I’ve been waiting a long time to see a sweaty summer blockbuster objectifying men.

Thank you Magic Mike, for giving female moviegoers some well-deserved P and A. At a time of year when Hollywood devotes its cineplexes to long shots of Megan Fox’s dirty cleav, women are finally reaping the benefits of an R rating.

Hello, is that a penis pump? Being USED?

First, I want to thank my husband for taking me to see this movie. It’s been too long since my last trip to a male strip club, an experience that is seared into my memory as it involves a stout 40-something with a MacGyver haircut balancing on his hands … on a folding chair.

As most women will tell you, male strippers are funny — and not on purpose. When we ladies put on our pearls and pumps and head out for a night of oily grinding and banana hammock swinging, it’s 10 percent out of sexual yearning and 90 percent for comic relief.

Maybe I just have poor taste in strip clubs. I grew up near Canada, which meant my banana hammock experiences were less hammock and more banana. In Niagara Falls, at the nasty clubs I sought out with my girlfriends, the strippers were allowed to go Full Monty on stage. Though hotly anticipated, the grand finale was always more hysterical than arousing.

After five minutes of prancing around in hammer pants and dropping into lunges, Rico Suave loses his trousers, flexes his butt muscles and with a cheesy come-slither look on his face, wiggles out of his purple thong. We women hoot and holler, but really, we’re just being polite.

Luckily, Magic Mike succeeded in reminding me that everything looks better in the movies — even stripping.

In truth, I had expected the movie to be terrible. Of course that didn’t mean I objected to seeing it. In fact, I offered to review it for Joe’s newspaper, a pitch that was swiftly rejected by my husband, who didn’t think my anatomy made me a better fit for the job. His review of the movie can be read here.

Sensitive to the ridiculousness of male stripping, director Steven Soderbergh made Magic Mike with a sense of humor and even better: he shot the movie on my home turf: St. Pete. The first time Wilson’s Lounge, the dive bar across the street from my house, came into focus, I squealed with delight.

In real life, Wilson’s is home to bad karaoke and domestic draft beer. In Soderbergh’s none-too-far-fetched stripper world, it’s where throngs of women line up to see Channing Tatum shake his moneymaker.

The first time Tatum, who recently usurped Mark Consuelos as Tampa’s most famous stripper, came on stage gyrating his pelvis like a wind-up Elvis, I again squealed with delight.

And I wasn’t the only one.

When the dancers of Xquisite (“the cock-rockin’ kings of Tampa”)  started writhing on stage, there was a collective sigh from the mostly-female crowd.

Magic Mike definitely delivers in the stripping department. The movie succeeds in giving audiences Glee-like choreographed routines performed by a beefy cast, with the exception of Kevin Nash, whose Tarzan looked more like Ron Perlman in Conan the Barbarian.

What’s most impressive about this man talent is that they reportedly performed without the use of body doubles — something that can’t be said for many actresses in dancing movies. (Sorry Natalie Portman.)

But what about the plot, you ask? Surely there’s a story between the cheeks.

Yes, and it’s not a bad one.

Based loosely on Tatum’s own experiences as a male stripper in Florida, Magic Mike’s plot unravels like a boys-gone-wild version of Coyote Ugly — only better.

While working on the roof of a Tampa Bay McMansion, a troubled 19-year-old kid (Alex Pettyfer) meets a chummy construction worker with adorable stick-out ears (Tatum) who later reveals that he moonlights as a male stripper at a club owned by a flashy, somewhat washed-up male stripper with a penchant for cowboy hats and breathing fire (the stellar/chiseled Matthew McConaughey).

As the rat fink-y teen gets lured into the seedy underworld of exotic dancing, his blah older sister (Cody Horn) grows increasingly concerned for his well-being.

Enter ecstasy trip. Enter beautiful shots of the St. Petersburg  coastline. Enter a love connection between Tatum and Horn. Enter McConaughey delivering with sleazy perfection a role he was born to play. Enter ecstasy-induced vomit scene. Enter Soderbergh’s upside down camera angles and strange washes of color.

I’d make a Flashdance comparison, but Magic Mike is a lot less serious.

This is why you should see it.

There’s a reason why most women find male strip clubs comical: because male stripping is inherently funny.

Sure, Magic Mike has its earnest moments, but just when the movie is about to veer into MTV soap opera territory, the camera cuts to McConaughey dressed as a bare-chested Uncle Sam, marching stiffly with his baton in the air.

He’s hot. But the real turn-on is he’s funny.