Male Homoeroticism In The Advertising Campaigns of Dolce ...

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Male Homoeroticism In The Advertising Campaigns of
Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch
Kami Emirhan
Abstract
It is an apparent fact that, towards the end of the 20 th century and onwards, the
image of male models in advertising campaigns of fashion brands has begun to
suggest a visible eroticism. Obviously, several examples of both heterosexual and
homosexual eroticisms can be spotted on a wide range of fashion advertising
campaigns. However, via the process of shaping the gay market and then extending
it with the metrosexual market, it can be said that, commodification of the male
body in fashion photography has become prevalent on a homoerotic basis. Starting
from this point, my paper will be focusing on the homoerotic representations of
male models in fashion photography supported by the advertising campaings of
Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch. In this context, the
relationship between fashion photography and marketing, advertising campaigns
and public response will be investigated through various references. Moreover,
banned ad campaigns, censorship and the borders of eroticism, pornography,
ethics, offensiveness will be discussed with the help of relevant photographs used
in advertising campaigns.
Keywords: Male homoeroticism, fashion photography, advertising campaigns,
banned ads, male image, gay market, metrosexual market, Dolce & Gabbana,
Calvin Klein, Abercrombie & Fitch.
*****
1. Rise of a New Niche Market; Gay Market
What we call as gay market today did not emerge all of a sudden. It was shaped
by marketers who were observant enough to notice the potential of a profitable
group whose visibility has begun to increase towards the end of the 20 th century,
decade by decade through a process of liberalization. This profitable group of
homosexual consumers, especially male homosexuals, were always there.
Aappropriation of showing the courage of acknowledging them and giving the
decision to develop marketing strategies for them was the novelty.
To identify this process, firstly we shall focus on 1960s; an era, in which
individual expression was encouraged, tolerance for new ideas and equality of
rights were adopted, thus the way to the removal of sexual and moral prejudices
was paved. Some of the most striking features of the decade can be listed as;
visible changes in personal relationships, civil rigths, idealist, protest and
rebellious youth culture, moderation in cencorship, noticeable acceleration in

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Male Homoeroticism In The Advertising Campaigns of
Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch
consumption, feminism, underground and counter-culture, optimism, gay liberation
etc. Whilst these were all happening simultaneously, most important ones, in the
context of formation of the gay market, were of course counter-culture,
underground, freedom chasers and steps towards gay liberation. Counter-cultural
activities, rooted after the Second World War, were against the technocratic regime
especially in The USA and in Europe, and they produced a potentially
revolutionary element in youth. As Theodore Roszak states;
In the technocracy, nothing is any longer small or simple or readily
apparent to the non-technical man. Instead the scale and intricacy
of all human activities-political, economic, cultural-trancends the
competence of the amateurish citizen and inexorably demands the
attention of specially trained experts. 1
In conjunction with this explanation, Roszak also mentions about a salient
outcome of these counter-cultural activities as;
... one of the most remarkable aspects of the counter culture is its
cultivation of a feminine softness among its males. It is the
occasion of endless satire on the part of critics, but the style is
clearly a deliberate effort on the part of the young to undercut the
crude and compulsive he-manliness of American political life. 2
Based on this statement it seems quite possible to say that, by the help of
counter-culture, not only the stiff, rigid structure of the western society began to
come apart, but also males of this society began to become softer. This softness
opened the way to accept the unacceptables more easily and coherently worked as
a gadget for the freedom chasers on their goals.
At this point we shall speak of gay liberation. Gay subculture was still
underground in 1950s but small groups of organizations and magazines were being
formed in a sense of closed communication. In the following years, student
committees, fronts, and communities began to add up to these organizations
fighting for dignity and equality. Towards the end of 1960s, as a result of
convergences, resistence to opression became inevitable and ocular, which Martin
Duberman describes as;
Resistence to opression, takes place on the confident form of
political organizing only after a certain critical mass of collective
awareness of opression, and a determination to end it, has been
reached. 3

