A decadent civilization compromises with its disease, cherishes the virus infecting it, loses its self-respect. – E.M. Cioran
The Swedish Model of prostitution law is based on the premise that women are moral imbeciles who are psychologically incompetent to determine the conditions under which we will consent to sex, and the state therefore assumes the right to set those conditions for us. Like girls under the age of consent in most countries, women in Swedish Model countries are neither allowed to consent to certain sex partners, nor can they be held liable for their actions if they violate the law; since only men are considered fully competent to make sexual decisions, Swedish Model law only punishes men for violating that law. Up until now only three Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden and Iceland) had such a low opinion of women’s competency, but despite the total lack of demonstrable positive results the Swedish disease appears to be spreading; several jurisdictions in the United States appear to be flirting with it, a neofeminist group presumed to “demand” that Canada adopt it last year, Labour MSP Trish Goodman has repeatedly tried to force it through the Scottish parliament, and England only narrowly averted it by replacing its last Labour government. The latest country to jump on the repressive, misogynistic bandwagon is Ireland; the Sunday before last (February 6th) this appeal from the Sex Workers Alliance of Ireland (SWAI) appeared in Harlot’s Parlour:
Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) are trying to get as much support at the moment as possible. There are plans to change legislation in relation to prostitution to criminalise the buyers of sex. To people who are not aware of sex worker issues internationally this may seem like a good idea. However, its proven to be a mad move in other countries with sex workers being put more at risk with their safety, human rights and civil rights being greatly affected.
SWAI would be grateful to any support that they can get. Labour and Fine Gael have both come out as supporting a change in legislation without any debate. There is no discussion and sex workers are not being involved or consulted despite being the people who are going to be most affected by this change in legislation. The government are confusing issues like trafficking and abuse with sex work in general and mashing them together. It has been taken on as a moralistic issue with Ruhama leading it (a Christian organisation)….it’s craziness not to at least open the discussions!
HELP!! I want to see if we can open people’s eyes. Perhaps the Unit Left Alliance, Socialist Party or similar would hear our opinions and help us. We are not looking for legalisation..simply to stop further criminalisation which would further stigmatise and alienate these women and men. If anyone could help us in our campaign or know anyone who could help by perhaps joining us in the mini marathon, helping us gain support by email or web based media, messaging people to make them aware of SWAI or in any way at all please contact SWAI through their web site. The mini marathon is being held in May to raise awareness of the proposed changes in legislation.
SWAI web site and link to a Facebook page where you can be kept up to date with developments. “HERE”.
I don’t think the writer of this appeal is thinking very clearly when she suggests that the Socialist Party would be interested in helping (unless it was merely to anger the Christian group); Socialists and Communists have always been hostile to prostitution as a capitalist institution and tend to view prostitutes as victims of economics, the “Patriarchy” or both. And considering that the model originated in the Scandinavian social democracies, asking the Socialists to oppose it would rather be like asking the Ku Klux Klan for help against a Neo-Nazi policy.
Neofeminists are so blinded by their hatred of men and sex, and so immersed in their own propaganda of “degradation”, that they are willing to sell out other women in order to oppress men (such as by opposing prostitution even though it has been shown that decriminalization tends to dramatically decrease rape rates). It’s time free women rose up against those who would dictate what we can wear, say, think and do and let them know that our lives, means of support and sexuality are our own and therefore not subject to the dictates of those in power, no matter what their gender or supposed motivation.
“It’s time free women rose up against those…” But who is going to do it Maggie? Sex Workers have been trained to jump at their own shadows. WHO is going to rise up? HOW do we rise up? WHERE do we do this? We all sit here and read this and go “YEA! Amen!” etc but when it comes time to actually do something the collective “we” are afraid. We have homes and loved ones and liberties that we don’t want to risk losing.
We can all agree which is an important first step, now how do we organize and get the ball rolling? How did those two or three in Canada get Judge Himel to reverse their laws? Where do we find an attorney with balls beg enough to take this on? We already have enough smart women who can do and present research and papers and statistics and ideas. How do we start a collective force?
S-WATCH.org has begun but is in no way completed. Use it to gather and collaborate and submit research and be prepared to present. I invite anyone who is willing to speak up, speak out, and stand up for our rights.
(OK sorry, shameless self promotion there 🙂 )
Really, I was talking less about us and more about our amateur sisters who let these laws stand on the “I said nothing because I wasn’t a Jew” principle. But the Third Wave Foundation has issued a pro-sex work statement and the ACLU’s new director seems interested in taking on the issue, so we’ll see.
