Original submission title, which I think better captures the actual change that has happened:
"Buying custom adult content became illegal in Sweden first of July 2025". It seems moderators may have gotten a bit too eager with improving the title :)
It looks like a mod reverted the title to the article's original title (in keeping with the title guideline at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), but if it's not accurate, that's a good reason to change it (as the guideline also says).
It's always better to use representative language from the article itself, though, so I've used the first sentence of the article instead.
No, "normal" porn is still legal, what is becoming illegal is "influencing" the produced content in any way, as the government sees that as being equal to paying someone to perform a sexual act, something which is illegal since before in Sweden.
Normal porn still requires someone to pay someone else to have sex, and still allows for the possibility of exploitation, which I guess is what these laws are trying to combat.
Seems more like custom onlyfans, live chats, phone sex, etc. It seems it needs to be interactive. The big question i have is could this apply to interactive AI porn. It doesn't say if the sexual content has to be created by a human.
That's what I figured, but I don't quite get why normal porn, made by a director, is allowed, but not custom porn where the customer pretty much is the director.
Last I heard it explained, it's about the "real time" nature of custom content through streaming services. It creates a more immediate pressure to capitulate with (often increasingly extreme) demands at the risk of financial loss.
A porn actress can look at a role, the type of content being made, and mull it over and compare to other gigs. A live streamer has a minute to decide if they'll do a weird request for rent money. There's a (at least perceived to be a) larger lever being used against their judgement than normal.
I've also heard livestream content has a higher prevalence of trafficking? Not sure how true that is, so take it with a grain of salt.
Yeah, I guess the virtual nature of it allows a pimp, possibly in a foreign country, to put a bunch of girls in front of cameras and have them do whatever they're told to do. A typical porn video is slightly different than that.
Still, from an American point of view this is interesting for several reasons. One, it seems somewhat prudish for the Swedes, who we often stereotype as being very liberal and sensible. Two, I can't imagine american lawmakers caring about or being able to pass legislation on such a niche issue.
I thought Asian gang-run virtual camgirl sites were virtually extinct... This is undoubtedly targeting likes of Patreon/OnlyFans, and only happening because participants there has working short path feedback loops from output to input. I don't quite see what's wrong about that, but lot of online porn bans seem to focus more on that than contents.
The obvious solution is to legalize sex work - an industry the state is incapable of suppressing and the market is insistent on providing. In a high-income, high-trust society like Sweden they have significant advantages in perusing an approach that is perhaps more risky but also fundamentally less misaligned with the human condition.
The "Swedish model" for sex work is that selling sex is not illegal, but buying it is. Which looks good on paper, but drives pretty much the same behavior of pushing sex work underground as the normal reverse model.
For some of us sex is like food: we know what it is, when to use it and when to stop. However for many others sex is like drugs: it overrides their self-control system and they become addicts. How do you make a law in this situation?
> However for many others sex is like drugs: it overrides their self-control system and they become addicts. How do you make a law in this situation?
For some, food is like drugs: it overrides their self-control system and they become addicts. How do you make a law in that situation? Or is investing in Novo Nordisk across the North Sea good enough?
That is true of all vices, addiction of any form has societal costs. Gambling, smoking, alcohol, fatty food, etc. Sex work is just the one with the weakest political lobby, so it is easier to regulate.
Laws don't solve those problems, as has been proven over the course of a hundred years in a hundred different nations. Only the most brutally repressive regimes can actually eradicate the types of sex and drugs they don't like. None of us want to live in that kind of society. So if eradication is impossible, and suppression has proven expensive, ineffective, and a constant assault on basic human rights, maybe we should try something else.
It looks like Sweden's politicians are too sheltered to understand that there are people who enjoy sex work. Instead of trying to make it safe and enjoyable for all parties, they're systemically punishing sex workers, and even redefining the word sex to include onlyfans content (?!) while simultaneously calling them "victims."
The irony, of course, is that the only thing they're a "victim" of is those same politicians.
It's a cultural difference. However, I feel like it's important to point out that selling sex isn't illegal, buying is. That means you won't be locked up for selling sex, the risk is on your customers.
