Cosmopolitan magazine too sexy for Walmart

Cosmopolitan lauds itself as the "best-selling young women's magazine" that focuses on fashion, sex advice, dating and relationships as well as celebrity news. Photo / Getty Images

Walmart is pulling Cosmopolitan magazine from its checkout lines.

The retail giant will remove the monthly women's fashion magazine from checkout lines at 5000 stores across the US although the magazine will still be available for purchase.

In a statement, Walmart spokesperson Meggan Kring said: "As with all products in our store, we continue to evaluate our assortment and make changes.

"Walmart will continue to offer Cosmopolitan to customers that wish to purchase the magazine, but it will no longer be located in the checkout aisles. While this was primarily a business decision, the concerns raised were heard."

According to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), an organization that says it helped instigate the policy change, they are trying to protect children from being exposed to "graphic and often degrading and offensive material".

"This is what real change looks like in our #MeToo culture, and NCOSE is proud to work with a major corporation like Walmart to combat sexually exploitative influences in our society," said Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.

"Cosmo sends the same messages about female sexuality as Playboy. It places women's value primarily on their ability to sexually satisfy a man and therefore plays into the same culture where men view and treat women as inanimate sex objects."

NCOSE was founded in the early 1960s by interfaith clergy members as a group called "Morality in Media" before changing its name in 2015.

The group has been working to remove Cosmo for store shelves for years, considering it to be the equivalent of porn.

This is not the first time the organization has worked to shield customers from the magazine.

In 2015, NCOSE was behind a push to get Rite Aid and Delhaize America - which owns Hannaford Stores and Food Lion - to start selling Cosmo wrapped with covers.

Additionally, in 2016 Marsh Supermarkets in Indiana and Ohio removed it from checkout counters as well, according to Mashable.

Cosmopolitan lauds itself as the "best-selling young women's magazine" that focuses on fashion, sex advice, dating and relationships as well as celebrity news.

Cosmopolitan has not commented on the change.