Stephanie Seymour's Cover for Vogue Hommes International Sparks Domestic Abuse Protest
No stranger to courting controversy, Stephanie Seymour has sparked a vocal backlash against her latest cover for Vogue Hommes International.
Advocacy groups Sanctuary for Families, Safe Horizons, NOW NYC and Equality Now have reached out to Condé Nast bigwigs, chairman Si Newhouse and editorial director Thomas Wallace, to pull the issue, featuring model Marlon Teixeira choking Seymour, reports Romenesko.
Choking is a huge predictor of future lethality. A 2008 Journal of Emergency Medicine study of murders of women in 11 cities found that 43% of women who were killed by intimate partners had experienced at least one previous episode of choking before being killed. That is why, in 2010, New York State made choking a violent felony, and advocates, prosecutors, police officers and survivors throughout the State have embraced the law as a way to save women’s lives.
In New York, your magazine appears on numerous newsstands and has enormous reach with young men and women. While this cover was perhaps intended to shock and thrill potential readers, the truly shocking fact is that it glorifies violence against women as an act of love.
We want to know what you think: Does the cover romanticize abuse? Should Condé Nast pull the issue?
