Family Drama: Born Again Christian Victoria Hearst Joins Anti-Cosmopolitan Campaign

I’m the first to admit that trashy magazines rock. I mean, sometimes it’s nice to just shut off your brain for once and catch up on the latest celebrity gossip or, say, the fact that blow jobs are totally making a comeback. That said, I’m a grown woman who doesn’t get depressed by Photoshopped waifs, and I also know that vaginal rejuvenation isn’t the answer to all of life’s problems. Teen girls, not so much. What can I say? They’re influenced by what they see in the media, just as we were at that age. And we’re not doing them any favors by teaching them how to dress for a man or, better yet, how to give a really good hand job.

This explains why Victoria Hearst is joining the crusade to censor Cosmopolitan magazine or at least hide it in a wrapper and make it available to adults only (yeah, that’s a smart business move). The difference between Victoria Hearst and all the other women many of them moms working to get this smut off shelves is that Victoria is the daughter of former Heart Corp. chairman Randolph A. Hearst. And, in case you didn’t know, Cosmo is published by Hearst. Doh!

Victoria spoke with the Observer and explained her position. She feels the company should “have a moral compass” (in other words, stop bombarding impressionable girls with cover lines like “Sex He Craves” and “Um, Vagina, Are You Okay Down There?”). For those who don’t know, Victoria became a born again Christian back in the 90s. “I felt like the Lord was telling me I needed to talk to the company,” she told the Observer about her decision to get involved.

In addition to supporting an online petition started by model Nicole Weider to date more than 33,000 people have signed Victoria’s been busy writing letters to her Senator and the Federal Trade Commission to fight the magazine’s “pornographic” features. Her first move, however, was to confront board members at family reunions and even giving Hearst CEO Frank Bennack a call. ”We had a heated discussion,” Victoria told the Observer. ”He said, ”˜You’re making this out like it’s black and white,’ and I said ”˜No, Frank, it’s green.’”

While I get why Weider and Hearst are trying to get the mag out of teenage hands, I’ve argued before that covering it in shrink wrap is just plain silly. I think it’s up to us as parents to monitor what our children are reading and to educate them about sex and body image. Unfortunately, banning Cosmo won’t do the trick. If only it were that simple…