Cosmo's Kama Sutra 2 - 12 Naughty New Sex Positions, Including Our Personal Favorite - 'The Dragon' (Cosmopolitan) Sex on the Brain - What the Guys in Your Office Are Really Thinking (Mademoiselle)

15 Secrets of Foxy Wives Turn So-so Love into Oh-Oh-Oh! (Redbook) 30-Day Climax Class 102 Sex-You-Up Secrets from Highly Satisfied Women and Extremely Happy Men (Glamour)

Letters, calls, and e-mails in support of MIM's recently launched clean-up the supermarket checkout counters campaign are proof-positive that we aren't the only ones noticing the increasingly sleazy covers on Cosmopolitan and some other women's magazines.

Besides the obvious concern about vulnerable children and adolescents standing at checkouts all across America every day viewing these prurient cover headlines, many women, both conservative and liberal, are also outraged about the growing sex obsession of so-called women's magazines.

MIM President Bob Peters sent a letter on June 16 to more than 350 supermarket chain CEOs, detailing the previous twelve months of Cosmopolitan's sex-saturated headlines. The letter urged owners of these otherwise family-friendly stores to stop displaying such material at their checkouts. A follow-up letter was sent July 19, this time with examples of offensive headlines from Glamour, Redbook, and Mademoiselle.

In his second letter, Mr. Peters challenged the CEOs: "How can responsible supermarket chains allow these messages to be displayed where children cannot help but read them?"

Both mailings included pages of sample headlines. Here are just a few:

Sex Tricks He's Never Seen Before: The Outrageous 'Rock' Technique And 21 Other Moves That Will Make His Thighs Go Up in Flames! (Cosmopolitan, April 1999) Sex Rules - 10 Make-Him-Throb Moves So Hot You'll Need a Fire Hose to Cool Down the Bed (Cosmopolitan, January 1999) Get Moregasmic! Shameless Tricks to Double Your Pleasure! (Glamour, June 1999)

His Secret Turn-Ons: Take Our Quiz and Make Him Insane With Desire Tonight (Redbook, July 1999) Guys and Sex - What They Think about Foreplay, Experienced Women and Lust vs. Love (Mademoiselle, July 1999)

We've all had the experience. You're waiting at the checkout counter with a cart full of groceries when you're assaulted with sexually coarse and aggressive magazine headlines. And while mothers unload their carts, the kids scan the magazine rack, often found right along the candy and toy display.

Naturally, those of us offended by such trash would prefer that it not be sold at all. Morality in Media's campaign asks that if stores are unwilling to go that route, that they at least stop openly displaying Cosmo and other monthlies with similar raunchy cover headlines at checkout counters.

Note: The links below are to the customer comment pages of each supermarket's Web site.

Responses from stores have ranged from supportive to excusatory.

Michael J. Read, vice president for public affairs at Albertson's, wrote (July 15) that his company tries to review the covers of the magazines it carries, and has refused to carry certain magazine issues it deemed unsuitable, including the September 1996, October 1997 and August 1998 issues of Cosmopolitan. But Read also said that "whenever we exercise our judgment and remove a magazine, we are severely criticized by many. We do our best to strike some balance in these matters, although we recognize that it is not possible to completely satisfy all the competing interests and viewpoints." Albertson's, based in Boise, Idaho, is one of the nation's largest supermarket chains.

Nicholas D'Agostino Jr., chairman of D'Agostino Supermarkets, with 24 stores based in the metro New York City area, wrote (July 7) that "D'Agostino Supermarkets has instructed its store management to discreetly conceal the covers of Cosmopolitan magazine." Mr. D'Agostino also told the trade publication Supermarket News (August 2) that these magazines "should stand on the quality of its [editorial] content, and not on the shock value of the front-page sexually titillating statements to attract readers."

Dillon Stores of Hutchinson, Kans., wrote to MIM (July 23), "We are not in a position to be an arbiter of public morality. Nor are we interested in determining individual rights and privileges." Dillon Stores is a division of the Kroger Company.

Food Lion of Salisbury, N.C., wrote (August 17) to say that they are reviewing their display policy and hope to arrive at a "reasonable solution."

Fred J. Morganthall II, president of Harris Teeter of Charlotte, N.C., wrote (August 3), "Over a year ago Harris Teeter removed supermarket tabloids such as the National Enquirer, Star and Sun from our stores. During the Spring of 1999 we removed Cosmopolitan from our checkstands and we now sell Cosmopolitan from our gondola magazine racks."