And while OnlyFans can technically be used to sell any digital content, it is mostly selling (softcore) pornography, which is obviously sex work. Categorising it as "digital content" or "a private service" may work to skirt around the American laws that outright criminalise sex workers, but it's not fooling anyone.
Another point of note is that quite a few European countries struggle with human trafficking problems in the sex trade, even in countries where prostitution is completely legal. It's not like human traffickers haven't figured out that OnlyFans is an easy way to make money if they can manage enough accounts. There are also less obvious problems, like people who are strapped for cash and desperate, doing things they otherwise wouldn't and will later regret.
Personally, I think sex work should just be regulated like normal work and the Swedish approach ("Nordic model") is counterproductive. While I think online sex work should be treated the same as offline sex work, I think banning it is moving in the wrong direction. It's still not as bad as criminalising sex workers themselves, of course.
Swedish and to a certain extent Norwegian feminism is strongly opposed to sex work [0][1][2], as it is viewed as undermining gender equality (let's be honest - there isn't equivalent demand for meat markets of men) and exacerbating trafficking of women from poorer regions like Eastern Europe (it is extremely unlikely that someone in the sex industry is Swedish/Norwegian/Icelandic/Danish given the mixture of social bias and social safety net).
The initial ban in Sweden was itself legislated in 1999 when the Riksdag became majority women.
The libertarian and market-driven framing is a uniquely American and Canadian lens that doesn't hold much water in much of Europe - especially highly collectivist and monocultural societies like much of Scandinavia. It's the same with attitudes around drug legalization (zero-tolerance but with a heavy rehabilitation tilt is the mainstream view in much of Europe).
> let's be honest - there isn't equivalent demand for meat markets of men
I wouldn't underestimate that market. While men seem to consume more porn, "men" also includes "gay men" of course, who won't be quite as interested in seeing naked women even if we pretend women aren't interested in sex.
There are definitely market differences (the pay gap for male actors, for instance, and of course the double standard that judges women more than men for consuming such content) but the divide is not even close to absolute.
Your post ("it is extremely unlikely that someone in the sex industry is Swedish/Norwegian/Icelandic/Danish given the mixture of social bias and social safety net") supposes that women go into the sex industry out of desperation, but that's not true. Some people are fine with selling their bodies, to various degrees, and don't have a problem making an income that way.
I'm explaining the relatively mainstream view and assumptions behind the sex work stigma in Swedish (though arguably this is common across Scandinavia) society.
u/Jug below in the thread has a more comprehensive and better written explanation.
This comment is deeply confusing. I'm really not sure what the argument is. Are you trying to say that any profession that has occupational hazards should be outlawed? In that case I hope you're ready to outlaw policing, firefighting, military, most professional sports, logging, and certainly a bunch of others I can't remember right now.
Or perhaps you're saying that specifically because it ranks high on the list of most dangerous professions, that it should be outlawed? In that case I hope you're ready to outlaw (again) logging, fishing, roofing, aircraft piloting, derrick operators and more. I hope you've also considered that the reason it's dangerous in the first place is because of the criminalization and lack of regulations governing sex work.
Or perhaps you just think that people are being pressured into doing sex work by their families, and therefore we should throw out the entire profession? In that case we need to be throwing out doctors, lawyers, and engineers.
I'd appreciate some clarification on what exactly the argument is.
I'm saying that hiring people to do a job that is extremely dangerous, and likely to cause the worker harm, especially for your own enjoyment is exploitative.
Most of the jobs you list are FAR safer then prostitution. But yes I would argue there are lots of other jobs that i would outlaw for the same reason. Like Bumfighting, a lot of dodgy construction, self harm, jobs without proper safety equipment, gladiators, and a lot of military recruitment. You are exploiting, or are very likely to be exploiting people in dire situations.
Thanks for clarifying. And yes, you're right that objectively sex work (as in, having sex with someone, not the revisionist definition including onlyfans) is high up on the most dangerous professions list.
However, that doesn't mean it has to be that way. My personal belief is that it should be treated a similar way to alcohol:
- there are only specific, licensed places where you can get it
- you must be over a certain age
- you cannot enjoy it in public
- establishments have a right to refuse service if you seem intoxicated or belligerent
Plus, adding on security to check for weapons and intervene in the rare case of violence.
In my opinion, if you combine all those regulations, sex work would be more than safe enough for it to not be considered a "dangerous" profession.
