Morford: The Hot Porn Of Pottery Barn (Think Abercrombie & Fitch is racy?)

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Wednesday, December 3, 2003 | Mark Morford, Wears Mostly Rhinestones, Vinal & Feathers

[presidio9]

Here it comes again, another dumbly predictable, panicky little outcry from terrified parents' groups and petrified dads all aflutter over the recent sexed-up, "racy" Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, just in time to stuff your proverbial stocking.

You know the one, that new A&F Christmas catalog that dared to go so far as to show actual young half-naked models laying around in half-naked splendor doing half-naked nothing much. Same as it ever was.

[battlegearboat]

And here we have San Francisco with all it's feces smeared streets and urine scented parks.

[jjm2111]

Maybe Morford's acid will disolve him one day and deprive us of his wit.

[stanz]

This wrapped up my holiday catalogue offerings. (to name but a few)

[Hodar]

The Abercrombie catalog is, by the way, not sold to anyone under 18. It has a cover warning of "Mature content."

Interesting that in the furor here on FR, this little detail was left out....

[Jonah Hex]

Replace "wit" with a similar rhyme, and I'll agree with you.

[Scenic Sounds]

Note to scrunchy parents: I'd be far, far more worried about what, say, Kraft is selling to your kids in all those millions of boxes of toxic and openly poisonous Kraft Lunchables than about some quasi-sexy yuppie-fashion catalog they never even see. But that's just me.

Oh, but here. Here is the safe, saccharine J. Crew catalog, all bland white former sorority girls and carefully emasculated boys and a smattering of safe black persons, all with incredibly clean teeth and nifty haircuts and big happy smiles playfully tossing snowballs at each other in their new J. Crew scarves, only $29.99. Oh yes, that's much better.

And here we have the L.L. Bean catalog, featuring those exact same J. Crew models about 10 years later, doing the exact same smiley snowbound activities, only with more gray hair and a higher credit limit and less sexual activity and lots more monogrammed luggage. How disturbing. I feel sort of violated just looking at it.

How can he say things like this and get away with it?

[mountaineer]

Why do I suspect that, as a youngster, Morford pored over the men's underwear pictures in the Sears, Roebuck catalog?

[mountaineer]

Is this really a Morford column? I saw no mention of Bush or Ashcroft (though, to be honest, I find it difficult to read his trash all that closely).

[Billthedrill]

Meanwhile, Abercrombie is thrilled. The latest round of reactionary screeching is exactly the outcry they were counting on, as they yank the sexy catalog from the shelves just as the news of its raciness hits the media, thus resulting in an instant wave of interest among their target market: a.k.a., those youths who simply love it when parents get all pissy and fumy about interesting types of sex they no longer have.

Well, maybe not. Sales were down 13%. The kids may love it but it's the adults who have signature authority on the ol' VISA.

Now, as far as all catalogs being soft porn, Miss Morford probably has a point. I await with glee my Northern Tools catalog...generators...hubba hubba...

[Michael.SF.]

Maybe Morford's acid will disolve him one day and deprive us of his wit.

I must have missed that part.

[Agnes Heep]

It must be profound, because I don't understand a word of it.

[sarasota]

It comes in the mail and anyone with a child under 18 is bound to see it. It's soft porn, period.

[ppaul]

The Abercrombie catalog is, by the way, not sold to anyone under 18. It has a cover warning of "Mature content."

And, its target market is the immature - adolescents, teens, and adults.

[sarasota]

Because there are many, many liberals who find him very amusing. What a clown.

[pogo101]

Morford is right, I tell you! He's right! Right, that Stanford students are ineptly dressed. Or at least they were when I was there (AB '89, History & Poli Sci). Maybe because with tuition and fees of (now) over $35k a year, and some 70+ percent of students getting financial aid, they can't bloody afford many new clothes, let alone Abercrombie-wear. (One wonders at what vastly PUBLICLY-SUBSIDIZED institutions of higher learning MORFORD spent several years sodomizing, on the dime of me and other CA taxpayers.)

He's about as "right" as usual on everything else, however.

[presidio9]

And, its target market is the immature - adolescents, teens, and adults.

Hodar thinks kids are miniature adults. He spent an enormous amount of time and energy yesterday that teaching your kids about Santa Claus is abusive.

[ikka]

Still, Maryam Kubasek of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families (hello, red flag of rigid sanctimony) apparently thinks the catalog is literally capable of stripping her young son naked and plying him with massage oil and anal beads and a nice Burntbridge Pond Striped Polo shirt with moose embroidery for $39.99. Oh the horror.

A little bit of projection on the part of the author, I think.

[Servant of the 9]

It comes in the mail and anyone with a child under 18 is bound to see it. It's soft porn, period.

It does not come in the mail unless someone orders it and pays for it.
This is not one of the trash catalogs that just turns up in your mail. This is a select expensive expensive trash catalog.

So9

[Hodar]

But, as the advertizement was presented HERE as if it were freely distributed either in the mail, or in the store itself. I was lead to be under the impression that the catelogs were freely available to the public. The material apparently was (I have don't shop A&F - I'm more of a Dillards / Foley's customer) marked as "Mature" and was only sold to 18 yr olds. Thus, A&F is more like a 7-11; in that they sell soda and candy; as well as beer and porn. There is a big difference between selling soft-core, and openly displaying soft-core.