Abercrombie’s Buff Twink Models Kiss One Another

Get ready for spittle flecked hysteria, another American Family Association boycott, and screeching from the One Million Bitches Moms crowd.  While it is all too common to see straight couples in an embrace or kissing in magazines and fashion spreads, rarely does one see a male on male kiss.  It seems that Abercrombie & Fitch may be about to change that and one can already contemplate the reaction of the Christofascists who already have no love for the clothier.  Back in 2008 Virginia Beach police made themselves national laughing stocks when they seized promotional photos (one of the offending "obscene" photos is below) at an Abercrombie & Fitch store and charged the manager with obscenity charges after a "godly Christian" shopper complained.  The case was dropped, but it illustrates what may be forthcoming from the godly set if Abercrombie goes forward with the new ads.  Queerty looks at the campaign shot by Bruce Weber.  Here are highlights:

Between the gay dance anthems playing in the store and vintage-porn-looking hunks modeling barely-there clothes in ads, Abercrombie’s marketing strategy has always been super-gay.

But though their ads ooze homoerotic pyrotechnics, they’ve never actually gone and shown us the full monty, the real act of affection between two hot dudes. Until now!



Homorazzi alerts us to a series of Bruce Weber-directed which feature standard buff-twink Abercrombie boys training for wrestling. The most explicit one, titled, um, Other Sports Require One Ball, features two toned studs sparring in the shower and then, voila, kissing one another.

Here are the others, which are just as homoerotic without any actual boy-on-boy action:

• Basketball Is What Boys Do…
• Everything Else In Life Seems Easy
• Live, Eat and Sleep Wrestling

Do you think Abercrombie will actually run these ads in the store, or did Weber take it too far for them to?

The Resurrected A&F Quarterly

Personally, I always enjoyed the A&F Quarterly and viewed Abercrombie & Fitch's discontinuance of the publication as a surrender to the busy bodies of the Christian Right who always view the human body as something dirty and shameful. If you don't like the A&F Quarterly, simply don't buy it. And if you're worried about your little darlings seeing it, then know where your children are. The irony is that the little kiddies can see far, far worse nowadays on the Internet and elsewhere. I'm glad that the self-anointed moral police have lost another battle. As readers may have noticed, A&F style photos are what I like to use on this blog. Both Fashionista and New York Magazine have coverage on the resurrected publication. Here are highlights from New York Magazine:
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On Saturday, the A&F Quarterly — a catalogue you can buy! — returned after a seven-year hiatus. To buy yours, you would have had to reserve a copy online and then pick it up in the store between the hours of 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. — the time restrictions perhaps being Abercrombie's attempt to ensure you'd enjoy the pleasure of buying their marketing materials in broad daylight, perhaps also forcing you to bring them to brunch or happy hour where other people would see them. Once you were in possession of the catalogue, a red warning label assaulted your eyes with a reminder that the pages within the plastic wrapping contained adult content and nudity only appropriate for people 18 years old or older.
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[T]he new A&F Quarterly is pretty much exactly like the old one featuring Bruce Weber's photos of gorgeous young men and a few token chicks in various states of playful undress. If you didn't know it was from 2010, it could easily have been from 2003, or 1998 or whenever, which, depending on your point of view is either comforting or disappointing. Conceptually, however, it represents the roots of Abercrombie's current business woes as the store remains mired in outdated aesthetic concepts that it refused to abandon.
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But on to the pictures! After all, there are hardly any clothes in the book anyway, and with the whole afternoon at our disposal, we decided to do the Concerned Parents of America a favor and count the instances of nudity that necessitated that bossy warning sticker.
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It's hardly hard-core porn, but at $10 a copy it's certainly priced like it, and while there is no actual full frontal nudity, there is plenty that without a strategically placed hand, leg or even a big black dot, would easily qualify.

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A few more photos can be found here.

Virginia Beach Cretins to Drop Charges Against Abercrombie

I guess having accomplished their goal of making the city of Virginia Beach a mockery world wide (apparently a number of TV networks, including Fox picked up the story), the powers that be in Virginia Beach are dropping all obscenity charges against Abercrombie & Fitch.

