Illustrations by David Clark

Burger King made a huge publicity splash over the recent holidays with its (let's hope) tongue-in-cheek marketing campaign for Flame, a men's body spray that is redolent of grilled meat. Apparently, smelling like you just got off an eight-hour shift flipping burgers is a real chick magnet.

Well, if nothing else, the campaign should make recruiting teenage boys to toil for minimum wage in the chain's kitchens a whole lot easier.

Earlier, a Taco Bell TV spot had a couple of young women in a singles bar drawing guys with the smell coming from a Taco Bell bacon club chalupa one had in her purse. Although the young ladies in the commercial look like they should have no trouble attracting men, the point seems to be that men are attracted by the smell of the bacon.

Of course, scent has always been a part of the equation when it comes to romance, something makers of perfumes and colognes know all too well. That's why products have names like Axe and Midnight instead of Slide Rule and Lunchtime.

But grilled burgers and bacon? Are the birds and the bees about to be replaced by the porks and the beefs?