No, I do NOT want to buy a $200 bottle of champagne!

My friend Rob called me last week to invite me to a party he was throwing for our friends, Nick and Laurel, who are getting married next weekend. It was to be a nice dinner followed by drinks somewhere else, and I was very excited to be the only gay who was invited (I checked).

I found out that dinner was at Rock Bottom, which was great because I love beer. Then Rob told me that everyone would be going to a place called "The Admiral" afterward. I thought to myself: "the very name just exudes great taste and elegance!" I immediately went into a dress up trance, where you space out for five or six minutes and daydream about what fantastic outfit you're going to wear while the theme from Dynasty plays in the background.

I'd wear a tasteful shirt with french cuffs, carefully doused with the Hermes cologne that I love. I'd sip a nice grappa while regaling the wedding party with stories of how I met the happy couple. It would be fabulous.

I didn't know where The Admiral was, so I decided to yelp it. To my horror, I discovered that The Admiral wasn't a swanky piano lounge where you go to hobnob with Chicago townies. It is actually an all-nude strip club . The Admiral's home page features a woman with fake tits and I threw up a little in my mouth. You could totally tell that they're fake because the nipple is all bajankdafied and out of place.

Rob knows very well that the gays don't fare well at strip clubs, especially all-nude strip clubs. If you yell out the word "pussy" at a gay bar, I guarantee that at least ten gay men would drop their drinks and faint. It's the ultimate kryptonite for gay men, right next to the thought of Project Runway being canceled.

The reason why I have the right to turn my nose up at heterosexual strip clubs is because I've been to enough of them in my life. My uncle dragged me to one a couple of years ago and I still haven't recovered from the experience. Strip clubs are the biggest ripoffs ever. You pay an outrageous cover fee, ten security dudes watch you like hawks, and they charge $11 for a Crown and Coke. The girls also hide their utter disgust for you by intensely smiling, and you're not allowed to touch them. That sounds a lot like being married, doesn't it?

I wouldn't even go to a gay strip club. Men who dance at gay strip clubs are either gay and have issues or they think they're straight and they have issues. Either way, they have issues and I'm not willing to subscribe. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the drama on General Hospital. I don't need the added burden of a gay stripper trying to convince me that the reason why he keeps disappearing to the restroom and coming out sniffing his nose is because he's got a bladder problem and dry sinuses.

The one memory I have of being at an all-nude gay strip club was in New Orleans during Southern Decadence. I go to tip a dancer and he slaps his massive cock on my white shirt. When I get back to my hotel, I find that his cock left a noticeable stain on my once pristine shirt from Structure. I didn't know whether it was the collective sweat and hand germs from a thousand dirty men who touched the dancer's cock or residue from the bronzer he used to make it look that unnatural color. All I know is that I can never wear that cute shirt anymore.

I didn't go to The Admiral with everyone that night. Frankly, I don't understand why the whole wedding party would agree to that. I do plan on making it up to the bride and groom by giving them a kickass wedding present. Perhaps a portable stripper pole?