Editor:

The July 27 cartoon, "Mother Goose and Grimm," by Mike Peters, caught my attention not for its usual innocuous humor but rather for its inappropriate sexual innuendo. Although I uphold each person's right to envision an afterlife however she/he chooses, I think this particular image overtly reinforces regressive sexist stereotypes which are detrimental to both women and men, therefore should not have been published in the Sunday Comics.

The image of two martini-wielding playboy-bunnish angel-escorts complete with botoxed lips and protruding breasts promotes the notion of an eternity of alcohol-befuddled sex with two women, presumably at once. What is the difference between the implicit promise conveyed in this image as that of a cadre of virgins promised to a successful suicide bomber?

As the mother of two sons, I abhor the old-school masculinist promotion of sexual prowess as a cultural norm for our male children as much as I abhor the sexual objectification of our female children. How would we respond to this image if the characters were reversed, the escorts being Chippendalish-gigolos escorting a woman into heaven? Either way, this image conveys an out-dated negative sexual stereotype that has no redeeming value to young boys or girls.

It is one thing when this sexual stereotyping is promoted in publications marketed to adults who choose whether or not to buy them; but to find it right smack in the middle of the section of the Sunday Comics deserves to be called into question.

LESLIE KEE, Lusk