Yes, Sex work can be made more safe. However none of these protects against the psychological harm that may sex workers are experiencing. There is plenty of evidence how harmful prostitution can be to mental wealth.
You list things that regulated to protect the user of drugs, tobacco and alcohol, but with prostitution, the product is a human being that needs to be protected too.
The Nordic model, does not outlaw selling sex, but criminalizes buying. In my opinion, selling sex may be harmfull, but i see no ethical reason against it. However there is no ethical way to buy sex, because its impossible for a buyer to be sure that you are not causing serious harm to the person you are buying from.
Here's an idea, adults can regulate their own lives. You don't get to dictate how other people live based on some flimsy notion of "psychological harm".
I'm ok with outlawing adults with free wills, getting payed to play russian roulett even if five out of six wont take a bullet to the head. Adults can be exploited too.
"neither harmful", tells me you know nothing about the subject.
Whom gets to decide and determine who is “most vulnerable”?
Also when it comes to the Nordic countries it’s rather hypothetical, considering that they (+Estonia) have one of the highest rates of drug overdose related deaths in the EU. Surely they would have adopted different policies on that already if their goal was protecting the most vulnerable rather than puritanical moralism?
Your examples and appeals to emotion make no sense. Dying from a gunshot wound is de facto harmful to someone. Driving a person to s-u-i-c-i-d-e is not an act of commerce between consenting adults.
To be fair if access to less dangerous opioid was less restricted fentanyl would be a lot less popular. Its extreme potency makes it much easier and profitable to traffic.
The sex industry is terrible for everyone involved; it's addictive, it ruins the lives of the girls and men who work in it, it spreads dangerous diseases, and it doesn't contribute to the advancement of our society. I can't imagine why anyone would support it except out of a sadomasochist curiosity.
I suspect (ironically) you may be too sheltered to understand why the sex industry is so harmful
The Fucked Company guy was doing this 25 years ago. I think his website lasted 24 hours before it got shut down. Sadly, I never did get to order my, “please make it stop, papa Smurf” video.
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.
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.
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.
> 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 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?
> 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.
> 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.
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.
I don't think it's the content per se it is the perceived personal relationship. Guys (mostly guys I'd say) who are paying OnlyFans performers are paying for the fantasy that the performer is really into them and performing for them. It's quite unhealthy IMO but I don't think that the performance of the same acts without the personal interaction will have the same effect.
I agree, but the background of the law is because any sex worker is seen as a victim that should be protected, rather than that the law is changed to improve things for men. Maybe an indirect side-effect of the law would be to change the behavior of these men stuck in that, but judging by history I doubt it'll change many's mind.
"The power imbalance between the buyer and the person induced to commit the act persists regardless of whether the act takes place in a physical space or in front of a camera."
Just imagine if they regulated labor in other industries this way. Employer-employee power imbalance is immense.
In all (most?) European countries we have a lot of protections exactly due to this. Minimum wage, minimum holidays, max working hours, minimum break times, paid sick leave. Employers would starve employees if oversupply of workers and governments would let them.
Funnily enough, by not recognising sex work as a job, sex workers actually lack these protections in many European countries.
Furthermore, in Nordic countries, minimum wage and such are not government-mandated, but maintained by collective bargaining agreements negotiated by powerful unions. In Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and also Italy, there is no legally defined minimum wage.
Perspectives on this may shift as AI video generation continues to improve. Also I think this intersects with the efficacy of the country's social safety net. What is that like in Sweden?
That's a foreign perspective to a lot of Americans - that needing to "resort" to some activity to support yourself is seen as a critique or failure of what is supposed to be an equitable system in a wealthy nation.
In the US, "resorting" to something to make money is Plan A, B and C.
> In the US, "resorting" to something to make money is Plan A, B and C.
The idea of “resorting to OnlyFans” to support yourself is a myth, regardless of the country.
OnlyFans isn’t a platform where anyone can sign up and start making a lot of money. The median creator maxes out at a little over a thousand dollars in a year from what I recall.
Only a very few creators collect a lot of money. It’s similar to other social platforms where the majority of content creators get very little interaction.
So this idea that people are “resorting to OnlyFans” to support themselves isn’t supported by the realities of the data and the payouts.
