SEATTLE — It's Wednesday night, just after 7, and the betting has already begun in Greg Avedesian's kitchen. He and six friends have bellied up to a white folding card table, wedged between stove and sink, and begun a four-hour game of Texas Hold 'Em. They pass the time slugging beer and exchanging good-natured insults at one another's expense.

"(Expletive) you, man," says Avedesian, 25, pushing a latte's worth of winnings at his friend, Scott Andrews. "You were bluffing. Were you bluffing?"

"You'll never know, (expletive). Hand it over," says Andrews, 26, beaming and stacking his chips. The other men — professionals in their 20s — lean back in plastic patio chairs.

This particular group has been gathering for poker night once or twice a month for the past three years. The rules are always the same: There's a different host each week, buy-in is $20 and there are no girls allowed. No wives, no girlfriends, no women friends, no female co-workers.

"It's a chance for us just to be guys, you know?" says Avedesian, a health-benefits consultant in Seattle. "We can hang out, say anything we want, just be buds."

Guys-only gatherings — from informal poker nights to organized Rat Pack-esque Vegas vacations — are nothing new. But after years of being out of favor, they're finding a renewed respectability among younger males and businesses anxious to market to them.

Travel agencies like I'm In! and Kayak.com have begun promoting guys-only vacations — or "mancations" — to places like Mexico and Hawaii. Last summer, a few guys from Avedesian's poker night took their first all-male vacation together. Now they plan "to make the mancation an annual tradition," Avedesian says.

Last month, a Seattle group called "Guys Night Out" organized a steak-and-scotch dinner for men to raise money for charity. And Spike TV has successfully traded on the appeal of programming designed by guys, for guys.

Even when it seemed that fraternal orders would become extinct as their members died off, the organizations are now drawing a younger generation.

Chris Moore, 42, a Seattle businessman, and six male friends recently joined the Ballard chapter of the Fraternal Order of Eagles. One of the many reasons for joining was "a chance to hang out with the guys," Moore says.

BOYS ONLY

After male-only clubs and organizations went out of favor in the 1970s and '80s (some, such as the International Rotary Club and Lions Clubs, began accepting female members; others disbanded altogether), a cottage industry began to form around newfound "girl power." Books, party favors and board games all hit the shelves, encouraging women to form women-only groups. The girls' night out moved in just as the guys' night out moved out.

Today, all-female groups outnumber all-male groups. Dr. Warren Farrell, co-author of "Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men?" and one-time professor at the University of California and Georgetown University, says that ratio is as high as 100 female groups to every 1 male group.

Given those sorts of statistics, it's not surprising that the social pendulum is beginning to swing back, clearing the way for advertisers and a new generation of men to reclaim the guys' night out.

"The mere presence of a woman in a group of heterosexual men changes the entire energy," says Dr. Robert Glover, a Bellevue, Wash.-based therapist and author of "No More Mr. Nice Guy." That happens for two reasons: First, men are biologically inclined to make themselves attractive to females, even if there is no immediate possibility of mating with her. And second, most men in our society were socialized by women, since most day-care providers and elementary-school teachers are female. "Boys learn at an early age that they need to please the women in their lives to get by," he says.

When you take out that X-factor — or, rather, the XX-chromosome factor — "there's suddenly no need to get approval. Men don't need to censor themselves around other men. It's freeing."

It's also therapeutic, said Farrell, who has debated men's issues on CNN News, ABC's "20/20" and "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

"Most men rely on the women in their lives for emotional support," he says. "That's good. But there are some aspects of the male experience that women can't relate to. For those things, men benefit from talking with other men."

MALE BONDING

That's what happens every Wednesday night at Jamie Monberg's house in Fremont, Wash.: The same group of nine guys — writers, artists, engineers, designers, a lawyer, spanning their late 20s to early 40s — gets together to "talk about anything," says Monberg, 35. And they do so pointedly without the company of their wives, girlfriends or young children.

Most of the guys know each other through work at a design firm downtown, but a few have become friends at these weekly guys nights.

"We like to think of it as a 19th-century intellectual salon. Men getting together to debate politics and philosophy, to discuss the metaphysical underpinnings of ..." — Monberg laughs — "Or just guys getting together and drinking on the porch."

That's the other thing about guys' nights out: Because men and women form emotional connections differently, comparing guys' nights out and girls' nights out is like comparing apples and oranges.

"Even if men aren't leaning in, making eye contact and talking about how they feel, they're still bonding," says Glover. "You can't discount the value of that."

Tony Clarke has been a part of a men's group in Massachusetts for the past 29 years. He and eight other men, ranging in age now from their mid-40s to mid-70s, meet once a month on Sunday.

"It's become such a tapestry of my life. Just this pattern of once a month being with a group of people who trust and love," says Clarke, 56. "I couldn't even tell you what we talk about. We just catch up and eat."

Clarke falls quiet for a moment, thinking. "So what makes it special? I don't know, old friends, sharing their lives with each other — what's better than that?"