It is perhaps instructive that Abercrombie’s Norfolk store had the same posters and no one appears to have had a hissy fit. I guess we have fewer of Pat Robertson’s Kool-Aid drinkers in Norfolk. Some of these folks would do better examining their own twisted mean spirited souls than policing the rights of businesses. Not surprisingly, the Virginia Beach Chief of Police was not available for comment. The guy is a dope, in my opinion. Meanwhile, here is the latest from the Virginian Pilot (http://hamptonroads.com/2008/02/beach-plans-drop-charges-against-abercrombie-store):

Deputy City Attorney Mark Stiles said police will seek to drop the public obscenity charges filed Saturday against a Lynnhaven Mall Abercrombie & Fitch department store manager. Similar images are posted in all A&F stores, including at MacAuthur Center in Norfolk.

Stiles said Monday afternoon that the city concluded that, the photos might technically meet the nudity portion of the City Code that makes it a crime to display "obscene materials in a business that is open to juveniles." But they thought it would be difficult to meet the other standards of the law, which say the display needed to appeal to prurient interests, have no redeeming artistic merit and be offensive to the prevailing standards in the community.

Stiles said, of the photo with the men "You might see that typical vision walking down a street." Itzel Vargas, a resident of Panama, [shopping at the mall] said the Abercrombie & Fitch ads didn’t offend her. “I don’t mind if they want to show naked guys because they show naked women everywhere,” she said, pointing down to the Victoria’s Secret store. “What about the Victoria’s Secret commercials on television? That is much worse than the Abercrombie & Fitch ads.” Nikki Hawickhorst, a 18-year-old senior at Kellam High School, said the ad was a little bit risqué because of the semi-nudity. “There’s a lot of worse stuff out there,” she said.

I would also add that the comments posted by Pilot subscribers took the VB police and city management to task in no uncertain terms. Here's a sample comment:

Congrats to who(m)ever decided to complain about the A&F pictures. You launched us into the national spot light and made VB look like a bunch of idiots!! And you probably just helped A&F have a great start to their February sales with the publicity you just generated for them. I see nothing wrong with Abercrombie or their advertising. The problem I have is with people wanting to control every bit of my life from what I wear to what I buy. I have more problems with uptight, conservatve holy rollers that think a little bit of skin is the end of morality and uprising of the devil. Get real!

Virginia Beach Police Seize Photos from Abercrombie Store

This situation (http://hamptonroads.com/2008/02/virginia-beach-police-seize-photos-abercrombie-store#comment-587076) epitomizes why I no longer live in Virginia Beach and would never ever move back. Talk about making the city a laughing stock world wide via the Internet! Despite the largest population of any city in Virginia (due to the merger of Princess Anne County and the town of Virginia Beach) and its pretensions of being a modern, progressive city, Virginia Beach remains a Barney Fife type of place with a plastic, artificial downtown and a resort strip that only those who have never been to a first class resort would come to visit. Seizing these obviously NOT obscene posters merely shows the cretin mindset that is far too pervasive in the city government and police force known for its corruption and insider dealings.

With all the issues the police could be better pursuing – I had a car stolen twice in Virginia Beach, once from the parking lot of the main library (the Mayor’s comment was that I should get a car with a better alarm system) – they waste their time on this idiocy. Moreover, if this advertisement is “obscene,” are the police going to arrest every fat tourist wearing an inappropriate bathing suit? Believe me, you can see some pretty nasty sights with a lot more skin showing walking along the boardwalk. How about arresting the mayor – she might be considered obscene by some since she is overweight. Here are some story highlights:

Police, saying they were responding to citizen complaints, carted away two large promotional photographs from the Abercrombie & Fitch store in Lynnhaven Mall on Saturday and cited the manager on obscenity charges. Adam Bernstein, a police spokesman, said the seizure and the issuance of the summons came only after store management had not heeded warnings to remove the images.

The citation was issued under City Code Section 22.31, Bernstein said, which makes it a crime to display "obscene materials in a business that is open to juveniles." He did not say what was being done with the pictures and when the manager, whose name was not released, is scheduled to appear in court.

Bernstein said the summons for a Class One misdemeanor was issued to the manager because there is no legal way to issue a summons to a corporate entity in such circumstances. The manager was not arrested but faces a fine of up to $2,000 and as much as a year in jail, if convicted. Bernstein said that in a meeting last week with store management, the officer - who is assigned to routine patrol of the mall - said he understood it was a corporate decision as to what would be displayed in the stores. But he explained that that didn't exempt the local store from complying with the city code. Bernstein said management was told specifically: "We want those advertising signs taken down."