Illinois- A Republican state senator who is also running for governor threatened a boycott Wednesday against the Abercrombie & Fitch clothing company unless it stops marketing sexually suggestive T-shirts to kids.

“I don’t pretend to be a bellwether of what’s cool, but I know it’s not cool to degrade women,” state Sen. Steven Rauschenberger, R-Elgin, said at a Capitol news conference, next to a display of Abercrombie T-shirts displaying slogans like “Anatomy Tutor.” Other slogans were unprintable.

Abercrombie made national news on Tuesday, when NBC’s “Today” show aired a story about teenage girls in Pennsylvania who are organizing a “girlcott” over the T-shirts.

“I want to be the first in Illinois to join with these girls” in criticizing the company, Rauschenberger said. He said that he would sponsor a legislative resolution, probably today, calling on Abercrombie to stop marketing clothing that contains offensive slogans, and that, if the company persists, he will organize a boycott of its Illinois stores.

In the state’s 2002 Republican gubernatorial primaries, opposing candidates Corinne Wood and Patrick O’Malley both made political hay in attacking a sexually suggestive Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.

Rauschenberger is trying to position himself as the conservative candidate in an ideologically divided field of Republican gubernatorial hopefuls in next year’s spring primaries. At his news conference, he stood next to a table displaying seven Abercrombie T-shirts which, he said, his staff bought at a Chicago Abercrombie & Fitch store that morning, for about $30 each.

Abercrombie could not be reached for comment, either at its Columbus, Ohio, corporate headquarters or through its New York public relations firm.

Abercrombie has a store at the St. Clair Square shopping center in Fairview Heights.

Amanda Quirin, 16, a junior at Belleville West High School, was shopping for a coat there Wednesday afternoon.

Her opinion of the T-shirts was negative.

“It makes you look like you’re not a very good person,” Quirin said.

She said that she and her friends do not wear the shirts but said that others should be able to wear them if they want.

Zachery Carter, a manager for Abercrombie at the mall, said that women of all ages buy the shirts.

He said that many stores sell shirts with slogans that may be considered controversial and that his store should not be targeted.

The T-shirts on display at the Abercrombie store were not suggestive, containing slogans like “Beauty and Brains,” “Want to know what I really think?” and “Life of the party.”