A new law in Sweden makes it illegal to buy custom adult content

As a Swede, I can see how this law was created as a modern branch from the trunk that is criminalizing purchasing sex, but not selling it, in order to protect the sex worker. You see, in Sweden, all sex workers are seen as victims and those who insist they aren't are not listened to or seen as necessary collateral in order to protect the vast majority who are.

So this is to protect all the victims on OnlyFans, for example.

You'll be allowed to subscribe to them alright, but it will not be legal for a service provider to offer Swedes the ability to purchase custom content from them. Which is of course the _actual_ income stream from sex workers on OnlyFans.

So that means Swedish sex workers can't raise a full income on OnlyFans anymore. In fact, OnlyFans has already disabled the DM system for all Swedish creators.

Now, will this law care for where they have to go then? No, of course not. The law stops caring about them as soon as they've been thrown under the bus.

I can understand the reasoning, but it's just halfway there. I think a more complete line of thought WOULD have raised the issue that these workers don't show themselves naked on OnlyFans just for fun, like instead of working in retail or in a comfy office gig. OnlyFans is not typically a first choice. In that sense, the Swedish law follows. Most there are probably "victims". BUT here's the deal; they're _victims of society_. They obviously need the cash for some particular reason and this way somehow works out for them better than others even if it means exposing themselves. And now this unusually safe haven (in these circles) that is OnlyFans where they are distanced from their buyers, even anonymized, is taken away from them. The platform where THEY dictated how far they'd want to go.

Now they need to seek out shadier platforms. Shadier outlets. Apartments? Or maybe just do more drugs to dull their anxiety over not being able to provide for their kids or whatever.

I'm sorry but I can't see much good come out of this.

> where they are distanced from their buyers, even anonymized, is taken away from them. The platform where THEY dictated how far they'd want to go.

Yeah, this is what I don't quite understand. I've read https://jamstalldhetsmyndigheten.se/aktuellt/nyheter/starkt-... to try to understand the perspective of the people who are driving this change, and I think this seems to be the core:

> The development of online platforms has meant that the purchase of sex increasingly takes place without physical contact. This shift does not change the fundamental problem: that a person, often in a vulnerable situation, is coerced into participating in a sexual act in exchange for payment. The imbalance of power between the buyer and the person coerced into the act remains regardless of whether the act takes place in a physical space or in front of a camera.

> Sexual crimes that take place digitally can have consequences as serious as physical assaults. The violation that occurs when someone is coerced to participate in a sexual act for payment affects the privacy, self-determination and mental health of the individual, regardless of the format.

I still don't quite agree that the situations and activities are the same, and this move seems to make it inherently more dangerous for sex workers rather than the opposite. I guess ultimately the Sweden government (as always) think they can outlaw things and that will make those things go away because it's illegal, which I always fundamentally disagreed with, which is made clear by this:

> It is hoped that the change in the law will not only reduce demand, but also help raise awareness of the vulnerability that may lie behind online prostitution. [...] it should not be allowed to buy access to another person's body, either physically or digitally.

> The imbalance of power between the buyer and the person coerced into the act remains regardless of whether the act takes place in a physical space or in front of a camera.

They act like they've discovered capitalism. It's not a bad argument, it's just not an argument against sex work. It's a disingenuous attempt to disguise misogynistic views of women as something noble.

I thought it was the purchase that was illegal, not the creation. Could Swedish OF creators produce content for sale out of the country?

It would be interesting to see what lawmakers do to "protect" sex workers if sex workers start buying custom content from each other.

Fully agreed. Norway has this same legislation. It's the kind of thing that only makes sense if you only look at it for 2 seconds, through a thick fog of radical sex-negative feminism.

Yes, it is true that the pimps and human traffickers are the real criminals, and that the vast majority of prostitutes are in fact victims. And yes, it's a good thing not to prosecute them. But when you make buying illegal, you force prostitutes away from the safety nets that could help them anyway. If you're the police, how do you catch johns? Follow the prostitutes, of course. So they're forced to avoid the police, lest they're unable to meet demands from their pimps, and get punished, often violently. And in avoiding the police, they also become more vulnerable to abuse by johns.

