Brighton's private dancers tell all

As the dressing room door swings open, I am engulfed in a cloud of hairspray, hair extensions, sequins, leopard print and fake tan, with Donna Summer's Hot Stuff blasting from the speakers.

I am backstage at Brighton strip club Spearmint Rhino Rouge and, having never set foot in a lap-dancing bar before, it is already proving an eye-opener.

To my left there's a dancer in a G-string bending over, scraping chewing gum off her shoe. To my right, there's a further eyeful as a dancer flings off her top and shimmies into a PVC "police" suit and six-inch heels.

"Frutella?" shouts Cleo, waving a packet of sweets in front of my nose. Not knowing where to look, it's a welcome distraction.

Along with Jayda, Summer and Robyn, Cleo is one of the lap dancers who has volunteered to look after me for the night.

They may be strippers but they are friendly, straight talking and surprisingly switched on.

"It's just like going to the ballet, only we're naked," says Jayda, reassuringly.

The rule at the club is "evening gowns" before midnight - after that they wear anything they want.

Most choosing to wear nothing at all. Jayda's "gown" consists of a long piece of leopard-print cloth, with a gold hoop earring holding it together over her crotch.

"I made it myself," she says, proudly.

The dancers pay the club £20 a night and make their income from private dances and "sit-downs", where men pay for them to just sit and chat.

"I've never gone home owing,"

says Robyn and everyone nods in agreement.

The girls take it in turns to dance on the pole, then walk around the club, chatting to the customers. If they haven't persuaded someone to have a private dance after 15 minutes, they move on to the next.

Customers range from high-profile footballers and solicitors to school teachers and ex-cons (one complaining he hadn't seen a naked woman in years). They even have a number of straight women going in (Jayda's ability to hang upside down on the pole with one leg is enough to mesmerise anyone).

Cleo informs me the club has a strict "no contact" policy and men have to keep their hands by their sides during a dance. Every move is monitored on CCTV and anyone who tries their luck is escorted out by the bouncers.

The lines they come across most nights are "You must think I'm a right old perv" and "Can I buy you dinner?"

"My favourite, though," says Cleo, "is Where do you girls hide in the daytime?' We're like... In Tesco, mate.' We get the whole spectrum in here.

Some are deluded and some are just up for a laugh."

As strange as it sounds, a lot of men just want to talk. Cleo recently spent 45 minutes with a bloke who was moaning at length about his divorce.

"He thanked me for my time and gave me £50," she says. "The number of times I've sat with a guy and he's gone on and on about his wife."

Jayda agrees. "Some guys are difficult to dance for because they get really nervous and like to talk. They ask silly questions like Where do your parents live?'. When you're trying to do a sexy dance, it kind of puts you off."

Men pay anything from £60 to £1,000 if they want a girl for the evening.

Asked if she has ever gone home with a grand in her stockings, Summer says: "Not yet. I'm hoping tonight's the night."

At this point our photographer turns up and there is a minor commotion as the girls realise they are going to be photographed in their ordinary clothes. ("I'll go at the back!" "No, let me, I've got trashy shoes on!" "But I'm missing a toenail!" "What are the readers going to think when they see the state of my jumper?") As confident as they appear swanning around in next-to-nothing, it is refreshing to find they still have the same hang-ups as anyone else.

"I don't consider myself to have a stripper's figure," says Cleo. "I haven't got great boobs, my toenails are chipped and my thighs wobble when I spin around the pole.

"What this job has done is make me feel a thousand times better about my body. Every single girl in here has got a different shape and you have men telling you how perfect you are every night. I think what they find sexiest is confidence - seeing a woman secure in her own skin."

Cleo got into lap-dancing by chance.

She wandered into the club out of curiosity one night and got talking to one of the dancers.

In her second year of university in Brighton, studying criminology and psychology, she is using it to pay off her student debts.

She quit her job as a waitress working 40 hours a week and doubled her income working just two nights a week at Spearmint Rhino. She can make £250 in four nights and has saved £2,000 in four months.

"I'm not here for the lifestyle. I'm here for the money," she says. "It makes life a lot easier and means I can actually concentrate on studying."

"I'd never spent any time in a club like this before but there was no pressure. You could dress as a nun if you could sell it, the only thing you're encouraged to do is talk to the customers. The whole experience has been really liberating. It's also addictive," she adds.

