2010s

American Apparel has created unisex clothing in solid colors and some prints that make dressing for gender more challenging for the shopper. Many women and men shop at this store and it has become the style behind "hipster" and "scene" fashion trends that make sexuality and gender more ambiguous. Both genders are sex objects in the store ads and online, often showing see-through tops that show a woman's breasts and nipples, and tight underwear that outlines a man's penis. This store still creates clothing that will show off certain attributes of female and male figures, but they have made a strong aim at unisex clothing which often results in a man and woman wearing the same outfit, leaving the rest of their appearance up to them to decide how they want to gender themselves and display their sexuality.

2010s

Jonas Brothers
Boy Band
Straight

The Jonas Brothers have become major sexual objects in order to get teenage girls to buy their albums and memorabilia. Lots of controversy surrounds their purity rings and how they symbolize waiting for sex until marriage, a religious tradition. Because of those rings, their behaviors can be more sexual because the excuse is that they are thinking of God and not of girls, which most people would realize is a basic sham. Television show Family Guy parodied the Jonas Brothers and portrayed them as clueless to the sexual objects that Disney has made them become and so their apparent innocence continues to help their popularity grow.

2010s

Indie music duo, sister's Tegan & Sara, gained a lot of popularity for being gay. They maintain short haircuts and tend to dress with a more masculine-identified style rather than feminine. Their "butch" looks make it easy for somebody to quickly identify their sexuality or think twice about it before assuming that they are straight, as we have been trained to do in our world.

2010s

Christina Aguilera is having her outfit mocked by character Bruno who is a flamboyantly gay European man somewhat clueless to social norms. What I find intriguing is how easily this outfit can be accepted on Christina, yet if Bruno were to wear it first, it is still odd in society's eyes and forces them to assume that he is gay because he is dressing like a woman. Animal prints have become associated with feminine dress and leotards are almost always seen on women as a trend stemming from the 1980's.

2010s

Lindsay Lohan & Sam Ronson
Actress/Singer


Lindsay Lohan is a former child star who grew up in the public eye and is the classic tale of innocent, adorable child turned drug abuser, alcoholic, and sex symbol. What shocked the world was when she recently began dating girlfriend Sam Ronson. Fans had come to identify Lindsay as heterosexual because she had only dated men prior to Sam. What is interesting again is how Lindsay takes on the feminine styles of dress and Sam prefers to make her appearance more aligned with that of masculine traits that we have come to associate with male styles.

2010s

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is a television series that became popular in the early 2000's that is aimed at making straight men look more professional and geared to helping them establish a lifestyle that is more masculine. The irony behind the show is that queer men are stereotyped to not be masculine and the idea is that society will be shocked at how much they know about how a man should act in order to be considered to have class. A straight guy taking advice from a gay guy on how to improve his life is what sells the show, as well as the extremely flamboyant characters of the five stars.

2010s

Abercrombie & Fitch has become famous for their extreme gender bias with their clothes. The irony is that if a customer were to go into the store, they would see a lot of massive homoerotic images, such as the one to left, plastered all over the walls.






The store's competition, American Eagle, openly displays how they encourage heterosexuality and tend to have equal female to male ratio with their models in their ad campaigns. We see straight relationships within the photo and can tell that only men are wearing oxfords and polos whereas women are dressed in more feminine clothes and jewelry. The men all have short, cropped hair and the women have long, flowing hair which further places them in their genders of dress.