A note on the following post. Besides the fact that it’s entertaining news, we believe there to be a substantial civil liberties issue involved here and I, for one, consider erotica to be a legitimate form of protected expression.
Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / August 20, 2008
Parade, part of Erotica Expo, features leather-clad porn stars
By David Fox / August 19, 2008
WELLINGTON — A New Zealand court has allowed a parade of topless porn stars on motor bikes to proceed on the main street of the country’s biggest city, local media said Tuesday.
Auckland City Council had sought a court injunction to stop the “Boobs on Bikes” parade, scheduled for Wednesday, saying it breached a bylaw banning offensive public events.
But Judge Nicola Mathers said while opponents may find the parade offensive or tasteless, the fact that 80,000 people had gathered for a similar event last year meant a significant number of people did not agree with the critics, New Zealand Press Association said.
The parade on Queens St., featuring leather-clad local and international porn stars, is part of an “Erotica Expo” organized by self-styled “porn king” Steve Crow.
Source / Reuters
Thanks to Jim Retherford / The Rag Blog
T, why the defensive preamble? If we don’t all consider erotica to be an important expression of humanity as well as a medium of protected expression, then Ralph Ginzburg died in vain, and Larry Flynt’s paralysis resulted from a justified attempted murder!
Harking ahead to a later Veep post about Joe Liebermann, this gives me an idea for settling the Veep issue: Pricks on Parade!!
The original Rag, if anyone needs reminding, featured an amazing series of photos of mostly nude hippie chix on its cover for a couple of years at least, most if not all of them the work of reclusive former photographer and South Austin auto mechanic Belmer Wright. I’m told that Belmer lost all his work some time ago in a fire. I would love to see the old Rag covers; I recall them as really pretty, soft, tasteful and hip pix which, btw, sold one hell of a lot of Rags!
We also had a some “recruiting ads” for Rag volunteers which revealed the female form in parts of its glory, as editor/photographer Dreyer may recall — and I am still out here yammering for Equal Rights in this sphere as well as others:
We’ve showed you ‘ours’. Now, SHOW US YOUR BALLS!!!