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The "Fab Five" gay men of TV's hit show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" have always offered themselves up as role models-- for straight people. So who would've guessed that the show's most assiduous imitators would be other sexual minorities?

That's proving the case as a flood of homosexual subgroupings-- sadomasochists, scat lovers, leather queens, and even Log Cabin Republicans-- are winning fat contracts with TV networks for their own hygiene, cooking, and lifestyle shows aimed at boosting tsjuz among heterosexuals. Even the fusty Human Rights Campaign (HRC)-- America's largest LGBT group-- is plumping for a fresh queer makeover.

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Experts are amazed. "No one in the field comprehended how sexual-minority subcultures are such sophisticated treasure-troves of fabricare savvy, fresh food ideas, and wall-covering savoir flair," says Stanford University anthropologist Q.E.D. Willoughbee.

But you don't have to know French or be a social science Ph.D. to feel the popularity-- and proliferation-- of the new shows. "Whatever you do in bed sexually," suggests Cary Travis, TV critic for the Sacramento Wasp, "everyone shares an orientation to looking & being their best."

No homosexual minority, it seems, is too outré to lend a helping hand to taste-challenged straight Americans. In a two-year multimillion dollar contract with ABC, the "Safe, Sane, & Consensual Outreach Committee" of New York's Gay Men's SM Alliance (GMSMA) will produce its own "Queer-Eye" knock-off-- applying techniques drawn from fisting, mummification, and erotic-asphyxiation scenes to the lifestyle issues facing contemporary teenagers. In the first program, set to pilot this month, GMSMA's Alex Buttmeister shows high-schoolers how to establish pre-arranged "safe" words when they go out on dates. "When the 'Thursday-Evening-Square-Dancing-at-the-Methodist-Church' scene or the 'Sharing-an-Ice-Cream-Soda-at-the-Dairy-Queen' scene gets too intense, the girl can simply utter the 'safe word' and instantly put a stop to whatever's happening," Buttmeister explains. "Pre-arranging the special word shows you're sensitive to her feelings-- and frankly, it's the best protection boys have today for avoiding years in prison for 'date rape' or a lifetime on the sex-offender registry."

New vistas in food

But the most intriguing applications of gay SM know-how aren't happening amidst the plastic tables at the Dairy Queen, under which pimply-faced teens play footsie after signing informed-consent clauses. Rather, these intriguing applications are happening on the other side of the counter, in the American kitchen. Hot wax dribbled on vulnerable flesh isn't just an aperitif to a main course of nipple-torture-- it's also the only way to cook one of this season's hottest dishes: salmon au parafin. Rope burn may be a painful consequence-- unintended or otherwise-- of being hog-tied in a sling. But did you know it's also a great trick for gently tenderizing a joint of veal? You do if you tune in to "Tied Down & Spiffed Up" on The Nashville Network.

"Power-lunchers in Washington and Beverly Hills are bored with foods merely sliced, diced, peeled, skinned, and baked," says Sharon Mixner, dining-trends analyst at Martha Stewart DoingTime Polymedia. "They want upfront to see full-spectrum dominance over what's on the plate." That's why, after a day of playing, top gay-male bondage and fisting experts are finding their services in heavy demand in restaurant kitchens, where the SM sexperts apply their knot-tying and large-things-into-small-holes skills to such trendy eats as Kielbasa-Stuffed Escargot, Spread-Eagled Chicken au Gratin, Barbecued Cracked Ribs, and Lobster Guantanamo-- in which the ruddy crustaceans are bound with barbed wire before being thrown alive and indefinitely into boiling water. (Diners, of course, savor the messy delicacy after donning orange day-glo bibs.)

But analysts predict there'll be a duke-out fit for "The Iron Chef" when the Nashville Network's "Tied Down & Spiffed Up" goes against "The Galloping Gay Republican Gourmet," slotted for the same time on NBC. Inspired by the Hawaiian luau and the G.W. Bush administration's military conquests, "Galloping" explores a new cooking technique that's being hailed as the most intriguing dining concept since mesquite grilling.

"Our show explores a contemporary way of preparing succulent, juicy meat dishes-- while bypassing the risks of mess, smell, and undocumented aliens that are so rife in conventional packing plants," says Log Cabin media director Abe Nixon. In this new culinary method, cattle or pigs are herded into underground bunkers, which are then smart-bombed from Tampa with special laser-guided depleted-uranium missiles. "The animals are literally flashed-cooked in their own juices, with the clay-lined bunkers locking in the flavor," Nixon says. "The technique has been field-tested on Iraqi conscripts, Afghan village children, and Canadian peacekeepers-- so we know it's safe and effective," he adds. In addition, say nutritionists, the succulent meat dishes that result are enriched with rare heavy minerals that are known to have powerful impacts on healthy living and well-being.

Sea-change in opinion

The popularity of the new shows is changing popular perceptions of homosexuals. "I can't go to the Met in my bomber jacket and chaps to hear Jimmy Levine put on Ariadne auf Naxos without being besieged by Upper East Side widows who want me to come over to look at the pomegranate-juice stains on their calfskin loveseats, and give advice on leather window treatments," laments Rodney P. Fleischman, past-vice-president of Gotham Leatherman United/East (GLUE).

With many upscale Straight-American households splurging and finding their own live-in homosexual laundry consultant, or a scat lover to help keep bathrooms sparkling the way cats groom their fur, everyone in the home-advice industry-- regardless of sexual orientation-- has been forced to adapt to the tsunami of queer-based straight-lifestyle improvement shows. While Martha Stewart has given up on perfecting the suburban home to focus on new design challenges in institutional settings, exercise guru Jack La Lane is unveiling a thigh-reducing and cardiofitness program for women based on the unique positions and muscle groups that gay men using while practicing sodomy. (Check out "Jack La L'Anal's Root 4 Fitness!" Tuesdays, 8am Central Time on CBN.)

"LGBT Americans have hewed a road from contraveners of Old Testament law to impeccably-coifed dispensers of up-to-the-nanosecond beauty solutions, and we want to be part of all the excitement," Cheryl Jacques, HRC Executive Director, told The Guide last week as she put finishing touches on the group's new grooming-advice newsletter, Q-Tips. Founded in 1973 as the Homosexual Revolutionary Commando Front (HRCF), the organization later became the Human Rights Campaign Fund (HRCF), and then in 1999, simply the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). "The success of the new diversity-based lifestyle programs shows how much LGBT and S Americans really share the same wholesome family values, focused on happy, healthy, hygienic home life," Jacques declares. As of April 1st, the group will turn over its entire website to low trans-fat wedding-cake recipes as the HRC is re-born yet again as Homemakers' Resource Center.