Barnes & Noble and Borders censor shirtless male model on magazine cover
Many magazines like Men's Fitness, Rolling Stone, and GQ feature shirtless men on their covers, but when androgynous male model Andrej Pejic appeared on the new cover of Dossier bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders banned the magazine unless it was housed in an opaque plastic sleeve like a porno mag. Seriously?! We've seen ladies pose with barely-there clothing, hands, or even paint covering their breasts on magazine covers, and those aren't censored either. Is this discrimination?
The bookstores are well aware that Pejic is a man. Lacking breasts. But they are worried some customers might be confused. We do understand where some of the confusion may come from. During the last New York Fashion Week, Pejic walked the runway for five men's shows and four women's shows, even wearing a wedding dress at the Jean-Paul Gautier show in Paris. He can be made up to look like a woman sometimes, but the fact is, Pejic is a man! And the folks at Borders and Barnes & Noble know this. He may not have jacked up muscles, and he may have his hair in curlers on the cover of an artsy fashion magazine, but no male's chest has ever been censored before, so why start now?
Jezebel spoke with Dossier co-founder and creative director Skye Parrot, who was surprised by the censorship. "We knew that this cover presented a very strong, androgynous and that could make some people uncomfortable," Parrot told Jezebel. "That's partly why we chose it. I guess it has made someone pretty uncomfortable." She added, "I've been talking to all my friends who work in magazines, and nobody I know has ever heard of anything like this happening. Especially with a guy. Guys are shirtless on magazine covers all the time." According to Jezebel, when Parrot asked retailers like Barnes & Nobel whether they knew Pejic was a male, they said they did but decided to censor the cover because "the model is young and it could be deemed as a naked female." There are about 20,000 copies of Dossier printed worldwide, and the censorship will only affect less that 10% of the issues.
Pejic may not look like Ryan Reynolds or Matthew McConaughey, but he has scored some prominent jobs and ad campaigns (he's the face of Marc by Marc Jacobs), and we love to see that the fashion industry is capable of accepting diversity. We just wish bookstores could be equally understanding.