Walmart is yanking the smutty magazine Cosmopolitan from its check-out aisle shelves in response to the national #MeToo movement, in which women have come forward en masse with their reports of sexual harassment.
Cosmo is known for printing explicit messages and graphic sexual advice alongside scantily-clad women (they feature men rarely, if ever). Common headlines include advice on how to have “Your Best Sex Today!” or 47 ways to twist yourself into a pretzel to please your man.
Up until now, the magazine has been featured front-and-center, right next to People and the gun ‘n candy display.
But no longer.
According to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, Walmart has pulled Cosmo from its shelves so it can no longer accost the eyes of 6-year-olds standing with their moms in the checkout line to pay for their Oreos.
Haley Halverson, NCOSE’s Vice President of Advocacy and Outreach at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, praised the move as a way to keep the general public from being bombarded with unwanted hyper-sexualized content.
"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. Instead, all of these magazines will be moved, in isolation, to the magazine racks,” she explained, according to USA Today.
"This is one less drop of hyper-sexualized media that is going to be bombarding people in their everyday lives, which does make a difference, especially in this Me Too culture that we're living in, where we really want a culture that will respect women and ensure their dignity is understood," Halverson added.