Pimp State

'Sex buyers are not the single loners they were often assumed to be in the past. As Kat Banyard demonstrates in her excoriating account of the modern trade in women’s bodies, they seek variety, sex acts they can’t get in voluntary relationships and, above all, power...The debate has become poisonous and Banyard’s book provides a much-needed corrective, skewering the myths promoted by the commercial industry with forensic intelligence...By putting equality and human rights at the heart of this vital debate, she has done us a tremendous service.'

'The most chilling aspect of 2016's Oscar-winning film Spotlight, about the uncovering of large-scale sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Boston, was how the whole scandal was right under journalists' noses, hiding in plain sight. People knew.Pimp State, a barnstorming polemic against the horrors of the sex industry (porn, lap-dancing and prostitution) filled me with a similar sense of unease...I challenge anyone to read this book and not feel there is something profoundly immoral and wrong about all of this. And it is there in plain sight.'

'Pimp State is a detailed account of the case against the sex industry, and for the Nordic model: tightly argued, closely evidenced, and persuasive in its call to action....Methodically and thoroughly, Banyard dismantles the “myths” that support this presumption. Pimp State doesn’t limit itself to activities conventionally regarded as prostitution. Instead, Banyard is concerned with the entire field of commercial sexual services, including lap dancing and pornography...there are many who would like to establish a pimp state in the UK, but Banyard shows why they must be stopped, and how to stop them.'

'Banyard’s most useful addition to the debate is attacking the myth that prostitution is just a job...What shines through this uncompromising book is an optimism about change. Domestic violence and compulsory “conjugal rights” were once seen as normal, a husband’s due. And there are laws against undesirable transactions such as selling human organs or entering into bonded labour contracts. So why not prostitution?'