The new Honda Odyssey comes equipped with a tech-forward feature that lets parents spy on their kids—in night vision, too! I guess that would’ve been a handy asset for early buyers, because the minivan’s entertainment system literally offered a range of porn, including titles like “Gladiator Eroticus,” “Kinky Kong,” and “Lord of the G-Strings.” Woops.
The in-vehicle porn came to light because of a shrewd gumshoe at Forbes, who discovered the suite of porn flicks while messing with the Odyssey’s rear-seat entertainment system. The Forbes writer, Joan Muller, goes on:
Porn flicks aren’t what you’d expect to find in a family-friendly minivan, but there they were, as part of the EPIX premium entertainment network, under “Erotic,” sandwiched alphabetically between “Documentary” and “Horror.”
Honda officials were horrified to hear the news, and made it clear to Muller that “An Erotic Werewolf in London” wasn’t supposed to be included in the vehicle’s premium entertainment network. A Honda public relations representative was apparently describing the Odyssey’s features to Muller and her husband. Muller said it was her husband who came across the porn titles on the car’s 10.2" drop-down video screen.
Mortified, she snapped a photo of the car’s 10.2-inch drop-down video screen and texted it to Honda colleagues, who quickly huddled with officials at New York-based EPIX to figure out what to do.
“The adult genre is not part of the Honda package,” a company spokesman hilariously told Muller. “When you discovered that, we went into emergency mode to fix it.”
By the next morning, Muller says, Honda managed to scrape the erotic genre from the EPIX network. The Odyssey has an over-the-air system to install updates for the entertainment catalogue, which is most likely why the issue was addressed in short order. How the EPIX network started listing porn in the first place is a bit of a mystery, though.
But Muller raises an interesting point: Since May, Honda’s sold about 5,000 Odysseys, and not a single complaint has been raised to the automaker. It’s entirely possible that Muller’s the first to come across the porn.
Or maybe Honda sold 5,000 minivans to people who enjoyed the option. Whatever the case, the erotic genre ceases to exist on the Odyssey, all thanks to journalism. Sorry we’re a bunch of fun-killers.