Permits? Bear in mind that many people just like getting naked online for an appreciative audience for free. Should that be permitted? This creeps toward a puritanical perspective and is just as claustrophobic. Sometimes the line between preventing financial incentive and preventing immorality blurs.
I absolutely insist on living in a society that permits people, including me, to get naked or have sex for money, or for whatever other reason they like. That's a preposterous question to me.
Obviously, I would prefer to live in a society where no one needs to do work that does not align with their moral or ethical beliefs. Though I have never heard of such a society.
That is a wild false dichotomy, to assume that the alternative to buying custom adult content would be to have a baby. Plenty of people don't want babies, don't feel like they're in a financial situation to support kids, don't want a relationship, etc.
It's decoupling what shouldn't be decoupled in order to optimize what shouldn't be optimized.
Rather like how your employer's janitors are from a service company, your uber driver is an independent contractor or whatever, your mortgage has probably been resold like five times, etc.
All examples of having more complex interactions stripped out.
What are you talking about, what is being "optimized"?
People can do stuff for fun, because it feels good, or for whatever reason. Not everything in someone's life has to be done for a direct survival goal. People go for runs because they want to be fit or achieve personal goals, (probably) not because they want to be better at outrunning a boar that they're hunting.
Degeneracy is about loss of expected complexity, yes? All your atoms are smooshed together into a uniform soup, all your call-center people have to follow an identical script, etc. Taking something that originated itself as a way to ensure continuation of the species and splitting out the fun parts from the continuation parts seems like the sort of thing that ought to count. And yes gyms probably should count as well, except nobody cares about that.
Access to porn is the only thing impacting fertility? Not hormonal birth control, prophylactics, direct/indirect costs of child care, abortion, loss of financial stability, etc?
Original submission title, which I think better captures the actual change that has happened:
"Buying custom adult content became illegal in Sweden first of July 2025". It seems moderators may have gotten a bit too eager with improving the title :)
This is the official message/news from the government, but it's in Swedish only: https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2025/02/nya-lagfo...
Another perspective (also in Swedish) from the "Swedish Gender Equality Agency", which contains a bit more background on why the law was changed: https://jamstalldhetsmyndigheten.se/aktuellt/nyheter/starkt-...
It looks like a mod reverted the title to the article's original title (in keeping with the title guideline at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), but if it's not accurate, that's a good reason to change it (as the guideline also says).
It's always better to use representative language from the article itself, though, so I've used the first sentence of the article instead.
I read the article but it's still not clear to me. Is normal porn already illegal there? Or do they just have a problem with "custom" porn?
No, "normal" porn is still legal, what is becoming illegal is "influencing" the produced content in any way, as the government sees that as being equal to paying someone to perform a sexual act, something which is illegal since before in Sweden.
Normal porn still requires someone to pay someone else to have sex, and still allows for the possibility of exploitation, which I guess is what these laws are trying to combat.
Seems more like custom onlyfans, live chats, phone sex, etc. It seems it needs to be interactive. The big question i have is could this apply to interactive AI porn. It doesn't say if the sexual content has to be created by a human.
> Seems more like custom onlyfans, live chats, phone sex, etc. It seems it needs to be interactive
I thought so at first too! But no, audio and text is excluded it seems, and only custom photos and custom videos are included in the law.
It's about their ban of buying sex services extended to internet.
That's what I figured, but I don't quite get why normal porn, made by a director, is allowed, but not custom porn where the customer pretty much is the director.
Last I heard it explained, it's about the "real time" nature of custom content through streaming services. It creates a more immediate pressure to capitulate with (often increasingly extreme) demands at the risk of financial loss.
A porn actress can look at a role, the type of content being made, and mull it over and compare to other gigs. A live streamer has a minute to decide if they'll do a weird request for rent money. There's a (at least perceived to be a) larger lever being used against their judgement than normal.
I've also heard livestream content has a higher prevalence of trafficking? Not sure how true that is, so take it with a grain of salt.
Yeah, I guess the virtual nature of it allows a pimp, possibly in a foreign country, to put a bunch of girls in front of cameras and have them do whatever they're told to do. A typical porn video is slightly different than that.
