A three-day newspaper ad created by Miami's Crispin Porter + Bogusky ran two days fewer than scheduled -- yanked immediately after Ikea Home Furnishings got complaints from a national gay media watchdog group.

The ad, which ran in the Los Angeles area, featured two staged photos, one in which a smiling child lovingly embraces his mother after she buys him a new bunk bed at Ikea's ''Sales Tax Evasion Sale'' on June 15.

The other picture is the one that caused the ruckus: a leering female forcefully embracing another woman in a prison cell, after the latter didn't pay her income tax on April 15.

''The gay community is the butt of the joke and the inspiration for sales at the same time,'' said Michael Wilke, who runs a website called the Commercial Closet (www.commercialcloset.org), which archives gay-oriented advertising.

Wilke and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) have ''way overreacted'' to the ad, according to Chuck Porter, chairman of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, which won the $40 million to $50 million Ikea North American annual account in February. This was the company's second ad for Ikea.

''I don't think the gay community became upset by this ad -- a few people became upset,'' Porter said. ``We thought it was funny and we certainly never meant it to be offensive. I don't think most people, gay or straight, would take offense by it.''

Porter said gay people work at his agency, but none that he knew of were involved with the Ikea advertisement.

The ad, which ran June 13 in The Los Angeles Times and other area newspapers, had been scheduled to appear through June 15.

Ikea has 23 stores in the United States; none are in South Florida.

The international company gained a positive reputation in the gay community in 1994 when it produced a TV commercial about a male couple shopping together for a dining room table.

Coconut Grove model Paulette Bethel, who appears as the lecherous woman in the tax-free ad, is incensed by the current backlash.

''This whole thing is out of control,'' said Bethel, who got paid $150 an hour for about five hours work.

''Lighten up,'' she said.

``They were doing a joke about the typical woman sitting at home with a kid. It's the same setup as the kid with the bunk bed, except it's a chick with a new girl they brought in.''

Despite the controversy, Ikea sales increased more than 200 percent after the ad ran, according to Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

''It was very successful,'' account executive Rick Humphrey said. ``We don't calculate the anticipated backlash. It was viewed as controversial, but it was successful.''

In a March news report about gay-oriented advertising, Porter told The Herald that ``the way advertising portrays people in commercials affects the culture.''

''Commercials that portray gay people in a positive way go a long way to change people's concepts,'' Porter said at the time.