wanna guess what they're selling?

wouldn't take long to twist the real message of this advertisement. messrs. dobson, fallwell, labarbera, et al would be on it in a minute if it showed up in print in the U.S.

so, what are they selling? ----

Et vous, comment dormez-vous?

trans.

And you, how do you sleep?

give?

mattress and bedding...

of course, an ultra-right wing Catholic group in France, E-Deo, has an article on their blog enititled

SCANDALE! Matelsom affiche l’homosexualité dans le métro parisien!

i think you can figure out the first & fourth words yourself. it says pretty much what you are thinking: Matelsom is showing homosexuality in Parisian subway!

now that's a fairly literal translation. what's missing is the meaning behind it. what E-Deo is saying is that Matelsom is trying to push homosexuality on the unsuspecting French people. Sounds just like the christianist whackos that we have. they're the same all over...

Matelsom is the name of the company. If you go to the website, you will see that you go through a process to determine what type of mattress and linen would be best for you depending on your sleeping habits and position for the best night's sleep. it's innocuous at the least. oh, and the company has a totally green line and are green as much as possible with all of their products.

now le pub gai, as the ad would be called, is just one of the print ads in a series showing all kinds of people sleeping. here are a few of the rest:

i can come up with some ominous detritus for these. is the couple in the first one married? did the couple in the second one just do it? does the third one border on child pornography? or worse? we can all play the game...

the company also has a great website with a blog post that is brilliant in response to the rightist/french christianist blathering -

Nous avions souhaité orienter les réflexions dans une démarche plus citoyenne au travers de la problématique du sommeil. Matelsom a pris le parti de vous sensibiliser à l’importance d’une bonne literie notamment en lançant le débat autour de cette question « Et vous, comment dormez-vous ? » et non « Et vous avec qui dormez-vous ? » (comme on le retrouve chez certains detracteurs)

i will translate as best i can.

We wanted to reflect the broadest cross section of people and the problems they have in sleeping. Matelsom wanted everyone to know the importance of good matresses and linens around the question "How do you sleep?" not "With whom do you sleep." (as some of our detractors would have you believe.)

at least we have Lawrence v. Texas to protect us in the U.S. in 2003 SCOTUS said that we could sleep with whomever we wanted and it was none of the governments' business.

of course, it did take until 2003! still, we don't have to worry about anyone checking our mattresses...

errr, do we?