Doing It In Public

The Dominion 12 November 2001 / David McLoughlin

It's 1pm on a drizzly Auckland afternoon and already the place is packed, just two hours after the opening of the second annual Erotica Adult Lifestyle Expo.

"We had queues at the door and 500 people through in the first hour," marvels expo director Fiona Gibb, whose girlish good looks imply butter wouldn't melt in her mouth; however, she is also New Zealand's biggest importer of pornographic videos.

The expo is three times the size of last year's and it rocks. There are two stages featuring the regular raunchy shows, giant video screens showing non-stop explicit sex, stall after stall selling such things as vibrators in all colours and styles, studded condoms, "joy jelly", magazines you would not find oat your local bookstore, leather gear and whips for bondage fans, and even a device called the Orgasmatron, used to stimulate the scalp.

In one corner of one of the two large pavilions, you can have your photo taken with a topless woman for $15, but a large crowd is enjoying the sight of two Chinese couples surrounded by at least 10 naked women. It's hard to count the exact number because they are entwined like serpents around, under and on top of the grinning four having their picture taken.

Among those watching this spectacle is a uniformed police sergeant laughing his head off. Not that many years ago, he would probably have arrested them. This is, after all, the country where actors in the musical Hair had to wear bodystockings, for the nude scene and where feminist author Germaine Greer was prosecuted for saying "bullshit" in public.

"Are you boys ready to see a bit of pussy?" Calls Australian Penthouse 2000 "pet of the year" Bree Maddox from offstage. "Yes!" they roar, and she emerges in a tiger suit, which she soon slips out of.

If any of this sounds sleazy, like an expo for dirty old men in raincoats, you're wrong. The most startling thing about it is that almost all the people packing the pavilions are couples - ordinary couples from their early 20s through to many who look in their 50s and 60s.

And it is the women who are obviously relishing it the most, roaring with delight as Bree stuffs a vibrator in her g-string and gets their men to suck on the other end of it. They're eagerly buying vibrators, big rubber penises and strings of small balls guaranteed to bring on all-day ecstasy when worn, um, internally, and they're cheering "get it off" when the male strippers come on stage.

"I've made certain we've got a lot more eye-candy for the women this time," says Ms Gibb. "We had women last year saying there were not enough guys on stage. An 87 year old told me there were not enough men."

The throngs of happy customers show how the sex industry has become mainstream, she says.

"It's not just about porn shops now. People realize there are all kinds of things that can enhance their sex lives. It's really healthy".

Last year, the expo ran for three days and drew 16,000 people. This year's which ended yesterday, is a four-day event and Ms Gibb is confident it will have drawn many more.

Many of the exhibits are not overtly sex-related. The pro-cannabis lobby group Norml has a stall opposite a "garden centre" which sells products that look remarkably capable of being used to cultivate and smoke the stuff. Another sells mineral water, another home saunas.

Proving that some men see big sets of wheels as penis extensions, a huge blue plastic penis stands erect above a motorbike exhibition. The sign on one of the bikes reads: "Do you have a big one?"

There are also stalls for family planning, Aids education and the Prostitutes Collective, whose members are collecting signatures for a petition supporting Christchurch Central MP Tim Barnett's bill before Parliament to legalise prostitution.

"We're getting plenty of signatures, which you'd expect in a place like this," says one of them. "A lot of guys here with their girls want to sign, but you can see their girl looking at them a bit suspiciously, as if she'll go straight home and chick his Visa statement."

Down by the big stand of Vixen Direct, Ms Gibb's porn movie and sex toy company, you can meet Syren, the star of 50 films, many of them on sale here.

"I love the adult industry," says Syren, who's flown from home in Los Angeles for the expo. "When I started three years ago I was very shy, but a bit of an exhibitionist. But this business has made me very sexually empowered."

There are porn films and there are porn films. Syren says she makes only quality movies with a proper script - "visually provocative, story driven films with very hot, wild sex", not low-budget "gonzos, gangbangs and wall-to-wall videos shot in people's living rooms". Many of her films are up to 90 minutes long. In her latest, Les Vampyres, she plays … a vampire. She's also proud that her role in the film won the "best lesbian sex scene" award from XRCO (the X-rated Critics Organisation), a body of film critics from all the major American adult publications and websites.

It's hard work making porn films, she says, and her schedule is packed. She flies out of Auckland tonight for Miami where she has an engagement to dance at an adult nightclub. She is also trying to break into mainstream acting.

"I make a lot of money, this is a good business to be in. The demand for these films is growing and growing and I travel all over the States signing videos for my fans. I'm here signing from 11am to 11pm over four days and it means I really don't have any time to see much of New Zealand, but I'd like to come back."

Over at the main stage, scores of women are hooting with delight as four athletic men peel off their underpants to reveal the skimpiest g-strings imaginable.

"We'd like to have had (popular male strip group) Kiwi Fire here, but they're on tour," Ms Gibb says. "But these guys are just as good. Listen to them scream, the women love them."

She got the idea for the expo which is based on the successful Sexpo in Sydney, while traveling overseas to buy products for Vixen Direct. "I saw that and I thought, God, I can do this in New Zealand. New Zealand's ready for it." But given the financial risks involved, she's determined to be cautious about expanding it. She'll see how well next year's Auckland expo goes before considering one elsewhere in New Zealand.

"It was hard to sell to exhibitors last year because the idea was so new, but people liked it so much that exhibitors were keen to be here this time, that's why it's so much bigger. But it is still a lot of very hard work."