WOODLAND HILLS, California, March 2, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Nicole Weider was at the top of her game in the modeling world, landing jobs with Victoria’s Secret and appearing on the covers of magazines like Maxim and Esquire, when a deep depression left her disconcerted about the way the fashion industry used her body for profit.
“People have no idea about the extent of what girls are willing to do in order to be famous,” said Weider to LifeSiteNews. “I’ve seen first hand so many celebrities ruin their lives and compromise their values in order to stay relevant in the media. This means doing whatever it takes, whether it be wearing revealing clothing, selling your body in a sexual way, poising for Playboy, or even making a porn tape.”
Weider remembers the personal cost of her own effort to stay relevant: “I just felt degraded. The photographer was like, ‘Nicole bend down, go lower, stick your chest out, suck in your stomach.’ I felt bad about myself,” she recounted in an interview with CBN.
In the midst of her dark days a Christian friend encouraged the model to turn to Christ for answers.
“I just said, God, show me that there’s a better way, and I accepted the Lord, and my mind was renewed through God,” recalled Weider. “I just realized that my mind was almost like clear, and I knew that I was put on this earth for a bigger purpose.”
As Weider discovered the ways of the Lord, she came to see that part of her purpose was to expose the lies and darkness of the fashion world. Her first target would be the fashion magazine Cosmopolitan for its hyper-sexualized objectification of girls.
“The central core of the magazine is all about pushing sex from a young age to girls and pushing it in a very graphic manner. It’s not just saying ‘oh, have sex with your spouse’ rather it’s saying ‘girls give it up right away to a hook-up’”.
“I’ve been researching the magazine really thoroughly,” Weider told LifeSiteNews, “and have been horrified at how explicit and graphic it really is … it encourages girls with advice like ‘I wish my last girlfriend participated in anal sex’.”
“It is so damaging because it’s so explicit,” she explained. “The sexual tips in there are just so pornographic and it’s so harmful to girls because you have girls as young as 13 or 14 buying the magazine and taking the contents to heart.”
Weider has created a petition to have the racy magazine covered in a nontransparent wrapper and sold only to adults 18 and older.
“Because Cosmo is the #1 best-selling women’s magazine, it’s easily available to young boys and girls at any age,” wrote Weider on a website that carries her petition. Since beginning her crusade Weider says she has received hundreds of stories from girls as young as 11 who have detailed how they “tried the sexual tips written about in Cosmo, only to get their hearts broken, or worse — getting pregnant or catching an STD.”
Weider told LifeSiteNews that a lot of parents are in the dark when it comes to how graphic the content really is. “So many girls are buying it without their parent’s awareness and putting it in their backpack and bringing it to school and sharing it with their friends who are 13 and 14 years old.”
“This publication has steadily declined into a full-on pornographic ‘how to’ guide for teens and vulnerable young girls,” wrote Weider on her website. “Every issue dares girls and encourages them to try new sex moves (including anal sex), engage in threesomes, experient (sic) with lesbianism, have public sex, watch porn, (with specific URLS listed- October 2011 issue) and using sex toys such as dildos, shower heads, and vibrating tongue rings to ‘please your man and stimulate your clitoris.’
“This readily available magazine has become one of the media’s worst influences on girls.”
Weider knows that taking on Cosmopolitan is a little like David taking on Goliath, but she believes that challenging a culture that over-sexualizes girls to the detriment of their psychological growth is worth every effort.
“I want to tell girls that they’re so beautiful and perfect the way God made them and they’re a masterpiece,” she said. “Don’t conform to what the pressure of the media is telling you to do, to be sexy. Don’t listen to the lies they are telling you because you’re so beautiful the way you are, and you’re so precious”.
Weider believes that with the “power of thousands, [and] God behind us, we CAN and WILL get Cosmo sold to adults only.”
So far her petition has been signed by 26,700 people. She is hoping to send 50,000 signatures to Cosmopolitan.
Weider received a letter from the Federal Trade Commission saying that they will look into the magazine’s content and start an investigation when they determine that Cosmopolitan is a threat to society. “This means they need more complaints — that is, signers of this petition,” said Weider.
Click here if you would like to sign the petition.
Visit Nicole Weider’s website Project Inspired.