For centuries, women's bodies have been used, abused and exploited. The lap-dancers are getting their own back; they are using their own bodies to make money. And - wow - do they seem to enjoy it. I envy their confidence - if it's real.
"You have to be an exhibitionist and like being the centre of attention," says Michelle, an arts graduate from Sweden, who dances in Club Lapello in Dame Street, where she says she makes between £600 and £1,000 a week. "It's a tease. You tame the men with a subtle sexiness. A lot of men get turned on by that. I would tease them to a point where they would not know how to handle it, but no more than that."
I observe that many of the men go straight into the bathroom afterwards. "You don't want to know about that," she answers. "You switch off and don't think about the unpleasant aspect. You can't."
Michelle (23) tells her mother that she's waitressing and tells Swedish men who visit the club that she's French. This is not the kind of job you do at "home". If women feel empowered, why the shame? Maybe they, like men, are enacting fantasies on safe turf.
Michelle enjoys the travel, and "rests" between club jobs by waitressing. "You cannot do this for more than two or three months at a time. It would destroy you," she says. Some girls don't last more than a few weeks.
Classy Club Lapello, with its unearthly, sophisticated beauties wearing what looks like Versace and Gucci, has a formal atmosphere. While Angels is all the fun of the carnival, Club Lapello is the five-star VIP treatment; the box at the opera. Walking in, you see well-dressed men relaxing on sofas chatting with unbelievably stunning women. Among the regulars is a household name from a boy band. Here, male customers would never dream of asking a female customer for "a dance". Dancing for Irish men is less stressful, say the dancers in Club Lapello - all professional models and several with Penthouse centrefolds on their CVs. Irish men have an innocence about them; in Italy and South America, the men can be snobby and demeaning but in Ireland, the men stare into your eyes worshipfully, they say. At Club Lapello, however, I do see a man doing a lot more, touching where he shouldn't - but without any protest from the dancer, who breaks another rule: lifting her G-string for a peek. When I tell management that I have seen the rules being broken, they seem genuinely shocked and demand to know which woman it is. I don't tell them. Women stick together. One of the men running the club (some of the managers of the clubs are not keen to give their names), who hires the dancers, is careful who he brings in. "I can control them. Twelve women on 12 different hormone cycles," he says proudly. Lose control, and you might lose your licence. Compared with the sedate, upmarket Club Lapello, Angels is raucous and fun, but the girls don't make as much money. The money: that's what it's all about. At Angels, admission is £5 before 10 p.m. and £10 afterwards. A dance costs £10 and, officially, the girls get £8 of this but no dancer will confirm that figure. (In Alan Gilsenan's TV documentary on lap-dancers, the girls say they get 50 per cent, and this is likely to be the case.) If a punter wants to tip, he must buy a £10 voucher, no cash allowed (which means the club gets half the tip).
OCCASIONALLY, a man will "fall in love" with a girl and buy tickets for her all night. One Angels's girl made £1,600 in a single night this way - an achievement held like a talisman by the optimistic girls. While some of the Angels girls boast of making between £100 and £300 per night, I see one woman working hard with 10 vouchers to show for it at the end of the night - which would amount to £80, if she got 80 per cent. Or £50 if it's 50/50; not great for a night shaking your booty at strangers, but she seemed happy enough about it.
The 12 girls at Club Lapello, which is more exclusive and less crowded, to give the customers privacy, would be disappointed to make less than £600 from dances a week. They keep 100 per cent of their tips. Admission is £10 and a dance costs £20. The management keeps the £10 admission fee, but after that it's 50/50 all the way between the dancers and management. The dancers get half the bar proceeds every time a man they are talking to orders wine (which starts at £20) or champagne (up to £250). Men sometimes buy the girls "piccolos" at £6 each (£3 to the girl) - fizzy water and a splash of wine, so the girls don't get tipsy. "VIPs" can hire a limo with two girls and a bottle of champagne for one hour for £500. The talking is an important part of the lapdancing experience at Club Lapello. Some men visit just to chat with a girl after a hard day at the office. There's no risk of being rejected in this atmosphere. Every girl acts as if she thinks every man is wonderful. At Angels, however, where the girls get no portion of the bar sales, some of them are fedup talking. "My attitude is, shut up. Do you want a dance or not?" one tells me. Not one Irish girl dances at Club Lapello, and many of the girls come from the Czech Republic. A pair of Czech puppets - their version of leprechauns - hangs on the wall, making me wonder just who are the puppets and who the puppeteers. Club Lapello manager Brendan Kelly, whose brother, Chris, owns the club, tells me he has never had a dance performed for him. He doesn't think he'd like it. This is business. Veronica, a 23-year-old Czech nurse, is all business too. She admits that what she does is "degrading" and that her mother, a doctor, cried when Veronica told her what she was doing. But at home, Veronica makes £100 per month, while in Dublin she can earn £1,000 per week. Now that her mother has seen the money, she feels better about it. "It's my choice," she says.
Sarah, another Czech dancer, says: "This has saved my life. I love it. I can travel and save for my education."
Only Ruza, also Czech, seems sad. She has left a two-year-old son and a husband at home and is here only for two weeks as a kind of working "holiday". Her dancing is lethargic and dreamy.
Veronica, too, dreams of home. She intends to buy a house, a car and a horse with the money she saves from dancing. She says her own daughter, when she has one, will certainly never dance for a living. She will never have to work at all, Veronica says. Nor would the owner of Club Lapello, Chris Kelly, like to see his daughter become a lapdancer, although he wouldn't judge her if she did. "She'll be a doctor or a barrister or a business executive," he tells me. Meanwhile, he intends to open a chain of Club Lapellos and plans are well advanced in Limerick and Cork.
HAVING expected to find white slavery, I don't. Whether you think a fee of £10 - or £8 or £5 - for displaying your body at close quarters is enough, is your opinion. I look for the secret passageways to discreet bordellos, as you expect to find in Europe. But I can't see any.
Maybe it is the men who are being exploited. Because, while the women seem confident, the men look lost. "What a rip-off," one Angels customer tells me as he emerges from the private dancing area - though I think he was expecting more than dancing.
Private Dancer, part of the True Lives documentary series, will be shown on RTE 1 on Monday at 10.30 p.m.,