The Big Debate: Should we Contract our Sex Lives?

Chaired by broadcaster, journalist and theatre critic Libby Purves, the panel debates how and why we form sexual partnerships. The panel includes playwright Alecky Blythe, anthropologist Professor Sophie Day (Goldsmiths, University of London), academic and activist Lynne Segal and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. Alecky Blythe is a playwright. Her credits include Where Have I Been All My Life, London Road and The Girlfriend Experience, as well as Friday Night Sex as part of the Royal Court's Open Court festival in 2013. Professor Sophie Day is an anthropologist who teaches at Goldsmiths (University of London) and holds an honorary chair at Imperial College London. She was awarded the Eileen Basker Prize and the Wellcome Medal for Anthropology as Applied to Medical Problems for her 2007 monograph, 'On the Game: Women and Sex Work'. Libby Purves is the presenter of BBC Radio 4's Midweek. She is a major columnist for The Times, theatre critic (theatrecat.com), broadcaster and author. As an author she has written a series of books on childcare and family life, as well as twelve novels, including most recently Shadow Child. Lynne Segal joined Birkbeck as an Anniversary Professor to celebrate 175 years of Birkbeck College, in 1999. Her major publications have been in the area of in feminist theory and politics, shifting understandings of femininity, masculinity and sexuality, alongside more recent work on attachments, belongings, the work of memory, social conflict and, most recently, the psychic paradoxes of ageing. Peter Tatchell is a prominent campaigner and activist for human rights, democracy, LGBT freedom and global justice. He is a member of the queer human rights group OutRage! and the Green Party. Peter is also the Green Party's spokesperson on human rights. Through the Peter Tatchell Foundation, he campaigns for human rights in Britain and internationally. The Big Debate is part of "The Big Idea": www.royalcourttheatre.com/season/the-big-idea:new-window bringing together artists, activists and an anthropologist to interrogate the relationships we form and how we talk about them.