blue chip industrial company AGL is a shareholder – make a squillion from sex. One industry player estimates close to 40 per cent of its video-on-demand business is X-rated material in the ACT. "And it's extremely profitable. Normal movies take up 2 hours of broadband time; the average watch for an X-rated feature is 15 minutes."
Nothing like a quick buck.