STEWART DRESSED FOR TOP-10 SUCCESS

“People ask me, ‘Do you like sex?’ or ‘Why don’t you like sex?,” singer Jermaine Stewart said, looking very indignant. “I ask them, ‘Are you crazy?’ It’s that song that put that idea in their heads.”

That song is “We Don’t Have to Take Your Clothes Off,” currently No. 5 on the Billboard magazine pop singles chart. Because of it, Stewart has become a fledgling star.

“I tell these people that they’re missing the point about the song,” he continued. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with sex. In the song, I’m saying to kids that they don’t have to do anything they don’t want to in terms of sex. You don’t have to take your clothes off to have a good time. It can be dangerous. There are so many diseases floating around these days, you don’t know what you’re going to catch.”

Stewart, his tone growing more impassioned, sounded like he was in a pulpit instead of a conference room in the Beverly Hills office of his label, Arista Records:

“I get letters from parents. They like the message of the song. Most of the other songs these days are telling the kids to really get down and dirty. Like ‘Sugar Walls’ (the Sheena Easton hit). These songs are raunchy. They’re saying stuff like, ‘Baby I love you and want to do this and that to you and you can do this to me.’

“The message of those songs is that you have to do this stuff to have a good time. My song says you don’t. No mother wants her daughter to be out there taking her clothes off, drinking, doing drugs, getting pregnant. Parents should give their daughters my record and tell them to sing it to their boyfriends.”

End of sermon.

Though Stewart co-wrote most of the songs on his second Arista album, “Frantic Romantic,” he didn’t write ‘We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off.” His producer, Narada Michael Walden, best known as co-producer of Whitney Houston’s smash album, wrote the song with Preston Glass. Stewart, though, was indirectly responsible for some of its content.

“The idea for the song came out of a talk I had with the writers,” Stewart recalled. “They wanted me to just talk about how I felt about some things. While I was talking they were taking notes. Somehow they came up with this song.”

With his wild hair and ultra-trendy outfits, the slender, hip, fast-talking singer doesn’t really look like the type who’d be championing chastity. This guy, you’d probably think, is definitely supporting the other side. Laughing, he agreed: “I know I look like the kind of person that mothers warn their daughters against.”

You’re likely to see Stewart dancing the night away at some the town’s “in” dance clubs, like the Power Tool, Vertigo and Paradise 24. He gave summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of each of these places. His assessment of Helena’s, though, was rather self-revealing:

“People go there to show off, to show they’re in with the movie star crowd. You go there to be seen and to say hello to all the phonies. They’re telling the photographers ‘No photos please’ and at the same time they’re trying to get their face in every magazine possible. I don’t like that kind of stuff. I don’t like phonies.

“I go to these places but I’m not going for the glitter, in spite of what people think. People look at me and think they know what I’m like by the way I look and the way I dress and where I hang out. But they don’t know me--the real me. If they knew that, they’d be surprised.”

Stewart, who grew up Chicago, was guarded about some things, particularly his age. “Everyone asks me about my age but I’d rather not say. How old do I look?”

He looks to be in his early 20s, but since he’s so secretive about it, he’s probably older.

Stewart, who migrated to Los Angeles after high school, started out as a regular dancer on TV’s “Soul Train.” He was so good that he became part of the Soul Train dancers, a touring street-dancing troupe noted for its spectacular, acrobatic routines.

“Soul Train” figured in the origins of his singing career, too. About six years ago, Shalamar, the soul-singing group that was also spawned by “Soul Train,” invited him to join as a backup singer. He accepted, though he was inexperienced and had little interest in singing.

“I used to kid around with singing,” he recalled. “I never took it seriously. But the people in Shalamar thought I had a fairly decent voice. I joined up with them because I wanted to travel and be with them, because they’re my friends.”

But Stewart, who has a slight but expressive voice, grew to like singing during his three years with Shalamar. In 1983, he started to get urges to go solo. His timing was perfect. “Shalamar split up,” he said. “Those people couldn’t get along. So I was going to have to be on my own anyway.”

Though Shalamar gave Stewart his start as a singer, Culture Club was responsible for him getting his first recording contract. In London, where Shalamar was a superstar group, he had met the members of Culture Club on the set of a TV show. Culture Club bassist Mikey Craig financed the demo that earned Stewart a recording contract with an English label, which led to an American contract with Arista Records. Culture Club gave him another boost. Stewart sang a duet with Boy George on the best cut, “Miss Me Blind,” on the group’s best album, “Colour By Numbers.” (Stewart declined to comment on Boy George’s much-publicized drug addiction.)

Stewart’s first album, “The Word Is Out,” which he co-wrote, wasn’t a big hit but it did establish him as a promising young singer. That promise was realized on his next album, “Frantic Romantic”-- his current hit.

He appears to be on the verge of becoming a big star. Movies are also a possibility. “I’ve been offered some movies but the parts weren’t right,” he explained. “One was to play an African boutique owner. That’s not what I had in mind for my film debut. Another was playing a flaming queen in a jail. No, no. Not for me. Another possibility is playing young James Brown--that I could deal with.”

“I’ve been asked to do three tours (as an opening act), including one with Madonna and one with Janet Jackson, if she decides to tour. I’d really like to do the Madonna tour.”

An indication of a person’s prestige and status often is who he won’t talk to. At the moment, Stewart is snubbing Prince.,

“He’s left a couple of messages for me,” Stewart said. ‘I spoke to him once but I don’t particularly want to talk to him again.”