Co-op tells lads’ mags to cover-up

The Co-operative has delivered an ultimatum to publishers of ‘lads’ mags’ telling them to cover up front pages with sealed ‘modesty bags’, or be taken off sale.

Titles including Front, Loaded, Nuts and Zoo have until 9 September to cover their front pages.

The Co-op, which is owned and run by over seven million of its members, has put the scheme in place in response to concerns from members, customers and colleagues about overtly sexual images of women.

Opaque screens for some lads’ magazines on sale were introduced at the beginning of the month.

Steve Murrells, retail chief executive for the Co-operative Group, said: “As a community-based retailer, we have listened to the concerns of our customers and members, many of whom say they object to their children being able to see overt sexual images in our stores.

“Whilst we have tried to mitigate the likelihood of young children seeing the images with a number of measures in store, the most effective way of doing this is for these magazines to be put in individual, sealed modesty bags.”

Women and equalities Minister Jo Swindon has welcomed the move.

“Adults should be left to make their own decisions about what legal sexual images they look at, but the place for these is not next to the sweets at children’s eye-level,” Swindon said.

The Daily Sport newspaper has already agreed to comply with the Co-operative’s new policy.

The news follows an ongoing protest from gender and equality groups and members of the public to ban The Sun’s Page 3, which began earlier this summer and has since attracted 12,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook and 18,000 followers on Twitter.