Still, from an American point of view this is interesting for several reasons. One, it seems somewhat prudish for the Swedes, who we often stereotype as being very liberal and sensible. Two, I can't imagine american lawmakers caring about or being able to pass legislation on such a niche issue.
I thought Asian gang-run virtual camgirl sites were virtually extinct... This is undoubtedly targeting likes of Patreon/OnlyFans, and only happening because participants there has working short path feedback loops from output to input. I don't quite see what's wrong about that, but lot of online porn bans seem to focus more on that than contents.
The obvious solution is to legalize sex work - an industry the state is incapable of suppressing and the market is insistent on providing. In a high-income, high-trust society like Sweden they have significant advantages in perusing an approach that is perhaps more risky but also fundamentally less misaligned with the human condition.
The "Swedish model" for sex work is that selling sex is not illegal, but buying it is. Which looks good on paper, but drives pretty much the same behavior of pushing sex work underground as the normal reverse model.
For some of us sex is like food: we know what it is, when to use it and when to stop. However for many others sex is like drugs: it overrides their self-control system and they become addicts. How do you make a law in this situation?
> However for many others sex is like drugs: it overrides their self-control system and they become addicts. How do you make a law in this situation?
For some, food is like drugs: it overrides their self-control system and they become addicts. How do you make a law in that situation? Or is investing in Novo Nordisk across the North Sea good enough?
That is true of all vices, addiction of any form has societal costs. Gambling, smoking, alcohol, fatty food, etc. Sex work is just the one with the weakest political lobby, so it is easier to regulate.
Laws don't solve those problems, as has been proven over the course of a hundred years in a hundred different nations. Only the most brutally repressive regimes can actually eradicate the types of sex and drugs they don't like. None of us want to live in that kind of society. So if eradication is impossible, and suppression has proven expensive, ineffective, and a constant assault on basic human rights, maybe we should try something else.
It looks like Sweden's politicians are too sheltered to understand that there are people who enjoy sex work. Instead of trying to make it safe and enjoyable for all parties, they're systemically punishing sex workers, and even redefining the word sex to include onlyfans content (?!) while simultaneously calling them "victims."
The irony, of course, is that the only thing they're a "victim" of is those same politicians.
It's a cultural difference. However, I feel like it's important to point out that selling sex isn't illegal, buying is. That means you won't be locked up for selling sex, the risk is on your customers.
And while OnlyFans can technically be used to sell any digital content, it is mostly selling (softcore) pornography, which is obviously sex work. Categorising it as "digital content" or "a private service" may work to skirt around the American laws that outright criminalise sex workers, but it's not fooling anyone.
Another point of note is that quite a few European countries struggle with human trafficking problems in the sex trade, even in countries where prostitution is completely legal. It's not like human traffickers haven't figured out that OnlyFans is an easy way to make money if they can manage enough accounts. There are also less obvious problems, like people who are strapped for cash and desperate, doing things they otherwise wouldn't and will later regret.
Personally, I think sex work should just be regulated like normal work and the Swedish approach ("Nordic model") is counterproductive. While I think online sex work should be treated the same as offline sex work, I think banning it is moving in the wrong direction. It's still not as bad as criminalising sex workers themselves, of course.
> it's important to point out that selling sex isn't illegal, buying is
And “or operates a website that makes it easier to get in touch with adult content creators could be imprisoned for up to one year.”
Swedish and to a certain extent Norwegian feminism is strongly opposed to sex work [0][1][2], as it is viewed as undermining gender equality (let's be honest - there isn't equivalent demand for meat markets of men) and exacerbating trafficking of women from poorer regions like Eastern Europe (it is extremely unlikely that someone in the sex industry is Swedish/Norwegian/Icelandic/Danish given the mixture of social bias and social safety net).
The initial ban in Sweden was itself legislated in 1999 when the Riksdag became majority women.
The libertarian and market-driven framing is a uniquely American and Canadian lens that doesn't hold much water in much of Europe - especially highly collectivist and monocultural societies like much of Scandinavia. It's the same with attitudes around drug legalization (zero-tolerance but with a heavy rehabilitation tilt is the mainstream view in much of Europe).
[0] - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13545701.2010.54...
[1] - https://feminismandhumanrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/0...
[2] - https://journals.kent.ac.uk/index.php/feministsatlaw/article...
