Menage a Trois La La La La

Kathie McGinn found a shirt for her son at the Abercrombie & Fitch store in the Grove shopping center and took it to the checkout counter. That’s when she saw the A&F; Christmas catalog.

“It said, ‘280 pages of moose, ice hockey and group sex,’ ” said McGinn. “I was stunned.”

Not by the moose or the ice hockey, either.

McGinn, who lives in Palo Alto and was visiting family in Los Angeles, was ticked off about the marketing of group sex to a clientele that dips into the early teens. But she didn’t say anything to the clerk.

Back home in the Bay Area, when the shirt didn’t fit her 24-year-old son, she returned it to the Palo Alto store. This time, she thumbed through the catalog and her eyes almost bugged out of her head.

“I was absolutely appalled,” said McGinn, who hadn’t shopped at Abercrombie since before it went mod and rumpled in the 1990s, outfitting suburban kids in ripped duds.

For a clothing company, the first 120 pages of the A&F; “Christmas Field Guide” have curiously little clothing on display, but lots of blond hair and golden skin. It looks like a photo album from some kind of Aryan Youth Nudist Camp.

A&F; -- which has twice been sued for allegedly keeping minority employees in the stockroom rather than on the sales floors of its 600 stores -- actually included a couple of black models in the Christmas skin fest. And the nudity rivals Playboy, with one difference.

In the A&F; catalog, which sells for $7, males take it off too. They appear partially clad and totally in the buff along with naked and partially clad females, often in groups.

There’s nudity in creeks, wooded groves, lakes, and -- to make the season bright -- under the Christmas tree.

“They sell nubile sex,” said USC’s Marty Kaplan, who studies media. “That’s their brand identity.”

The models are either smiling as if they can’t believe parents keep giving their children credit cards to shop at A&F;, or they’re gazing intently into the distance, as you often do when wondering how you ended up in the forest without your pants.

On one page that makes the Sears catalog seem like an ancient text, 11 models sit buck naked in a creek. They appear to be in their late teens or early twenties, and the text says:

“Sex, as we know, can involve one or two, but what about even more? An orgy can involve an unlimited quantity of potential lovers. Groups can be mixed-gender or same-sex, friendly or anonymous.”

The text warns that the risk of pregnancy, AIDS and sexually transmitted disease increases with additional partners, and recommends group masturbation for the fainthearted. It goes on to extol the virtues of orgies, and says adultery was socially acceptable in the Middle Ages despite being frowned upon by “the Church.”

McGinn, 53, is still flabbergasted.

“I consider myself fairly liberal,” she said. “But I think people have to go after the board of directors.... You’ve got 13-year-olds buying a little T-shirt and looking at a catalog encouraging group sex. Where do we draw the line?”

We don’t. Or if we try, it gets crossed by day’s end.

McGinn, a former PTA mom, has begun rallying friends to boycott A&F.; She’s also trying to drum up support from school officials and her City Council, and she’s been trying to get hold of A&F; execs and give them a good scolding.

But she’s had little satisfaction so far from the national chain, which does about $350 million in sales each quarter, thanks to hordes of brainwashed kids happy to pay $69.50 for a worn-out sweatshirt.

McGinn isn’t the first one to flip out over A&F;’s marketing, which included the Grove store’s nude and seminude photo exhibit I wrote about a month ago.

Abercrombie has fielded complaints in several communities, and last year created a stir for selling thong underwear to preteens with the words “eye candy” printed on them.

If a company can stoop that low to grab a dollar, it’s probably a waste of time to ask why nudity is being used to sell Christmas presents. But I called anyway.

A&F; spokesman Hampton Carney informed me I had the catalog all wrong. It’s not even a catalog, for one thing. It’s a “magalog,” and it’s about “an experience.”

Oh.

“It’s specifically targeted to an 18-, 22-year-old college student,” Carney said. “That’s the group whose interests are reflected in the publication. It’s beautiful fashion photography, it’s sexy, it’s healthy, it’s irreverent, but that’s what the college kid is all about.”

It’s more proof that I went to the wrong college, I told Carney. I don’t recall any orgies under the yule tree.

“We’re selling an image,” said Carney, adding that the “magalog” is not intended for anyone under 18. That’s why the back of the paper wrapper recommends parental consent.

“It’s never been our intention to offend anybody,” Carney assured me.

Hey, I may be gray, but I’m not stupid.

They’ll offend, they’ll exploit, they’ll peddle sex to adolescents, whatever it takes to make a buck. In fact, offending people is the essence of the marketing scheme, which means that even columns like this one might be good for business, unless enough readers take Kathie McGinn’s cue.

The “magalog” includes a letter to Santa that mocks anyone who might have issues with A&F;, including “the Catholic League,” minority groups, “Mrs. Claus and the impotent.”

“In business, that’s what’s called edge,” said USC’s Kaplan. “Young people, by nature of adolescence and rebellion, want to affiliate with just that kind of in-your-face tone, and Abercrombie is tying it up with a nice ribbon.

“You wanna say ‘up yours’ to a whole generation and its values? Just come here and buy this stuff and you’ll be a rebel. You used to have to do something to be a rebel.”

Yeah, but times have changed.

*

Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.