Of all the cultural trends that emerged in the Noughties, the burlesque revival looks here to stay.  This month sees the release of a movie that attempts to lift the veils on the ancient art of erotic disrobing.

'Burlesque Undressed' features the celebrated British performer Immodesty Blaize, on and off stage in her sell-out show. The film also gives a potted history of the ancient art of erotic undressing, and its problems with the censors.

But why, in a time when we can see full frontal nudity on every episode of Channel 4’s Embarrassing Illnesses (don’t pretend you watch it for any other reason) has such a modest and coy form of striptease made an impact on our cultural lives?

Though the term has existed in theatrical circles for hundreds of years, it was the Americans at the turn of the 20th Century who associated it with stripping. Influenced by the Moulin Rouge and British music hall, and often featuring fire breathing and contortionism, burlesque became notoriously lowbrow and bawdy. By the 1930s they had become almost predominantly striptease based.

The revival in interest began in the 90s with a number of new revue shows. Focussing on the glamour of the past and a nostalgia for a more innocent era of naughtiness, they took their inspiration from the original stars of burlesque such as Sally Rand and Gypsy Rose Lee. It was these shows which inspired Dita Von Teese to spice up her stripping with historical costumes and elaborate props, including her trademark giant Martini glass.

Soon, no indie nightclub or pop stadium show was complete without a burlesque interlude, and entire burlesque nights sprung up in Britain’s more cosmopolitan towns. It was the stripping you could take your girlfriend to and still seem a cultured, sensitive new man. And, more importantly, it was the stripping your girlfriend could do without feeling like a slag (with the added fun element of rummaging through secondhand shops for corsets, bustier, feathers and miniature top hats – what more could a girl want?)

But do straight men really enjoy watching burlesque? What do we care about vintage underwear? Either take your knickers off or get off stage! It’s the stripping equivalent of drag hunting – the dog never gets to see the rabbit. But this, according to its fans, is what raises burlesque above mere pole dancing. It’s all about the tease. We’re not sure about you but we haven’t been teased since we were at school and then it made us cry and wet ourselves. It’s hardly what we want from adult entertainment.

Up and coming pop starlet Paloma Faith is a former burlesque performer herself and explained its allure when she spoke to Playboy last year:

“Burlesque is about titillation as opposed to nudity. The arousing thing about it is you’re seeing a woman disrobe, but it’s about what she doesn’t show you that’s titillating. In contemporary stripping it gets quite graphic and there’s an argument to be had that it gets desensitizing and therefore not particularly sexy. “

Can it be true that we’ve become so numb to nudity that we can now only be aroused by women wearing clothes? It’s certainly true that we’ve not been bombarded with so much female flesh since the 1970s. You could probably count on one hand the number of celebrity women you’ve not seen naked. It’s barely even news when a tit pops out on the red carpet now. Been there, seen it, downloaded the sex tape.