Why money has stripped away class barriers in the sex industry

Once sleeping in tents was only for those unable to afford to holiday abroad. Now you can't move on the average campsite for well-off families wanting to get back to basics. Dog tracks have seen an influx of professional punters and even bingo has become a mecca for the middle classes.

Now in what may well be the final frontier, it seems they are also taking over the sex industry.

According to recent research by the University of Leeds, one in four lap dancers have a degree – and one of the most striking details of the Wayne Rooney affair was the background of two women he allegedly took to the Lowry Hotel.

Both had been brought up in middle class families, yet for one reason or another found themselves working as escorts, leaving their embarrassed parents to issue public apologies.

"Obviously, the economy is the key," says research scientist Dr Brooke Magnanti, aka Belle de Jour, whose infamous blog about her life as a call girl was made into a TV series starring Billie Piper. "More and more women are realising that the stereotype of the drug addicted streetwalker does not always (or even often) apply, and are voting with their wallets, so to speak.

"We've come a long way in accepting people for doing what is, let's face it, a legal and storied profession."

While inner city red light districts may still be the preserve of a vulnerable underclass, lap dancing clubs and escort agencies have a far wider cross-section of employees. It's easy to see why. The dancers questioned in the Leeds survey took home an average of 232 a shift. With most working between two and four shifts a week, an annual income of between 24,000 and 48,000 is more than most part-time jobs would ever pay.

For some, the sex industry may provide a good wage, but the seemingly endless supply of women wanting to sign up is bad news for campaign groups like the Fawcett Society and Objects, which believe they are little more than a form of commercial sexual exploitation.

While many may end up working as lap dancers and escorts of their own free will, there are concerns a significant number will become trapped in the job, unwilling to move on because of the money.

"No one should be forced to do any kind of work that they really don't want to do, simply to survive," says Catherine Redfern, of The New Feminist Movement,

"And obviously this applies whether a woman has a degree or has no qualifications at all. The idea that this is more of a concern just because women with degrees are doing this work, is abhorrent.

"The fact that it's predominantly female students, and not male students who are doing this, highlights the entrenched sexism of the sex industry.

"It promotes the idea of women as passive sex objects to be looked at by men. We need to question why this is considered the norm, how society is set up to encourage men and women to see their sexuality in this rigid, binary way, and encourage a much more diverse view."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Magnanti, who was completing a PhD at Sheffield University's department of forensic pathology when she became a call girl, takes a far more pragmatic view.

"I guess I was the only person in the country who wasn't surprised at the survey's results," she says candidly. "Stripping and sex work are a lot like waiting tables – some people have what it takes to do it for life, but most people are just moving through it on the way to another career.

"Many of the women I met in the business were well-educated enough to know a minimum wage job couldn't possibly fund their futures.

"In my opinion, it says less about women and feminism than it does about education and government priorities. I'm sure the survey results would have been very different if the study was conducted back when students had grants for university fees.

"However, when it comes to sex and people's private lives, it is absolutely hypocritical for others to judge.

"There isn't a person in this country with a spotless past if you look hard enough."