Ban It And They Will Come
One of the best ways to make something exciting is to make it forbidden.
Well, Cosmopolitan magazine is about to get a little sales help from Food Lion and Rite Aid. Hiroko Tabuchi writes for The New York Times:
The two retailers will soon place issues of Cosmopolitan magazine behind "blinders" to shield minors from the magazine's sexual content, they confirmed separately on Friday.Kristin Kellum, a Rite Aid spokeswoman, said the retailer would "continue to carry" Cosmopolitan but was "working to place future issues of this publication behind pocket shields." Rite Aid operates about 4,600 drugstores across the country.
Food Lion, which runs 1,100 grocery stores in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic, will require Cosmopolitan's publisher, Hearst, to provide a holder that would shield the cover, according to Christy Phillips-Brown, a company spokeswoman. The plastic blinders are U-shaped and hide the headlines that appear around the outside of the cover, but do not hide the cover model or the Cosmopolitan banner that runs across the top of the magazine.
Um, on the Internet, kids can watch people having a threesome with a pony.
It's so quaint anybody thinks the equivalent of the old brown paper wrapper is going to do anything but make people want to look behind it. Especially the people whose eyes it's supposed to be kept from. That is, if they aren't too glued to their phones to care.
So true! Fred Meyer has put Cosmopolitan behind the plastic thingies for years. Every time in the checkout line my 4-year-old has to see what they are hiding. He could care less about the other magazines.
BunnyGirl at August 1, 2015 10:45 PM
Love that, BunnyGirl. He must be really bored with 10 Ways To Sex Your Man, or whatever the headline is with the slight variation every month.
Amy Alkon at August 2, 2015 6:49 AM
Meanwhile, Google is getting swamped with searches for "threesome with a pony".
Me, think I'm going to pass on that one. Because Rule 34. . .
Keith Glass at August 2, 2015 10:50 AM
Used to love Cosmopolitan. Now the cover headlines embarrass me. And I am way old. Just saying
Another Amy at August 2, 2015 12:25 PM
Of course, this is exactly what Cosmo wants to happen. Food Lion in particular is a flyover-country chain, so the bicoastal kook kidz can guffaw at the hicks as they read Cosmo and congratulate each other for how urbane and sophisticated they are.
In the early '80s, it was well known among the punk bands in Britian that the surest way to make your song a #1 hit was to convince the BBC to ban it. Instant cachet.
Cousin Dave at August 3, 2015 7:32 AM
The best thing to happen to the music industry was the Tipper Gore label. Get one of those on your album and you were guaranteed big sales.
Conan the Grammarian at August 4, 2015 2:34 PM
Sheldon: Penny pointed out that what I’m going through is essentially a breakup. And according to Cosmopolitan magazine, one of the most effective techniques for moving on is to get rid of all reminders of the relationship.
Howard: You’re reading Cosmo?
Sheldon: Yes. As it turns out, there’s an article on how to get over a breakup in literally every issue.
Conan the Grammarian at August 4, 2015 2:36 PM
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1986/02/18
Conan the Grammarian at August 4, 2015 2:43 PM
I'm all for it. I would be very happy to go through a checkout without having
HOT SEX!
HOT SEX!
HOT SEX! shouted at me. The louts think that dignified behavior is stupid and funny but not everyone is a lout. Despite what you might see around here.
Alan at August 5, 2015 7:54 AM
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