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Why would guys enjoy looking at this photography?
Because the moments in these photographs are
rare, and they feel good.
They are moments that are fulfilling: We enjoy attention from our friends. Just like advertising often markets the pursuit of women, A&F photography commodifies and markets our desire to be close to our male friends.
This photography sells exceptional moments of closeness that are attractive to us though/because our personal experience with them is pleasant and fleeting. They are moments that are physically and emotionally satisfying, but culturally precarious -- affection and grins from a good friend feels good but it's tricky because we know we can't keep an arm around a neck for very long.
The photography not only markets this forbidden closeness but it markets the rarity of those elusive moments when occurs:
We can get away with being physically affectionate with our friends once in a while, but not often at all, and even those opportunities demand timing and style to pass without consequence... a little unspoken art form.
Wrestling and playin' around happens, but it has to be initiated spontaneously. No one wanted to start wrestling, someone just happened to throw that initial punch and now both are reluctantly obligated to carry out the competition.
This photography even sells the athleticism, masculinity, and "straightness" of the guys engaged in that contact; Not just any type of guy can hang on the guys in these photographs as openly and confidently as these A&F-types do:
An out-of-shape guy can't wear the gym-hours on his bicep. Without the body and the face, he can't pull the women like the guys in that pic can. In these ways, the masculinity and athleticism of the guys in the photo is "better".
The directing of the models in that photo sells confident straight identities. It says that these guys have enough locker room talk and frat parties under their belts to make it clear that there are no gay identities pictured here. The understood pop cultural codes of the gay identity just aren't used in that photo. The ages, the boy-next-door/jock faces, the fraternity... it clearly says, by any tradtional reading, frat boys, not gay men. Yes, the pop culture representation of gay men is diversifying and arguably masculinizing every day, but it has only come so far, and one visibly gay male (it would take freedom rings or a pride shirt, straight is default - see the intro section) in that group would crash the whole party... suddenly the safeness and straightness of all that nakedness and touching would disappear. It's straightness in that photo, not gayness, that's being shown off and sold to guys in A&F stores, and it's the straightness that makes all the nudity and touching safe.
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