On the evening of the 24th June, my wife, 3 young kids and I were returning from a fun day out and decided to drop into Westfield Fountain Gate for dinner. Unfortunately for us, we walked down a dimly lit arcade past the bright glossy shop front window of Honey Birdette. This shop front featured near naked women clad only with sheer lingerie in all their raunchy glory. These images are not something that I wanted my young kids to see, so I hurried past hoping that my kids would not notice.

My heart sank as my 4-year-old daughter suddenly shrieked, “Look! Why is she not wearing any clothes?”. Even worse, her shrieks caught the attention of my 6-year-old son, who came running and together they stared and pointed at the porn-style images trying to make sense of them.

In those brief moments, I remember feeling sad. Sad that my kids had to see these types of images and be exposed to adult concepts so young. The Honey Birdette posters depicting women in hyper-sexualised poses and various states of undress introduces concepts of pornography and sexuality to a hapless public, including little 4-year-old girls like my daughter. The innocence of young children is one of the most precious things in life. These images and the company behind them, robs kids of their innocence.

If I were to hang one of those posters up at my office lunchroom, I'd be summarily dismissed, not to mention sued for sexual harassment.

Since then, even while holding down a full time job and being a busy father, I've taken great pains to escalate my concerns through the proper channels. I contacted Westfield Fountaingate to ask why they allowed HB to advertise this way. Their “customer retail experience manager” explained that their storefront ads met the Advertising Standards code, and anyway, there were many other more important things to be passionate about like, junk food advertising to kids, rather than “showing a bit of boob”.

I then contacted the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) directly to see whether Honey Birdette were indeed breaching the code of ethics for advertising. Two months later I received an email saying my complaint was upheld (case report 0307/17) and Honey Birdette was in breach of the code. They were ordered to take down the ads, but they have since replaced them with worse ones!

Further to that, I felt it courteous to reach out to the founder of HB, Eloise Monaghan herself before I continued writing to Westfield. I was genuinely hoping to at least receive an acknowledgement that she would attempt to adhere to community advertising standards. Yet again, I got a patronizingly laughable response stating, “Honey Birdette is all about empowering women, also embracing and desexualising the female body”. When the news cycle picked up on the issue, Eloise Monaghan stated that the only people complaining are “middle aged women” and a “small group of Christian Fundamentalists”.

For more than 8 years, Honey Birdette have continued on this hurtful path. I am certain that Honey Birdette won't change their harmful practices and Westfield won't take any action UNLESS enough people speak up about this issue. To show them that many people are deeply concerned, would you please sign my petition, and call for:

STOP Honey Birdette from using porn-style advertising, and  ensure higher standards of  advertising in your family-friendly shopping centres. 

Thank you so much for your help as I try to be the best father I can and do something to make this world a better place for our kids. I would really appreciate it if you could also share this amongst your network. The many women and children who have to live with the real harms of this kind of porn-style advertising, thank you as well. Your support means so much to me.