Is Cosmopolitan too racy for checkout? Walmart thinks so. In a time when porn magazines have been sold in stores and sex shops exist, Cosmopolitan magazine will no longer be displayed at the checkout counters of Walmart stores. The impact will reach 5,000 stores nationwide and is due to the idea of sexual exploitation. The historic change was made after considering the magazine “too hypersexualized” and years of complaints from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. The store claims that it was a business decision, but definitely took the complaints about the sex-positive and racier covers into consideration. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation praise the move by the company and looked at them as “trailblazers in corporate responsibility.” Walmart has fought with the magazine before back in 2015 when it imposed a policy where the magazines would be placed behind clear pocket binders. The magazine will still be sold in stores but just in the designated magazine aisles that customers will have to personally seek out. The magazine was deemed pornographic and degrading to women.
Courtesy: RiseLust
The general public doesn’t seem to believe that banning a magazine from check out that celebrates women being sex-positive and informed about their sex lives is what our society needs when only 24 states and the District of Columbia require public school sex education. The store has received large amounts of backlash in regards to the #MeToo movement and the idea that Cosmo isn’t the only magazine to share sex tips and yet other magazines aren’t being hidden away. Executive Director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, Dawn Dawkins, believes that “Cosmo sends the same messages about female sexuality as Playboy. It places women’s value primarily on their ability to sexually satisfy a man, and therefore plays into the same culture where men view and treat women as inanimate sex objects.” The decision is one that will be interesting to watch when it comes to further backlash and whether there are declines in sales due to the repositioning of the magazine. The granddaughter of the Heart corporation praised the change. “Thank you, Walmart Corporation, for caring about the welfare of your customers’ children by no longer allowing kids in your checkout lines to stand face-to-face with the barely dressed women and sexually explicit article titles on Cosmopolitan Magazine’s. She also praised the National Center on Sexual Exploitation for protecting children and then cited a Bible verse. It’s definitely an interesting perspective coming from someone whose own family members were behind the magazine’s start. Only time will tell if the change happens with other magazines that share similar content.
Courtesy: The Home News