Hold the sleaze, please at NZ's first 'Sexpo'

By TIM WATKINS

There are a few giggles and wicked smiles, the odd nudge and wink. But mostly the punters walk among the stalls and watch the dancers as if they are checking out tractors at an A&P show.

Faces, not quite sure what expression to wear when confronted with huge dildos and strip shows, are masked with blank stares.

This is Erotica - over 50 stalls making up New Zealand's first "adult concepts and lifestyle expo."

The layout at the NZ Expo Centre in Greenlane, Auckland, is familiar to anyone used to lifestyle shows, but the products are more S&M than A&P.

Organiser Fiona Gibb got the idea from Australia, where "sexpos" have been running for six years and now have marketing budgets of $A1 million ($1.27 million). She says it is part-business, part-crusade.

"I had a real passion to change people's perception about the adult industry. I've always thought adult services need to come out of the closet."

Lap-dancing company Smooth Sexposure, however, is trying to get people into its closet - a pink booth where it offers three-minute dances for $10. "The girls haven't even crawled out of bed yet and people have been doing laps and coming back saying, 'Is it open yet?',"says stall-holder Rachael Kirk.

The men are keen and it is men who make up the vast majority of the opening-day crowd.

"On the Friday, the men have taken time off work and snuck out," says PR officer Tracey Evington. "The girls come in on Saturday."

In Australia, over 40 per cent of sexpo visitors are women, and by lunchtime at Greenlane, more young couples are arriving. One pair are relieved to be shopping for adult products without having to sneak into "seedy little shops."

"You usually have to make sure no one is looking when you go in. But nothing here has been tacky," the man says, clutching a shopping bag.

That's the aim, says Fiona Gibb.

"Obviously we have got an R18 classification, but we've also got our own contract rules. None of the dancers can go fully nude. I don't think Mr and Mrs Suburbia needs to be faced with that in this sort of forum."

The people who rang wanting to know if they could come naked were told "No," says Tracey Evington.

"It's about awareness and demystification, but of course there is a marketing element to it.

"There's still an amount of taste there. There are certain criteria to be met," she says, waving at the porn stall-holder to lower the volume of the moans coming from his VCR.

The bigger shock for many will be the prices, rather than the products. Really, who is going to pay $450 for an inflatable bondage bed?

Down the way, Michael, an Australian lingerie salesman, has added Auckland to the Sydney-Melbourne-Perth circuit. "It's better than Sydney, not as good as Perth," he says of business.

The more cosmopolitan the city, the less the interest in sexpos, perhaps. But if you doubt that sex sells, just ask the wine merchant, pasta-maker, knife-smith or hydroponic gardener, who are all doing a healthy trade.

Still, you have to ask what their products have to do with erotica.

"I guess for someone who is into knives, this is an extremely sexy stand," says a sellers.

"It's all part of the adult lifestyle," says the gardener. Very cryptic.

The man selling snazzy kitchen knives is puzzled, too. He is turning vegetables into slightly disturbing erotic shapes, but no one is paying any attention.

"What could be more erotic than a sexy salad," he cries in desperation.

A massage parlour is doing better. The response to its $10 discount cards has been "great."

Back at the Sexposure stall, the dancers have arrived and Rachael Kirk has started a waiting list. "They're queuing up. It's an intrigue thing."

That seems to be why most of the punters are there - "out of curiosity" or "just to have a look."

As one 19-year-old says: "You don't feel like a dirty old man as much."