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 Porn in the RSA
    September 29 2007 at 04:11PM Get IOL on your
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By Kevin Ritchie

Once upon a time you could be arrested for flying into South Africa with a Playboy in your luggage. In the dark days of Calvinist apartheid, if you wanted to see a woman take off her clothes, you had to go to Lesotho or Swaziland - and although it wasn't obligatory to shout "Vrystaat" when the stripper took off her last garment, many did.

Old wags claim censorship was so unyielding that the government censors even banned Black Beauty until someone pointed out it was a story about a horse.

The advent of democracy in 1994 liberated South Africans in more ways than the drafters of the constitution might have intended, the most obvious being the proliferation of hard-core pornography on video and magazines and sex shops on neighbourhood street corners.
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But the explosion of porn and the "adult lifestyle" industry never quite lost the sleaze. The sex shops were tolerated and the videos were ignored - at least in public.

But after this weekend, this could all change - if the more than 50 exhibitors at the country's first adult lifestyle exhibition have their way. Sexpo SA (or the Health, Sexuality and Lifestyle Expo, borrowed from Australia) is South Africa's first bid to bring the sex industry out of the brown paper packets.

Silas Howarth, the young entrepreneur who is behind Sexpo SA, says the key is to make "the adult lifestyle" industry accessible to people who think it's sleazy.

As David Ross, the founder of Sexpo Australia, puts it: "It's a permission giver. The subject matter has universal appeal. If people are a bit shy, they think 'well, there will be 40 000 others (the number expected to attend the expo from Thursday until it closes tomorrow) there, so it's not as if we're doing anything wrong'."

As the exhibitors put the finishing touches to their stands, hours before the XXX-rated expo gates opened its doors, the excitement - and tension - was palpable.

For Chantelle Janse van Rensburg, the owner of Inamorata, it was too early to tell if she had made a mistake by coming to exhibit.

"I didn't know if South Africa was up to it," she says, "and it's very expensive to exhibit."

But she has no doubt that the timing is right for such an expo. "It's time people got comfortable in their own skin and live out their own fantasies, with a little help from businesses like us."

Her business is to supply "sensual products for women", yet most of her customers are men who contact her on the Internet or come after hours by arrangement on "special days, like Mother's Day".

As her assistants put the finishing touches to special "teaser's hampers" which expo-goers can win, "full of sex toys to spoil their men on a romantic weekend away", Janse van Rensburg says she has seen a sea change in South Africans, especially among her clientele.

"It's no more koek-en-tee (at the hen parties); now they invite us to do sex toy workshops, where we explain how the sex toys work, and they have strippers."

In fact, business has been so good that Janse van Rensburg has combined her "boutique" with a fantasy club, Pharaohs, in Midrand.

"We don't like to use the term 'swinger's club', because it's not just about swinging. You can just go there to look at others and fantasise," she says. Her boutique sells "sexy clothes to wear to a club like that. You know you want it to hang out a bit, show off, but when my husband and I were going to the clubs, we couldn't find clothes, so we brought in our own to sell."

And she's looking to open two Inamorata franchises in KwaZulu Natal and another in Sandton soon. By her own admission, Janse van Rensburg is selective about who she lets run these.

"I don't want it to become just another sleazy sex shop," she says, her eyes darting left to the exhibition by one of SA's best known sex shops.

Sexpo, she believes, could be a watershed in the South African adult lifestyle industry. "It has taken a long time, but it's going to go quickly now. You can't believe how big this industry is until you're in the game."

Howarth is loath to put a figure to the industry. "I can't put a rand value on it, but we were surprised at how big the industry is."

In fact, the response has been so big that Howarth plans to take the Sexpo to Durban in February and Cape Town in May.

"The time is right. We were a repressed society, sex was under the carpet and taboo, but in the past 10 years, things have changed dramatically, and in the past three years even more. Women are going for pole dancing lessons, they are having more fun the time is now."

Back down on the exhibition floor, Anton and Jason are putting up Definition Lab, their bodybuilding-supplement stand, around the corner from Inamorata and Hot Monogamy Sex and a stone's throw from bondage corsets that look like they were inspired by Nanny McPhee, but would look better on Angelina Jolie.

"It's gonna be something," says Anton, "it's gonna be good."

His friend Jason agrees: "You need something that cracks the ice; the South African market is so closed-minded. There's this misconception about sex. Let's grow up, we're not back in apartheid, it's not under the bed. This is nothing to be ashamed of - even our parents are coming to the expo."

At Hot Monogamy Sex, Tim Norris is helping his friend Ray Morgan, who owns the store and who designed an adult board game called Tru Dare. Norris tried it out with his fiancee and was hooked after the first time.

"We were starkers in minutes, it was a hoot," he laughs. "You shouldn't take it too seriously."

He also agrees that the time is right for the Sexpo: "Twenty years ago you'd have been shot for having something like this.

"There's an inherent concern about going to sex shops, the sleaziness, the black bags you take away your purchases in. Because of this, there are so many people on the fringes wanting something like this but not feeling right about exploring it."

At Smart Date, Jenny Cereseto, the owner of a speed-dating agency, believes sexuality is a critical issue for the more than 450 000 single South Africans she estimates are on the dating circuit.

"The people I've spoken to are all intrigued," she says.

In among the hard-core sex shops and stalls with fantasy dress-up outfits - from nurses to police uniforms, fur-lined handcuffs and phallic-shaped cookie cutters - are erotic photographers, air conditioners, cosmetics, Virgin Active, and even a hemp stall selling Bob Marley regalia.

It is not only the diversity of stalls that has warmed Howarth's heart; he and Ross are excited about the live entertainment.

"There are shows every 45 minutes and plenty of things for the ladies, like lap dancing and pole-dancing workshops, and even one on tantric sex. It's not your usual exhibition; there's normal shopping, but also sizzling entertainment."

Some of which includes Tim Patch, the notorious artist who paints with his penis, Miss Nude Australia, showgirls and male dance troupes who strip.

"You won't just have a quick shop, this is a good night out too," says Ross.

And that's the thrust. In Australia, where Ross has run Sexpo for 10 years, 60 percent of the clientele are couples, and both he and Howarth are hoping the same phenomenon will happen here.

"This is a raincoat-free zone," says Ross.

"We're not catering for the extremes on either side; we've got to make it comfortable, safe and accessible for the masses."

  • Sexpo runs Saturday and Sunday at Gallagher Estate in Midrand.

    Doors open on both days at 11am and close at midnight tonight and 9pm on Sunday. Tickets cost R89 and no under 18s are allowed.



      • This article was originally published on page 15 of The Star on September 29, 2007
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