It's the kind of loophole the sex industry must have been dreaming of: in 2003, when the Licensing Act came into force, lapdancing clubs could suddenly be opened as easily as a karaoke bar or a Starbucks. Previously they needed a special nudity licence. The results are striking - the number of clubs in Britain has doubled, to 300, in just four years.

Advocates of these seedy places are always on about no-touching rules, and how stripping just couldn't be more different to prostitution, but the evidence says differently. Research presented at the Kilkenny conference on human trafficking and the sex industry this year found that most women working as prostitutes start off at the legal end of the sex trade, and lapdancing clubs are like market day for traffickers.

Dancers say those no-touching rules are a red herring, since the competition is too intense for such niceties; and furthermore, there is no taboo attached to punters offering money for full sex after one of these "no-touching" dances. And the evidence shows an increase in sexual assaults when a lapdancing club opens, affecting both dancers and women who happen to live in the area. In Camden, a report by the Lilith project comparing the three years before and after the opening of four lapdancing clubs found that incidents of rape rose by 50% and sexual assault by 57%.

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