AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND — The Auckland City Councilor insists that it was nothing more than “indecent exposure around the country and around the world,” but not everybody agrees with him.”It’s shabby and it’s sleazy and we don’t need it,” councilor Scott Milne adds for emphasis.
Nonetheless, thousands of tourists, locals, students, and professionals — most of them male — took time to soak in the sight and snap more than a few photos of 25 topless porn stars riding down Auckland’s Queen Street during this Wednesday’s increasingly infamous “Boobs on Bikes” parade.
Although some went out of their way to register their objection with banners that read “Sleaze Brings Disease in Body & Mind,” parade organizer Steve Crow is unfazed and unimpressed. “You’ll always have a vocal minority,” he says stoically, “you’re always going to have people who object to everything, be it religion or be it adult entertainment.”
His solution for those who found his promotional parade offensive is simple. “If you don’t like it, don’t come.”
Those who did come to the parade, organized in part to promote Crow’s “Erotica Expo,” including about 4,000 local trade unionists who took a break from an organized protest to watch the collection of local and international sex stars cruise down the street for 30 minutes in the chill wind. In addition to the many motorcycles, there was also a leather pant wearing man carried along on a decommissioned army tank.
The parade went off without incident, with police reminding opponents that New Zealand does not regard the exposure of breasts in public to be indecent. Some believe that the crowd for “Boobs on Bikes” exceeded the city’s annual Santa Parade.
Mayor Dick Hubbard has vowed to review local laws in order to prevent future events such as Crow’s, which he believes “does our image harm rather than good.”
