TV presenter and academic says abuse after panel show was the kind that would 'put many women off appearing in public'

TV presenter and academic Mary Beard has said she has become the victim of a torrent of "truly vile" abuse online of the kind that would "put many women off appearing in public" following an appearance on BBC1's Question Time.

Beard, professor of classics at Cambridge University, who recently presented the BBC2 programme Meet the Romans with Mary Beard, said that the abuse followed an exchange with an audience member on the panel show on Thursday about the effect of immigration on services in the Lincolnshire town of Boston.

The Question Time exchange – in which Beard cast doubt on some stories about strains on public services – has prompted an online backlash and introduced Beard to what she described in her blog for the Times Literary Supplement as "a side on internet trolling that I haven't experienced before" and one that is "truly vile".

"My appearance on Question Time prompted a web post that has in the last few days discussed my pubic hair (do I brush the floor with it), whether I need rogering (that comment was taken down, as was the speculation about the capaciousness of my vagina, and the plan to plant a d*** in my mouth)," writes Beard.

Beard provided a sample of comments from the website Don't Start Me Off where she was also named "Twat of the Week".

Many of the postings are aggressive and sexual and include a photo of her face superimposed onto a picture of female genitalia.

Explaining why she is refusing to laugh off the comments she writes: "First, the misogyny here is truly gobsmacking … the whole "cunt" talk and the kind of stuff represented by the photo … is more than a few steps into sadism. It would be quite enough to put many women off appearing in public, contributing to political debate, especially as all of this comes up on Google."

Rather than being a misfiring joke the comments are "meant to hurt and wound", Beard added.

"It shows the classic signs of vile playground bullying – claiming to know about the victim, sneering at things they could not possibly know but claim they do, destabilising by using names in the thread that are those of your friends or even anagrams of your own, suggesting that they are watching you ... that's all part of the bullying repertoire."

She also suggests one method to combat these examples of "brutal sexism" including flooding the Don't Start Me Off site with positive comments or even Latin poetry.

• This article was amended on 22 January 2013. The original version wrongly stated that Question Time was shown on BBC2.

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