I trimmed my pubes for this?

You know porn has crossed over into the mainstream when you start seeing television commercials for gay phone sex lines.

In terms of false advertising, the ads are like those for the Miracle Chopper and Space Bags in that they work best in time-lapse photography.

What the ads don’t show is the thumbing your way through profiles trying to get a visual of someone who is disguising his voice, or messages from creeps who won’t take no for an answer.

Instead all they show are disco minxes in shirts by Body, blinding each other with their professionally whitened teeth. I realize that sex sells, but shouldn’t the advertisers be forced to add a disclaimer along the lines of “professional driver on a closed course”?

The only times I have ever used a phone sex line was right after I got home from the bars, drunk and horny, hoping to order in without going to the tubs. On the few occasions I actually hooked up with someone, the person had grossly misrepresented themselves. I would show up expecting Reichen Lehmkuhl, only to be greeted by John Mark Karr.

“I trimmed my pubes for this?” I would think. You don’t see that on television.

These days the only place I’ll post a profile is on Craig’s List and then only rarely. Every time I do it makes me feel like an old couch someone is trying to get rid of. “Free: one slightly used homo. Worn around the edges but in good condition.”

I’m one of those hypocritical Vancouver queens who won’t look at a personal ad without a photo but wouldn’t dare post one of myself.

An ad without a photo is like a guy at the baths with the door open and the lights off in his room; you wonder, “What could be so hideous about him that he doesn’t want anyone to see?

Recently someone admitted to me that their online photo is three years old and 30 pounds lighter. I had to ask, “Don’t you think they’ll notice?”

“Yeah, but by then, you hope they’ve got to know you enough that it doesn’t matter.”

As someone who doesn’t believe in Cinderella endings, I wanted to grab him by the collar and yell, “Maybe … if you’re Julia Roberts!”

Riding the Toronto subways recently, I saw ads for bathhouses. The mere mention of the word “Steam” was suggestive enough to make me crave a blowjob like it was a Big Mac. It was all I could think about.

But then I remembered the mechanics of a bathhouse–the sex to boredom ratio–not to mention the time I got hepatitis, and thought: “Works better in time-lapse photography.”