The dance floor is a hormone-charged sea of bare midriffs, supertight low-rise pants and young men whose necks are wrapped with rows of plastic beads - gifts to any young woman who'll offer a quick flash of flesh.

"Clubbing" for the 18- to 25-year-old set in Myrtle Beach is an overtly sexual pastime.

Young men grind themselves against the backsides of young women they've just met. Teenage girls gyrate stripperlike inside an elevated cage as the bass thud from an overhead speaker rattles their insides.

By the time the nightclubs start their boxer short and wet T-shirt contests - usually a couple of hours past midnight - the alcohol-fueled atmosphere takes an even wilder turn. The boxers sometimes go down, the water-drenched shirts sometimes go up, and the clothing sometimes goes off.

So many body parts are being exposed in some Grand Strand nightspots that police have started cracking down on club owners, promising to shut them down if they don't keep their patrons in line.

Experts say the increased focus on fleshy fun represents a cultural backlash against an age of AIDS and unsafe sex. Grand Strand business leaders are less interested in the sociology behind the trend than the fear that bad behavior will harm the area's "family beach" image.

"Everybody seems to be pushing the limits of adult entertainment this summer," said Myrtle Beach Police Chief Warren Gall.

He said his officers are keeping a close watch on clubs that cater to young people, such as The Shark Club, The Freaky Tiki and Mother Fletcher's. The Shark Club recently was cited for breaking the city's adult entertainment laws.

"When the wet T-shirt contests get too wild, it's up to the club owners to control their guests," he said.

Anything goes policy

Myrtle Beach police and some nightclub managers say the booty and breast contests - and contestants - are wilder this summer than ever before. That creates problems for city and tourism officials and for club managers who want to run contests within the boundaries of the law.

"Some clubs and some of the people who go to those clubs have apparently adopted an anything-goes policy," said Mark Lawrimore, general manager of Mother Fletcher's on Ocean Boulevard.

Part of the reason is marketing. Clubs try to lure teenagers and twenty-somethings by advertising their "Girls Gone Wild" nights on marquees. Radio announcers encourage young women to "dare to bare" during promotions for the contests.

Experts say there are plenty of other explanations for the adolescent abandon in nightclubs this summer.

"It's pretty much what they're picking up from the media," said Fred Medway, a psychology professor at the University of South Carolina. "The things kids see on MTV and in the Girls Gone Wild videos and movies like 'The Real Cancun' help define for them what is normal or acceptable behavior."

And if one nightclub lets contestants get away with flashing normally concealed body parts, the behavior is reinforced and will spread to other clubs, Medway said.

"It becomes a financial thing for the clubs, because if they don't go along with it, the crowds will go somewhere else, and they'll lose money," he said.

Anonymous fun

Barry Markovsky, chairman of the sociology department at USC, said people are more likely to do wild things in a resort town, where they are relatively anonymous, than in their own hometown, where someone they know might see them.

Add the fact that adolescents are more likely than any other age group to participate in risky behavior and the penchant for removing a soaked T-shirt in exchange for a prize - ironically, the prize often includes another T-shirt - is greatly magnified.

Medway said there's another reason today's young people seem so willing to remove their clothes in public.

"Because of sexually transmitted diseases, young people today are very conservative when it comes to their sexual behavior behind closed doors," the psychology professor said. "I suspect the conservative behavior in private is why kids are becoming so wildly sexual in public.

"It's a lot safer to throw water on a young woman's breasts than to exhibit wild behavior by having a lot of sex partners," Medway said. "These contests let them go wild without all the risks associated with sex these days."

City police crackdown

But even "safe sex" has its risks, and one of the biggest in this instance is jail.

"We made several arrests a month and a half ago of participants in a wet T-shirt contest that went too far," said Gall, the city's police chief.

Gall said police regularly walk through nightclubs while in uniform and attend the clubs undercover "to make sure the clubs and patrons are in compliance with the laws."

City laws allow nudity only in nightclubs that are zoned for adult entertainment. The nightclubs where the booty shake and wet T-shirt contests are happening are not in those zones. So if a customer takes off the wrong article of clothing, the nightclub could pay the price.

"We saw an increase in that kind of activity this year, so we went to all the nightclub owners and showed them the ordinance to remind them of what isn't allowed," Gall said.

If a club continues to violate the law, Gall said, the city could use a nuisance ordinance to revoke its business license and shut its doors.

"We're working on a few cases right now where that outcome might be a reality," he said. "This type of thing not only violates the adult entertainment ordinance, but it spurs other problems with overindulgence in alcohol and fighting."

Keeping customers in line

The bouncers at the Freaky Tiki nightclub on Ocean Boulevard have several responsibilities, including making sure the audience doesn't get too rowdy and the contest participants don't get too lewd.

"The people who come here are away from home on vacation, and they want to get a little crazy," said Allen Dickenson, a co-owner of the Freaky Tiki, which features a trio of contests each night.

"We offer Spring Break-style contests, but it's not as raw as what you might see on MTV," Dickenson said. "We don't allow any nudity."

Joe Amendola, another Freaky Tiki owner, said security at the nightclub "usually isn't a big issue" and that the contests are tame compared with what some clubs are doing.

"We don't feel like we have to do those dare-to-bare contests," he said. "We've got a good reputation among the people who come here, and the contests are just good, clean fun."

Lawrimore, the Mother Fletcher's general manager, said participants at his club are warned before the contests begin that nudity will get them kicked out and possibly arrested.

'"If I lose business because my contests are tamer than some other clubs, that's fine," he said. "I'd rather lose business than go to jail."

Shark Club arrests

The city jail was the destination for several participants in a wet T-shirt contest at The Shark Club earlier this summer. Police arrested 11 people at the Ocean Boulevard nightclub on charges including disorderly conduct and underage drinking.

Although some of the cases haven't gone to court, six contestants were found guilty of disorderly conduct because they overexposed themselves to the audience. Two other contest participants entered a pretrial intervention program, and a Shark Club disc jockey was found not guilty of encouraging the women to totally disrobe during the contest.

Just last month, rapper Snoop Dogg hosted a wet T-shirt contest at The Shark Club that featured totally nude participants and the offer of a sex act with Snoop Dogg as the first prize.

But police say The Shark Club isn't the only place where things have gotten out of hand this summer.

"There are several nightclubs where this kind of thing is happening," said Myrtle Beach police Lt. Chuck Dunn.

He said police have a number of investigations into nudity at area clubs. He declined to say which clubs are involved because it would hurt the investigations.

Image problems

Some business leaders say they worry the bad behavior will give the Grand Strand's family-friendly image a black eye.

"We take seriously and value the designation of being a top family beach," said Brad Dean, chief financial officer of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. Dean, a former general manager at the Hard Rock Cafe in Myrtle Beach, said club owners bear "100 percent responsibility" for keeping their businesses and customers within the law.

"We don't want to over-police what visitors do while they're here, but anything that detracts from that family image could potentially hurt the beach," he said.

But many tourists say the Grand Strand's more risque offerings won't keep them from visiting.

"We've been coming here for 10 or 15 years, and we just ignore things like that ... they don't affect our vacation at all," said Kenny Comalander, a tourist from Chapin who was visiting Ocean Boulevard shops Wednesday afternoon with his wife and two children.

"We know what goes on down here at night, so we stay away from it," he said.