No age restriction required for Cosmo

A complaint was laid against Cosmo in March 2006, when the magazine carried its first sealed sex section, objecting on the grounds that it was "absolutely pornographic" and argued the magazine should carry an X18 classification and be sold only at "licensed adult premises". The sex special was in a section of the magazine that had been sealed and readers had to tear it open. The complaint was dismissed.

"It is a source of great sadness that so much of the sex that young women in this country have is non-consensual, violent, and even life-threatening," says Vanessa Raphaely, editor of Cosmo. "The content mirrors the realities of our readers' lives, addressed in a way that is relevant to them, supportive, positive and balanced."

The FPB committee unanimously agreed that Cosmo did not need any age classification, neither 18 nor X18, and that the publishers "exercised satisfactory precautions to ensure that children in particular are protected from potentially inappropriate material".

A report of the FPB findings states that the material in Cosmo's special sex section was well-researched, informative, helpful and "of a bona fide scientific and documentary nature". The "sexually explicit" content, the committee noted in an earlier summary of its findings, was only explicit "insofar as it was educational". A copy of the FPB findings is available on request from Cosmo.

Concludes Raphaely, "Cosmo has, for 22 years, maintained its unique success by addressing all the most important issues of a young woman's life. It is Cosmo's mission to empower our readers by giving them the tools to be fulfilled and happy in every area of their lives."