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Call for bans on school uniforms |
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Written by fiona patten
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Thursday, 27 January 2011 11:35 |
Calls by a national child activist group to ban the sale and display of school uniform costumes from adult shops, were misguided and a further indication that Australia was turning into the nanny state.
Kids Free 2B Kids founder, Julie Gale, has called for the action after a Melbourne adult shop featured a window display with a ‘back to school’ theme, including adult sized school uniforms and a blackboard
Australian Sex Party convenor, Fiona Patten, said that the display had absolutely nothing to do with children and was aimed at adult women who enjoyed dressing up and playing with fantasy roles. “These costumes are worn to a variety of events like school reunions and office parties where there is no sexual connotation at all. But even when they are being worn by women who enjoy dressing up sexually for their partners, Ms Gale has no right to try and tell women how they should behave in the bedroom”, she said. “This is the same as telling Muslim women they shouldn’t be wearing burquas, nuns that they shouldn’t be wearing habits or young women out for the night that they shouldn’t be wearing provocative clothing. Women should be free to wear whatever they want to”.
Ms Patten said that Australia had a solid tradition of adult performers dressing up in school uniforms. “Chrissie Amphlett from the Divinyls and Angus Young from AC/DC are creative performers and great role models for aspiring musicians who both chose school uniforms with varying degrees of sexual overtures for their signature acts”, she said. “Plenty of young people have watched these performers over the years without turning into rapists or nymphomaniacs.”
Eros Association President Suzy Humphries, who owns the Brisbane based fantasy/fetish clothing companies, Leg Avenue and Picone, is one of the major suppliers to the adult and costume hire industries. “Dressing up in an angel’s outfit does not mean you are religious” she said. “School uniforms are big business at school reunions these days and Book Week now sees teachers dressing up as students and students dressing as teachers. Dressing up in a school outfit is fun – not pornographic”.
According to industry sources the three biggest sellers in adult fantasy costumes were french maid, nurse and schoolgirl and that over the last few years sales in fantasy costumes have increased by 70%. One Melbourne wholesaler said that the biggest increase in spending on these three lines had occurred during the height of the Global Financial Crisis and had not dropped back since.
Ms Gale stated that the sale of school uniforms through adult shops ‘legitimised child pornography’. Ms Patten said that this assertion was not only outrageous but detracted from the real issue of child sexual abuse by equating adult’s dress ups with the real and actual abuse of children.
Fiona Patten 0413 734 613
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