Greer says paying for sex is OK

Germaine Greer (pictured) was on robust form at the Intelligence2 debate, held last night at the Royal Geographical Society. The well-heeled metropolitan audience, along with a number of prostitutes, had come along to hear the Australian writer and others debate the motion: "Paying for Sex is Wrong".

Greer, the author of the seminal feminist tract The Female Eunuch, spoke against the motion and cheerfully likened prostitution to selling pies, claiming that it was infinitely better to trade your body "than selling a child, a kidney or your soul for long hours for wretched pay stacking shelves at Tesco".

Supporting her was Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon, the co-editor of Sexuality Repositioned and the Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle, who demanded to know if there had ever been a time when sex had been free. Arguing against were the writer Joan Smith, the editor-in-chief of The Week Jeremy O'Grady and Professor Raymond Tallis, the philosopher, poet, novelist and distinguished gerontologist. But Greer and co proved too persuasive: the motion was defeated by 449 to 203.