She's an old chum of Kate's, chair of her children's school PTA and runs a ... trends now

Walking her cocker spaniels along the Thames towpath before the school run, Emma Sayle looks every inch the typical south London yummy mummy.

Blonde, affluent and athletic (a rowing mate of Kate Middleton, she attended the same boarding school), in addition to the dogs, Rex and Bob, the 46-year-old has three children, aged five, seven and nine and is chairman of their primary school PTA.

Emma's talents, though, extend far beyond organising a charity bake sale: an adrenaline junkie who has climbed Kilimanjaro and run marathons across the Sahara, she is the founder and CEO of Killing Kittens, a female-centric sex party business.

Killing Kittens — which takes its name from a slang phrase for masturbation — has been hosting 'anything goes' gatherings for almost 20 years. It has a global membership of 180,000 and is valued at £15 million.

 Which, astonishingly, is good news for you as a taxpayer. During Covid, Killing Kittens was given a £170,000 loan by the Government's British Business Bank's Future Fund, set up to support UK companies, and in exchange took a 1.5 per cent stake in the business. So, a small part of what she has created is yours.

Pitched at an elite clientele, Killing Kittens' ticketed monthly events — held at venues that include Scottish castles and underground cabaret clubs — have two big rules. Men are banned from approaching women and also from attending alone. Killing Kittens' USP — and the key to its success — is that it puts women in control.

'Growing up, men always seemed to be in control of dating and sex,' says Emma. 'If they slept around, they were considered 'legends', but if women did the same they were no longer girlfriend material.

'Even in conversations with female friends about sex toys there was always this sense of shame and embarrassment; I wanted to flip the norm on its head and put women at the centre of the narrative where there was no judgment about making the first move or having a one-night stand.'

Membership costs up to £200 a month: a Killing Kittens party sees middle-class, vetted guests in Venetian-style masks indulge in, well, whatever they fancy.

While some guests may choose to watch or flirt, others indulge in shenanigans in hot tubs, dungeons or king-sized beds — all at their own risk. Does anyone ever get injured?

'Not really, though there was one guy who took so much Viagra his whole body went stiff,' Emma recalls. 'He couldn't even move his neck, so had to sit out for a few hours until everything was working again.'

It's an image in sharp contrast to Emma's conventionally happy family life. She lives in a bungalow in a quiet village near Staines-upon-Thames with her husband James Tindall, a former Olympic hockey player (who still plays top-level hockey for London club Indian Gymkhana) and children Raff, Lily and MJ. The house is in a scenic spot, but prone to flooding. Emma's Instagram account recently showed her and James wearing wellingtons, wading through water to their home, each carrying a child on their back.

Home doubles as her office. Covid made Emma reevaluate the need for a central London HQ; the business is now fully remote and increasingly run on [the messaging app] Slack. Inspecting new party venues is fitted around reformer Pilates classes and after school clubs, a balancing act that sees her working on her laptop in carparks and sports club bars, while her husband has hockey training.

It all seems far removed from what you'd imagine of an orgy-organiser, but in fact, Emma has always kept a certain distance from the action. The assumption from everyone she meets, be it potential investors or school gate mums that she is 'on the scene' herself is both tiresome, she says, and far off the mark.

'People assume the only reason I set this up is because I'm a sex-mad swinger — but I've never been involved.'

What never?

'Nope, not interested ... Plus, from a business perspective you need to be able to stand back and look at the bigger picture without any emotional involvement.'

Her rationale, she says, is that she is more interested in subverting the patriarchy than in sexual thrills. I can't help being reminded, though, of the tech bosses who are making social media apps available to kids as young as 13 yet don't allow their own children to have smartphones.

Emma must know as well as anyone how damaging the sexualisation of our culture has been to many young women, who rather than feeling empowered by porn culture, feel pressured into being up for anything where sex is concerned — but she gives short shift to those who see an ever-finer line between sexual empowerment and a darker, hyper-sexualised society normalising casual hook-ups and the expectation that young women should be performing like porn stars.