Walmart limits Cosmo sales

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This article was published 31/03/2018 (3021 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Walmart is saying goodbye to Cosmopolitan.

The retail giant will remove the women’s fashion magazine from checkout lines at 5,000 stores across the country.

In a statement shared with USA Today, Walmart spokesperson Meggan Kring said: “As with all products in our store, we continue to evaluate our assortment and make changes. Walmart will continue to offer Cosmopolitan to customers that wish to purchase the magazine, but it will no longer be located in the checkout aisles. While this was primarily a business decision, the concerns raised were heard.”

The news was shared Tuesday via a press release from National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), an organization that says it helped instigate the policy change.

“You can go through and buy your groceries with your family knowing you don’t have to be exposed to this graphic and often degrading and offensive material,” NCOSE vice-president of advocacy and outreach Haley Halverson said in a Facebook live session Tuesday. “Instead, all of these magazines will be moved, in isolation, to the magazine racks.”

USA Today’s requests for comment from Cosmopolitan have not been returned.

Cosmo began running frank content about sex under the direction of editor Helen Gurley Brown in 1965. Brown transformed the once family-oriented magazine into a publication for single women that — along with topics on relationships, beauty, fashion and health — still publishes advice and discussions on sex.

The NCOSE, which changed its name from Morality in Media in 2015, has been working to cover or remove Cosmo from store shelves for years, deeming it porn. In 2015, the group was behind a successful push to place the magazine behind blinders in stores owned by Rite Aid and Delhaize America (which owns Hannaford Stores and Food Lion).

The organization has also been a strong Playboy opposer. Patrick Trueman, president of NCOSE, called Hugh Hefner “a pioneer in the sexual objectification and use of women” following his death in September, saying the Playboy founder left behind “a legacy of sexual exploitation and public health harms.”

 

— USA Today