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Defamation trial is risqué business (The Sydney Morning Herald) - 21st July 2006

A Sydney judge was asked to contemplate the nature of smut yesterday, as barristers argued over a defamation claim brought by model Lara Bingle against a men's magazine.

Bingle had just become the face of Tourism Australia's "Where the bloody hell are you?" campaign when Zoo Weekly published photographs of her in March.

Its cover was a "world exclusive" shot of Bingle in a bikini. Inside, another photograph had a speech bubble bearing the words "I'll make you come". An accompanying press release declared: "Lara Bingle Poses Topless for New Men's Magazine".

But, according to papers filed in the Federal Court, Bingle posed neither topless not exclusively for the mag. The photographs, she said, were taken last year to promote her modelling career and the photographer's business.

Bingle, 19, is suing Zoo Weekly's publisher, Emap, for defamation, misleading conduct and breach of copyright. She also claims she has been defamed by imputations that she was "the sort of model who would invite the readers of a smutty men's magazine to achieve sexual pleasure as a result of looking at photographs of her".

Counsel for Emap, Dauid Sibtain, disputed that Zoo Weekly was smutty. "It's a humorous magazine," he told the court. He said the words "I'll make you come" were not an invitation to achieve sexual pleasure, but a double entendre, playing on Bingle's Tourism Australia fame.

Bingle's counsel, Matthew Richardson, provided Justice Edmonds with copies of Zoo Weekly, pointing out that the issue featured animals fornicating, a man vomiting, sexual services advertisements and "scantily clad women describing their sexual fantasies and experiences".

"That's all fairly clearly smutty material," Richardson said.

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