Well, I was late to the sex party on Harlots, but gadzounds, I’m playing catch-up hard. It first aired on ITV Encore and Hulu, but now BBC Two has taken it on. Did I somehow feel that Auntie had conveyed a respectability to the set-up? Hell, no. The Daily Mail ran a titillating article describing a rutting montage in the first episode – all frantic humping and pushing up skirts, and I thought: great – that’s the kind of merry escort I want, as I tuck into my pinot grigio and pork in cider.

And it doesn’t disappoint. Harlots is fast and loose, fishwife-loud and full of colour. It rattles along at a breakneck pace – one minute, Downton’s Lady Sybil is noisily shagging her foppish keeper, the next they’ve fallen out and he’s bidding to bed her virgin sister just to piss her off. Nancy Birch, the local dominatrix, flagellates her clients while dressed like a pirate, as a rolling-eyed religious zealot froths about damnation outside. There’s an extra who drives geese through the pissy streets, a metaphor for the creators of this show - they know where they’re going, herding their honking charges, keeping them in line. You need a firm hand, because there’s a lot going on.

The twin marvels of Lesley Manville and Samantha Morton play the central battling bawds, each determined to have the upper hand in their ho-down. Manville is high-class madam Lydia Quigley, whose girls are a cut-above, servicing the great and not-very-good. Morton is Margaret Wells, who runs a cheaper, cheekier establishment, but has her eye on a property in Greek Street which will give her a leg up (as well as over). Lydia doesn’t like it. They have History, a Sexual History. Let the catfight commence!

And so, to the sex. It’s actually not that explicit. There’s no slow and naked Normal People intercourse; more quick tups in alleyways and frilled bloomers waving in the air. Bosoms are hoiked to high heaven, but rarely flashed. Some of the most significant (and disturbing) sex scenes are omitted entirely, the show relying on your imagination to paint those pictures. You do see quite a lot of eager thrusting bottoms – in fact, there’s often a Carry On tits ‘n’ sass quality to the whole thing that I found very entertaining, but also left me with a seed of doubt. Was it right for me to gawp and chortle at these antics? When I think about 18th century prostitution, it’s not ‘lawks-a-mercy, twere all nanty narking for them game pullets, tol-lol!’

I’m no historian, but I imagine it was pretty grim, and for the first few episodes I felt a prickle (with the emphasis on prick) of shame as I glugged and goggled. Lydia Quigley abducts young innocents and hands them over to a shady group of ‘Spartans’ for their sport; Margaret Wells auctions both her daughters to the highest bidders, as she herself was traded for a pair of shoes. A former first lady of the night, Mary Cooper, dies of the pox, festering with sores and screaming for laudanum. But the girls bunk up together like they’re in boarding school, doing each other’s hair all nice for the big night: ‘you always remember your first time.’ Being sold for sex by your own mother? Riiiiiight. Pass the poppy.

So, it must be said that this was, initially, a very guilty pleasure for me. Because I couldn’t deny that I was ensnared, desperate for more, but felt like I was paying for services I really shouldn’t be using. I was tempted to do a Boris Johnson and write two reviews - one a raucous, let’s-be-avin-em tale of two titties, the other a more earnest, academic take-down of an irresponsible take. Which side would the guinea fall on? But as I got deeper in, so to speak, it became evident that it’s both, and neither, of those things.

The truth is, I didn’t really think about 18th century prostitution, until now. What Harlots does is catch flies with honey. Primarily, this is good, compelling telly that elegantly skirts the issues, flicks its fan at profanity – close enough to the truth to be disconcerting, without ever sacrificing entertainment. If they’d made one of those dark and brooding, po-faced mumbly dramas where everyone has lice-ridden pubic hair, then not only would it have been no fun, but it would have been the heavy-handed Route One to ‘let’s take a look at sexual exploitation in Georgian London’.

Harlots comes at you from behind, seduces you with a saucy wink, then forces you to think. About power, patriarchy, politics; the powdered and patched dames who were taking it all on, and what it cost them. At the heart of this series are women – on both sides of the camera - driving the geese. Ultimately, the men are ruled by their own rods of iron, reduced to their pricks of shame, and it’s the harlots manipulating them who come out on top. As a voyeur, I felt enjoyment and discomfort, and was supposed to. Paying for the pleasure, unable to stop myself, unable to look away, part of the problem.

And finally, a little scoop for you… There are a lot of baddies in this show. Posh, arrogant, entitled, heartless villains. Just to name a few: Justice HUNT, Lord LEADSOM, Mrs MAY, Mr OSBORNE… Penny dropped yet? I KNOW. Those Harlots scribes are such naughty minxes! I’m looking forward to meeting Mr Raab in Season 3.

Oh yes, sir - or rather, madam - this is one show I’ll see off, right to the finish. Just keep the pork in cider coming.

• Harlots, BBC Two