ondear For 10 years the creator of the Honey Birdette lingerie range has been battling people who complain about the appearance of women’s breasts in her advertising campaigns.
One year she had an image banned because it showed too much “side cleavage”.
Today, it’s the image above that has caused all the fuss.
After receiving a complaint, the image has been banned by the Australian Ad Standards Bureau for breaching Section 2.4 of the Code which states that “Advertising or Marketing Communications shall treat sex, sexuality, and nudity with sensitivity to the relevant audience”.
It’s one of seven pictures that appears on digital billboards in Honey Birdette lingerie stores around Australia. But this particular shot that shows the “Issy” range, has been deemed too racy because it exposes minors to “inappropriate marketing” by using “highly sexual images”.
The big problem with this particular shot? You can see the models’ nipples.
Monaghan — who finds the image “beautiful” — deems it all utterly ridiculous and is clearly exasperated.
“Are they standing there with a magnifying glass looking for the nipple?” she said in an interview with news.com.au.
The free-the-nipple movement is something that is obviously close to Monaghan’s heart. She points out that there’s no issue with showing a complete topless male in an advertisement, and someone even joked that perhaps they should try photoshopping a man’s nipple into the pictures to make them acceptable.
She says it’s a small group of “Christian fundamentalists” who have an issue with the campaigns.
“It’s this same group from Adelaide … they’ve vandalized our stores and abused our girls [who work in the store]”.
“They hired a space [that is available for busking] outside the Adelaide store to protest recently”.
Complaints about Honey Birdette on the Collective Shout website include one from an “appalled mother” who says she was walking through a shopping center with her 4-year-old son when she saw an inappropriate image in the store window.
“I have to go towards it and past it to get to the Kmart, essentially. Their current campaign is for white lacy teddies/negligees and in the full-size posters, there are nipples clearly visible. I feel like this is wholly inappropriate for a public shopping center, they’d never be able to use those images in prime time to advertise, so why do I have to subject my young son to that imagery when all I wanted was to go get him some new shoes for preschool?”