The total number of private employers now offering domestic partnership benefits approximates 3,500, a figure thirty-five times the number of state or local governments and agencies providing LesBiGay benefits packages.⁸⁰ Importantly, the total number increased 25% in one year alone, from August 1999 to August 2000, and the list currently includes approximately one-fifth of the Fortune 500 companies and 82% of the Fortune 50. The domino effect in these major industry sectors is likely to continue, more for solid and pragmatic business reasons than for reasons of antidiscriminatory ideology.

Advertising, entertainment, and employment--three of the most prominent routes paved by the American commercial culture. Over all three routes, LesBiGay identity has become all the rage. Why might LesBiGays favor such a commodified identity? What do these commercial routes promise to LesBiGays? Have anger, frustration, and passive victimhood -- all justifiable reactions to a vacuum of real sociopolitical power -- merely been seduced and silenced by the fantasy images of personal consumption? Or are there positive and powerful forces to be unleashed as LesBiGays embrace their commodified identities? This Essay answers these questions in the next section by exploring the underlying commercial framework.