The Nordic Model: Sex Work as a Crime
In 1999, the Swedish government embarked on an ambitious legislative endeavor by criminalizing the purchase of sexual services. It was hoped that this measure would deter clients from engaging with sex workers, and also that it would help to decrease the rates of human trafficking (Jordan, 2012). Government representatives made it clear that the existence of sex work was “not a desirable social phenomenon” (Kingston & Thomas, 2018), and the policy was lauded across Northern Europe as a meaningful step towards gender parity in the region. However, upon closer examination, the problems associated with what has become known as the Nordic model of sex work emerge; the very demographic that governments purport to be protecting are the people who suffer the negative effects of the policy. The unintentional criminalization of sex workers has become the focus of the Nordic model, rather than clients.
The Nordic Model: A Swedish Ideal
The Swedish penal code stipulates that “anyone who obtains casual sexual relations in exchange for payment is sentenced for purchase of sexual services to a fine or imprisonment not exceeding one year” (Kingston & Thomas, 2012). The Nordic model of sex work has been labelled a ‘neo-abolitionist’ approach to prostitution. Kingston & Thomas note that this approach views sex work as a direct result of men’s oppression of women, “hence the legal policy approach taken focuses enforcement upon clients, as they are always assumed to be male”. It is also worth noting here that an ‘unofficial agenda’ existed behind this legislation — Don Kulick (2003) described the law as a tool with which Sweden could elevate itself morally above other nations, and position itself as the ideal by which other European countries should measure themselves. Proponents of the Nordic model praise it as a human rights and gender equality-based approach, focusing closely on its combatting of human trafficking. Neo-abolitionists believe that if pressure is placed upon clients to avoid purchasing sexual services for fear of prosecution, demand will decrease, as will trafficking. Norwegian criminologist Cecilie Høigård remarked that, prior to the implementation of this policy, extensive research was carried out to determine the environments in which sex workers were employed. She stated that, while there were many points of disagreement, “we shared the same feelings of despair about the women’s pain and the punters’ (clients’) lack of understanding of the consequences of their actions” (“What is the Nordic Model?”, n.d.). Many scholars point to the Netherlands and Spain as examples of national sex industries that have become deregulated and have encouraged vast swells of ‘sex tourists’. Proponents of the Nordic model point out that this approach threatens the profits of those who use prostitution as a means of trafficking women (Peters, 2016), with Canadian journalist Farzana Hassan going so far as to claim that the Nordic model “empower[s] prostitutes” (2014). In the same month as the publication of Hassan’s article, Mary Honeyball MEP, acting as rapporteur for the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, published a report that stated that committee “consider[ed] that the most effective way of combating the trafficking of women and underage females for sexual exploitation and improving gender equality is the model implemented in Sweden, Iceland, and Norway” (Kingston & Thomas, 2012).
On its surface, the legislation that has been enacted in Sweden, Norway, Iceland, France, and Ireland appears to criminalize clients while still allowing women who engage in sex work to continue making a living, but in a safer, more regulated environment. Unfortunately, there are always disparities in how a policy looks on paper and how it is actually carried out. Many human rights groups have brought these shortcomings to the attention of legislators, but to no avail. Instead of clients being criminalized, a vast number of sex workers have stated that this policy unfairly targets them and makes their working lives increasingly more dangerous.
The Targeting of Sex Workers: Policy Versus Reality
In 2010, the Swedish government published a report that claimed that their legislation against the purchase of sexual services had resulted in a sharp decrease in street-based sex work (Skarhed, 2010). However, this report did not include any evidence for this claim. Dodillet & Östergren (2011) mention a Swedish National Board of Health & Welfare report that states that it could not find any causal connections between legislation and changes in the extent of prostitution in the country. Zeegers & Althoff also conclude that no serious statements can be made about the effects of Swedish legislation on sex work in the country, and very few statements can be made about whether or not the legislation has had any meaningful impact on human trafficking (2015). The claims made by the Swedish government on the supposed benefits of this legislation may be due to the sex work industry becoming more hidden as a result of new laws. It is certainly possible that what has occurred in countries using the Nordic model is what Kingston & Thomas call ‘spatial switching’. In countries where sex work is illegal or has many restrictions placed upon it, the industry moves to less visible spaces so that those involved in sex work can easily avoid being identified or prosecuted by authorities (Kingston & Thomas, 2012). Instead of having positive effects on the lives and welfare of sex workers, Amnesty International found that in Norway, where the Nordic model is in full effect, there had been “evidence of human rights abuses against people that sell sex (…) that are compounded by, and in some cases directly caused by the legal framework” (2016). Amnesty International conducted a series of interviews in Oslo with sex workers, as well as with representatives from multiple social service organizations. One lawyer remarked that, “the police use all of their efforts to take down the women because it’s the easiest way to get rid of the problem”, despite the fact that these women are not engaging in any illegal activity. Norwegian police have recently adopted