Bottom-Line Implications Persuade

According to what I read in the newspaper, the backward residents of Union City are trying mightily to keep an adult video store out of town. Who do they think they are, to tell people what they can or cannot watch in the privacy of their own homes?

It’s like somebody said in a letter to the editor: “It’s usually people whose inner lives are full of fear and frustration who pound the moral drum the loudest.”

Well, yes. And I will tell you who these people in Union City are. They are justifiably concerned residents, fearful of big-city sleaze making its way to our side of town, frustrated because the law too often seems to be on the side of smut merchants.

What we’re talking about when we say “adult video” is trash. Sex for sale, either in a brothel or on film, doesn’t do much to help a decent community. As we have learned in recent years, people have their rights. Corporate America has a right to sell whatever people will buy, so long as selling it makes money.

Small businesses have the same right, and certainly, individuals have a right to do as they please, so long as nobody is ethnically offended.

That’s democracy, as we know it in our time. Anything else is trampling the Constitution, trashing the Bill of Rights and ignoring the wisdom of ultraliberals and neo-yuppies who think everything that happened before 1960 was either stupid or downright wrong.

So what can the folks in Union City and other Stone Age thinkers do? The good news is we can do a lot more than we think.

The Wall Street Journal told me something I didn’t know. All across America, grocery stores and retail chains are refusing to sell magazines that contain material thought to be objectionable to their customers.

Winn-Dixie, according to the Journal, has been particularly aggressive in demanding to know what’s in a particular magazine before ordering shipments for sale. Winn-Dixie banned the March issue of Cosmopolitan because of a cover headline touting a story on “his and her orgasms.” Just what kids need to see when they go grocery shopping with Mom.

Wal-Mart refused to stock an issue of Vibe magazine, which went beyond the pale with a nearly nude cover photo of singer Toni Braxton. Southland Corp., parent of 7-Eleven stores, and Winn-Dixie were among the big chains notifying the Enquirer and Star tabloids they wouldn’t accept issues containing crash scenes of Princess Diana’s death.

According to the Journal story, most big retail chains have begun demanding an advance look at magazines and tabloid newspapers before they will allow them in their stores.

It’s not that retail America has suddenly grown a moral backbone and decided to stand up for decency; it’s a matter of dollars and cents. They are afraid to risk having customers offended, and possibly lost, because of offensive magazines and tabloids in their stores. What we hear talking is the bottom line. In most corporations today, the bottom line is everything. You can tell that by listening to the radio, watching television and buying what’s on sale at newsstands other than newspapers.

“We have a broad spectrum of customers and we don’t want to offend them” is the way a WinnDixie spokesman explained it. Retailers interviewed by the newspaper said they have to pay close attention because “magazines are becoming increasingly raunchy as competition for readers intensifies.”

“Publishers want to take it (sex and violence) right up the line to maximize their sales,” said the head of a Salt Lake City-based chain. “The message being sent is that people won’t accept that.”

Store managers say more and more customers are taking the time to object to publications selling nudity and sexually explicit themes. “Every week I pull something off the shelf because I don’t think it is of Wal-Mart quality,” said one in Cheraw, S.C.

Publishers are beginning to pay attention. Here’s why: According to the Journal story, Penthouse sold an average of 1.4 million newsstand copies and Playboy 1.3 million before a 1986 anti-pornography campaign by Ed Meese, Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, pressured almost all supermarkets and convenience stores to quit selling the magazines. Today, Penthouse and Playboy sell fewer than 600,000 copies on newsstands.

Wal-Mart has 2,700 stores. A Wal-Mart manager in Asheville, N.C., says he gets up to 10 complaints a week. Ten times 2,700 equals 27,000. The big bosses pay attention.

Next time you see an offensive publication at the checkout counter, you might want to mention it to the manager. Obviously, somebody is listening.

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