Bradford's support group for rape victims today denounced a sexually provocative poster campaign as irresponsible.

And Bradford Rape Crisis, while pulling short of condoning law-breaking, says it can understand why vigilantes have attacked some of the billboard adverts for Yves St Laurent's Opium perfume.

The poster shows a naked model lying on her back with her legs apart.

One billboard off Huddersfield Road, near the Rooley Lane Asda store, has been daubed with anti-rape slogans, and a spokesman for BRC says she can sympathise with the vandals' motives.

"We can't condone the act but we can fully understand the feeling behind it," she said. "These kinds of adverts degrade women and encourage the atmosphere that surrounds sexual violence.

"We feel they are quite insulting to men, as well as women, because they portray women as sexual objects. They encourage men to believe in an aggressive sexual way and do nothing to promote equality or respect between men and women."

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has already received over 300 complaints about the image.

ASA has the power to force Yves Saint Laurent to remove the posters. Spokesman Gary Ward said: "It's far and away the most complained about advert of the year, and it has been formally investigated. We only received three complaints when it first appeared in October in magazines, but now it's on billboards it's hard to avoid, and we have to look at it again."

Sections of Bradford's Asian population are also angry at the posters. Co-ordinator with Asian Disability Action and Awareness in Bradford, Bary Malik, said: "Road safety groups say this poses a danger by distracting drivers and I totally agree with them, but there's also a question of standards. We have to decide how far we go because these kind of posters degrade women and do not respect them. If a man was shown in such an explicit pose there would be an uproar."