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The Eros Association...The Eros Association Inc is Australia's national adult retail and entertainment association. We function in the same way as other peak industry groups like the Pharmacy Guild or the Motor Traders Association in that we unify our members, lobby government and run a professional and ongoing public relations campaign.
Established in 1992, Eros is the longest serving adult industry group in Australia and we have earned a reputation for integrity and professionalism in our activities. We seek to bring logical and popular perspectives to love and sex rather than moral or religious ones. 'Make love not war' is the philosophy that we bring to our political debates.
Although issues of sex, morality and the law are found throughout the site, it is not intended for titillation but rather for information and education.
The Eros Association Inc
Adult erotica and so-called 'pornography' may be the second oldest profession in the world, but it's actually the newest industry in Australia. An industry generally becomes an industry when three things happen:
1) It becomes legal at a national level;
2) Its combined turnover becomes significant (ie the tax department gets interested in you);
3) It forms its own properly constituted industry association with a formal constitution and stated objectives.
These three criteria were met by Australia’s sex industry in the early 1990s. The threats by federal government to ban X rated videos of the late 1980s had been won. The combined turnover of adult retail and entertainment businesses was approaching $1 billion and government agencies were starting to look at ways to levy this slice of revenue. And finally, a large group of traders had banded together to launch a national industry association – the Eros Association (or Foundation as it was then). The formation of Eros was crucial to the success of future profitability and growth for the adult industry – even to those who would never join.
One of the big lessons that all fledgling industries learn early on is that politicians and bureaucrats do not like talking to individual business owners about big picture problems as they can be accused of favouritism and even of accepting bribes. They like to deal with non-profit industry associations who represent large numbers of traders and are at arms length from day to day business activities. When it comes to the sex industry, this principle is even more rigorously enforced as the accusation of receiving a favour‚ for political consideration, is especially touchy!
And yet many adult industry owners and workers remain frustrated at the slow pace of political change. Despite overwhelming support for the legalisation of X rated videos amongst the general public (72% average in polls over 10 years), they remain illegal in all the states. It is still illegal to host adult content from an Australian ISP and phone sex is still illegal if charged to a normal home phone account. On the other side of the ledger, X videos remain legal at a federal level despite constant pressure from sections of the government to ban them. Draconian laws to make it illegal to even upload adult material to a website, have been defeated in some states but have been passed in others. The fight continues.