Emaciated Models--Now THAT'S Offensive...

...any of those complainers probably walk past Victoria's Secret without doing a double-take. Or watch movies with frontal nudity, etc. I think we are wayyy too sex-obsessed. I'm sure that extends beyond America. When a breastfeeding image is perceived as sexual that's a sure sign.

I hope since Thursday you read on to the comments section of the article. The store fixed the situation, explained the confusion and miscommunication around it. The covers have been removed, and all is well. The women who commented (works in the main offices of the store) said that a huge mistake had been made, that they totally support and encourage breastfeeding, and that she herself breastfed her children.

Apparently, the store's policy is to cover the covers of body-building magazines if it offends people. The person that covered the Mothering issue thought this applied to any magazine if even one person found it offensive.

Anyway, the covers have been removed, and you should read the comments section. Better yet, I'll put her comments here so you won't have to search:

by: Heather Isely

I am very sorry for the confusion surrounding the covering of Mothering magazine at our Vitamin Cottage store in Santa Fe. The magazine should never have been covered. However, confusion arose due to our company policy. This is our company policy. Since our magazines are by our check-out stands then anyone purchasing a product in our stores will have to see the covers. There are some people who are offended by the covers of the body-building magazines. These are the magazines that we have received complaints about in Colorado. The essence of the complaints have been that they have young children, and/or are "Christians" and do not want their children our themselves to be subjected to the sexually suggestive pictures on the covers of some of the body building magazines. We felt that we should be responsive to these complaints, as there have been some covers that are blatantly using the human body to sell their magazines. Therefore we put out a generally worded policy to our store managers saying that if they received customer complaints about a magazine cover or if they felt that the cover of a body building magazine appeared to be sexually suggestive, that they should cover the magazine. When some customers complained at the Santa Fe store about the cover of the current issue of Mothering magazine, the store staff followed this generally worded company policy and covered the magazine. This would not be acceptable to us as a company policy, because breast feeding is not offensive, and a picture of a mother breast feeding was never meant to be covered by the policy. We have never received a customer complaint before about any of the Mothering magazine covers that have shown a beautiful picture of a mother breast feeding her baby. And we have stores in some very conservative areas. Therefore, when we worded our company policy we did not think to add that this policy only applies to the sexually suggestive pictures on the covers of some body building magazines.

However, the mistake went even further because no one at our home offices knew that a staff member had responded to a customer complaint and covered the cover of Mothering magazine, at the time that the Santa Fe New Mexican interviewed the Regional manager in New Mexico. The Regional manager was broad sided by the interview as she did not know that the staff at the Santa Fe store had covered the current issue of Mothering magazine. Her response to the interview was supporting the staff's decision, and was also based on the generally worded company policy that we have to respond to customer complaints about magazine covers by covering them up. This was unfortunate. We do not support the covering of magazine covers that show the womanly art of breast feeding. Our company policy regarding the covering of magazine covers only applies to those magazines that have sexually suggestive covers.

This policy has now been clarified at all of our stores. The covers that were put on this issue of Mothering magazine at the Santa Fe store have been removed.

I think that the debate that this misunderstanding has generated has been generally useful to furthering the rights of nursing mothers to feel comfortable to be able to respond to their babies' needs in public. I think that it is unfortunate that our business has been cast in a negative light because of it. We are 100% behind breast feeding and the rights of breast feeding mothers. I myself breast fed my children while working and in public.

I hope that this clarifies the issue to those of you concerned about this very important issue.

....its that someone (a customer) would complain in the first place...I was in walmart the other night and I got a very mean stare for nursing nesta of course i just smiled and went on feeding my child and surely no walmart employee would say anything negative to me about nursing him its just that why is nursing seen in such a light by so many people....why do so many people not glare at all the women who are shoving bottles in thier babies mouthes without ever even trying to breastfeed(ive heard everything from it would feel odd to but i bought all these cute bottles)...why is that the more acceptable way than the way nature has constructed?I can understand when people are disturbed by the images of starving children but not why they would be by well fed children...perhaps the complaintants would prefer pictures of malnurished children in thier view after all this world seems to thrive on pain and suffering.People want body bags on the evening news and the magazine racks how dare we offened them by showing a healthy scene of mom and baby...MUCH KUDOS to the store for doing the right thing...and tears for a world where people just dont care to see the truth of the matter.