“What’s ‘Kinkmas’, Mummy?” This is the kind of question parents might be fielding from their young children in family shopping centres this Christmas, thanks to Honey Birdette’s BDSM-themed shopfront advertising.

When adults deliberately expose children to adult, sexualised and pornographic content, this is known as grooming. Honey Birdette’s grooming of children is made possible through the collaboration and support of the shopping centres that host them.

Grassroots campaigning movement Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation has released its annual ‘Crossed Off’ list.

First launched 15 years ago, the blacklist is a curated line-up of company offenders who have objectified women and sexualised girls to sell products and services through the year.
 
This list serves as a guide for consumers who wish to spend their Christmas shopping dollar ethically. 

Every year in the lead up to Christmas we release our Crossed Off list – an annual blacklist of business offenders who objectify women and sexualise girls in their advertising, products and services – and call on our supporters to boycott these unethical companies.

This is our 15th Crossed off blacklist to help guide you in your shopping choices.

This year’s list includes a number of repeat offenders as well as new additions we thought you should know about.

The lineup includes Melbourne-based t.shirt company Teepublic (owned by Articore) for trading in violence against women, global e.commerce giant Shein for sexualising children in products and advertising, and repeat offender - with 80 advertising ethics code violations to its name, Honey Birdette.

Once again we’re asking supporters to send these companies a message that we don’t tolerate business practices which cause real harm to women and girls. If they don’t understand Corporate Social Responsibility, perhaps losing money might help them see its importance.

Looking for ethical alternatives? Check out our CSR Pledge Partners – companies which refuse to profit from objectifying portrayals of women and girls. Please reward them for doing the right thing!

Family mall sex store racks up new violations for 'exploitative' and 'overtly sexual' ads

*Content warning (Note: These larger-than-life shop window ads were shown to children in family shopping centres across the country)

Honey Birdette was found in breach of advertising Code of Ethics nine times in a single month. It's a new record for the Playboy-owned and Westfield resident sex store chain.

The sex store can throw out words like “strength”, “confidence” and “autonomy” all they want (sounds like someone has been using a thesaurus!) but it doesn’t make them true

After two more porn-themed ads upheld by Ad Standards, sex store defends its objectification of women for profit

Ad Standards has upheld complaints against two more porn-themed ads by Playboy-owned sex store Honey Birdette, with complaints now upheld against more than 80 separate ads.

A local community member made a complaint to Ad Standards over two different ads at Lakeside Joondalup, one featuring a woman in sheer lingerie pulling down her bra strap, and the other featuring a woman in sheer lingerie reclining while pushing her breasts together. Read the case report here. 

Porn themed ads which present women as objects to an audience that includes children. We are battling a scourge of violence against women and sexual grooming of children. I object to this company contributing to a culture which normalises these harms in my community.

It’s been a big month for us here at Collective Shout! Our message has attracted a lot of mainstream media attention. From the harms of porn and porn-themed ads, the exploitation of girls on Instagram, and the campaign to raise the age for social media access, our voice is being heard.

Since the beginning of our movement, we’ve been calling out the sexualisation and objectification of women and girls. We’ve argued that sexualising, objectifying and porn-themed representations of women – particularly when they are normalised, unremarkable and make up the backdrop to our lives – shape attitudes towards women. Essentially, when women are portrayed as sexual objects existing for men’s sexual entertainment and use, this has real-world consequences for women and girls.

Days after we exposed sex store Honey Birdette’s 74^th advertising ethics violation, our campaign on the failures of ad industry self-regulation has attracted national media attention.

Media Release

Shopping centre sex stores Honey Birdette hits 74th advertising violation

Playboy-owned sex shop Honey Birdette has been found in breach of the Australian Association of National Advertisers code of ethics for the 74th time. The latest Ad Standards rulings related to three p*rn themed window displays. 

Since 2010, Ad Standards has investigated over 160 complaints about Honey Birdette promotions, upholding complaints against 74* – three in the last month alone. Two separate ads were deemed to have a “high level of nudity” and found in breach of Section 2.4 of the Code.

Three breaches in one month for Playboy sex shop

Ad Standards has issued rulings on a new set of pornified Honey Birdette shop window ads after a series of community complaints. The decisions came just weeks after Honey Birdette attracted its 70th ad violation for breaching the Australian Association of National Advertisers Code of Ethics.