Summer, 23 has also been lapdancing for six months. She tells customers she's a triplet and half Swedish.

(She's actually from Billingshurst).

"I watched and learnt," she says. "I went to the club a couple of times with some male friends, saw the dancers and thought if they can do it, so can I."

Having previously worked for The Body Shop and Southern Water, the main thing she likes are the flexible hours. "I was bored with being in a dead-end job doing nine-to-five," she says. She now works an average of two to three nights a week - and, if it's sunny, spends her days lying on the beach.

Although it may sound ideal on the surface, there are inevitably some downsides and putting up with sarky remarks from beered-up blokes when you're in next-to-nothing is no easy task. Once they've parted with their cash to pay for a dance, most men are pretty upfront and it's not unusual to be waved on with the knockback: "No thanks. I'm looking for a blonde with bigger boobs."

While the girls compete against each other for private dances, there is a strong sense of camaraderie when things get tough.

"If someone is having a bad night, they go off and have a little moment in the back - but nine times out of ten they will be back out there and back on that stage," says Cleo. "We help each other and if someone is struggling, we try and get dances together."

Apparently, some of the worst comments come from women branding the dancers "nothing special" when they walk past.

"You're not born with specific genes that allow you to get up and do something like this," remarks Cleo. "Every woman has her own insecurities and to take advantage of that is a bit cruel."

The lack of bitchiness backstage is one of the things which attracted Jayda to the club. Having had experience of four other strip bars (Stringfellows included), she claims it's a lot friendlier and more relaxed in Brighton.

"The girls hang around like a pack of wolves in London," she says. "As soon as someone comes in who looks as if they've got money, you get elbowed out of the way."

(If a dancer is chatting to a customer at Spearmint Rhino, none of the other girls are allowed to interrupt.) There are also strict rules with regards to "extras".

"I'm sure it does go on but I'm 99.9 per cent sure no girls would do it at our club," says Jayda. "Customers aren't even allowed to get their phones out."

So how do they respond to the view held by some that lap-dancing is just a glorified form of prostitution?

"That's crap," retorts Jayda. "If you're going to be a prostitute, you'd be a prostitute, you wouldn't be a lap dancer. I sunbathe on Brighton beach in a thong, which is only one step away from being naked in public - that doesn't make me a prostitute. Guys often say, What can you do after?' and I tell them where to go instantly."

Cleo agrees. "Not every woman who's a lap dancer wonders what it would be like to be a prostitute."

So who is exploiting who? "We are totally exploiting the guys," says Jayda. "There's a common misconception lap dancers are pushed into doing it - but the truth is, we enjoy dancing and we enjoy the money."

As for the wives and girlfriends who see them as a potential threat, Cleo claims if they actually went along and met the dancers, they would be totally reassured. "We're not trying to ruin anyone's life," she says. "We're providing a service."

All four say they would never go out with a customer and the job inevitably makes relationships a lot more complicated.

Jayda says her main ambition in life is to settle down. "I just want to be a housewife," she says. "I want to find someone to fall in love with and have babies."

Just as I am about to leave, I'm told the manager Neil Campbell wants to see me in his office. Slightly nervous, (What if they're one short, I think, and I'm forced to go on in 15 minutes?), knocking on his big black door, I'm half expecting to find him submerged in a Jacuzzi with five of the strippers.

But he's at his desk. There's no hot tub and no champagne - just a stripper eating a Chinese takeaway in a bow tie, bunny ears and suspenders.

Dressed in a pink shirt and pinstripe suit, Campbell looks more like a polished version of Phil Mitchell than Peter Stringfellow. He has a twinkle in his eye and a look that says "Don't mess".

He is highly protective of his dancers and in light of recent controversy, he's also keen to show he runs a clean club.

You won't find girls firing ping-pong balls from their privates in here. As he points out: "I've had parents in before to see what kind of place this is. If their daughters are working here, I want to make sure they are comfortable with it."

As I finally leave the club, a man in his 60s in a BHS anorak slopes down the stairs, after a heated debate over prices at the front desk. As he walks out of the door, one of the dancers is coming in.

"Oh, leaving already?" she smiles.

"Will you be dancing?" he says.

Caught between the short skirt, winning smile and gaping hole in his wallet, it's a no-brainer and I watch as he makes his way back in.