PLIED WITH RED wine, tonight's joy boy ventures a little slow dancing with the bride-to-be. Then a startling switch in his soundtrack sends him into sudden paroxysms of syncopated pelvic thrusting. He wastes no time stripping down – Velcro'd pants! – to his two black G-strings. Would just one reveal too much? Or is it an issue of extra support, like layering on another sports bra?

No matter. He's all hairless and wiggly, and ever the good sport, gyrating like a champ. We're all rooting for him. But even by the flashing light of the epileptic fit-inducing strobe, we can't help noticing that he has knee braces on.

That's right, a stripper with bad knees, like a computer programmer with carpal tunnel. It must be an occupational hazard. Can he get worker's comp for that?

We can only hope that he acquired his knee problems doing something nastier than this. Here's the boy-for-hire's raciest move: sticking a dollar bill down your shirt into your cleavage, then putting his whole head up your shirt to take the money out of your bra with his lips. The effect is less titillating than flustering, over before you can really grasp what's happening, much less enjoy it, like a close encounter with a very nervous kisser.

This is San Francisco's half-assed answer to straight women on the prowl for an XY group grope – 15 minutes in a setting no more exotic than your own living room, with a stripper in knee braces, who may or may not also know a few magic tricks. The dirty little secret of our Sin City, which takes civic pride in catering to every carnal taste and perversion, however obscure, is that it doesn't have a single strip club or even regular sex show for hetero women.

Even in Giuliani's PG-13 New York, with the smut scrubbed clean from Times Square, there's still a gentlewomen's club with the too-good-to-make-up name Hunk-O-Mania.

Back here in San Francisco we're stuck in the 19th century: "This year they even canceled Fleet Week!" one married lawyer wails when I mention prowling for beefcake. She and her girlfriends make an annual ritual of it, turning the local show of military might into a semiofficial October voyeurism holiday. And you thought the Folsom Street Fair had the whole fall locked up. But this year Sept. 11 called off Fleet Week. Chalk up another victory for Osama's reign of terror, a blow to those craven Western women's libidos.

Just try to find a place for a little Chippendales-style, cheesy hard-bodied action in the Bay Area, and here's a sampling of the chilly reaction you'll get: "Er, there might be some place like that in San Jose. It sounds like more of a suburban thing." (There's not.) Or the blank stare, then this helpful suggestion: "You could go to a show for gay men." Sure, that would be really erotic, being surrounded by perfect specimens whom you can't even pretend would ever be interested in catering to your every whim.

But as everybody's big daddy, Mr. Capitalism himself, says, the free market knows best. Women here must just not want cheeseball titillation in a tasteful supper club-lounge setting complete with flattering lighting design, or the market would provide it, right?

A more disturbing thought: perhaps the white-hot, post-dot-com moneymaking scheme in San Francisco isn't a Centerfolds for straight girls but a hold-me-all-night cuddle emporium, where you tip your sensitive rent-a-swain for every doting compliment he bestows. Ick.

My preliminary conclusion from quizzing an unscientific sample of women who ought to know: there is a market for a room of their own that's well stocked with entwined couples and men in various states of abandon. Some wanted vaudeville-style shows like a carnal cabaret, others full-on live-sex acts, but in a setting where it wouldn't be disgusting to sit down. Is that too much to ask?

There were no calls for cuddle-for-hire services but some for compliments.

"The men will tell me how great I am and how much they love giving oral sex."

"You were doing 72 in a 55 zone" is all another wants to hear.

As for the venue itself: "There should be private rooms, just in case."

But the most compelling vision belonged to Vicky Lucky, whose porn genius is one of our great underutilized local resources. She'd call her pleasure palace Socrates' Prison. The decor: strictly empire in ruin.