This article analyses the beginning of the process of delegitimising the set of ideas and beliefs that present prostitution as a normal, natural or, in any event, as a ‘bad child’. This process is analysed in the context of English sponsorship. On the one hand, the genealogy of the critical ideas that paved the way for delegitimising the traditional vision of prostitution and for starting to build a new feminist framework for interpretation. We also look at the emergence and development of the abolitionist movement and some of its key strategies and achievements: raising the age of consent to 16 and ending parliamentary attempts to regulate a market for female prostitution