Spectator

Slumped in front of the flickering thin white tube in the early hours one recent morning 1 was startled to hear what I thought was a private conversation between two very excited ladies emanating from the box. What was going on? Had the telly crossed its wires with a telephone line? Memories of happy hours spent eavesdropping on the local matrons over primitive party lines came flooding back. I remembered how, as a bored brat, I savoured the goings on at Number 42 Mother's Ruin Way and the talk about Widow Ramsbottom at Number 3 "throwing herself at the milkman like that... and her husband barely cold in the grave and all."

But times and priorities change, and these breathless chatter-boxes, late at night on TV4, were not discussing the neighbours, or for that matter Doris Bonkers' famous date scones. The subject instead was sex. Erotic sex.

I learned about the joys of crotchless knickers. Amazed, I heard of a team of Wellington women who make "really unique" dildoes and a company that does a good line in whips and paddles. There was talk of "Penthouse Pets", porn stars and body bits. "We're bringing body bits into New Zealand!" squealed one. "It's a moulding kit! You can get your breasts done! You can get your butt done! You can put your hand in it! It immortalises those bits that are going to change... hahahaha!" gasped the other. She paused dramatically, "I did actually have a part of my body dipped in Australia." Good grief, what fresh hell was this? A sort of radio with pictures talkback show called Teletrader, it transpired. The ladies were promoting Erotica, an adult concepts and lifestyle exposition modelled on the successful SEXPO exhibitions held in Australia three times a year. The Aussies and the rest of the world have been doing this caper for years. It was a first for us.

Poll research from the 1999 Melbourne SEXPO revealed that of the 70,000 visitors, 44 per cent were female and 60 per cent were "part of a couple". In Auckland on that wet afternoon, if we have to make comparisons, the "part of a couple" far outnumbered the women, and wore damp anoraks, down-at-heel brothel creepers and that haunted look which blokes adopt when they've just been caught doing something disgusting, which is most of the time. Not a sight to savour.

Do any of these sorry arses really get laid? Probably not, and that is why The Den, transplanted from K' Road, attracted so much attention. Every Tom, Dick and train-spotter ogled the display cabinets of sex toys and accessories. And why not? Think about it. When the only thing that goes off in their permapress pants is a cellphone and they send a Valentines card to their hands each year, it makes perfect sense.

How could a lone wolf in cheap clothing resist the Island Babe Lovedoll? She comes in a box (I really should rephrase that) and "Hot Tropical Sex" is what she likes. "Erupt in my three loving passages. Ravage my voluptuous breasts. Run your fingers through my sandy blond hair." You are also instructed to "Strip off your grass skirt and take me hard!" It was hard not to burst out laughing.

Auckland's first attempt at setting the town's sheets on fire was bound to ruffle a few feathers. Sure enough, in the Challenge Weekly, a Christian newspaper "proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ", a scandalised Graham Lee, pastor, former member of Parliament and head of the Christian Democrats, stated in a piece headed "Sex Industry Becomes Outragiously [sic) Blatant" that Erotica is a new moral low for the country, an attack on families and the values of society. "This kind of thing used to be limited to backstreets and hidden joints. We all know that massage parlours are just cover-ups for brothels and places of deviated sex practices." Lee hoped Erotica would be a financial failure and earnestly encouraged his followers of the faith to boycott the venue, the Logan Campbell Centre, "and at the same time remind ourselves that Logan Campbell himself was an outstanding city father. He would be spinning in his grave if he knew about this."

If anyone stayed away in their droves it was the placard-waving protesters. There was hardly anything to protest about. Everything on display under glass or in the flesh could be purchased or drooled over in Fort Street or on K' Road any time of the day or night: strippers, lap dancers, bits of string and lace which passed for underwear, and leather hoods and floggers for those fun, intimate moments that send Wayne and Shirl straight into the tratosphere on a Saturday night after they've done the dishes.

How anyone kept a straight face at the Eef Jays stand was remarkable. A real mum, dad and the kid enterprise this. Dad in his jolly hand-knitted red beanie with a nodding pom-pom and Swanndri, looked as though he had just crawled out of the bush. The kid, the wrong side of 40, had still not mastered the art of a successful comb-over, and Mum bore an alarming resemblance to Patricia Bartlett, the former nun who was the scourge of the sex trade three decades ago. This trio's line of business was dildoes and back issues of Hustler magazine.

Other adult lifestyle choices abounded. One stallholder sold Swiss vegetable peelers. Another put Der Dicke through its paces (Der Dicke is a German carrot grater). A company called Good Look sold lubricants - for shoes. A man armed with a dinky little machine churned out pasta. Imagine getting caught writhing and aked under the duvet with one of those! Or bags of worm castings (batteries not included) from the hydroponics stand? A native bird whistle for $3?

If these are the tough R18 decisions made by responsible grownups in this country then we are in real trouble. At this rate we will never become the Amsterdam of the South Seas. Paul Subritzsky will be pleased. The national director of the Promise Keepers echoed Pastor Lee's fears in the Challenge Weekly. "The enemy is trying to capture the thoughts of men through events such as this in an area that they continue to struggle with." Christian men, he told us, are just as susceptible to the temptations of the sex industry as men the world over - hardly surprising when it is a scientifically proven fact that blokes think about bonking their brains out every few seconds.

In a deeply ironic twist, the Promise Keepers are holding their conference at the same venue this month. By this Subritzsky is untroubled. "The conference provides an effective way to counter the negative effects of the Erotica exhibition by promoting standards of Christian living based on holiness and righteousness."

And, may I suggest, a team of commercial cleaners armed with ammonia, scrubbing brushes and an industrial-strength waterhlaster.