> let's be honest - there isn't equivalent demand for meat markets of men
I wouldn't underestimate that market. While men seem to consume more porn, "men" also includes "gay men" of course, who won't be quite as interested in seeing naked women even if we pretend women aren't interested in sex.
Plus, women may only be about a half as interested in pornography as men (according to https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2024-year-in-review 38% of visitors were female), the market sure seems large enough.
There are definitely market differences (the pay gap for male actors, for instance, and of course the double standard that judges women more than men for consuming such content) but the divide is not even close to absolute.
Your post ("it is extremely unlikely that someone in the sex industry is Swedish/Norwegian/Icelandic/Danish given the mixture of social bias and social safety net") supposes that women go into the sex industry out of desperation, but that's not true. Some people are fine with selling their bodies, to various degrees, and don't have a problem making an income that way.
I'm explaining the relatively mainstream view and assumptions behind the sex work stigma in Swedish (though arguably this is common across Scandinavia) society.
u/Jug below in the thread has a more comprehensive and better written explanation.
Also in Scandinavia, Iceland banned stripping.
I'm sure there where 12 year olds who enjoyed working in coal mines too. I'm ok with outlawing work that is harmful to a sizable portion of workers.
This comment is deeply confusing. I'm really not sure what the argument is. Are you trying to say that any profession that has occupational hazards should be outlawed? In that case I hope you're ready to outlaw policing, firefighting, military, most professional sports, logging, and certainly a bunch of others I can't remember right now.
Or perhaps you're saying that specifically because it ranks high on the list of most dangerous professions, that it should be outlawed? In that case I hope you're ready to outlaw (again) logging, fishing, roofing, aircraft piloting, derrick operators and more. I hope you've also considered that the reason it's dangerous in the first place is because of the criminalization and lack of regulations governing sex work.
Or perhaps you just think that people are being pressured into doing sex work by their families, and therefore we should throw out the entire profession? In that case we need to be throwing out doctors, lawyers, and engineers.
I'd appreciate some clarification on what exactly the argument is.
I'm saying that hiring people to do a job that is extremely dangerous, and likely to cause the worker harm, especially for your own enjoyment is exploitative.
Most of the jobs you list are FAR safer then prostitution. But yes I would argue there are lots of other jobs that i would outlaw for the same reason. Like Bumfighting, a lot of dodgy construction, self harm, jobs without proper safety equipment, gladiators, and a lot of military recruitment. You are exploiting, or are very likely to be exploiting people in dire situations.
Thanks for clarifying. And yes, you're right that objectively sex work (as in, having sex with someone, not the revisionist definition including onlyfans) is high up on the most dangerous professions list.
However, that doesn't mean it has to be that way. My personal belief is that it should be treated a similar way to alcohol:
- there are only specific, licensed places where you can get it
- you must be over a certain age
- you cannot enjoy it in public
- establishments have a right to refuse service if you seem intoxicated or belligerent
Plus, adding on security to check for weapons and intervene in the rare case of violence.
In my opinion, if you combine all those regulations, sex work would be more than safe enough for it to not be considered a "dangerous" profession.
Yes, Sex work can be made more safe. However none of these protects against the psychological harm that may sex workers are experiencing. There is plenty of evidence how harmful prostitution can be to mental wealth.
You list things that regulated to protect the user of drugs, tobacco and alcohol, but with prostitution, the product is a human being that needs to be protected too.
The Nordic model, does not outlaw selling sex, but criminalizes buying. In my opinion, selling sex may be harmfull, but i see no ethical reason against it. However there is no ethical way to buy sex, because its impossible for a buyer to be sure that you are not causing serious harm to the person you are buying from.
Here's an idea, adults can regulate their own lives. You don't get to dictate how other people live based on some flimsy notion of "psychological harm".
Thank you for moralizing with a red herring.
Why did you say 12 year olds, ie children, instead of adults?
If you're going to compare OnlyFans to coal mines, at least make the metaphor apt.
I'm sure there are 18 year old men who enjoy working in coal mines, too.
Actually, I think that premise was part of Trump's election campaign, so at least on the other side of the Atlantic that sentiment seems to work out.
These are adults we're talking about. It's neither harmful nor any business of the government.
