Why this Toronto artist is serious about dick jokes

Are this artist's GIFs too hot for TV?

The short answer is yes.

"I had to kind of water them down a bit because there's a Disney show before Exhibitionists," admits Toronto illustrator Gladys Cruz, but she's putting the "exhibitionist" in Exhibitionist in Residence nonetheless. This week, we're airing a few naughty but nice holiday GIFs from her ongoing illustration series, Cream Puffs.

Get it?

"Like cream in humans," Cruz says, "if you know what I mean."

Innuendo is everything to the 23-year-old artist, and her explicitly sexy sight gags keep coming — rosy (butt) cheeks, more jolly than usual gingerbread men.

This is an artist who's serious about dick jokes.

"It started off with me trying to promote condoms, but in a very funny way," she explains.

I want people to laugh [...] and maybe start a conversation about sex.- Gladys Cruz, artist

Last year, Cruz was finishing her degree at OCAD in Toronto. "My peers around me, they were getting STDs and STIs and I was getting very frustrated with them," she says. "I'm a very sexual person, I like to express myself. But I also like to be safe while I'm doing it."

"The fact that they were having unsafe sex, that really frustrated me, and that motivated me to create work that would promote sex talk, or sex health."

The first cartoons in the series were subtle PSAs for safe sex — presented through not-so-subtle colours and imagery.

It's an old message, sure, but there's a reason you learned about condoms in high school health class, and it's not because the school board's in bed with Big Banana.

That sounded more suggestive than it should, so here's some information.

The number of reported STIs has grown substantially since 2000, according to a Stats Canada report published this spring. Chlamydia is the most common, with reported cases rising 49 per cent between 2005-2014; Gonorrhea diagnoses leapt 61 per cent in the same timeframe, but it's syphilis that's spread the most. Cases increased by 95 per cent, especially among men. And male or female, syphilis cases were highest among people in their 20s.

Cruz's M.O. is to get people talking. Drop the taboos! Lighten up! You know, like a cream puff.

Comedy, she says, is her best strategy for getting that started.

"I really want people to just laugh," she says. "I want people to laugh and maybe understand the innuendo and maybe start a conversation about sex."

Get an eyeful.

Watch CBC Arts: Exhibitionists online or on CBC Television. Tune in Friday nights at 12:30am (1am NT) and Sundays at 3:30pm (4pm NT).