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Similarly whimsical print ads in the ‘90s include a 1993 Banana Republic one featuring a realistically lesbian-looking lesbian threesome, fully clothed and smiling in a convertible. The woman in the driver's seat leans back and gazes at the woman in the seat behind her, who is kissing her hand while she drapes one arm around the other backseat passenger, whose own arm is hooked around the second woman's thigh.

A 1996 Clothestime commercial is particularly overt and affirming. It features one woman checking out another in the bathroom at a club. She tells her she really likes her dress, and the recipient of the compliment smiles and says "thanks" nonchalantly. But the first woman stares intensely and clarifies, “No, I mean, I really like your dress.” Then text appears, stating “Expect a perfectly natural reaction.”

A 1999 commercial for fast-food chain Jack in the Box is uses a lesbian theme for comic effect while neither resorting to stereotypes nor displaying homophobia. The company mascot sits down and “raps with the young people,” according to the opening text. A girl timidly says, "Jack, um... how do you know if you're a lesbian?" There is an awkward pause before Jack turns to another kid and asks if he has a question, while the rest look on tensely. When the kid says no, Jack tells them not to be afraid “to talk about burgers,” then volunteers to start. When he's done talking about the company's hamburgers the girl says, “Thanks, that helps.”

Interestingly, this award-winning ad ruffled feathers because of the gay content, not because it dismissed a teen's possible coming-out (although the dismissal itself is the joke).

A more recent ad intending to be humorous doesn't hit the mark, relying on the stereotyped predatory lesbian for its attempt at humor. In one pane of the 2002 IKEA ad a woman who took advantage of the furniture chain's “Sales Tax Evasion Day” gets a hug from her son as they sit on a newly purchased bunk bed. In the other pane the same woman, who didn't pay her income tax, sits on a prison bunk and squirms from the embrace of her cellmate.

The Southern California regional ad got so much flak that it was quickly pulled, but it had already appeared in high-circulation outlets, such as The Los Angeles Times.

More recently still, a 2006 Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort and Spa print ad invites readers to “Take Your Comfort Level to New Heights.” The two women lounge on a bed in robes, with huge grins and full glasses of white wine. They are so comfortable that they are looking in opposite directions. The text and image is ambiguous enough that their intimacy can be read as sexual just as easily as sisterly or friendly.

Over time, ads for alcohol tend to be consistently unambiguous as well as light-hearted. As Commercial Closet's founding executive director Michael Wilke points out, manufacturers of “sin products” were early arrivals on the gay advertisement scene, much less concerned about religious conservative boycotts than other marketers.

A current Coors Light campaign features ultra-feminine women helping each other tie halter tops and apply lipstick while bottles of Coors Light beckon in the foreground. Their huge grins detract from the ads' sexiness and suggest straight girls playing lesbian for kicks, or friends of any orientation simply getting ready to go out--except these women have their hands on each other's knees or hips.

Women in the U.S., compared to their male counterparts, are afforded more overt displays of affection before their sexual orientation is called into question. Perhaps this explains the preponderance of ads where the nature of the female subjects' relationship is ambiguous. They may be flirty but often the women pictured in these ads could as easily be lovers as close friends or relatives, even twins. In a rare ad featuring male drag, a 1997 photo for Kenar superimposes Linda Evangelista gazing at her twinned male image.

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