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Kami Emirhan
Probably the most monumentalized resistence is remembered as Stonewall. A
gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village area, Stonewall Inn. In the summer of
1969, a usual police raid was resisted by the frequenters of the bar which was new
and unusual. This resistence, started against the corrupt Mafia-Police relations,
transformed itself to become a milestone in the history of gay liberation. In the
meaning of gay rights, gay cause, self-expression and visibility, it triggered an
atmosphere of self reliance which played an important role in gay movement
throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
After all the achievements of the gay movement, it did not take too long for
marketers, advertisers and brands to spot this visibility and to designate it as a new
profitable segment. Market researches and trade press coverages began to be made.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s shaping of gay market reached its maturity. Of
course in this process, both out and proud and in the closet gay marketers, gay
publishers, gay designers, gay artists, gay photographers, gay singers, gay actors
and gay company owners worked in chorus, not necessarily consciously. Gay tv
channels bagan to appear, gay websites began to offer dates, gay magazines
became prevalent, gay tv programmes began to be presented, gay tv series began to
be produced. All these, provided a wide range of venue for advertisement.
2. Extending The Gay Market; Metrosexual Market
As the gay market was shaped successfully, it needed to be extended in order to
reach more men, who were not necessarily gay. Heterosexual men too were needed
to be urged to shop, thus came the metrosexual market. The word metrosexual first
appeared in print media in an essay of Mark Simpson, entitled: Here Come The
Mirror Men: Why The Future is Metrosexual, in The Independent on 15/11/1994. 4
In this essay, Simpson describes the metrosexual as;
Metrosexual man, the single young man with a high disposable
income, living or working in the city (because that’s where all the
best shops are), is perhaps the most promising consumer market of
the decade. In the Eighties he was only to be found inside fashion
magazines such as GQ, in television advertisements for Levis
jeans or in gay bars. In the Nineties, he’s everywhere and he’s
going shopping. 5
Simpson, sees the metrosexual man as the creation of capitalism’s voracious
appetite for new markets and he states that ‘metrosexual man contradicts the basic
premise of heterosexuality – that only women are looked at and only men do the
looking. Metrosexual man might prefer women, he might prefer men, but when
all’s said and done nothing comes between him and his reflection.’ 6 Simpson
clinches his point in one of his articles written for Salon readers by saying ‘... to

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Male Homoeroticism In The Advertising Campaigns of
Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch
determine a metrosexual, all you have to do is look at them. In fact, if you’re
looking at them, they’re almost certainly metrosexual.’ 7
It seems that according to Mark Simpson, David Beckham, a man who has
confirmed to be straight and has indicated that he liked to be admired and didn’t
care whether this admiration was done by women or men, exhibits a good example
for the metrosexual man. 8 Beckham, back in late 1990s and early 2000s, wearing
his wife’s sarongs and panties and having his nails done with pink nail polish,
changing his haircut frequently, showing himself on advertisements and in fashion
spreads seminaked, is indeed a good example.
With the metrosexual defined, or maybe even before, came the skincare
products, cosmetic products marketed directly to men. More men started to attend
hair removal and grooming salons. What metrosexuality began to refer to, from
that point on is actully; ‘the life of a heterosexual man who has taken on more
predominate feminine characteristics, which are stereotypically associated with
homosexuality.’ 9
Via selling the queer style, not only the drawback of being regarded as
homosexual among heterosexual males who craved for being admired was
revomed by a kind of commercial masculinity, but also gay market was extended
with the metrosexual market.
... metrosexuality as deployed on US popular culture assuaged and
managed anxieties relevant to the threat of feminisation and
homosexualisation of men posed by commercial masculinity by
foregrounding and organizing homosociality in strategic ways. 10
Metrosexuality invited the appropriation of feminine and stereotypic gay
aspects of self-presentation styles by heterosexual males and this appropriation of
course, at the end of the day, resulted in lifting the effectiveness of gay consumer.
Thus came the wide acceptance of gay consumer.
Consecutivly, by the help of this commercial masculinity, objectification of the
male body became prevalent in fashion photography, fashion spreads and
advertisement campaigns of most fashion brands. This objectification, especially
in recent years, began to be approached with a homosocial manner, urging
designers, stylists, and photographers to present men in homoerotic mise en scenes
more explicitly.

