For as long as there has been advertising, corporations have focused on sexuality to sell products. Busty blonds sprawled across the hood of a car are a great way to sell towels, I hear. If you want to draw in more customers to your used car dealership, line up bikini babes on the sidewalk outside and offer free bikini car washes.

As sexuality has grown and evolved, and more gay and lesbian couples enter into mainstream society, corporations obviously need to change their tactics.

I mean really, what gay man is going to buy a Big Mac at McDonald’s just because there’s a cutey-pie server girl with bouncy pigtails behind the counter?

Commercials in European countries are far different than the ones we see here in America.

They are often more explicit, sexual and contain humor many Americans find shocking or too vague to understand.

That’s why when I saw this French McDonald’s commercial, I tried to figure out exactly what the message was. A teenage boy is sitting at the table rolling his finger over his school class photo when his phone rings. He answers, says he can’t stop thinking about the caller either, but he has to hang up because his father is coming. His father sets the tray down, notices his son looking at the class photo.

He tells his boy that he looks just like him when he was young, and he was a real ladies’ man. The boy grins, but seems incredibly uncomfortable, especially when Pop says, “Too bad it’s an all boys class. You’d get all the girls.”

The commercial, of course, doesn’t come straight out and pinpoint the teen as openly gay, but uncomfortable approaching the subject with his father.

Their slogan: “venez commo vous etes,” or “come as you are.”

I have to tell you, I’ve heard about way too many McDonald’s mass slayings to ever think the Golden Arches would be a good place to broach the subject of sexual preference with my old man. Maybe I just don’t get it… What? You can be yourself while eating a Quarter Pounder with Cheese? You have the safety of a public setting to back you up if Dad goes off his bleeding nut when you tell him who you really are?

I dunno. Whatever McDonald’s.