In May 2011, Mactaggart was criticised by the Association of Political Thought for calling some of the views of London School of Economics professor of political and gender theory Anne Phillips "frankly nauseating" because of her supposed support for prostitution. This assessment was based on the existence of a question on an LSE reading list about the ethical differences between legal waged labour and prostitution. Mactaggart had previously caused controversy with her hard-line approach to the issue of prostitution by comparing men who use prostitutes to abusers of children, stating "I don't think most men who use prostitutes think of themselves as child abusers, but they are".