Penny sent me the text of an article in the Daily Mail:

“The world’s biggest retailer Wal-Mart has pulled three racy British-bred magazines from it’s shelves in a backlash against nudity and obscenity.

FHM, Maxim and Stuff, which feature scantily-clad women, are considered too risque for the American mass market.

But the company’s UK subsidiary, Asda, said it would not follow suit.

Maxim and Stuff come from the Dennis publishing group, set up by maverick mullti-millionaire Felix Dennis. Maxim, the group’s flagship title, has sales of 2.5 million in the US.

Maxim’s US publisher Stephen Colvin said:”I don’t think that theses decisions are often rational. For any men’s magazine to put a woman on the cover seems a bit troubling to them.”

Stuff in the US is owned by Dennis and concentrates on gadgets and naked women. FHM is published by Emap in Britain and the US.

An Asda spokesman ruled out any chance of the ban being extended to the UK:”We understand the pressure for change in the USA came from customers and employees”.

I doubt the pressure came from customers, or even staff. Wal-Mart are famously puritanical. No Logo by Naomi Klein listed a few examples, such as the creation of censored versions of albums just for the store. And Cosmopolitan has been sending them preview copies so the chain can decide whether or not to stock a particular month’s issue.

But they will sell guns…….

Though, to give them credit, they did suspend sales in a whole state when they found out some weapons had gone straight to criminals.