So here’s what I’ve got against strip clubs: They degrade an entire gender. And, I, for one, think men deserve a lot better than to be degraded.

I know, you’re out there thinking, ‘Sweetie, men can defend themselves. They don’t have to go to strip clubs. None of us wives or girlfriends are out here holding guns to our partner’s heads saying, ‘Go on, honey, have a good time.’”

Well, gosh darnit, guys who go to strip clubs do too need to be defended. They get maligned every day just for hankering to see a little unfamiliar flesh.

Comics poke fun at them. Women complain about them. They’re invariably described as a bunch of tongue-tied, google-eyed losers going ga-ga over a pair of bodacious bon bons. And the “cool” guys in movies are always portrayed as “above it all,” barely even glancing at the strippers when they have to go to a club to catch some nefarious type.

I think we owe strip club guys – let’s call them SCGs, just a little bit of respect.

Why should they have to deny that they like to watch strippers? Why should they have to lie to their wives? Why should they have to make up some excuse for why they had a two hour lunch or be embarrassed to ask the bank teller for a hundred dollars in singles?

And, those darn strippers aren’t exactly helping men feel proud about watching them. Talk with one and she’ll tell you – she and her sisters think SCGs are sad-sack chumps. Chumps to make fun of. Chumps to take money from.

It should be as heart-wrenching as a Hallmark movie for us to see American SCGs reduced to simpering at the sidelines, taken in by the oldest con game in the book – women faking it.

Somebody needs to stand up for American SCGs, help them salvage their manly rights.

I’m thinking, first, we demand a Senate or Congressional hearing. Get somebody up there in Washington to investigate the abuse (emotional, physical, you name it) that men are suffering at the, um, hands of strippers.

Next we pass a Marriage Amendment that grants married SCGs a guaranteed minimum of 12 strip club visits per year; their single brethren would have to get by with six.

Health insurance plans could be made to provide premium discounts for strip club-going sort of like they do with health club memberships. After all, it’s just another way of getting your heart rate up, right?

We could get some big pharmaceutical company – hey, maybe Viagra or Cialis should take this on – to fund a scientific research study into the health benefits associated with watching strippers. Surely watching naked women helps men live longer or at least makes them wish they could.

The IRS could make all those dollar “tips” that men pay, er, give, to strippers a tax deductible write-off – after all, it’s really an act of charity, isn’t it? Aren’t SCGs really just helping strippers earn their ways through Ivy League schools?

And darn it, I hope they start cracking down on the gazillion under-the-table dollars those table dancers are pocketing, I mean, g-stringing. Those girls shouldn’t be allowed to profit tax-free off the kindness of SCGs.

Then we can get Oprah Winfrey to do a show. She can have her coterie of psychologists come on and help SCGs have a light bulb moment.

She could get someone to write a book like that guy she catapulted to celebrity for telling American women “He’s Just Not That Into You” – you know, the book that helped millions of women realize they’re throwing away their self-respect on guys who just want a booty call?

SCGs have the same problems! They need a manifesto of their own to help them deal with the cruel indifference of strippers who are just using them for money. Something that encourages SCGs to keep their dignity instead of giving their dollars away — maybe with a title “Ya Chump! She’s Not into You, She’s into Your Wallet!”

Poor SCGs — somebody’s got to stand up for them … why not me?