Sometimes ads go up online for writers to review porn films and websites, and you have to wonder what criteria one might use. “The camera work was redolent of a John Ford western”? Or do you draw parallels between somebody’s screaming orgasm and everybody in the movie Network yelling “I’m fed up and not going to take it anymore”? In some respects, The Sensuous Woman begs similar questions. Margaret Cho’s burlesque-cum-variety act is worth every hoot and catcall, not only for her zinger-filled standup, but for the freewheeling sexual demagoguery of the whole enterprise. How, though, do you judge it?

Cho herself appears in less than half of the 90-minute show, but her comic tirades are topical as ever—Britney is mashed, maligned and reconstituted in a sympathetic light, and there are now officially more tap jokes about Larry Craig than there are about Savion Glover. Cho’s bits about her mother, long a staple of her routine, now focuses on Cho’s proliferating tattoos. Only Cho, who publicly identifies as pan-sexual, can twirl her tassels, declare “I’m not bi, I’m I” and make cracks about anal humor the butt of her act.

She also says The Sensuous Woman, which premiered earlier this year in L.A., is a celebration of all body types and sexual identifications. Hence the ceremony of carnal consecration at the top, when all the supporting players—Rubenesque burlesque goddess Miss Dirty Martini; transgender comedian Ian Harvie; actor and web-video sensation Liam Kyle Sullivan; Selene Luna, a consummate striptease artist and little person; and Princess Farhana, another master of the strip—cavort in a mosaic of body-image radicalism.

The show’s talent segments, however, are comparatively weak. Kurt Hall and Diana Yanez, members of the Gay Mafia comedy troupe, deliver competing raps that begin raucously and end in quicksand: There are only so ways to rhyme about your puss being too fantastic while some bitch’s puss seems a little elastic. Yanez, who resembles a young Jennifer Saunders, also has Saunders’ knack for physical humor: she knows how to move. Even as Cho’s Cuban housemaid—a character existing solely to clear the strippers’ costumes from the stage—she’s interesting to watch, even if the gag falls flat. I implore director Randall Rapstine to reimagine her role.

The stripping segments comprise the body, if you will, of the show. Dirty Martini’s exit from an outfit festooned with spangles, for example, is set to Dolly Parton’s “God Bless the U.S.A.”; while her discovery of dollar bills from various crevices is fun, it’s nothing compared to what she discovers in her derriere. The two stripteases Luna does—first popping out of a baby carriage, later doing it in shadow—challenge every notion of what’s beautiful and what’s bizarre.

Even more beautiful is Sullivan. Dressed as Kelly, the character he’s made a web phenomenon with YouTube videos for “Shoes” and “Let Me Borrow That Top” (he’s also on VH1’s “I Hate My 30s”), Sullivan is all about giving gender issues a kick in the nuts. That banged blond wig; those Dr. Seuss leggings; those black, Eurotrashy glasses; those clunky Doc Martens; that leather teddy; that deadpan Valley Girl voice—now that’s sensuousness. And love.

Through Nov. 3. The Zipper Factory, 336 W. 37th St. (betw. 8th & 9th Aves.), 212-352-3101; Wed.-Sat. 8; Fri. & Sat. 11, $45-55.