“Sex sells” is a phrase often associated with advertising and marketing. A lot of odd products over the years have tried to use sex appeal to sell to the public.
Häagen-Dazs ice cream—which is a 1960 product of a New York City-based company using a fake Danish “word” to make it seem more sophisticated—famously had a series of racy ads with a bit of whimsy thrown in.
Models were in lingerie or faux nudity, photographed or filmed in bed, to sell ice cream. The ads were hugely popular.
Print and film models are often asked to strip down or simulate sexual situations to sell products. As attention-grabbing as the ads are, not everyone is a fan.
A mom with a model son turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for feedback after a disagreement with his father.
DonnaReed2025 asked:
“AITA for exposing my husband’s (Hub’s) half-naked Abercrombie & Fitch job?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“I think this is funny, but I’m being called an A-hole.”
“Parties are me (40, female) my Hub (41, male) and our son Marc (18, male). And visiting friends.”
“Marc is an all ’round good kid. Decent student, popular, and he is also strikingly handsome. He’s a college freshman, but he also models some which he has done for about three years. It’s legit, he has an agency.”
“OK, not Ford or Wilhelmina, but what I’d call a legit ‘medium tier’ agency, and he has done a fair bit of work and made some very decent money, which is helpful all around and we are grateful for that.”
“A couple of days ago he visited bringing in a proof sheet (is that the term?) for a new magazine ad he is in for a fragrance. It was pretty… racy. Let’s just say there was ‘an absence of being fully dressed’ and some rather provocative posing with another model.”
“Frankly, I was fine with it, he’s an adult, and we’re talking GREAT exposure in a national magazine (not a huge one, but still).
“Hub, however, was not impressed. He acted like this was positively scandalous, and somewhat admonished Marc for even doing the photo shoot. We happened to have friends (another couple) visiting. Marc was embarrassed at the scolding.”
“I basically called Hubs a hypocrite. I said, ‘Yeah, nothing like when we met and you were working at Abercrombie & Fitch’.”
“Backstory for those not old enough: In the early 2000s, A&F hired buff young guys as ‘brand ambassadors’ in their stores. Their ENTIRE JOB was to stand around shirtless as greeters at the store doors. That was it.”
“My Hub did that for two years when he was 18-19. His ENTIRE WORK UNIFORM was a pair of A&F jeans and flip flops. Oh, and A&F underwear if it happened to show.”
“Hub did that for almost two years, although apparently now thinks he’s above it, and doesn’t want anyone to know.”
“After the scolding, I, of course, was OBLIGATED to explain to our visiting friends how his early career was to stand around half naked and look hot. Oh, and occasionally spray some cologne. Hopefully his spritzer finger didn’t get too tired, poor baby.”
“Hubs called me some unpleasant words.”
“So, AITA for calling him out?”
“He embarrassed my son, so I felt he deserved it.”
The OP later added:
“For those of you accusing me of stealing from my son (where the heck did that come from) we have never taken one penny from Marc. ALL of his money went into his own account. It was helpful because he was able to do things like buy himself a much, much better car than we would have been able to, buy phones and electronics and such, buy more of the clothes he wanted, and use money for college.”
“We even kept paying him an allowance. No thieves here.”
“There was no full nudity in the cologne ad. How could there be? Yes, mostly undressed, but nothing X-rated. Nothing wildly salacious, more like ‘implied.’ I would say ‘suggestive.’ It was racy but nothing you wouldn’t see in any copy of Cosmo or GQ or such.”
“Husband has actually joked many times about his days at A&F. I guess he just wasn’t in the mood for it.”
“He didn’t scold Marc TOO hard, it was more like ‘Maybe one day you’ll get a job where you can keep your clothes on,’ which prompted my A&F remark, since that was precisely what he was doing.”
The OP summed up why they might be the a**hole in their situation.
