Theodore Dalrymple is a psychiatrist and commentator who has written for the Times and the Spectator. His books include Our Culture, What’s Left of It.

Does sex work, or indeed the trading on sex or beauty, represent a free choice?

The answer depends on what count as a free choice. It is possible to coerce people into prostitution, or to force young people, or people without mental capacity, etc., into it. But in the majority of cases, I think it would be a free choice, even if not a very good one in my opinion. But whatever category of person chooses prostitution, you would find many in the same category who do not.

How do we make sense of our periodic moral panics in relation to sexuality, prostitution, sex education etc.? Why are we afraid of sex?

I am not sure we do have moral panics over prostitution these days, certainly I don't. Once there were street prostitutes in the very nice street in which I lived. I used to pick used condoms off the roses. My neighbour organised a system of patrol, including taking the numbers of kerb crawlers, and the prostitutes went somewhere else. Is that a moral panic?

Do any of us choose whether to be part of a power structure in which physical beauty (or indeed sexual availability) is a factor?