I'm ok with outlawing adults with free wills, getting payed to play russian roulett even if five out of six wont take a bullet to the head. Adults can be exploited too.
"neither harmful", tells me you know nothing about the subject.
What does that have to do with children [as opposed to adults] working in the coal mines, though?
Also while you might have a point in principle it has quite little to do with random chance like in the Russian Roulette example.
We want to protect vulnerable members of society. they come in all sizes and shapes.
Whom gets to decide and determine who is “most vulnerable”?
Also when it comes to the Nordic countries it’s rather hypothetical, considering that they (+Estonia) have one of the highest rates of drug overdose related deaths in the EU. Surely they would have adopted different policies on that already if their goal was protecting the most vulnerable rather than puritanical moralism?
> Whom gets to decide and determine who is “most vulnerable”?
As galling as this is to American software developers, in this case it's the elected Swedish government
Your examples and appeals to emotion make no sense. Dying from a gunshot wound is de facto harmful to someone. Driving a person to s-u-i-c-i-d-e is not an act of commerce between consenting adults.
> Sweden's politicians are too sheltered to understand that there are people who enjoy sex work
That’s sort of like saying American politicians are too sheltered to understand people enjoy fentanyl
Comparing a profession to the most addictive and harmful drug known to mankind (or at least close to it!) is an absurd strawman.
To be fair if access to less dangerous opioid was less restricted fentanyl would be a lot less popular. Its extreme potency makes it much easier and profitable to traffic.
Is sex not an addiction in your mind?
The sex industry is terrible for everyone involved; it's addictive, it ruins the lives of the girls and men who work in it, it spreads dangerous diseases, and it doesn't contribute to the advancement of our society. I can't imagine why anyone would support it except out of a sadomasochist curiosity.
I suspect (ironically) you may be too sheltered to understand why the sex industry is so harmful
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The Fucked Company guy was doing this 25 years ago. I think his website lasted 24 hours before it got shut down. Sadly, I never did get to order my, “please make it stop, papa Smurf” video.
I followed that site during the dotcom crash when it appeared on /. regularly, but I wasn't sure what happened to it.
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.
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.
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.
> 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 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?
> 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.
> 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.
It's ideological intersectionality of illiberal ugly people on both the far right and far left agree to remove rights from consenting adults.
I thought it was the purchase that was illegal, not the creation. Could Swedish OF creators produce content for sale out of the country?
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.
It would be interesting to see what lawmakers do to "protect" sex workers if sex workers start buying custom content from each other.
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.
So someone is going to build a marketplace and a matching engine?
I have content with X, Y, Z properties, someone bids to buy that. or the reverse, There's lots of demand for X, Y, Z content, I'll produce it.
If influencing the generation of content is illegal, is it now illegal to look at consumption states in order to decide what to produce?
I don't think it's the content per se it is the perceived personal relationship. Guys (mostly guys I'd say) who are paying OnlyFans performers are paying for the fantasy that the performer is really into them and performing for them. It's quite unhealthy IMO but I don't think that the performance of the same acts without the personal interaction will have the same effect.
> It's quite unhealthy IMO
I agree, but the background of the law is because any sex worker is seen as a victim that should be protected, rather than that the law is changed to improve things for men. Maybe an indirect side-effect of the law would be to change the behavior of these men stuck in that, but judging by history I doubt it'll change many's mind.
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"The power imbalance between the buyer and the person induced to commit the act persists regardless of whether the act takes place in a physical space or in front of a camera."
Just imagine if they regulated labor in other industries this way. Employer-employee power imbalance is immense.
In all (most?) European countries we have a lot of protections exactly due to this. Minimum wage, minimum holidays, max working hours, minimum break times, paid sick leave. Employers would starve employees if oversupply of workers and governments would let them.
Funnily enough, by not recognising sex work as a job, sex workers actually lack these protections in many European countries.
Furthermore, in Nordic countries, minimum wage and such are not government-mandated, but maintained by collective bargaining agreements negotiated by powerful unions. In Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and also Italy, there is no legally defined minimum wage.
Exploitation is only legal if you aren't naked :)
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Perspectives on this may shift as AI video generation continues to improve. Also I think this intersects with the efficacy of the country's social safety net. What is that like in Sweden?
