It’s hard to imagine there was a time in America where parents wielded enough influence to shame Abercrombie & Fitch — that place in the mall with the shirtless guys in the doorway, which also sells jeans and polos — into shuttering their quarterly “clothing catalog.” Except that happened, in 2003! But as we’ve seen from mothers’ acceptance of their daughters going to Miley Cyrus concerts, even though she’s so racy now, parents are becoming less prude, or maybe the American Family Association doesn’t have any influence any more, and the heavy paper stock guide for teenage boys in need of that final push over the edge into Definitely Gay makes its return. Reserve yours today.
jason
How is this even remotely gay? Male nudity isn’t gay, it’s just male nudity. Stop characterizing male nudity as gay.
It’s a petty form of branding that suggests immaturity on the part of the person who’s doing the branding.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
@jason: There was such an uproar against A&F and their “porn” magazine because the crazed conserative lunatic mothers were sure that by their teen sons viewing the pages of the half neked boys in them magazines their own sons were gonna be wantin some male lovin also. (never realizing that a good percentage of them were already doin’ their best friends in the shed :-p)
whatever
I am more offended at how “master racey” it is. I guess the catalogue is just a reflection of their hiring policies in their stores for which they were sued up the wazzu.
whatever
@jason: Yeah! I mean straight guys frolic naked on the beach and play nude tackle football ALL THE TIME.
SSCHIEFRSHA
As always Queerty is late with news articles.
John (CA)
@whatever:
Some of the (many) discrimination lawsuits against them are pretty silly though. The one about hiring practices is definitely legitimate. But the controversy over customers being offended by their t-shirt slogans and advertising seems like litigious opportunism to me. The lawyers are just piling on – in the hopes of getting a favorable settlement – because the company has a bad reputation.
Besides, I think we should give the master race their homoerotic A&F Quarterly.
Maybe it will stop their incessant whining about the lack of a “White History Month” next February.
jeffree
Those prudish moms kinda had a point: that catalog boosted me into becoming a full bore ghey a couple months earlier than I would of!
A&F isn’t the only store that seemed too-white at the time. Brooks Brothers and Gap stores I visited in the midwest in the early 2000’s didnt have very many POCs working within 20 feet of the entrance either.
Yeah
“Those prudish moms kinda had a point: that catalog boosted me into becoming a full bore ghey a couple months earlier than I would of!”
As if that’s a bad thing! 😉
Hilarious
I just had the Sunday underwear ads when I was a kid, until they suddenly stopped putting them in the paper anyway.
jeffree
The big thing in that time for us semi-rurals was getting a copy of the “International Male” catalog. It got passed around from ghey to ghey like ADHD students shared ritalin!
@Yeah (#9)…. I *was* kidding ! The “real” reason I delayed my big PR release was because I had to breakup with my “girlfriend”. (p.s. I miss you Marissa, and hope you and Lashandra adopt *soon*…)
Three more hours until I’m done at work…..
Sexy Rexy
Yawn.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
@jeffree: I too was enamored by the hawties in International Male!…..Was kinda sorta Gay porn ya could keep somewhere besides under the matress. They had some quite bizzare items, like the sky blue shinny pants with matching vest……I actually did order a bunch ‘o shirts from them, they were cut perfectly to show off the results of all those damm freakin’ hours at the gym!!…….
‘cept they were quite possibly the worst quality garments ever made. After like thre washes you were left with nothing more than separate pieces of cloth…………. 🙁
El Brucio
As other people have mentioned in reference to International Male (and Undergear), I’m sure when the A&F homoerotic catalog was out years ago it was a great “hide in plain view” source of pornishness for the young gays – family or friends who saw the catalog could just be told “I like their clothing line”.
I suspect it may not do nearly as well this time around however – most kids have the internet these days, though I suppose if you are a teen in a household where the only computer is located in the living room, something like this could still come in handy.
jeffree
@Plays Wildly With Others: Yeppers! the quality of the clothes was awful. I have the same prob with H&M today. I bought maybe four years ago the equiv of Levis 501 button fly jeans in bleached khakhi there, and I turned heads in them–really–because they hugged the glùttes just right.
After two turns thru the washer they turned into Dockers and I looked like a accountant from Peoria!