Cosmo Under Fire for Pornographic Content Targeting Teen Girls

Victoria Hearst, the granddaughter of publisher William Randolph Hearst of the Hearst Corporation empire, has had enough of Cosmopolitan magazine’s move to win the hearts and minds of young girls.

Even though Hearst Corporation publishes Cosmo, Hearst—who is also the founder and president of Praise Him Ministries—is taking the company to task. She maintains that Cosmo should be sold exclusively to adults and is launching the “Cosmo Harms Minors” campaign to inform, expose and equip communities to take action and protect America’s youth.

In recent years, Hearst says, Cosmo has started blatantly targeting young girls to expand its audience and increase profits. As she sees it, this staple of the supermarket checkout line has steadily declined from a somewhat inspirational women’s magazine to a verbally, and many times visually, pornographic “how-to” sex guide encouraging readers to engage in violent and dangerous sexual acts in every issue.

Hearst argues that Cosmo is leading the way in further desensitizing young women and girls to accept and participate in the pornified and sexually violent culture around them. This is not a new concern for her. She took part in Christian model Nicole Weider’s change.org campaign in 2012 to address these same issues.

“About 11 years ago, I contacted Frank Bennack and the board of the Hearst Corporation, and told them that what they are publishing in Cosmopolitan magazine was pornographic,” Hearst said in 2012. “I had the support of two female psychologists and counselors who attest that this content hurts young girls.”

Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation; Dr. Miriam Grossman, M.D., board-certified child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist; and Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King, are joining Hearst at a press conference on April 22 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to launch “Cosmo Harms Minors” campaign and to release results from national survey on Cosmopolitan and minors. The coalition is demanding that Cosmopolitan be displayed behind blinders or in a wrapper and not sold to minors.