T-shirts ‘n’ smut
Posted on November 24, 2003 @ 12:56 am
The “Christmas Field Guide” edition of Abercrombie and Fitch’s A&F Quarterly is available now in stores, and while I haven’t seen it myself, Snopes provides a rather thorough overview of its contents. No stranger to controversy, it seems that the popular clothing retailer has gone all-out for its holiday catalog, packing its 280 pages with a wide variety of nude, semi-nude, and sexually suggestive photographs. Snopes argues that the catalog could accurately be described as “soft-core porn” due to its depictions of young women and men in various states of undress. As one might expect considering Abercrombie’s teenaged target demographic, the catalog has already created a bit of a stir.
Then again, maybe Abercrombie and Fitch is onto something with all the nudity. After all, if their models aren’t wearing shirts, they can’t be wearing shirts with offensive Asian caricatures on them.
Perhaps the oddest part of the “Christmas Field Guide,” however, is the brief primer on group sex that apparently appears underneath a two-page photo spread featuring seven men and four women sitting naked in a shallow pool of water. After helpfully reminding readers that group sex “can involve an unlimited quantity of potential lovers…friendly or anonymous,” the crack team of A&F Quarterly researchers delve a bit further into the history of the orgy. Here’s an excerpt:
Orgies and group sex were common in the Middle Ages. Promiscuity was popular with both the peasantry and the nobility. Since divorce was forbidden by the Church, adultery was common and socially accepted.
Now, I’ll admit that holding a bachelor’s degree in history doesn’t necessarily make one an expert on the Middle Ages, but I can say with some degree of confidence that describing adultery as “socially accepted” during the Middle Ages–whether common and/or popular–is a bit of a stretch. Then again, now that I think about it, I’m not entirely sure how relevant adultery is to a discussion of group sex in the first place. Sure, the two are connected, but I’m not sure whether they should be used interchangeably in a historical context.
Whatever happened to the good old days of the Sears Wishbook, where the most scandalous thing you’d find between the covers was a middle-aged model wearing flannel pajamas?
Posted by Jess | Filed Under In the News |
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After living in Europe for 15 months, I soon learned that America is WAY too up tight when it comes to nudity. When you pick up an Otto catalog (closest thing to Sears) over there, there will be nudity where it makes sense. For instance, an ad for a sun tanning lamp would show a nude woman reclined under the lamp. Because we all know that if a person tans at home, they most likely tan in the nude. That’s just the way it is. Also, while I was there, they had their elections for Chancellor and the Green Party put up posters around town to promote their views on certain issues. One of which was promoting gay & lesbian rights which recreated a famous work of art (sorry, I’ve seen the original in the Louve, but I don’t remember the title) of two bare breasted woman and one if pinching the nipple of the other. (see it here) And no one is embarrassed by that. People are taught that nudity is not dirty. Oh yeah, another example is an ad shown on TV and before movies for “Fa” which is a shower gel. The ad shows a man trying to parallel park a woman is standing behind the car guiding him in with hand signals. She causes him to back over a fire hydrant and water goes shooting up into the air. The woman then takes off her shirt, breasts exposed and dances in the water as if she was in the shower. What’s wrong with that? Nothing. Okay, maybe the ad didn’t NEED to show breats, but that’s what’s great about it there. No one complains. It’s considered normal. Along the same lines, curse words are never bleeped on TV. Parents, not the FCC, are responsible raising their children.
However, there is thing that is opposite there, violence. In fact, the violent movies at the rental store are kept back in that “secret room” at the back of the store. And what do you know? As a whole, Europeans are a LOT less violent.
So I think America has it all wrong. More nudity (not gratuitous) and less violence.
I generally like your views on things, Jess, but I have to disagree with you here; it’s not a catalog. It may contain some parts which mimic a catalog, but it’s more an upscale smut magazine for young women and men who shop there.
You need ID to buy it. Sounds fine to me.
Thanks for the posts, guys. It’s not so much that I have a problem with A&F’s “magalog,” per se–especially considering that it’s in a wrapper and only available with valid ID. It just seems a little odd to me that none of the other stores at the mall (including those that skew to a slightly older audience) take the same route to promoting their clothing line’s “attitude.” Then again, it also seemed odd to me when A&F produced a line of children’s thongs with words like “wink, wink” and “eye candy” printed on the front.
Plus, in my own defense, the “Group Sex for Dummies” passage was just too ridiculous to pass up.
Thanks again for the feedback!