The Body Shop

What may well be the nation's ultimate singles war is not on Sunset Strip or Manhattan's Upper East Side but in Bloomington, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis. Every night hundreds and sometimes thousands of singles from all over the Midwest jam the Left Guard, a giant, 27,000-sq.-ft. club owned in part by two former stars of the Green Bay Packers, Fuzzy Thurston and Max McGee. TIME Correspondent Richard Woodbury recently made the scene at the Left Guard His report:

By 8:30 p.m., when the band show up, the 90-ft bar is already mobbed. The crowd has taken all the tables in sight and is beginning to spill out into the Swingers Lounge, a dining area where the more sedate can come to eat and watch the goings-on. Stewardesses and secretaries sit in forced conversation with one another, nursing their "sloe screws" (sloe gin and orange juice) and "thigh openers" (vodka gimlets) and feigning unawareness of the males all about. Behind them, hulking young men in double-knit suits or bright cardigan sweaters lounge against the wall, cradling bottles of beer and looking over the pickings. "I've never seen anything like this," say Cindy Barton, 22 from Estherville, Iowa. "There is nothing in Sioux City to measure up to it."

What sets the Left Guard apart from East and West Coast singles bars is the size of its facilities and its crowds. The club has three bards, four rooms and a 600-car parking lot, even so, the cars often overflow into adjacent streets.

Once the Guard has reached its capacity of 2,000, singles--and those pretending to be singles--wait patiently in lines 100 deep, even in subfreezing temperatures. Some of them come from as far away as North Dakota, Upper Michigan and Wisconsin.

There is a saying among Minneapolis singles that "if you can't make it at the Guard, you can't make it anywhere." Says Mai Kennedy, a Wisconsin attorney: "It's a sultan's haven. If you're a good operator, the only question is 'Where does one start?'" Females are equally enthusiastic. "I get ten offers a night," boasts Kathy Thue, 23, a beauty adviser from Minneapolis. "The body friction is enough to get everyone going."

The Guard has a ruggedly masculine decor. Large black-and-white action photos of the Minnesota Vikings adorn the walls. Near the bar is a football souvenir shop called the Pro Central, and the young, long-haired and busty bar girls wear football jerseys with their names printed across the front. Because the football stadium and hockey arena are only a mile away, Viking and Minnesota North Star heroes often drop in after games. When they do, heads turn and female bodies surge forward. "Our theme is built around violence," says Manager Larry Thiel. "Women seem captivated by the manliness of the place."

Burly Crew. Despite the crush at the Guard, fights rarely erupt. A burly crew of five bouncers keeps order, ousting patrons who utter even the mildest of profanities. Hookers are immediately booted out. A strict dress code outlaws Levi's, tank tops and cutoffs. These rules apparently appeal to the clientele that seeks out the club: a conservatively dressed crowd of nurses and schoolteachers, pilots, salesmen and junior executives.

All in all, the Guard provides one of the best shows in town, without cover or minimum. At the height of the evening, clusters of singles stand sardine-fashion, gripping their drinks and watching the action. By midnight, the place is a low-lit, smoky, shrieking bedlam--a blend of screeching rock and swirling bodies. Over in the Other Room, a special chamber for the post-35 set, a champagne music duo is playing Make It Through the Night.

As the 1 a.m. closing time approaches, panic overtakes those who have yet to find a mate; men who have spent the evening leaning against the wall suddenly come to life and lunge toward their nubile prey. The ratio of men to women seems to be nearly 50-50 at this point, ensuring--at least in theory--that no one will leave alone. But as couples drift off into the darkness, the games have only begun. Gripes Jeff Erikson, a TV salesman from Minneapolis: "Some chicks come here to be hustled, others to fall in love. It would help if they wore different signs."

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