I shrugged. “Of course I do. But if single mothers are struggling to feed their kids, shouldn’t we fight for a society which helps them feed their kids without them having to wax off all their body hair, and rub their labia in the face of a stranger who has literally paid for the privilege of dehumanizing someone?”

Jessica was scowling. “OK, so I didn’t understand half of what you just said.”

My lips strained into a tight smile. “Look, we don’t have to go into it. I want sex workers to be safe, but I’m also glad Ben isn’t the type of guy to use them. Shall we leave it at that?”

Jessica pushed herself up and raised her chin slightly. “I took Brendan to a strip club once. I paid for him to have a private dance, and I watched. It was fun. It was hot.”

I sucked in breath, wondering why I was surprised. “OK.”

“We had amazing sex when we got home,” she said, defiantly.

“WELL GOOD FOR FUCKING YOU!” I wanted to scream. But I didn’t. Instead I said, “I see.” I was having weird jealous flashing visions of Jessica and her ex-husband at the club. How easygoing Jessica was. How free. How proud Brendan must’ve been to have such a sexy, relaxed wife... But he still left her, I told myself. She played the part and he still left her.

“Look, if a woman is hot and she wants to make a lot of money out of it, I say ‘good for her,’” Jessica said.

“Objects don’t object,” I reminded myself silently to try to keep my temper. Of course Jessica was going to defend the hot women capitalizing on their hotness.

“And what about burlesque then?” she pushed. “Is that any better? Are you against that too?”

Heather’s voice bleated through my brain again and I copied her word for word. “That’s just middle-class stripping.”

I hadn’t been joking, but Jessica burst out laughing and the tension broke. She threw her hair back and roared, wiping her eyes, and I caught her laughter. “Oh my, middle-class stripping,” she said. “I love it.”

“My friend Heather say it’s stripping for girls who went to private school. You’d never see Tabitha from Exeter Uni waving a pint glass around for tips in a seedy strip club. But, you will see her wave around a pair of two-hundred-quid designer nipple tassels, while other middle-class men get huge ‘ethical boners’ because ‘the gaze has been reclaimed.’”

Jessica wiped her eyes again. “Tabitha,” she repeated. “Tabitha.”