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September 21, 2016

Campaign group secures ban on explicit Sunday Sport back page chatline adverts

By Dominic Ponsford

The Advertising Standards Association has ordered the Sunday Sport to stop putting sexually explicit adverts on its back page after a complaint from a campaign group.

The group, called Not Buying It!, campaigns against “using women’s bodies to sell stuff”.

It complained over two ads for telephone chatlines. One, on an inside page, included pictures of naked women and phrases such as: “They’re Huge! Shoot Your Load on my Massive Tits!!”.

The second ad appeared on the back page and featured images of women with their breasts partially visible and phrases such as “XXX Sex Stories” and “Filthy Sex Chat with Hot TGirls!”.

Sun Sport publisher Worldwide Digital Media said banning the ads”would amount to censorship on the UK’s free press”.

The back page ad was banned because, the ASA said, “we considered that, if the paper was left in public places or around the house, the ad could be seen by children.

“We also understood that the Sunday Sport was usually displayed in retail stores alongside other newspapers in a readily visible position (as opposed to appearing on the top shelf), and therefore the back page was more likely to be seen inadvertently by children.”

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