Superdrug recently announced plans for a new his 'n' his and hers 'n' hers product range to celebrate the new Civil Partnership legislation. Now, bless their little gay friendly hearts and everything, but really! Who the hell wants their wedding presents to come from Superdrug? Surely the mark of a gift that says, “I'm cheap”.

Still, it led me to thinking - will gay ‘weddings’ lead to a revolution on the high street? Will well known stores be vying for the pink pound now that we are, like, legal and everything? Do we care?

Newly established same-sex ‘wedding’ companies are happily kerching-ing away with couples poised on the starting blocks ready to be the first to sprint down the aisle - trust the queens to turn it into a competition -  while the mainstream retail world, it seems, is still rubbing its eyes and wondering what day of the week it is.

Okay, so companies like Clinton and Paperchase are planning to launch Happy Civil Ceremony greetings cards, but does anyone really care about the cards? It’s the presents that count!

If you’re a bit right on you could forgo the traditional toasters and kettles and sign up for an ‘alternative’ wedding list where your guests make a donation to charity. Yeah, right - AS IF! All those cousins and distant relatives who’ve sent you their carefully selected gift lists for cut glass crystal and designer towels, it’s pay back time!

Mums love a wedding too – imagine how relieved they’ll be to finally shove you down the aisle. I think it was Rhona Cameron who once joked that all gay people should get married just to get the gifts – “If you’re a really butch lesbian, you might even get a car!”

So where would you like to shop? While most of the well known stores – John Lewis, Selfridges, Harrods – are happy to accept gay wedding lists under a blanket category of ‘celebrations’, none of them seem to be taking the plunge to be the first to actively promote a Civil Partnerships gift list.

Bar manager Wendy Leston thinks large companies may be holding back for fear of rocking the corporate boat. "Our brewery make a huge profit from the gay market," she says, "but they never admit it for fear of upsetting the share holders."

Richard Jones of gay wedding company Modern Commitments is more optimistic. “As soon as we have pictures of gay couples walking down the steps of town halls, it will all change.”

Journalist Charlotte Cooper agrees, although not without cynicism. “Advertising to same sex couples will happen because there’s money to be made out of homosexuality. It’s not about freedom or society being more comfortable with gay people, it’s about cash.”

A lot of us seem to choke on the idea of being ‘sold to’ by mainstream stores.

“Two of my friends are getting married,” says Hayley Brent Isherwood. “It would be nice to go to a high street store and buy something suitable for a gay couple, but I don’t think many gay people would want to see specific marketing aimed at them from mainstream stores.

“It just seems to fuel the divide between the gay community and the rest of society. I think it would be better for stores to be more generic in their advertising and less straight-centric.”

Sam Whittle is also apprehensive, “I get a bit weary with gay specific products, they tend to be obsessed with sex and can be quite tacky. If there’s going to be same sex product ranges, I hope they would cater for a variety of tastes.”

But not everyone’s happy with the newly sanitised version of gay life – nice married couples with cosmopolitan friends that you can take home to mother. Some of us liked it better when gay mags were full of adverts for harnesses and dildos instead of wedding cakes with brides and grooms on top.

“I don’t get my sense of self-worth from advertising,” says Charlotte Cooper.

“It’s all gay xmas tree ornaments, gay holidays and more wretched gay tat. I’d like to see gay weapons for fighting off queer bashers … or a pink gag for shutting up my girlfriend’s idiotic lesbo-hating mother”.

Personally I’d love to see a good queering up of the high street, if only to piss off the puritans. I’m not talking sales assistants in ‘I’m Proud of my Gay Customers’ T-shirts, but a bit of visible representation would be nice.

All this talk of generics sounds a bit bland and faceless, and why the hell should we be so keen to assimilate anyway? Generations haven’t campaigned for equality just so that we can say we’re happy to be anonymous. Let them get used to us!

“Places like Selfridges would be practically bankrupt without the gay spend,” says Stephen Harwood.

“London department stores are seen as cool powerhouses so they would be ideally placed to kick off a gay advertising trend. Most people accept that gays lead the way when it comes to music, fashion and coolness generally.”

So come on, stores, camp it up! A little glitter never hurt anyone …

Get Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present, Neil Miller’s excellent and award-winning book. Buy online and save money.