I envy Chili's strip club experiences. (I envy Chili anyway...this just throws fuel on the fire.) Not long ago in these pages, he explained what "high mileage" meant in terms of the strip clubs and strippers he knows. I live in Ohio, where the state motto is "Ohio, the heart of it all." It could just as well be "Ohio, land of the air dance."

We have free speech in Ohio. This means that women can march topless in gay pride parades. It means that topless strippers can stand on a street corner across from the state capitol building and pass out strip club coupons. (This doesn't happen every day, so don't plan a trip around it.) It means that if you want to see women dance naked, you'll have to do it sober. The sight of titty tips can drive drunken Ohioans to desperate acts, so clubs that serve alcohol ask dancers to cover their nipples with pasties and wear thongs at all times.

There's this other thing: My locale has a no-touching law. That's where the air dances come from. Patrons who touch dancers will be rudely ejected from a club (not at all like being rudely ejaculated). Of course, your mileage may vary. But not by much.

So let's take a little road trip to see what we'll find in the strip clubs of one of Ohio's largest cities. Are you ready to rumble?

Here's one of the better clubs in town: a pasties-topless-with-alcohol club. It looks like an exciting place: there's a marquee on the outside and the entry is all glass, chrome, and light bulbs. The cover charge varies with the feature dancer. Inside there's plush carpeting, brass rails, polished wood, bouncers in tuxedos, and mirrors everywhere. A DJ controls expensive light and sound systems. Standard for just about every club, the place is too dark and the music is so loud you have to shout to be heard. I don't understand why you never hear about dancers with hearing loss. Audiologists should check this out.

For a surreal experience, come here before 8:00 PM. There'll be you and a bartender, and possibly no dancers at all. Are you the only guy in town who wants to see tits shakin' early in the day? On Friday and Saturday nights, though, this club is packed.

The dancers here wear tops and bottoms when they're on stage. When they give you an off-stage dance, the top comes off to reveal those pastie-covered nipples. At other topless clubs in town, dancers strip down to pasties on stage; this club is "too upscale" to do that.

On a busy night, you'll see over twenty dancers here. Lots of nice-looking women, both college girls and women making a career out of stripping. (Or, women expressing their individuality through interpretive dance...take your pick.)

Now, about those air dances. If they're not hiding in the dressing room, talking with friends, or being monopolized by big spenders, dancers here will offer you three types of dances: table dances, private dances, and the "champagne room." Table dances aren't done on tables in this town; they're done at your table. You sit with your legs spread and the dancer gyrates between them for as many songs as you're willing to pay, at $10 a song. She moves in close enough to let you smell the perfume between her breasts or to brush her hair in your face, but there's always an air space. You keep your hands to yourself, thank you very much. Meanwhile, the customers around you are either watching her moves or carefully not looking your way.

Private dances are just like table dances, except they're done in a semi-private area or a booth. Bouncers are close by, ever alert for overly-rambunctious customers. You sit on a plush couch, so the dance costs twice as much. The $100 champagne dance buys you a bottle of cheap fizz and half an hour of the dancer's air-dance time. Of course, if she's due on stage, a bouncer will interrupt your tender time together. Sorry, no refunds.

I'm not a strip club regular, so I don't have favorite house dancers. I go when there's a feature dancer I want to see and enjoy whatever house dancers are around at the time. (I stopped by every night when SaRenna was in town. Call me obsessed.) I hear about guys spending hundreds and thousands in a single night, but that's not me.

The house dancers are "independent businesswomen." A dancer pays to work, then tips the DJ, the bartenders, and the waitresses. And she can still take home several hundred dollars of your money on a good night.

Here in the heartland of America, I think you see more on stage than in the table dances or private dances, so I spend most of my time at the stage rail sticking dollar bills in dancers' garters. I'm happy to give those away, and it makes for inexpensive debauchery. (And no matter what you give the door girl or waitress, you get your change in dollar bills that clog your pockets until you dispose of them, so....)

Do dancers provide "special services" for management? Well, that's the fantasy of every potential strip club owner, isn't it? Alt.sex.strip-clubs has endless debates about the character of dancers and the pathetic losers who pay them to strip (that's you and me).

Let's take a pee break before we head out. This club has a nice restroom with an attendant who's eager to hand you a paper towel. Was it some kind of lifetime aspiration of this guy to watch men piss? Maybe there are fringe benefits I'm unaware of.

We'll head over to a nude club next. It's a run-down building with few outside lights. I'm always concerned about my car here. Closed-circuit monitors inside the club let patrons watch for car thieves. This is either very reassuring, or not. You enter a grimy little room with a bullet-proof window and cash slot. The manager comes out to take your money and buzz you through the next door. The whole experience makes you feel like a low-down pervert.

No chrome or carpeting here, no light show, no bouncers in tuxedos, no DJ, and feature dancers never set foot in the place, but it is, naturally, dark and loud. You and the other perverts sit around a small stage with your soft drinks, gaping at the breasts (with nipples!) and pudenda on display...so close, and yet so far. You see, there's no touching allowed here, either.

You'll see from two to seven dancers, depending on the time of day. The nude clubs open at noon and close at 4:00 AM since they don't have liquor license restrictions. It's harder to find women who'll dance completely nude, though, so the dancers aren't quite as fancy as those in the topless clubs. Some could be described as "corn-fed" while others could be called "heroin junkies." Definitely some biker mommas here, and more tattoos and piercings in odd places. What they lack in looks, they make up for by using the stage poles more and by doing more gynecologically-revealing routines.

Dancers choose their songs from a jukebox. When the box pauses to change CDs, the dancer stops dancing and the patrons sit like slugs. Some of the dancers are personable enough to make jokes or tease customers, but most look as blank-eyed as the guys.

You don't tip the dancer at the stage here. She walks around the room after she's done to ask each customer for a tip. Even with tips from every customer, there's no way these dancers ever take home as much money as dancers in the topless clubs.

When they're not on stage, the dancers sit around talking with each other. Occasionally one will get up and stroll your way. You know what's coming: "Hi honey, what's your name? Wanna dance?" They offer table dances, private dances, and chair dances here. Everybody ought to try a chair dance once. You sit in an armchair; the naked dancer steps up onto the arms of the chair to gyrate and perform deep knee bends above you. For reasons that should be obvious, shorter dancers give more interesting chair dances.

The restroom? Well, there's no attendant and the management apparently never uses the facilities. I try not to either.

The clubs are closing, so let's call it a night. Our clothes are saturated with cigarette smoke, I have an hour's drive home, and I've got just enough cash left to buy doughnuts. And I'm left wondering, just what did I get out of that? But I know I'll do it again.

For information about the strip clubs in your area, see www.tuscl.com.