For weeks and weeks, depressing developments have dominated the scene. Now, at last, I’ve got something positive to report, at least for my local readers.

Thanks to a federal district judge’s ruling on Monday, new strip clubs in Seattle can finally open again.

I’ve long asserted that a healthy sex-entertainment industry’s a vital part of an urban milieu. It attracts tourist dollars. It employs many creative types, giving them money to support their painting, costume design, rock bands, novel writing, etc. It entrances and pacifies its patrons, instead of turning them into drunken boors. And, at least sometimes, it inspires its clients to go home and satisfy their wives and girlfriends.

For too long, the Seattle cultural establishment’s idea of the perfect strip club has been a peep show parlor, where the genders are permanently separated by a glass curtain. Nothing else could more vividly depict the so-called “Seattle freeze,” a regional sociological phenomenon in which isolation and even loneliness are mistaken for positive human traits.

No, we need better. We need a place where women and men are in the same room, perhaps even talking to one another.

And not just another clone of the Deja Vu formula either, but a club where the costumes and performances are inspired by the neo-burlesque revolution instead of by the bleach-and-silicone porn-star stereotype. A place where the women who show and the men who look are both made to feel good about their sexualities. A place that could even attract a coed clientele.

I’ve known people who’ve wanted to start such a club over the years, but who’ve been stymied by the city’s 17-year “temporary moratorium” on adult entertainment licenses. I hope they can now get up and running, and soon.

Heck, while we’re at it let’s also have strip clubs for women (again), and for gay men (for the first time).