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Kami Emirhan
3. Homoerotic Presentations of Men in The Advertisement Campaigns of
Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch
Image 1. An Advertisement Campaign of Dolce & Gabbana 11
In the advertisement campaign of Dolce & Gabbana (D&G) seen above,
suggestions of male homoeroticism is quite obvious. On the right side of the photo;
in the front, there’s a totally nude man lying on his back, eyes closed, mouth half
open, hands on his body. This nude figure seems to be exhibiting his indulgence of
being watched via delighting the two watchers on the back. The older one of the
watchers on the far right, is pointing at with his finger presumably the genital area
of the lying figure, lifting the effectiveness of spectatorship. At the same time, we
see two men on the left side of the photo, where the one in the back is either doing
or undoing his tie, and the one in the front is either zipping or unzipping his zipper.
In both cases, regarding the overall view, these figures on the left are offering a
scene where a sexual intercourse is about to begin or has newly finished.
With all the figures in the photo, through positioning men in a homoerotic mise
en scene, the spectator of the ad, who is supposed to be a man, is encouraged to
fantasize himself in this gathering. This most probably homosexual male spectator
is urged both to watch the watchers and the strippers in a voyeuristic manner and

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Male Homoeroticism In The Advertising Campaigns of
Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch
go for shopping happily. In this campaign, eye catcher role is played by the
shocking tactic, which advertisement itself is supposedly based on.
Image 2. An Advertisement Campaign of Calvin Klein 12
Not always the homoerotic presentation is offered with more than one figure.
As seen in the advertisement campaign of Calvin Klein (CK) above, just one
figure, not even fully naked, may very well be enough to emphasize
homoeroticism. In this case, the spectator is exposed to two images of the same
man, shot from two different angles. While the figure shown on the right is
presented fully clothed with a suit, t-shirt and sunglasses, the one on the left is
exhibited with a seductive approach, where he is seen either pulling his trousers
down or pulling it on, apparently wearing no underwear. Another aspect of the shot
on the left, apart from the seminaked body of the man focusing the homoerotic
gaze on himself, is that; the rising of the fly button part of the trouser, intentionally
or unintentionally, suggesting a phallic display.
Again in this advertisement campaign, the spectating male consumer is urged to
go for shopping via associating himself with the beauty and seductivness of the
male body, as if that is the commodity sold in CK’s stores, not apparel. Hereby, the
brand’s and the marketer’s target is reached.

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Kami Emirhan
Image 3. A Still From The Video ‘Other Sports Require One Ball. Wrestling
Requires Two’, Shot For Abercrombie & Fitch, By Bruce Weber 13
Image 4. A Still From The Video ‘Other Sports Require One Ball. Wrestling
Requires Two’, Shot For Abercrombie & Fitch, By Bruce Weber 14

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Male Homoeroticism In The Advertising Campaigns of
Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch
Internationally appreciated photographer Bruce Weber, shot four short videos
for Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) in 2012. In this series of videos evolving around
wrestling men, the most pretentious shooting is the one with the title ‘Other Sports
Require One Ball. Wrestling Requires Two’. In the first still from this video shown
in Image 3, two men are seen in shower, wrestling, one held by the other whilst
supporting himself with his legs on the walls of the shower. The figure, who does
the holding, seems to be exhibiting a look of ecstasy, which may quite possibly
offer to the spectator a perception of pleasure, taken presumably from a sexual
intercourse.
In the second still shown in image 4, we see the same two men in latter seconds
of the video, with the one who was being held kissing the other on the forehead.
Here, it seems quite possible to say that, although this kissing may naively be a
friendly gesture, under the homoerotic circumstances of wrestling itself and
regarding the previous image, it may also be a thank you for the great sex we just
had kiss.
Homoeroticism, distinctly suggested in the stills above, is again the part of a
strategy based on catching the eye of gay consumer.
4. Conclusion
Shaping the gay market along with the gay liberation and expanding it with the
metrosexual market in conjunction with the freeing of self-admired male, have
brought us today to such a pretentious level on presentation of the male image that
it had never been before. Essentially, this assertive approach is based on the
commodification of male body, but marketing the product via presenting this
commodification in a notably homoerotic manner is obviously a challenge to a
heteronormative society.
Whilst this challenge is due to the rise in the visibility of homosexual and
metrosexual man, it basically bases on an understanding of ‘Body sells. Beauty
sells. Eroticism sells.’ 15 Thus, especially in recent years, male homoeroticism in
the advertisement campaigns of most brands, has become one of the determinative
key aspects of marketing strategies.
The level of homoeroticism in advertisement campaigns forcing the boundries
of pornography, perception of this homoeroticism by public, the role of censorship
on these campaigns and banned ads could not be discussed in this study due to
predesignated space of the chapter and are subjetcs to a further reading.

