Andrew Christian,Too Sexy?
Designer Andrew Christian in a 2008 photo, via Andrew Christian Inc.
Underwear and sportswear manufacturer Andrew Christian Inc. said its First Amendment rights were kicked to the curb.
In an open letter to sprawling video website YouTube, dated Feb. 8, the Glendale, Calif.-based Andrew Christian Inc. claimed that its video “Pink Paradise (Let’s Get Nasty at the Andrew Christian Pool Party,) was removed from YouTube. Adding to the injury, the Andrew Christian YouTube account was blocked for two weeks.
The Pink Paradise video portrayed good looking, muscular, young men dancing around a poolside to techno music, clad only in the label’s Naked Infinity brief. The open letter claimed a double standard, because YouTube continues to webcast thousands of other videos, including the site’s Playboy Channel, which portrays attractive female models cavorting in underwear or scanty clothes.
“We are a company that only produces menswear, and it feels unfair that our ads are held to different standards for featuring the male body,” Andrew Christian’s open letter stated. “There is no doubt in our mind that there would be no issue if the exact same video was posted with female models instead of male. Are you being homophobic or is it something else?”
Allen Asch (yep, a relative) runs YouTube Channel LiberalViewer’s Media and Political Analysis. Upon his review of the website’s community guidelines, he saw no recent changes in the site’s “sexually explicit content rule.” However YouTube staff is required to make a judgment on videos if they get complaints on the objets d'arts.
Said Allen, “I would conclude that Andrew Christian is not so much the victim of a double standard, but the victim of a very subjective YouTube standard that is a little different for every YouTube staff member who reviews flagged videos. I'm not sure exactly how many people YouTube employs to review flagged videos, but I've heard many complaints over the years about subjective enforcement of vaguely defined guidelines.”
Andrew Christian requested the Pink Paradise video be webcast and its channel to be unblocked. YouTube did not answer an email requesting comment by press time.
