Shake a Hand That Sheds It All for Ladies Beastly as the Boys

As a species, men have had to put up with a lot of bad press.

Sure, women have been under-represented as far as getting credit for many of history’s great accomplishments because pigheaded, sexist men often kept the records. But it is also true that women were more likely to get off the hook when the lumps were being doled out.

Ask about man -kind’s great despots and you get a roster of virile types from Genghis Khan to Adolf Hitler to Josef Stalin to Pol Pot. Not a skirt in the bunch.

Sure, there have been a few bad female apples in the barrel, but they don’t get the same bum rap from history that men do. Look at Russia. They had Catherine the Great, not Catherine the Despicable. But it was Ivan the Terrible, not Ivan the Amiable. If I had been Ivan--or is it Mr. Terrible?--I would have canned my PR man pronto.

But that is all in the past. Here in the last quarter of the 20th Century, men have finally been given sensitive, caring, egalitarian, suave role models like Alan Alda and Phil Donahue. Yeah, there’s Hulk Hogan too, but . . .

We now have Men’s Rights Inc., a vigilant watchdog group in Sacramento that slaps the hands of any company using advertising that degrades our delicate male sensibilities, such as that Magnavox ad that demonstrates “impact” by showing a guy getting punched in the face. Did Magnavox ever consider the emotional distress inflicted on the smashee?

All in all, we have been doing our darnedest to clean up our interpersonal relationship act, to eradicate any remnant of our Neanderthal heritage. And what reward do we get for our new enlightened attitudes?

The Men of Chippendales.

The famous Los Angeles club has branched out into the entertainment world by creating a touring revue that was, uh, unveiled this week at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim. (That’s the city, it should be noted, where Chippendales was refused a permit to open a club in 1982 because it didn’t fit with Anaheim’s reputation for “family-oriented” entertainment. I guess everyone at the Celebrity on Tuesday must have been an orphan.)

The new show’s goal, as an emcee provocatively told the women in the house, is to “fulfill dreams, desires and fantasies.” Whereupon, out came a parade of pumped-up poster boys posing as punk bikers, a Navy cadet, several cops (a popular fantasy, evidently), some “Rocky”-esque boxers and other characters--all of whom eventually stripped down to the same, minimalist attire.

Some male-rights advocates might cry, “Exploitation!” But it is unfair to suggest that these snappy dancers from the “Solid Gold” school of choreography aren’t true artists (although at least one had to sternly keep counting “one, two, three, four” in a marginally successful attempt to keep a beat).

Who defends male strip shows like this? Many women argue that it is only fair for them to have Chippendales, since men have been going to female burlesque revues for centuries.

(Personally, I start to nod off after a decade or two.)

And, proponents always insist, it’s All In Fun. (Not counting, of course, the near-fistfight that started when some good-natured women in the front row stood up and blocked the view of the fun-loving ladies behind them. Only the interference of a 300-pound Samoan bouncer prevented these happy-go-lucky folks from exchanging right crosses.)

Maybe the reason I am put off is simply personal. Call me a prude, but I could never take part in such a demeaning affair, which has nothing to do with the fact that my body is less reminiscent of Sylvester Stallone than of Sylvester the Cat.

I would feel so . . . used. I just couldn’t imagine being ogled as one more slab of beef, one more mindless hunk of gorgeous flesh. Most of my women friends say they can’t imagine it either.

But looking at the big picture, I say live and let live. Women are as intelligent, resourceful, creative and capable as men, so they shouldn’t be barred on the basis of sex from the perks our society offers. So it is only natural in our social evolution that women should also be able to show that they can be every bit as beastly as the boys.

Same goes for the performers. Feminists are frequently frustrated by women who are still willing to exploit their physical attributes in nightclubs for money. But I suggest that enlightened men should hold no grudges against Chippendales dancers and, in the fine and honorable tradition of our sex, should even be willing to offer the right hand of friendship and say, “Nice show, Thor.”

Not to mention the best thing about the evening: Not once did I have to wait in the men’s room.

We’ve come a long way, fella.