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Kami Emirhan
Notes
1
Theodore Roszak, The Making of A Counter Culture; Reflections on The
Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition (New York: Anchor Books,
1969), 6.
2 Ibid, 74.
3 Martin Duberman, Stonewall (New York: Plume, 1993), 75.
4 Here Come The Mirror Men: Why The Future is Metrosexual, By Mark Simpson,
Last Viewed 10 April 2013,
http://www.marksimpson.com/here-come-the-mirror-men/
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Meet The Metrosexual, By Mark Simpson,
Last Modified 22 July 2002, Last Viewed 10 April 2013,
http://www.salon.com/2002/07/22/metrosexual/
8 Ibid.
9 Michael J. Yaksich, Consuming Queer: Buying Style or Acceptance (American
Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 2004), 2.
10
Helene Shugart, Managing Masculinities: The Metrosexual Moment
(Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Vol.5, No.3, September 2008), 287.
11 Last Modified 23 September 2010, Last Viewed 10 April 2013,
http://saviourxxx.blogspot.com/2010/09/d-campains-story-part-3.html
12 Last Modified 5 August 2012, Last Viewed 10 April 2013,
http://www.fashionindie.com/post/speechless-calvin-klein-mens-ad-campaign
13 Last Modified 29 April 2012, Last Viewded 10 April 2013,
http://kontraplan.com/site/2012/04/29/bruce-weber-wrestling-requires-two-balls/
14 Ibid.
15 Jean Baudrillard, La Société De Consommation, trans. Hazal Deliceçaylı, Ferda
Keskin (Istanbul: Ayrıntı, 2012), 157.
Bibliography
Baudrillard, Jean. La Société De Consommation, trans. Hazal Deliceçaylı, Ferda
Keskin, Istanbul: Ayrıntı, 2012.
Duberman, Martin. Stonewall, New York: Plume, 1993.
Marwick, Arthur. The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and
the United States, c.1958-c.1974., New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

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Male Homoeroticism In The Advertising Campaigns of
Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch
Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the
Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition, New York: Anchor Books,
1969.
Sender, Katherine. Business, Not Politics: The Making of The Gay Market, New
York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Shugart, Helen. Managing Masculinities: The Metrosexual Moment,
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Vol.5, No.3, September 2008.
Simpson, Mark. Male Impersonators, London: Cassel, 1994.
Yaksich, Michael J. Consuming Queer: Buying Style or Acceptance, American
Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 2004.
Here Come The Mirror Men: Why The Future is Metrosexual, By Mark Simpson,
Last Viewed 10 April 2013,
http://www.marksimpson.com/here-come-the-mirror-men/
Meet The Metrosexual, By Mark Simpson,
Last Modified 22 July 2002, Last Viewed 10 April 2013,
http://www.salon.com/2002/07/22/metrosexual/
Last Modified 23 September 2010, Last Viewed 10 April 2013,
http://saviourxxx.blogspot.com/2010/09/d-campains-story-part-3.html
Last Modified 5 August 2012, Last Viewed 10 April 2013,
http://www.fashionindie.com/post/speechless-calvin-klein-mens-ad-campaign
Last Modified 29 April 2012, Last Viewded 10 April 2013,
http://kontraplan.com/site/2012/04/29/bruce-weber-wrestling-requires-two-balls/
Kami Emirhan is a Research Assistant at the Department of Fashion and Textile
Design within the Faculty of Fine Arts at Yeditepe University in Istanbul. While
specializing on print/surface design, currently he is focused on homosocial
presentations of the male image in fashion photography.