Amended law would criminalize purveyors of “remote” sexual services
According to a recent AVN report, Swedish citizens may soon be unable to view or consensually interact with live-streaming adult entertainers.
Ostensibly to help curb underage exposure to explicit materials, a proposal made to the unicameral Riksdag, the Swedish parliament, would additionally prohibit the purchasig of sexuality-related, creator-generated content from cam platforms and video streaming sites.
Under consideration by Sweden’s Council on Legislation, if passed, the law would supplement what’s commonly referred to as the Nordic Model or Sex Buyer Law.
Adopted by Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Ireland, Canada, France, Israel, and Northern Ireland, it effectively decriminalizes sex work. It establishes support services for those seeking aid in leaving while making it illegal for anyone to exchange money for sexual services.
Step in the right direction?
The Nordic Model Now, which is attempting to implement the same legislation in the United Kingdom, explains the law was based on extensive research and interviews with sex workers, conducted particularly by Norwegian professor Cecilie Høigård, who wrote, “We heard about their experiences of past abuse, extreme poverty and violence. We were prepared for these stories, because of our previous studies on outcasts and marginalized people. But what the women told us of their concrete experiences of prostitution was unexpected and shocking.”
RECOMMENDED READ: New Spins on the Oldest Profession: Imagining Sexwork’s Wild Future
As the Nordic Model site states, their view is “‘Prostitution is inherently violent and damages those in it and that getting out of it is much harder than getting into it. And a criminal record makes getting out even harder.”
Or an overstep?
Others, however, suggest that the Nordic Model might be too simplistic, perhaps doing more harm than good in some situations.
Speaking to XBIZ, Cara, a Swedish cam performer, says she and fellow performers worry that the proposed addendum would ban platforms such as OnlyFans from operating in her country, effectively making her personal life illegal:
Living with a partner or receiving any form of support could now be considered pimping on their part. If this law takes effect, we stand to lose our entire livelihoods overnight as platforms are forced to exclude Swedish creators. Lawmakers claim this is meant to protect us, but how is forcing us into poverty, isolation and legal jeopardy a form of protection?
Sanna Zentio, another OnlyFans content creator, shared on Swedish TV that, “Politicians don’t really understand what we are working with digitally or actually doing. Many of us work very independently, safely and legally, and a proposal like this risks hitting hard on those who have chosen to leave the traditional sex industry for a safer and more controlled work environment.”
“Instead of banning and restricting the ability of adults to charge for nudity on the other side of a screen,” Johanna Nylander wrote in the Swedish newspaper Kristianstadsbladet, “the focus should be on cases that actually have a victim. If the home posers are paid, they should pay taxes, not be forced out into the back streets of the internet.”
We know what’s good for you
The Nordic Model is problematic. Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, a trafficking and exploitation expert lays out five reasons why its victimization of sexworkers is disempowering. One of which is that lawmakers should instead respect “sex workers including LGBTQI, not as victims but as rights holders, including the right to sexual self-determination.”
In this light, the proposed expansion of current Swedish anti-prostitution and pornography laws—coupled with Zentio’s comment about legislators not understanding why adult streaming services provide a far safer environment for the consensual exchange of sexual services—certainly seems ill-thought-out.
As Giammarinaro further writes, the Nordic Model’s blunt force approach completely misses the point, “Criminalising clients has the negative consequence of orienting law enforcement activities towards the easiest target, while very probably they will neglect more sophisticated and demanding investigative activities aimed at identifying criminal networks organizing women’s trafficking and exploitation.”
As the Nordic Model was based on interviews with sex workers, the question is why haven’t the Swedish authorities continued to seek their input?
After all, the law is supposed to be about protecting sex workers, so why not ask what they want instead of treating them like objects whose opinions and their very lives aren’t important?
Image Sources: Depositphotos
