Perth Voice Interactive

THE WA Aids Council has been reported to the national Advertising Standards Bureau for an advert in the Perth Voice featuring explicit information about gay sex.

The advert for “two fun, informative forums for guys into guys” also upset upper house MLC Phil Edman.

“Why can’t the WA Aids Council be more discreet?” Mr Edman tweeted on Sunday, including a screen grab of the two most graphic sentences in his public Twitter account.

The advert also generated eight complaints to the Voice and its sister publication the Fremantle Herald where it also ran.

The Aids Council reported back to the paper this week that for the first time it had sold out its forums. Previous “family-friendly” ads had failed to attract participants and this was its first attempt to use more graphic adverts outside gay-specific media.

Despite this, council chair Jonathan Hallett reportedly told ABC Radio presenter John McGlue on Wednesday afternoon that his organisation would review its advertising to prevent similar ads which might upset people.

The standards bureau has told the Aids Council that, without having assessed the ad itself, the complaint centred around whether it treated sexuality with sensitivity to the relevant audience or used appropriate language.

If successful, the bureau has the power to order the advert withdrawn.

Perth Voice publisher and editor Andrew Smith said he wasn’t backing down, and urged the Aids council not to “end up as the story” by toning down its ads.

“We see your campaign and the way you went about it as confronting and challenging, but nonetheless appropriate under the circumstances —ie, a hard to reach target audience and a lack of success in using other media outlets—and successful,” he wrote to the council’s marketing manager Matt Ranford after Mr Edman’s tweet blew up the issue.

Statistics show HIV/Aids on the rise in Western Australia, fuelled by the cashed-up miners who travel regularly to Asia.

According to the Aids council, in the last decade local cases have more than doubled.

by STEVE GRANT