Glossy Garbage

Offensive magazine covers on supermarket shelves

Supermarkets educate children in a "trail of sex."

Kids corralled like cattle and force fed doses of porn

Every family in America has experienced it at one time or another. For most, the weekly ritual of grocery shopping is not unlike a roundup at the local stockyard. Cart-pushing families progress like cattle in a mass of confused order. Initially going different directions at different paces, but in the end all going through the same chute. . .the cash register lane.

With children in tow, trail-worn mothers finally tread into a marketing strategist's finest achievement, the checkout aisle. A collection point for a captive audience with virtually no escape, except forward. It is here when children then become a primary target for last minute profit margins.

"Look, Mr. Manager, we're not ignorant. We know you strategically place dozens of kinds of candy here for a purpose. Kids and candy go together like peanut butter and jelly. What doesn't "register" is the gratuitous display of trashy magazines with lascivious cover photos and salacious headlines."

Once inside the "chute," our children are bombarded by the company's complete lack of respect for traditional family values. It is here grocery managers, like cattle wrangling cowboys, start branding the minds of parents and children alike with images and descriptions of casual, social, and noncommittal sex from magazines like Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Redbook. Pictures of half-nude women and tips for "tantric" sex are extremely inappropriate for places which demand and require customer attendance.

Fortunately, parents are beginning to speak out and complain to their local store manager, with exceptional results. Hundreds of supermarkets, including national chains, have instituted policies which protect families and children from soft porn by placing "blinders" over the cover of offending magazines, or removing them from the checkout aisle altogether.

AFA is pleased to help citizens lead the battle in their community by providing a step-by-step guide entitled Glossy Garbage: What one person can do about offensive grocery store magazine covers: What one person can do about offensive grocery store magazine covers.