Dear Sports Illustrated (and Wal-Mart too)

I wanted to write a letter to Sports Illustrated and Wal-Mart. So I sat down and began typing away and then I realized that my letter would probably never be opened by anyone of any importance in either company and that it would make it's way into a garbage can somewhere along the way and my words would never be heard and my voice would be silenced and well, I just was not going to let that happen!

So, I figured I would post the letter to my blog. Probably still no one of any importance at either Sports Illustrated or Wal-Mart will ever read this but maybe just maybe my letter will be read by other mothers who will join me in taking up this fight and they will write letters to these companies or post a letter on their blogs and then maybe just maybe someone with the power to DO SOMETHING will STEP UP and do just that! So here goes: My Letter To Sports Illustrated and Wal-Mart too!

Dear Sirs or Madams,

I am writing to you today because last night I took my son to Wal-Mart to purchase a magazine for an assignment he was to complete in his High School Journalism class. And as I stood at the store with my 18 year old son, my 15 year old son, and my 12 year old daughter I was HORRIFIED! Absolutely HORRIFIED! I was staring into an abyss of  scantly clad women. There were breasts and butt cheeks as far as the eye could see! I had to stop for a minute and make sure that I had not somehow wandered into one of those "ADULT ONLY" stores for surely the level of smut at one of those places is not to be outdone by this magazine isle!

I was embarrassed for my children, to see something like this in front of your friends may be one thing, but to be looking at 3 women in thong bikinis with your mother a foot away I'm sure plummeted my boys into a psychologists couch faster than if I had kept them in diapers until they were double digits. I mean seriously, do you not realize that these are family stores that people shop at, well, with their families!

Once I recovered from my embarrassment, my good old-fashioned ANGER set in. Anger that you would expose my male children to a way that is simply a small path that leads straight to PORNOGRAPHY and call it SPORTS ILLUSTRATED is shameful and downright disgusting. But my anger did not stop with my male children, OH NO, you see your filthy (and photo-shopped I have no doubt) pictures were impressed on my 12 year old daughter. You showed her right in front of her brothers and her mother that she will simply never measure up to BEAUTIFUL unless she BARES it all for ALL to see!

You should be ashamed of yourself. I know that you are NOT in the least. But since you do not have the common sense to be ashamed on your own I will be your conscious and let you know that you should be hanging your head in utter remorse. I know this issue is one of your best selling. DON'T BE PROUD OF THAT! You are a sports magazine that makes more money off of an issue that has absolutely NOTHING to do with football, baseball, basketball, or the Olympics than any other issue you produce. That only tells me one thing! You must not be very good at your job! You cannot create a profitable sports magazine that people find enlightening and entertaining and so you must rely on soft porn to make your payroll! Perhaps you should rethink your business plan and give Playboy a run for it's money and leave the sports magazines to those that know sports.

And Wal-Mart you should be ashamed too! Put these magazines in black plastic, put them behind counters, or JUST DO NOT SELL THEM AT ALL! I shop at Wal-Mart with my children, with my mother, and I used to shop there with my Grandmother! Your a family store, act like it! Hide the smut! I should not be embarrassed to walk down any isle in my local grocery store! And you should be hanging your head in remorse too! You do not have to sell the trash that these companies are peddling. I know that you make more than enough money to keep your company afloat you should not be making money at the expense of the mental, moral, and emotional cost of our children.

And so I will end this letter with a challenge to all of you at Sports Illustrated and Wal-Mart. Get your latest swim suit edition and sit down first with your mother and father and look through the magazine with them asking their opinions and advice on suits and placements of the models. Then look through it with your wife or husband (don't forget to point out the good parts) and ask how you measure up or if they measure up to what you and society consider BEAUTFIUL. And then gather the kids around and have a family night of looking through what Mommy or Daddy do for a living and what they sell to the American people. If you can do that with no shame, no remorse, no problems then I am ever so sorry that I wasted your time. I had no idea that I was the last one left in America with morals.

Sincerely,
Melissa Thomas


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