Scott McClelland, senior vice president for marketing at H.E. Butt Grocery Company of San Antonio, Tex., wrote (June 23), "At H-E-B, we have a long-standing policy of reviewing magazine covers for objectionable material and have made it a practice to remove objectionable and controversial material from our checkstands. We review magazine covers weekly and also keep a close ear to our customers to insure that we are acting in their best interest. We have found that it has worked best for us to review magazines on a case-by-case basis versus making a blanket decision about whether to carry a specific title on a regular basis."

Lynn Marmer, group vice president for corporate affairs at The Kroger Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, responded (July 19), "We do not put ourselves in the position of deciding what a local community views as appropriate. We leave those decisions to our customers." Kroger is the largest single supermarket chain in the U.S.

Margaret Urquhart, president of Lowes Foods of Winston-Salem, N.C., wrote (August 9) that her company is in the process of creating a system to conceal offensive magazine headlines. "We have received a number of inquiries from concerned parents about this issue in the past few months. We take pride in being responsive to our customers and have decided that it is appropriate to take action by partially obscuring the covers of several publications."

R. Randall Onstead Jr., chairman and CEO of Randall's Food Markets of Houston, wrote to MIM (August 9) that his stores already put Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair, and Marie Claire behind blinder racks. "We also monitor the content of all magazines that we sell in our stores, and when necessary, we will cover them or pull them from our shelves. Please be assured that we have no plans to discontinue this long-standing policy in the foreseeable future."

Shaw's Supermarkets of East Bridgewater, Mass., responded (June 24) that their store managers "can, and do, place shields over magazines that our customers find offensive."

Winn Dixie of Jacksonville, Fla replied (July 23) that it was a "good corporate citizen" which tried to "provide our customers with a clean, friendly, family atmosphere" in its stores. Winn Dixie executive Warren Couch also said his company has pulled Cosmopolitan and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue from time to time. But Crouch added, "Should one person or another have the authority to decide what is offensive journalism for all consumers has been debated since the 1st Amendment was added to our Constitution. We know we can not satisfy every customer based on their individual moral standards."

Many of our members, and other like-minded shoppers, have asked what they can do to help. Your input is needed.

First, peruse the magazine selection at the supermarket checkout counters where you shop. If nothing is objectionable, express your appreciation to the store manager. If raunchy magazine headlines are displayed at checkout counters, we have a sample letter you can give to your store manager. MIM would also like to know which magazines were displayed so that we can follow up with letters to the supermarket headquarters.

We expect to also organize other efforts at the local level (picketing, surveys, etc.) If you can help, call MIM at 1-212-870-3222 or write us at 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 239, New York, NY 10115, or e-mail us at mim@moralityinmedia.org. Please leave your phone number.

That articles in "mainstream" women's magazines are becoming more like articles once found only in men's porno publications is a sad commentary on today's "popular culture." That these articles are brazenly advertised on the front covers of magazines openly displayed at supermarket checkout counters, where even children and adolescents can view them, is especially troubling.

Please help restore decency in American supermarkets. MIM thanks you for joining us in this ongoing campaign!

Patrick McGrath, MIM's Associate Director of Public Affairs, also contributed to this story.

Reporter Joel Elson of Supermarket News wrote an article about the campaign in the August 2 issue of the magazine. Grocery executives and managers throughout the country read Supermarket News, a weekly national trade magazine.

Scripps-Howard News Service reporter Joan Lowy covered the story in an August 13 story distributed to all the chain's newspapers. Several Scripps-Howard newspapers ran this story on their Web sites, including the Times Record News of Wichita Falls, Tex., the Patriot Ledger of Quincy, Mass., and the Knoxville News (Tennessee). Reporter Cindy Starr wrote an excellent full-length feature article on the campaign (August 28) for the Cincinnati Post, a Scripps-Howard newspaper.

The Conservative News Service ran an article by David Bozell about the campaign on its Web site (www.cnsnews.com) on July 14.

Akron Beacon-Journal reporter Steven Woo wrote a full length feature story for his newspaper (August 22), which was also posted on its Web site. Insight magazine (August 9) also covered the story.

Reporter Emory Bryan of KOTV Channel 6 in Tulsa, Okla. did a story on the campaign on August 18, as did the syndicated TV news magazine Extra on August 29.

Radio networks and stations reporting on the story included UPI Radio, the Catholic Family Radio Network, the American Family Association Radio Network, WERC Radio (Birmingham, Ala.), WMUZ Radio (Detroit), KFWB Radio (Los Angeles), KSL Radio (Salt Lake City), KSLR Radio (San Antonio), and KGO Radio (San Francisco).

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