The Eros Association, Australia’s industry association for adults-only retail, wholesale, media and entertainment has launched a report calling government job seeker policies discriminatory for their exclusion of adult retail and wholesale businesses.

The report documents how government contracts with employment service providers specifically exclude the placement of job seekers in: “a position, including a retail position, involving nudity or in the sex industry”.

The result is that the over 300 adult retail stores currently operating across Australia are ineligible to receive wage subsidies or other job creation incentives.

“A job is a job” notes Rachel Payne, General Manager of the Eros Association “there appears to be no justification for this discrimination, other than a puritanical view of adult-oriented businesses.”

The report documents frequent occurrences of employment service providers approaching adult retail stores to place job seekers only to realise that government policies prohibit it.

“This clearly indicates the policy is out of step with community values” notes Mr Jarryd Bartle, one of the report’s co-authors, “both job seekers and service providers see no issue in working within an adult shop, and why should they?”

Adult retail, which primarily sells adult toys and other sexual wellness products, is a growing sector, with sales increasing 20-40% in 2020 due to social isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.

This fresh report comes three years after another influential Eros report documenting widespread exclusion of adults-only businesses by the banking industry.

“Adult retailers just want to be treated like any other business” notes Ms Payne, “sexy jobs are real jobs”.