without danger, like the celebrities they see cavorting before the cameras each day.

Anyone who believes pole-dancing is too coarse to be sexy should see Kate Moss (right) in the White Stripes' video for I just don't know what to do with myself or get out a DVD of Nathalie for the ultimate masterclass - kohl-eyed Emmanuelle Beart performing a smouldering pole-dance (previous page), with the elegant Fanny Ardant watching, mesmerised.

The fact is the girls of York have their fingers on the pulse. Style spitfires Lindsay Lohan and Kate Moss were spotted pole-dancing together at the Score nightclub in New York last Friday. Lohan, famous as a party girl, has been learning how to pole-dance in preparation for her role as a stripper in I Know Who Killed Me, out in 2008.

Those who prefer their sexiness

Anyone who thinks pole-dancing is too coarse should see Kate Moss in her video for the White Stripes

wrapped up in sultry velvet, exuding warmth and intelligence, will say that pole-dancing is the worst kind of exhibitionism.

But in a world where they see their most glamorous peers happy to be photographed in the raciest poses - appearing in extreme cases to have no inhibitions whatsoever - it is hardly surprising that the girls of York should want to emulate them and not their mothers, with their mind-numbingly boring exercise routines that made aerobics class a chore.

As historian Judy Summers, author of Casanova's Women and Soho, a history of London's red-light district, told me: "There's a world of difference between having fun in a class with other girls, and taking your kit off for money in a seedy club in front of drunken businessmen."