Victory

Walmart Removes Cosmo Magazine from Checkout Aisles

Walmart is using its platform to take a stand against sexual exploitation, by instituting a broad sweep of all Walmart stores, removing Cosmopolitan Magazine from each and every checkout aisle. This unprecedented effort will impact more than 5,000 stores across our nation.

That’s over 5,000 stores where families and individuals will no longer be automatically exposed to Cosmo’s hypersexualized and degrading article titles that regularly promote pornography, sexting, BDSM, group sex, anal sex, and more, all while marketing toward young teens with Disney star cover models.

Nationally representative surveys show that the majority of Americans believe that Cosmopolitan’s graphic headlines are not appropriate for all ages, and young girls and boys alike have often reached out to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation reporting how the magazine’s normalization of sexual objectification and pornography compound peer-pressure to engage in more risky sex, which has negatively impacted them.

We at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation have been working behind the scenes with Walmart for months regarding this policy improvement, and applaud Walmart for making their checkout aisles family-friendly and sexploitation-free.