Stick it Innuendo, Erin

2006 Miss Australia Erin McNaughtrecently attracted some undue attention from conservative grandmothers and other like-minded wowsers.

Erin -- whose nickname is 'McNaughty' -- has been featured in an advertising campaign by wine-maker Cockatoo Ridge. The campaign has caused controversy due to a billboard featuring innuendo playing upon the name of the company.

Apparently it's the first time an Australian wine label has employed suggestive means to target the younger market. That makes me wonder how stupid wine-makers have to be, to ignore the massive upturn in sales generated by unabashedly sleazy adverts for beer, spirits and pre-mixed beverages.

Interestingly and inexplicably the kerfuffle has centered around verbage rather than cleavage. Here's the billboard in question:

Yep, that's all. No tits, no arse, not even a naked shoulder -- just an animal-lover expressing her affection for talking birds, or wine, or pirates... Yarrrr.

She loves a cockatoo.

This kind of thing always makes me wonder. With such innocent imagery and a tagline that's really not overtly sexual in nature, doesn't it require a relatively dirty mind to draw the requisite links? If you're enough of a perv to make the connection, how can you possibly be offended by the billboard?

I find it fascinating that people can find the energy to complain about this and chastise Erin for loving cockatoo while our newly-appointed first ever female Governor-General, Quentin Bryce has taken every opportunity in the thousands of interviews she's given in the last week or so to endear herself to Australia by telling us of her strong connection to outback Queensland.

Over and over, she said:

I have a genuine affection for the bush.

That's got to be worse than loving a cockatoo, surely. Perhaps nobody is jumping down her throat about it because it's unacceptable to persecute lesbians? I'd say it's more likely because she doesn't inspire quite so much female jealousy.

I wonder how long it'll be until this generation of old women who have nothing better to do than scan magazines and television looking for something to moan about, just plain drop dead. They're a blight on humanity not because they complain about ads like this, but because they don't complain about billboards featuring men with parkas shoved down their jocks.

Erin also deserves a good spanking, but not because of the billboard. She is a nice enough chick, but I wasn't particularly impressed with her response when asked about the controversy. Here's an excerpt from an article which quotes her:

"I wasn't thrilled with what that line was implying," Erin says. She says the company emailed the slogans to her for approval but it was at the time she was moving to Melbourne [snip] meaning Erin didn't see them in her inbox until later.

"When I saw the slogans, I tried to stop them using that one but they said it was too late and they were already being printed," she says. "It was pretty disappointing."

Oh fuck off Erin. I was totally on your side until you tried on this hypocritical bullshit.

Remember, this is a girl whose nickname is 'McNaughty' and who constantly poses for sexy photoshoots for magazines like FHM and the syphilis-ridden crack whore of men's magazines, ZOO Weekly, which asks such fine interview questions as "What do you prefer, a vibrator or the real thing?"

If she was hoping to portray herself as wholesome and virginal, she should probably not have gone out of her way to forge a sexed-up public image.

I ask you, is this a picture of someone who loves the cock? Don't decide right now, instead click through and see the rest of the pictures first.

I absolutely embrace her right to flaunt her bee-stings, and I applaud her contribution to male reproductive health, but to feign shock and claim innocence just makes her look like a bloody idiot.

Bring on the Pics

If you're wondering whether I'm using this as an excuse to post lots of skin, wonder no more. I absolutely am.

etc... etc...

How about this one, Erin? You enjoy feeling sexy and womanly, and posing for mens magazines in lingerie or less, but you object to the suggestion that you might like sex?

If these aren't pictures of a young woman who loves the cock, then at the very least they're pictures of a young woman who is extremely comfortable with making money by inspiring men to love their own.

Close enough.

Scroll up and check out that billboard picture again. How inappropriate or off-target does it really seem now?

I don't want to be misunderstood here. The only thing wrong with all this is pretending it's not true.