Latest Benetton Ad Draws Legal Threats

Italian clothing company Benetton offered photographs of 56 sex organs Wednesday as the latest of its shock advertisements, drawing charges of provocation and threats of legal action.

Adults’ and children’s penises and female genitals of various shades of skin color were displayed in a centerfold in the left-wing newspaper Liberation.

“This is a provocation coming after many others” said Lucien Bouis, head of the French advertising board BVP. Benetton “is seeking scandal in order to be talked about. . . . This is enough,” he said.

Bouis said the BVP--an ethics watchdog group that includes media, advertising agencies and advertisers--asked its members to shun the Benetton campaign and said it may take legal action against the firm.

“This ad is decidedly crude but it is not vulgar,” said a spokeswoman from Benetton’s Italian headquarters.

“It is a means of breaking yet another taboo--the taboo of sex,” she said.

She said no Italian publications had accepted the ad, which was also rejected by the French magazine Actuel.

Liberation’s sales director, Michel Vidal, said the newspaper published the ad after its lawyers said there was little chance the paper could be sued for offending public decency.

In a charity stunt earlier this year, Benetton Chairman Luciano Benetton appeared stark naked in newspapers around the world, accompanied by the caption, “I want my clothes back.”

The Benetton spokeswoman said photographer Olivero Toscani did not see the faces of the people whose genitals appear in the advertisement.

She added: “He believes that you can discern a person’s social class and lifestyle by looking at his or her face. But when you just look at the sexual organ, you can’t tell a thing. This photo shows we are all equal, he says.”