It won't be that bad, my friend Adrienne told me before I attended a bachelorette party at the Sugar Shack. No matter what your taste, she said, there will be at least one male stripper there who will float your boat. It may not be the cowboy, the biker, the greaser, or the Viking--but one of them will do it.     Still, I somehow doubted that the joint would feature my type: a goateed, malnourished cross between a beatnik and a Talmudic scholar. Preferably, he would be wearing something unpretentious, like a ripped Mr. Bubble T-shirt, but in any case he wouldn't take it off. Instead, he would expose his vulnerability with a poem or two.     Situated in Stone Park, Illinois, just outside of O'Hare Airport, the place was predictable. It had unremarkable box-like architecture, which could be mistaken for a Denny's or a Ponderosa -- if not for its windowless facade. The building was a natural in addition to the sparse and bleak suburban landscape, which apparenly had been spawned by industrial tenants and lenient zoning ordinances.      After I had slinked inside, I handed over a hunk of crisp Cash Station currency to the burly man at the door. Trying to play it cool, I joined my three familiar contacts in a darkened corner and watched the "clients," huddled over rows of long tables, get started on their two-drink minimums. They all resembled those still straggling in at our table: twentyish mostly white women dressed in every modern style, from prim sorority sister to bowling alley babe.      Looking at my watch, I reviewed my secret plan to skip out after about a half hour. But for now I would stay put and keep my word to the guest of honor, Sharon, my cousin-through marriage from Skokie.      Meanwhile Sharon and four of her friends, the other half of our group, hadn't even arrived. Probably lost somewhere off I-90, around the O'Hare remote parking zone. Sharon gives lousy directions. Luckily, I had used a map and advice from the toll booth worker, along with my own technique of sniffing for the pungent scent of Jovan Musk emanating from the place. A few of her friiends and I ordered some garish drinks, and I picked up my glass and looked at the line illustration. The men pictured were superhero-like parodies of manliness, with shoulder-length Hulk Hogan locks and Rock of Gibraltar biceps festooned with leather straps and feathers.      Then the emcee, a big, blonde, middle-aged woman, hobbled onto the stage with a crutch. Her slightly worn "I've Seen It all" expression and casual black T-shirt and shorts contrasted with her Vegas-style sequined jacket and the glittering curtain behind her. She sat on a stool facing the audience on a platform, which appropriately enough was shaped like a giant T and jutted out into the audience      "Warm up, women," she cried. "Let your hair down for a girls' night out. Usually you girls are rivals when it comes to men. But, all those girls fighting with you, they will become your comrades in a few minutes."      She asked who was celebrating something special, and the women from the ten tables around the three sides of the stage cheered. About a fourth were marking birthdays, and the rest of us were there for a bride to be.      She continued: "...And tonight, you're going to get something that you've never had before: a comparison"      "Yes, you'll go home tonight to your man, kick him out of bed, and say, 'You lyin' mother! You've been telling me for the past two years that that's what eight inches looks like!"      "And tonight, I'm going to help you ladies celebrate in style. I'm going to give you... ACTUAL PHYSICAL CONTACT!!!"      After the tidal wave of clapping waned, she explained that when the blue lights around the stage light up, women can exchange some cold cash for a kiss.      The crowd then went ballistic---a spotlight was shining on a masked, bolero-topped bullfighter who strutted onto stage. With a flourish, he peeled off his gold-sequined jumpsult, leaving himself stark naked except for a G-string. And, of course, his boots.      Meanwhile, I felt my table quaking, the fallout from the cheering of the muscular Asian woman at the next table. "Take eeet off! Now, OK? Yes! Yes!" she thundered. "Nice boombahs!... Yeah, honey!"      She continued this chorus as the next few performers, also wearing jumpsults, appeared. Next was the cowboy, and then the 'Grease" character, shimmying to "You'd Better Shape Up."     "Take eeet off! Now, OK? Yes! Yes!" What was my group doing here in this den of iniquity, this suburban Babylon?      But as swarms of women rushed the stage to make cash deposits, I noticed a strange sense of bonding.      Apparently, these women were enjoying the fact that, for once, the tables were turned. They were the ones acting obnoxious. Women of all shapes and sizes seemed perfectly free to act as impolite and raunchy as they felt. They were being encouraged by friends and not being judged or sized up by anyone.      By this time, sensing this strange sense of sisterhood--and the quaking of my tablet-- I no longer felt sick or even disturbed. The scene here was very different from that night in Columbus, or when I met a friend at the Bala Beach Club on North Pier downtown and saw young women in bikinis serving beers, or the last time when I passed the Hooters a little further west and witnessed patrons practically lapping their tongues over waitresses' selectively unfettered body parts.      The Sugar Shack also dramatically contrasts with other sex-driven establishments because of its camp, intentional or not. The male dancers looked like they were having fun with their hyperactive displays of bravado. It was the same sort of satire a drag queen uses in his act to underscore feminine wiles. Nothing exposes pretension more than his/her big hair, makeup mask, and coquettish hip swaying. The concept of a bachelorette party is itself a take-off on heterosexual culture, a farce. Like other things with an "ette" at the end, the bachelorette celebration's model is a male institution. For both types of parties the theme is tasteless hedonism.      