“Pornography is good for us: without it we would be a far more repressed society.”That is the subject of a debate to held by Intelligence Squared, a forum for discussion in London, this evening.

Anna Arrowsmith, feminist pornographic film director who works under the pseudonym Anna Span, and runs a campaign website for people who work in the sex industry called Consent.org, told the Today programme’s Sarah Montague that pornography can keep couples together by pornography’s use “as a stop gap”, if there is a discrepancy between couple’s sex drives.

“It’s democratized the body” she said, adding that “in the porn industry there is a market for everything”.

Germaine Greer, feminist author, academic and broadcaster, indicated that it may not be quite as beneficial.

“Pornography is an industry… [it] is the literature of prostitution,” she said.

“Pornography is strictly a way to make money,” she added.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday 23 April 2013.

Listen to discussion