Celia Walden: I'm thrilled men love to strip - but it brings out the worst in women

A study has shown that men get an ego boost from being objectified by women. Photo / A scene from Magic Mike XXL, Supplied

As a teenager, I had a recurring dream in which I found myself singing Lord of the Dance, naked, in school assembly. Excepting the odd variation in which I was still wearing a pair of Bart Simpson novelty slippers, the dream was as textbook as they come - and uncluttered by feminist or media messages. Back then, I was never in doubt as to what my nudity meant: a fear of rejection or sense of vulnerability with underlying strains of guilt and shame.

It was only as I got older that I started to notice the word "empowerment" being coupled with public female nudity. Models and actresses used the word to defend their decision to strip off for Playboy or lads' mags. "Serious" women, older women - and serious older women - used it when going naked (or semi-naked) to promote a cause, everything from breast cancer awareness, Femen and overfishing to their right to be scantily dressed in public if they wanted.

All of which would have been commendable if it weren't for the spate of in-fighting and body-shaming that has today left the sisterhood unable to decide whether stripping off is empowering or denigrating. Is it a strike for feminism, or a stick with which to beat each other right back to Victorian times?

Social scientists may have found, if not the answer to that question, then at least a clue as to women's gut instincts about getting naked. A new study of professional strippers by US academics - published just as Magic Mike XXL, a Hollywood film on male strippers, becomes a box office sensation - has found that whereas men get an ego boost and experience feelings of "mastery and enhanced self-esteem" from being naked and objectified by women, the reverse scenario causes their female counterparts to suffer from "low self-worth".

"Initially, women who dance for men may experience a boost in self-esteem," said Dr Maren Scull from the University of Colorado Denver, who spent two years interviewing and observing strippers in America. "But after time, they suffer from a diminished self-concept. My research finds men who dance for women generally experience positive feelings of self-worth. So much so that men will continue to strip even when it is no longer financially lucrative."

Now while it comes as little surprise to hear how male strippers feel about their art (men also experience feelings of "mastery and enhanced self-esteem" barbecuing a steak), I'm intrigued by the "diminished self-concept" from which women strippers suffer. As a young reporter sent to interview a group of lap-dancers years ago, I heard the word "empowering" time and time again. And although the stigmatising aspect of stripping for money undoubtedly plays a part in Dr Scull's findings - published in the scientific journal Deviant Behaviour (note to self: remember to renew subscription) - this illustrates the muddle women find themselves in vis-a-vis their own bodies. And if we're not sure how to view ourselves, how can we tell men what the "right" and "wrong" way to look at us is?

Of course the truth is that we can't: biology sets its own rules. But we can call time on women's objectification of each other.

Sure, it's a non-sexual form of objectification, but what other word is there to describe our ritual dissection, limb by limb, of female images on the internet or in magazines? It may be baffling to me that Madonna is still seeking to empower herself, at 56, in the same old bondage wear, but not half as baffling as the 90 per cent female body-bashing comments that every semi-naked photograph of her inspires.

Similarly, when JK Rowling branded one Twitter troll "an idiot" on Sunday for saying that six-time Wimbledon winner Serena Williams was "built like a man", the championing of her "epic takedown" was somewhat diffused by the number of female comments in support of the troll's imbecilic assertion.

.@diegtristan8 "she is built like a man". Yeah, my husband looks just like this in a dress. You're an idiot. pic.twitter.com/BCvT10MYkI

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 11, 2015

All things considered, I'd rather be ogled by a man than ripped apart by a woman - the former being far less invasive. And since in my experience a woman's self-worth is built-up (and diminished) far more by other women than by men, I would hate to imagine how belittling the women in Dr Scull's study would find stripping before a female audience. When it comes to empowerment through nudity, and to reaching that hallowed ground of "mastery and enhanced self-esteem", which seems to be the male default setting, I suspect that the optimum circumstance for most women is one on one.