The Trouble With Olivia Munn’s Maxim Cover

by Justin Fenner | 10:20 am, January 13th, 2011

We understand that there’s a pretty thin line between most lad magazines and, well, Penthouse — but that doesn’t mean publications like Stuff and FHM should be called pornography. Or does it?

That’s the debate American cultural minders are having over Olivia Munn‘s February cover for Maxim, which features the comic wearing a t-shirt and some very sheer blue lace underwear. (If you scroll down, you may notice that it also features some overzealous Photoshopping on her waist and legs, but that’s beside the point.) While Fox News asks whether or not this cover should be shelved with Playboy and Hustler, the good people at Jezebel suggest previous Maxim covers — including one Munn shot exactly a year ago — have been much more highly sexualized than this one.

We won’t comment on the moral obligations American newsstand-keepers have to our young ones (primarily because no one at Styleite has any young ones to worry about), but we will say that this cover isn’t nearly as odious as the average American Apparel ads.

What do you think? Is this too porny for the grocery store check out line, or is it just another half-clothed lady on a magazine cover?