Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions that some may find offensive.
Controversial clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) has released its latest quarterly catalog, the Back to School Issue 2003, which it flaunts as “The Sex Ed Issue.” For the last several years, A& F has focused its clothing catalog, ironically, on nudity. More than 45 out of the catalog's total 280 pages have photos with female breast nudity, male and female rear nudity, and/or complete nudity. (Genitals are not shown.)
Sexual themes abound as well in the first 124 pages of Back to School. There are photographic portrayals of fornication, group sex, and masturbation, as well as images of sexual acts with persons of the same sex and with animals. The catalog contains interviews with various pop stars and psychic John Edward, from the cable show Crossing Over. There is also an interview with a pair of female porn stars, who freely discuss men's genitals, sexual arousal, and sexual acts.
A& F has been controversial, not simply because of the nudity and sex in their catalogs, but because of the company's enthusiastic endorsement of casual sex. “Abercrombie & Fitch does not merely sell a popular line of clothing — they sell a lifestyle,” said Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.”And because A& F clothing is popular among teens and college kids, the influence of their 'sex-as-recreation' lifestyle is widespread.
For the 65 million Americans with an incurable sexually transmitted disease, however, casual sex is no longer a game.” AFA says because of A& F's stubborn refusal to “dampen its hedonistic salesmanship,” it continues to call for a boycott of the retailer's clothing line. Another pro-family group, the Michigan-based American Decency Association, also has long urged Christians to boycott A & F because of what it calls the retailer's “pornographic” catalogs. ADA president Bill Johnson says by publishing such catalogs, A & F is “arrogantly thwarting time-honored standards of honor and decency.”
(This article appeared originally in the September 2003 issue of AFA Journal. This article courtesy of Agape Press).
