O’REGAN J and SACHS J [82] In arguing that prostitution involves private consensual sexual activity and should be located at the most protected end of the continuum, counsel for the appellants relied heavily on this Court’s decision in the Gay and Lesbian Coalition (Sodomy) case.45 To our mind, however, that case highlights points of contrast rather than of correspondence. In the first place, what was at stake in that matter was not just a privacy interest, but an equality one. Indeed, the principal complaint of the gay community was that they were being subjected by the law to unfair discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, in violation of the express protection offered by section 8(2) of the Constitution. It was in this context that Ackermann J stated: “Privacy recognises that we all have a right to a sphere of private intimacy and autonomy which allows us to establish and nurture human relationships without interference from the outside community. The way in which we give expression to our sexuality is at the core of this area of private intimacy. If, in expressing our sexuality, we act consensually and without harming one another, invasion of that precinct will be a breach of our privacy. Our society has a poor record of seeking to regulate the sexual expression of South Africans. In some cases, as in this one, the reason for the regulation was discriminatory; our law, for example, outlawed sexual relationships among people of different races. The fact that a law prohibiting forms of sexual conduct is discriminatory does not, however, prevent it at the same time being an improper invasion of the intimate sphere of human life to which protection is given by the Constitution in s 14. We should not deny the importance of a right to privacy in our new constitutional order, even while we acknowledge the importance of equality. In fact, emphasising the breach of both these rights in the present case highlights just how egregious the invasion of the constitutional rights of gay persons has been. The offence which lies at the heart of the discrimination in this case constitutes at the same time and independently a breach of the rights of privacy and dignity which, without doubt, strengthens the conclusion that the 45 Above n 38. 54