Faustus posted this hilarious link to Lurid Digs, which showcases the decorating inadequacies of amateur gay porn. Needless to say, you may not wish to open this at work, although the first page is tame enough.

These hopeless people and their overstuffed naugahyde couches reminded me of a depressing hobby from a few years back. My pet monster at the time worked for an online personal ad service, and this service allowed users to send in photos to be scanned into their ads, as this was 1998 or so, before all Americans were issued camera phones.

Pictures would trickle in each week, and he would bring them home for me to gleefully rifle through. We’d dive into the envelopes, exclaiming at the backdrops of inflatable furniture, play pens, and bean bag chairs. Didn’t people know they should “stage” their room before taking the picture? At least move that stack of TV Guides and the bottle of spray cheese! It’s the least you could do in your quest to ensnare a new mate. Well, that and wearing a shirt and shoes.

I’d scan these in, rotating and cropping to bring some sense of order to their terrible worlds. I’d zot specks of dandruff and lint, make subtle adjustments to the color balance to improve the complexion, and perhaps even blur crow’s feet here and there. Nothing too unrealistic, but clearly they needed all the help they could get.

At first it was fun to laugh at these people and their hideous draperies and wallpaper borders, the unmitigated squalor in which they lived. The poor choice in attire alone, the missing teeth, the occasional blacked out ex-lover’s face. But every now and then, I’d run across some hollow-eyed old man pictured next to an old woman, and on the back it would say something like “You can crop Gladys out, she has passed away.”

The healing brush in Photoshop is really a misnomer.