a preventative policing approach, “which involves the enforcement of lower level offences as ‘stress methods’ to disrupt, destabilize, and increase the pressure on those operating in the sex sector” (“The Human Cost…”, 2016). Put simply, police have made concerted efforts to make the lives of sex workers more difficult because it is impossible to prosecute them for selling sexual services. The logic follows that if it becomes too difficult to operate as a sex worker, women will abandon the profession. There is no better example of the measures that police have gone to in their efforts to target sex workers than Oslo’s ‘Operation Homeless’. This operation ran from 2007 to 2011, making it an offence to rent premises for the purpose of prostitution, and initiated the “systematic and rapid” eviction of sex workers from their places of work and/or homes (“The Human Cost…”, 2016). In their report, Amnesty also noted that there was a vastly increased risk of violence against sex workers. Because sex workers do not feel safe reporting incidences of crime or violence to police, they find themselves in a situation where they must either endure the violence or risk prosecution for other offences. Although the proponents of the Nordic model focus on it making sex work safer for women, this is simple untrue in the face of these testimonies. Kingston & Thomas make the important point that research has shown that in countries where sex work has been decriminalized, such as New Zealand, sex workers are able to determine what services they will and will not provide for clients. This means that “when instances of exploitation do occur, they can take their case to a human rights tribunal or through other legal practices” (Kingston & Thomas, 2012). Working within a French context, Le Bail & Giamatta confirm Amnesty findings, reporting “increased levels of violence and risks [against] those who sell sex”, and that this has shifted the power relationship in favor of clients who feel that they can demand anything they want from sex workers (2018). In the face of these bitter truths, it is almost impossible to defend the Nordic model as a piece of legislation that works for sex workers, rather than against.
The Changing Face of Sex Work: Moving from the Streets to the Internet
Sex work has been cited repeatedly as an example of what is known as morality policy (Hubbard et al., 2016). Morality policy has been conceptualized as a set of social circumstances in which “policy is determined by a sense of what is ultimately felt to be right or wrong” (Wagenaar & Altink, 2012). This is precisely why it is so difficult to formulate and implement policy in this area — invariably, someone is dissatisfied with what is proposed. As well as this, sex work no longer resembles the outdated depictions we see in media from twenty years ago. Sex work has moved from the open streets to the bedrooms of a vast variety of individuals. We might consider that the sex work industry has become somewhat more open and democratized, particularly with the advent of websites like OnlyFans. OnlyFans is a subscription-only content service that does not specifically cater for adult content, but has become a hub for both professional and amateur sex workers.. Users join the site under the presumption that the more frequently they post adult content, the more their subscribers will pay. The ubiquity of smartphones and ease of access to the internet has meant that the purchase of sex or sexual services is no longer an invisible and illicit act. Arguably the most popular content creator on OnlyFans is Dannii Harwood — Harwood was immediately able to monetize the content that would have been banned from sites like Instagram or Twitter. In a recent New York Times interview, she revealed that she had earned over $168,000 between August and November of 2018 (Bernstein, 2019). What is particularly striking about the recent fascination with those who engage in sex work via the internet is the way in which these people are being spoken about. In much of the research conducted by both proponents and opponents of the Nordic model is their focus on prostitution as a last resort — Beegan & Moran (2017) claim that “it is mostly women who have the fewest choices who are the ones most likely to be found prostituted”. However, with the emergence of sites like OnlyFans, the traditional image of the sex worker is being redefined. In order to produce high-quality online content, sex workers must have access to a smartphone, a camera with high memory capabilities, and a physical space in which to produce this content. By relying on this distinction, scholars categorize sex workers by socioeconomic class — ‘respectable’, entrepreneurial women locate their sex work online, safe in the domestic space, while poorer, disadvantaged women work on the streets, facing high risks of violence and harassment. This stratification benefits online sex workers while simultaneously playing into the stereotype of street workers as Babylonian whores. Along with this redefinition comes questions regarding how this phenomenon fits within the Nordic model — would a Swedish subscriber to an OnlyFans creator find themselves prosecuted for paying a subscription fee? Does the Nordic model’s legislation only take issue with women who remove themselves from hidden, private spaces? With the constant redefinition of sex work as a concept, legislators face an enormous task — where does one draw the line between what is and is not sex work?
Ostensibly, the Nordic model turns its focus towards clients and purports to protect sex workers. Governments that have adopted the legislation emphasize the importance of reorienting prostitution policy to help the women involved in the industry. Unfortunately, the gap between policy and reality seems unlikely to be bridged. Sex workers face high risks of violence from both clients and police forces, while also having to compete with ‘respectable’ women who engage in online sex work. What is clear is that the women who engage in sex work in a visible manner should be placed at the center of any conversation about decriminalization and prostitution legislation. Policymakers ignore these women at their peril.
