Issues@Hand
AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs
June-July 2000 – Donna Sharp, mother of three daughters, has had enough. Like a growing number of parents across the nation, Donna is outraged at the insensitivity of supermarkets whose checkout aisles and magazine racks are full of lascivious headlines and images of scantily-clad models.
“I used to turn the magazines around so that the back cover was showing,” Sharp said. “But store managers should take the initiative to respect the families that do business with them by not subjecting our children to sex magazines.”
Sharp believes the message frequently delivered by magazines like Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Redbook is degrading to women who don’t look like models. Furthermore, she says their brazen headlines are insulting to suggest that women’s only obligation to men is to fulfill sexual fantasies.
In the war for women’s magazine supremacy, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Redbook covers regularly feature headlines that many might expect to find in a porn shop, not their local supermarket. Sharp said that her children are caught in the crossfire and she doesn’t like it.
AFA Vice President Tim Wildmon said, “With each new issue, some women’s magazines grow closer to being the counterpart of Playboy and Penthouse. The problem is that we are all exposed to erotic headlines and salacious pictures of sensualized women.”
Wildmon said that checkout lanes create a captive audience by design because shoppers are confined to a specific area while their groceries are scanned. “You cannot escape something directly in front of you at eye level. Magazine marketers know this and play it to the hilt.” Recent covers of Cosmopolitan and Glamour feature headlines far too offensive to reprint here.
In a 1999 Wirthlin Worldwide poll commissioned by Morality in Media, Wirthlin wrote, “The results from this survey clearly show that Americans find lurid magazine headlines inappropriate and would favor them being covered up in some manner.” When asked about the appropriateness of lurid and sexually provocative headlines on magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Mademoiselle, and Glamour, 73% of respondents say that such headlines are inappropriate.
A second question asked respondents whether or not they would favor or oppose a policy of covering up these headlines, or not displaying these magazines near checkout counters. Results show that 60% of all Americans would favor such a policy, while 35% would oppose it.
Since the grocery industry is so competitive, many managers understand the financial implications from mothers, like Sharp, who demand that something be done and threaten to take their business elsewhere. Others, however, are reluctant to respond to individual complaints and may require an organized opposition.
Citing the retailers’ right to sell magazines in checkout lanes, AFA urges companies also to adopt corporate guidelines that address the growing customer concern. Already this year, major food chains like Kroger and Genuardi began placing blinders over offensive magazine covers, leaving only the magazine’s name exposed. 