The real world just doesn't work like this. You can't nearly separate these things into legal/not legal bins. They're entangled and can't be unentangled merely by way of ideology or wishful thinking.

The other issue is of course, is it wrong to buy sex? If you're a sex-negative feminist, the answer is yes, because your ideology rests on projecting your own sex-negative outlook onto all women, which to me seems hilariously and ironically sexist. Personally I believe women have very diverse attitutes to sex and should have autonomy to do whatever the hell they please with their lives and bodies.

To me, the only thing that really matters if whether the sex is consensual, without clear-cut coercion. Is it wrong to buy sex from someone who is clearly a victim of human trafficking? Absolutely, I think so. This is basically slavery.

Is it wrong to buy sex from someone who's selling it, because it's their only option? This one is trickier, but I think it's about as wrong as getting your iphone screen fixed by someone who couldn't cut it in "real" IT work. Or getting your garbage picked up by someone whose only marketable skill is emptying a bin into a truck. Society is full of people doing jobs they hate because it's all they got. And that sucks, but criminalising their customers doesn't seem like a reasonable solution. It's a systemic issue.

Is it wrong to buy sex work from someone who does it because they genuinely love it(yes, they do exist, though they are awfully rare)? How the hell could it be?

So in summation, it seems to me human trafficking is the real problem. Criminalising johns seems like a stupid way to tackle it, and it demonstrably does not work. Extending it to the online sphere makes even less sense.

Ah yes, the echoes of the rather daft "Nordic Model". Itself an outgrowth of an alliance between mostly second-wave feminists with a carceral streak, and social conservatives.

Most of what you are saying makes sense, except this:

> I think it's about as wrong as getting your iphone screen fixed by someone who couldn't cut it in "real" IT work. Or getting your garbage picked up by someone whose only marketable skill is emptying a bin into a truck. Society is full of people doing jobs they hate because it's all they got.

Selling sex for money is not in the same bin as other jobs people hate. Sex is an intimate act for humans, like it or not, and being coerced into sex, whether physically or economically, is especially toxic. Like long-term PTSD toxic.

This is not the same as cleaning latrines or collecting garbage (which yes, can be a foul work experience). Although as I'm thinking about it, there are other jobs which have a similar soul-toxicity as sex work, like industrial animal slaughter or mass executioner (e.g. in a concentration camp). Jobs that require you to give up your humanity in exchange for a paycheck.

It's ideological intersectionality of illiberal ugly people on both the far right and far left agree to remove rights from consenting adults.

The problem seems to be distinguishing the real, trafficked, coerced victims from entrepreneurs who are voluntarily building their career and earning a solid living. I highly doubt that many well-paid and successful OnlyFans models see themselves as coerced victims, as they manage their business with the agency and market-savvy of a startup founder. How do you write this distinction into the law, though?

> It's not a bad argument, it's just not an argument against sex work.

That's because they're eliding the common knowledge that the activities in this particular industry are meant to be special and locked away behind formal ceremonies, rather than openly available in public commerce.

That's probably why the headline was phrased this way. They criminalise the buyers, no matter what person or country they're buying from. I don't think OF models will face difficulty selling to people in other countries.

On the other hand, I can imagine there's a certain market for people speaking the same language as you, and by forcing Swedish models to go international they are now competing with models from every other country.

> This is not the same as cleaning latrines or collecting garbage

> Although as I'm thinking about it, there are other jobs which have a similar soul-toxicity as sex work

It’s not as clear cut as one might think.

What makes sex work different and why? Garbage collection, and many other jobs, expose people to disease or hazards. What makes sex work special?

Sex is an intimate physical act, which often/usually has intimate emotional consequences.

Sex work is not foul like garbage collection. Sex work is invasive like body horror stunt work.

How many jobs have an essential requirement to put non-edibles in your mouth? Claude suggests people who are paid to play wind instruments. Note that flutists own and maintain their own instruments. It would be really "gross" to stick someone else's used instrument in your mouth. Particularly if you had no relationship to the person and didn't know to what extent you could trust them.