This featured a discussion on prostitution involving a woman MEP who thinks that following the 'Swedish model' would be a good thing to do, and the wonderful Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon being as good as ever, pointing out that it would be bonkers without ever actually using the word.

It's available on the BBC iplayer for another six days and this bit starts about 14 or 15 minutes into the programme.

Just listened to the podcast...

Dr Brooks-Gordon is very much the voice of reason.  I didn't get the MEP's name... not sure I want to after listening to what she had to say now to be honest but she seems very very misinformed claiming that prostitution is degrading towards women and that we're all taking drugs to cope because it's so awful. While there are women who sell themselves for their next hit she seems very reluctant to want to be able to provide better provisions to help those who are in that kind of trouble. I and I'm sure many others here would also disagree with what she said about Sweden eradicating prostitution by criminalising the buyer - it's not at all, it's just pushing the sex industry further underground and placing sex workers more directly in harms way, allowing further social stigma and dissuading women from using services which they should be able take full advantage of in order to operate safely and comfortably (I'm thinking clinics and other support services).

Well, I'm drug free and find being a sex worker quite empowering. High five for Brooks-Gordon!

Really hope MEP actually took away some information from Dr Brooks-Gordon - made me smile when she brought up the subject of male sex workers as I suspect MEP hadn't considered that side of the coin (or indeed that women buy - I have) and if she had she didn't seem to want to broach the subject any further.

Think I want to have another listen and see if I can pick up some more from that piece.

Thanks for posting it here, Ian.  Found it very interesting and would have missed it otherwise.

If you weren't quick, you've missed it - although the episodes on the BBC's website now reckon that they'll be around for four weeks, this one has disappeared after one. It's not part of the weekend highlights programme either, annoyingly.

Belinda is fabulous. I first knowingly met her at a British Psychological Society thing on sex work eight or nine years ago, where she presented a paper on the then recent 'Paying the Price' government patronisation consultation on sex work policy. I knew that much of the content of it was rubbish, but she'd gone to the cited sources and was able to prove it was rubbish.

For people like the MEP, this is an issue where facts don't matter, so I wouldn't hold my breath.