Monday, February 20, 2006

Boys Will Be Boys

I'll never forget how stunned I was when I first saw this Abercrombie & Fitch ad in GQ more than 10 years ago. It was as if sexual tension in that locker room was about to jump off the pages: The dark-haired jock in the middle being confronted by his ex-lover -- whom he's hurt on the field and off -- while his new man in the tighty whities looks on pensively from the background, nervous that the hurt boy still has some hold on his guy.

Jump ahead to the March 2006 GQ and an underwear ad for Dolce & Gabbana. Although the ad is far less textured (and, to me, far less erotic), I was surprised that I could still be taken aback -- after all we've seen in the world of overtly sexual advertising -- when I flipped to the fourth page of the spread and put together what everyone seemed to be looking at in the corner ...


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whan I saw taht AF ad ten years ago, I thought "a locker-room without a man of color??!?!?!?! Mmmmmm. Interesting."

:-)



peace
james

Steve said...

There is a man of color. He's hidden by the briefed dude in the middle, but he's just over his shoulder.

Anonymous said...

Steve,

OMG. You are right. A brother in an AF ad. I guess I could complain about him being hidden, but that would be unfair. How did he get in this shoot? And is this peson who set this shoot up still on the AF payroll?!?!?!

:-)

peace

Anonymous said...

And the coach seems to be telling the dark-haired cutie, "Pull my finger."