That's a foreign perspective to a lot of Americans - that needing to "resort" to some activity to support yourself is seen as a critique or failure of what is supposed to be an equitable system in a wealthy nation.
In the US, "resorting" to something to make money is Plan A, B and C.
> In the US, "resorting" to something to make money is Plan A, B and C.
The idea of “resorting to OnlyFans” to support yourself is a myth, regardless of the country.
OnlyFans isn’t a platform where anyone can sign up and start making a lot of money. The median creator maxes out at a little over a thousand dollars in a year from what I recall.
Only a very few creators collect a lot of money. It’s similar to other social platforms where the majority of content creators get very little interaction.
So this idea that people are “resorting to OnlyFans” to support themselves isn’t supported by the realities of the data and the payouts.
I know plenty of people personally who have supplemented their income with OnlyFans and other types of sex work, but thanks for the lecture.
And do you want to live in a society which permits/encourages/requires this?
Do you think it is possible to create a society where people don't need something like OF to supplement their income.
Permits? Bear in mind that many people just like getting naked online for an appreciative audience for free. Should that be permitted? This creeps toward a puritanical perspective and is just as claustrophobic. Sometimes the line between preventing financial incentive and preventing immorality blurs.
I absolutely insist on living in a society that permits people, including me, to get naked or have sex for money, or for whatever other reason they like. That's a preposterous question to me.
Obviously, I would prefer to live in a society where no one needs to do work that does not align with their moral or ethical beliefs. Though I have never heard of such a society.
I expect some people find it enjoyable or empowering. Why should we take that away from them?
If people are only doing it because they can't make money elsewhere, maybe fix that problem instead of taking their only income away from them.
Isn’t OF international? Aren’t the sellers from all over the world?
If Swedish buyers are mostly buying from foreign sellers, I don’t see how the Swedish social safety net protects sellers.
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Sweden is the country where
- They want to block VPNs https://bestreviews.net/sweden-the-next-country-to-ban-vpn-s...
- Their MEPs want to crack down end to end encrypted chats https://mullvad.net/en/blog/the-european-commission-does-not...
- They want to backdoor chats https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/signal-exit-swede...
I've heard the last two about just about any country where E2EE is still legal, on any continent.
It sucks that the golden age of private communications seems to be drawing to an end, but it's far from a Swedish problem.
doesn't sound very nice tbh. yet people complain about just about any other country and somehow western Europe is idolized.
Sounds like they're stealing ideas from the UK playbook.
An entire political party would not function without a steady and diverse input of "marginalized groups".
Buying sex is already illegal in Sweden. This just closes the online loophole, like it or not.
Videos and virtual interactions are not sex.
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That is a wild false dichotomy, to assume that the alternative to buying custom adult content would be to have a baby. Plenty of people don't want babies, don't feel like they're in a financial situation to support kids, don't want a relationship, etc.
What makes adult content "degeneracy"?
> What makes adult content "degeneracy"?
It's decoupling what shouldn't be decoupled in order to optimize what shouldn't be optimized.
Rather like how your employer's janitors are from a service company, your uber driver is an independent contractor or whatever, your mortgage has probably been resold like five times, etc.
All examples of having more complex interactions stripped out.
What are you talking about, what is being "optimized"?
People can do stuff for fun, because it feels good, or for whatever reason. Not everything in someone's life has to be done for a direct survival goal. People go for runs because they want to be fit or achieve personal goals, (probably) not because they want to be better at outrunning a boar that they're hunting.
Degeneracy is about loss of expected complexity, yes? All your atoms are smooshed together into a uniform soup, all your call-center people have to follow an identical script, etc. Taking something that originated itself as a way to ensure continuation of the species and splitting out the fun parts from the continuation parts seems like the sort of thing that ought to count. And yes gyms probably should count as well, except nobody cares about that.
Access to porn is the only thing impacting fertility? Not hormonal birth control, prophylactics, direct/indirect costs of child care, abortion, loss of financial stability, etc?
I don't think the OP stated porn was the only thing.
> I'm all for anything that decreases the total amount of degeneracy in the world, which is completely off the charts.
Nobody cares about your opinion of what's "degenerate".
> The developed world has a fertility crisis.
Nobody cares about your opinion of how many people there should be, either.
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