But bachelorette parties do have a more innocent edge. Outside of selected districts of San Francisco or lower Manhattan, the market doesn't really offer pornography, much less any violent stuff, oriented towards a female consumer, straight or not. Any such female-driven commercial sex display, like male strippers, is tame compared to most male-targeted revues. Even the name of the Sugar Shack is cute. It hardly compares to the word "hooters," which seems to be the product of a high-powered marketing meeting among sixth-grade boys in a locker room during recess. You don't see any equivalent names for places meant for women; you'll never be invited to a party, say, at the "Prick Palace."      Indeed, that night was not a walk on the wild side. At the Sugar Shack, they don't even take it all off. The G-string is still as substantial as the average Speedo bathing suit inhabiting the public beaches.      That doesn't mean women are more wholesome and responsible with this kind of stuff--which is just as well. For women, objectification has been truly underrated. In the proper environment, a little ogling is healthy for both sexes. It's impossible--and also a real drag--trying to go through life avoiding a look at the surface, glancing at no body parts lower than the occipital brain lobes.      I guess that I get a more sickly feeling at the Baja Beach Club or Hooters or watching a bimbo-laden beer commercial because those single-minded images of women are so rampant, systematic, and used so much more widely as products to sell other products. Here, the men are the ones reaping the lion's share of profits from the top.      Feeling philosophical, I asked our male waiter his opinion. The man can only be described as blond and strapping, with an eerie resemblance to Ted McGinley, the actor who played some bit part on "Happy Days" and is now the neighbor's husband on "Married with Children."      He said the job is helping to put him through school at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. Everything seemed fine to him, except for the club's policy that none of the waiters or dancers are allowed to have a steady girlfriend. This comment surprised me because this guy was way too good-looking to be straight.      He pointed out that while many women pinch and harass him, too many more are reserved. He said they fear being at all unfaithful to their boyfriends.      That was a good call. Once Sharon arrived (she had taken a detour through the wastelands of Western Suburbia), she sat back and sighed: "I miss Alan." She calmly watched the last dancer, a biker, who sported a heavy-metal look of long hair and tight pants, and the futuristic touch of a Darth-Vader-like streamlined mask. He was swaying to the music: "Get your motor running... head out on the highway... looking for adventure... in whatever comes your way..."      Cries of "Take eeet off! Now, OK? Yes! Yes!" again eclipsed the music on stage.      Meanwhile, Sharon's friends assured her that Alan, by this time in the evening with his friends, had already broken his share of the Ten Commandments. In fact, he was probably just a heart beat away from broaching the biggie, the one about coveting the girl next door.      So, after a few drinks, she even went down to the stage to make a deposit in the drawers of the current act. By the end of the evening, Sharon did head out on the highway. She was wearing a sign that said: "Kiss me, I'm getting married."      While observing these spectacles I relaxed, not pondering any weighty political questions until the end of the show. Then, a male manager came on stage and issued a serious plea. He asked if there was anyone in the audience who'd like to see these men take it all off?      Of course, the answer was affirmative.      He shook his head. "But, we can't!" he stormed. "Because of Governor Edgar and some lawmakers in Springfield who don't want you to see it!"     A general booing followed.      He explained that the dancers in the other Sugar Shack, in libertine Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, have that option.      "But, there's hope," he continued. "Make sure you let your legislators know how you feel!"      Yes, I thought. I will help. You can count on me. Finally, I have a cause I can take on wholeheartedly and without doubt. I'll be an anti-G-string lobbyist!      Of course, it will be an uphill battle to convince those families in the right-wing suburbs and downstate, but I have a chance. From the Lake Michigan shore to the flowing fields of corn in Cahokia, I'll take the high road, frame this as an issue of freedom of speech, of civil rights. I can see myself right now at a press conference, expounding sound bites over a podium: "I have a dream, that men will beat their swords Into plough shares, and cast away their pelvic coverings..."      Of course, for family audiences, I'll fashIon safe and catchy slogans like: "Strip straps, not rights."      With more sophisticated urban constituencies, I'll have more freedom to talk specifics, but of course with clinical words. Maybe something like: "Go, nads" Or "Take the G-rating out of G-strlngs!" One friend, an erudite University of Chicago grad, recommended I make a reference to Ulysses and urge them to deconstruct (a little po-mo thrown In for good measure) their "codpieces."      If nothing else works, I'll incite irrational fear in the masses. "First they'll take away our G-strings, and next thing you know they'll be forcing us to wear veils like In Saudi Arabia!!! They'll cover our body parts so slowly--one by one by one--that we won't realize it's happening until it's too late. Before we know it, we'll be shrouded like mummies!"      Of course, I'm probably way ahead of my time. Maybe society is not yet ready for such a progressive movement. So, at least for now, today's Chicago-area brides to be will have to be content to head out to Stone Park, not Springfield. And they will get the most enjoyment out of the evening if they keep politics of any form-whether feminist or state-out of their minds.