STRIP SEARCH

But is it all in fun? Is the partying, the wailing, the kissing and laying on of hands completely innocuous? "It's easy, it's very easy to go home with a guy," Lois says. "We know this one girl, ugly as sin, and she went home with one of the best-looking guys I have ever seen. I thought it was sick. And at our last bachelorette party, one of the girls went in the bathroom with a guy and . . ."--she pauses, leans in a bit--"gratified him."

Other dancers come and go; a guy wearing little more than a leather choker takes a shower onstage, there's a biker, a chap dressed as Beetlejuice, a Viking and some more cowboys. Oddly, none is costumed as an explosively sensual, firm-bunned journalist. But that's okay; I've learned something tonight. This is the Great American Strip-Off, and this is America. A country where citizens--regardless of race, creed or gender--have the right to enjoy their fellow Americans' genitalia onstage, under spotlights, inches from their own faces. And I learned something else: All men are not created equal. Ain't that right, ladies--you bunch of horny animals!!!--Gilstrap