Never before have prostitution, strip clubs and pornography been as profitable, widely used or embedded in mainstream culture as they are today. How should society respond to the rise of the sex trade? Should it be legal to pay for sex? Isn’t it a women’s choice whether she strips for money? Could online porn be warping the attitudes of a generation of boys?

An increasingly popular set of answers maintains that prostitution is just work, porn is fantasy, demand is inevitable; fully legalise the sex trade and it can be made safe. But Kat Banyard contends that these are dangerous myths. She argues that sexual consent is not a commodity, objectification and abuse are inherent to prostitution, and the sex trade poses a threat to the struggle for women’s equality.

She is joined by Diane Martin, who, having survived prostitution in her late teens, has spent nearly 20 years supporting women to exit prostitution, working with others to develop and improve strategy, policy, service development, prevention and exiting options.

Speaker biographies:

Kat Banyard is a writer and campaigner. She is the author of Pimp State: Sex, Money and the Future of Equality (2016) and The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Women and Men Today (2010). She is also founder of campaign group UK Feminista. In 2010 Kat was named in the Guardian as "the most influential young feminist in the country"" and in 2011 she was selected as one of the Observer's 50 contemporary innovators, described as “Game-changers whose vision is transforming the world around us”.

Having survived prostitution in her late teens, Diane Martin, a qualified counsellor, has spent nearly 20 years supporting women to exit prostitution. In 2012 she started the Dovetail Initiative, which works with London Borough partnerships, the police and other organisations to develop and improve strategy, policy, service development, prevention and exiting options within a violence against women and girls framework. She is also involved in campaigning for an End Demand approach to prostitution legislation. In 2013 she was awarded a CBE for services to vulnerable women in prostitution.

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