The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has given the thumbs down to strip club Teazers’ ”no need for gender testing” billboard in Johannesburg.
In a ruling published on its website, it said the billboard was an offence to the dignity of athlete Caster Semenya, as well as too sexually explicit.
The decision followed complaints by nine people, most of them women.
The billboard, put up in Rivonia Road in Sandton, Johannesburg last month, shows a naked woman lying on her back accompanied by the words, ”no need for gender testing”.
Teazers boss Lolly Jackson denied at the time it had anything to do with Semenya, whose gender was called into question after winning the 800m gold medal at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin earlier this year.
He did, however, send a R20 000 cheque to her lawyer.
The ASA said that in response to the complaints, Teazers had declared that the complainants appeared to have a moral vendetta against its business, and that it had never objectified women.
Teazers had ”addressed specific inconsistencies in the complaints insofar as the description of the image”.
”It [Teazers] added that the lady is not naked, but is wearing very expensive shoes,” the ASA said.
Teazers had also submitted that the billboard was conceived before the Semenya controversy was made public.
However, the ASA rejected this claim.
”Effectively, the respondent’s billboard would be interpreted as ridiculing Semenya’s gender status and the ordeal she has had to endure,” it said.
”As such, it would likely be perceived as offensive against current public sensitivities.
”There is nothing before the [ASA] directorate to show that this offence is reasonable based on human dignity.”
It said the billboard carried a clear sexual message that even children would recognise.
It was not condemning advertising of adult entertainment venues, but the adverts should in an ”appropriate medium” and placed in suitable surroundings.
It ordered Teazers to, in standard ASA phraseology, ”withdraw the billboard in its current format”. — Sapa