An FCUK commercial that recently aired in the U.K. treats viewers to a sexually-charged display of violence and acrobatics. The ad features two women who come to fisticuffs in a basement warehouse: they do flips, the splits, and throw nasty kicks and punches.

A tuft of hair is yanked out, a head is dunked in a toilet, bodies slam against concrete floors and brick walls, and various bits of clothing are ripped off as the fight progresses. In the end, one woman presses her lips to her opponent's and the screen reads, “Fashion v. Style.” Then the other woman head-butts her.

The company was counting on the ad to boost declining sales, according to Britain's Daily Mail, but it failed to do so. Fifty complaints were reportedly registered the first day it aired. The ad continued to garner attention, including abroad.

Whether you read it as campy fun or a male fantasy embodied by pseudo-lesbians, the commercial is rare--at least in the U.S.--in its depiction of two women sharing a kiss. There are very few lesbian-themed American commercials of any sort.

The world's most comprehensive archive of LGBT-themed advertisements, the Commercial Closet, holds just over 100 North American television commercials featuring lesbians, compared to more than 300 for men. These include some ads for television shows with lesbian characters and many public-service-type announcements from LGBT organizations.

Hardly any of the 19 lesbian-themed national commercials that ran last year in the U.S. feature female couples unless male couples are also depicted. Thirteen of these ads peddle politics rather than products, courtesy of LGBT political organizations or providers of queer/queer-friendly television programming. Two can be categorized as lesbian-themed merely because they feature Ellen DeGeneres (for American Express and XM Satellite Radio). The only tangible goods being advertised are Subarus and Lee Jeans. The latter's ad is at best only vaguely homoerotic. And all three Subaru ads are targeted at gay men and women alike.

But there is a particularly impressive offering from Logo. The screen is split between two slideshows, each tracing a girl's progression from toddler to adult. The text below the two sets of photos reads “Stephanie” and “Elizabeth,” respectively. Then “Elizabeth” transitions and becomes “Ethan,” and the final image is one slide featuring Stephanie and Ethan together as a happy couple. While female drag is sometimes used in ads for a cheap shot punch line, trans women are rare and trans men virtually invisible.

Although it isn't an LGBT-specific entity, MTV--parent company to Logo--is responsible for some of the most overtly queer-positive ads in recent years. “MTV has set the gold standard among all advertisers for the most ads that refer to the community,” according to CommercialCloset.org, producing more than 30 since 1996. The site points out that the network also carries many gay-themed ads from other companies in addition to running its own gay-inclusive programming.

In one ad from MTV's 2004 “Choose or Lose” campaign, a young man on a doorstep asks for “Megan's hand in marriage.” After being granted permission, he then goes from door to door repeating his question. Eventually "How would you feel if you had to ask 260 million people for the right to marry?" appears on screen.

But the company with a specifically pro-lesbian track record is Subaru. Apparently the company did some research and discovered its cars had a loyal lesbian following. It capitalized on this in 1995, when it began running lesbian-targeted ads. With an advertising budget proportionate to its size, the company secured television spots and its commercials reached a broad audience, the general TV-viewing population.

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