SHADOW Minister for Women Janet Anderson caused a sex storm at Labour's Blackpool conference today.

She suggested women would become more promiscuous under a Tony Blair Government.

Her astonishing claim that women would have more sex more often if Labour wins power was rapidly repudiated by the party leadership.

And one Tory MP in the North-West predicted the unwise comments could cost Mrs Anderson the Rossendale and Darwen seat which she won by just 120 votes.

In an interview in the Daily Telegraph today, in preparation for the debate on women's issues at the conference Mrs Anderson said that women's attitude to sex was changing fast.

She said: "Women are just as open about sex now as men. Men and women now behave similarly."

Mrs Anderson denied that men were biologically more promiscuous than women: "It's all about social conditioning not biology. Things will change even more. "Under Labour women will become more promiscuous. That's an election pledge."

Mrs Anderson also said women were right to buy magazines with pictures of naked women if they wanted to and said she might attend a male strip show.

She said:"I would be tempted to see a male strip show. If women are sex objects, men must be too. Male bodies are just as aesthetically pleasing as women's."

Mrs Anderson also defends women-only shortlists, describes marriage as a contract and confesses to finding Labour leader Tony Blair attractive.

But a senior party spokesman immediately repudiated her comments: "It is definitely not party policy for women to be more promiscuous under Labour nor does the leadership have a position on male strip shows."

The row broke as Shadow Cabinet member Clare Short called on the conference to turn Labour into the "woman friendly party."

Ribble Valley Tory MP Nigel Evans - a near neighbour of Mrs Anderson in East Lancashire - said: "I don't believe she was being serious but these comments are very unwise."

"She will wish she had never given this interview and regret what she has said.

"I don't think this will go down very well with people in her constituency. I think it will help lose her the seat."

Peter Pike, the Church-going Labour MP for neighbouring Burnley, said: "I think she was misinterpreted. They were obviously light-hearted comments not meant to be taken seriously."

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