“The action that I took that I am asking to be judged was to reveal to friends my husband’s long-ago previous job and embarrassing him. I might be the a**hole because, yes, I did it on purpose. I thought he deserved it.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP was not the a**hole (NTA).
“NTA. He WAS a hypocrite. You just pointed it out. Normally I’d say don’t do that in front of company, but he did to your son, so it’s fair game as far as I’m concerned.” ~ Your_Daddy_1972
“The dad was the one who started airing the family’s dirty laundry in front of the friends. NTA, what you said was a completely fair rebuttal, and he chose to have the debate in public instead of private.” ~ theword12
“NTA. Exactly, you’re just calling out the double standard. Your son’s an adult and can make his own choices. Safety and happiness matter more than opinions.” ~ kkjonnykk
“I think this is hilarious! You were absolutely right for calling him out, he definitely deserved it. NTA.” ~ GirlDad2023_
“So hubby can dish it out, but he can’t take it. Poor baby!”
“NTA, and I do think it’s funny.” ~ TararaBoomDA
“You are 100% NTA. You didn’t let your husband hypocritically belittle your son in front of other people. He was an a** for cutting down your son in front of other people.”
“Everyone that is saying YTA are only saying it because they are prudes themselves and agree with your husband’s take on your son’s work, which is entirely beside the point of what you’re asking about.”
“NTA at all, don’t let the haters get to you.” ~ CyclopsNut
“NTA, I think. It would be one thing if you had brought it up unprompted, but it seems like you were just pointing out his hypocrisy in shaming/embarrassing your son for doing work similar to what your husband had done at the same age.”
“Especially since I don’t see why your husband felt the need to bring this up in front of guests. However that brings me to the ‘I think’.”
“Were you all just standing around looking at your son’s admittedly ‘racy’ photo proofs, including mixed company?”
“If so, I’d be more inclined to E S H, since there was no reason to even be having this discussion in front of them or showing off your son’s unpublished, vaguely NSFW(?) proofs to family friends.” ~ WayCandid5193
But not everyone agreed with the NTA judgment for OP.
“Didn’t many of the A&F male models get sexually harassed (and possibly more) by the guy who ran A&F? I remember a documentary that talked about it, but not much of the details. Not thinking that job was always as great as people thought in some situations.”
“Did he have a problem with the nudity? If he is fine with your son modeling was it just the no clothes part? I am trying to figure out what he’s all offended about, but you did reveal something personal he obviously didn’t want shared so that does make YTA.” ~ chaosrulz0310
“It would be hypocritical if husband was doing it now, or thought it was fine for him to do it. However, if a husband regrets something he did in the past and doesn’t want his son to do something similar, that’s not hypocritical.” ~ DavidVegas83
“Both of you suck ESH (but not your kid). Your husband more.”
“Yeah, your husband should not have laid into his son like that (I have no idea how it actually happened). But at the same time, no one is ‘obligated’ to explain anything, and you could have had a conversation as adults and a married couple later on and talked about it (and included your son). Instead, you chose the low route, power play to humiliate him in front of others, too.”
“Maybe your husband remembers those days of being eye candy and is embarrassed by it, or experienced something he doesn’t want his own son to experience? People change and grow. It doesn’t make him a hypocrite.”
He’s still an a-hole for HOW he handled it. He didn’t need to share his opinion in the first place nor do it with guests present.”
“Both of you were out of line.”
“There’s a difference between shutting it down and what OP did.”
“Hypocritical describes someone who claims to have virtues, beliefs, or principles that they do not truly possess, or who says one thing but does another. It describes acting in a way that contradicts one’s stated beliefs, often with an element of insincerity or pretense.”
“So if husband doesn’t do it anymore and feels strongly against it NOW (and believes it) because of his own previous experiences, he’s not being hypocritical.”
“People grow and change. It happens.” ~ TheSciFiGuy80
Was OP’s husband being a prude anda hypocrite?
Or was he responding to unpleasant memories from his own past?
OP should probably find out first instead of seeking validation online.