Never sleep alone again!

Satin!

Exclusive!

Beefcake sheets mean no more lonely nights! Gorgeous life-size, full-color male. Never snores, steals the covers or breaks your heart. He's printed on 100 percent Dacron polyester super soft satin and he'll never fade away, even when washed and dried. Twin, full and queen fitted sheet (only) and standard size case. Made in the USA.

It's true. Better than true. Better than Fuji-film-as-real-as-life. He's lying there, waiting just for you. Those sculpted arms tucked lazily behind his head revealing small tufts of downy-soft underarms and a not-too-hairy chest. The torso: a perfect V. Come-lick-me-luscious lips; baby I'm yours. Tom Cruise eyes, flat stomach, blue bikini briefs, one lean leg lifted ever so slightly. And made in the USA.

The catalog that advertises these fantasy-sensation sheets does not come off as a kooky, kinky, fly-by-night operation. It's been around since 1952, accepts six major credit cards, and offers a 24-hour-a-day customer service line, as well as the more conventional items: closet organizers, rubber welcome mats, patriotic windsocks. Are the sheets a joke? If so, it's an expensive joke -- a sheet and pillowcase for a twin bed costs 55 bucks. That's only one fitted sheet. Not even another piece of satin (well, 100 percent Dacron polyester) to wrap around you as you flop on top an image of the 80's Adonis.

Just who has the manufacturer targeted as the consumer of this product? Presumably women (maybe not, but I won't discuss the exceptions here). Probably white women also, since the model is white, but not necessarily. The target purchaser probably lives on her own. I would hope that most mothers wouldn't even entertain thoughts of acquiring sexy sheets for their daughters, lured by an ad that promises, "Never sleep alone again!" I also would bet that the woman who buys these sheets owns her own washer and dryer. I couldn't imagine anyone laundering these things in public.

The ad, at first glance, seems absurd, laughable, just as surely weird as the buyer must be. But read closer -- a male who never breaks your heart. A man who whispers nothing but sweet nothings, never forgets to call, never lies, accuses, abuses. For the single woman in the 80s -- commitment at last. The manufacturers and/or advertisers, albeit sleazy, are smart. They are hoping to capitalize on the anxieties of modern romance -- lack of commitment and intimacy and fear of AIDs and other sexually transmitted diseases. Safe sheets are certainly safer than safe sex.

The underlying assumption the manufacturers rely on to sell this product is that some people will accept that a fantasy item somehow compensates for, or is even better than, the real thing. For some people this must be true; otherwise the product wouldn't sell.

Does the woman who purchases this product, like the man who keeps an inflatable doll in the closet, spend more time fantasizing conversations and relationships with the opposite sex than interacting with them? Does she consume dime-store gothics rather than direct her energies toward jogging a few miles? In short, does she expect that the ideal man will one day change her life?

Beefcake sheets are made for the woman who believes that equality means women ogling and drooling over the male physique just as men have done to women in the past (cheesecake for the girls and beefcake for the boys). Who doesn't have enough judgment to distinguish between what is and is not tacky?

Beefcake sheets are a product of our times. They represent the worst in American marketing -- the commercialization of the sad, sordid and tasteless.

Beefcake sheets are an embarrassment.

I imagine that most people who flipped through this catalog noticed the beefcake, but weren't offended by him or what he offered --no more lonely nights! And he'll never fade. Even worse, he'll probably sell.