Vegas interruptus: Zumanity forces tourists to consider gays and lesbians as part of its cirque du sexuality. But only to a point.

Las Vegas encourages tourists to indulge in sexual voyeurism with a wealth of cheesy, chesty revues--your choice of gender. Zumanity is Cirque du Soleil's attempt to muscle in to that bare-breasted market without compromising the organization's reputation for class and spectacle. Thus the show delivers a sexy hetero couple enacting an R-rated Kama Sutra, often balanced on one another in seemingly impossible positions. It's got lithe, nearly nude faux lesbians kissing and cavorting in a giant fishbowl in seemingly impossible contortions. There's the most pumped-up "little person" ever, clinging to a fabric lifeline dangled by a woman on a trapeze, the duo soaring overhead in gorgeous, seemingly impossible arcs ... You get the picture.

Zumanity is 100 minutes of limber, muscular, fat-free cast members--men and women--performing suggestive, remarkably imagined gymnastics to throbbing music. It's amazing. It's fun. It's hot. But it's not entirely trip. It knows its audience.

The inclusion of Johan and Patrick's dance of same-sex domestic dysfunction is pleasantly confrontational in this sex for-tourists context, particularly with its final, drawn-out kiss. (Gay men and straight women applaud.) And the divine presence of Joey Arias as the sardonic host is another smart nod to the gender ambiguity of much sexual attraction. But gay sex clearly still scares even the cosmopolitan Cirque du Soleil.

The lengthy finale finds the entire east arranged on a giant turntable, fondling one another in pairs and groups. While there's more Tatu-like girl-on-girl action, Johan and Patrick are implausibly paired with women, and other than Arias, who's dressed as a woman anyway, no man dares touch another. In short, it's a blatant concession to the expectation of ticket-buyers' homophobia. Johan and Patrick return for the curtain call hi the giant, garish Mardi Gras costumes in which they began the show--two gay men safely, turned back into sexless drag queens.

My advice? See the show, but leave after that hot kiss between the gays. Or at least after the flying dwarf.