Really? I wasn’t aware of interest by the ACLU new director. Do you have a link to that, Maggie?
No, I was told it by a SWOP executive (who heard it from the horse’s mouth) back in December but haven’t seen it in print yet; if I had I would certainly have announced it! 🙂
If that is true it would indeed be excellent news. Here’s hoping it is. 🙂
*fingers crossed*
Well, I wouldn’t be so dismissive of socialist attitudes for a number of reasons, not least of which I disagree with the Swedish approach and I am very, very left wing.
Europe, and particularly Scandinavia do get depicted as deeply socialist in the American media but in reality they are a form of capitalism. It’s not an extreme form compared to the US of course, but it’s still fundamentally the same. The mainstream Social Democrats there have been in power for long periods but have never attempted to replace capitalism so it’s about as realistic as thinking of Obama as being anti-war.
Quote: “Socialists and Communists have always been hostile to prostitution as a capitalist institution and tend to view prostitutes as victims of economics, the “Patriarchy” or both.”
There’s a good deal of truth in that, but times change and so do attitudes, albeit often slowly.
Socialists don’t live in isolation from the rest of their culture; a heavily anti-prostitution culture does leave its mark and you can see that in the attitude of many parties.
I expect that many socialists will at least be open to hearing an alternative viewpoint. We tend to have an instinctive sympathy for those treated unfairly: appeals to the socialist base that the Swedish model will lessen exploitation are always made using that instinct.
It’s a matter of redirecting that sympathy to a more useful set of policies. Even making the arguments is enough to plant a few fast growing seeds as they tend to be critical people. There’s no visible body making the anti-Swedish model argument right now so I’ll bet it does take hold.
The sex workers alliance are being realistic in appealing to the United Left Alliance (who are a diverse bunch themselves); there’s simply no other party in Ireland of any size who would even consider their view. I doubt they’d run with it straight off (if only because it’s not something they’ve ever given much thought to but also because it’s possible that a curious form of feminism has made inroads into the left), but they’ll be by far the easiest to persuade, as the left was with regard to abortion, contraception, and divorce (only legal in Ireland since 1996!).
An example of the changing stance of the left’s attitude towards prostitution and sex work can be found in an interview carried here: http://www.wsm.ie/story/2390
Cedarbaum, thanks for the informed view on the Irish political situation! Even without knowing much about it I figured the United Left Alliance would be a good choice, but I’m glad to hear at least some Irish socialists would be open to the sex workers’ arguments. 🙂
Indeed, those things have a history that is much older than feminism itself. Prostitutes were already reviled in pre-Christian Rome, and Maggie herself has written about the troubles Phryne had to go through in Ancient Greece. So many of the ideas about sexuality and sexual exploitation in radical feminism have their sources, curiously and ironically, in what might be called “old Christian/Patriarchal viewpoints and prejudice”.
I agree, but it may be that you underestimate the difficulties. Swedes are supposedly very liberal and open to different viewpoints; yet, as Laura Agustín documents in her blog, it seems difficult to oppose the entrenched State Feminism (which she dubs Extremist Feminism). I’m still curious about what this means about the Swedish people and the extent to which they are really ready to accept new social ideas.
In Sweden, Ireland, the US and every other Western nation the neofeminists can shut down any opposition to their schemes by crying “sexism” and “misogyny”, thus intimidating the majority of lily-livered modern men from speaking up even when they recognize those schemes as evil.
To paraphrase the late, great Douglas Adams, neofeminist politicians will be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes.
I’m pretty sure that phrase antedates Mr. Adams
Indeed, but this is a result of their success rather than the cause thereof. The same politicians — always concerned with whatever will give them a better chance of keeping power in their little angel hands — would have support the opposite viewpoints if they were the most popular in Sweden.
Scandinavian countries have an old tradition of tolerance and listening to impopular voices abroad. They were among the first to legalize abortion, same-sex marriages, and to offer asylum to oppressed (including sexual) minorities. In Iceland a lesbian was elected president; that is probably not going to be viable in America for a while still. They allowed the publication of books elsewhere forbidden, supported the cultural and linguistic rights of their minorities (the Saami in Lappland), offered support to the right causes — Sweden’s neutrality in WWII allowed Wallenberg to save all those Hungarian Jews, and the Danes went as far as protecting their Jews en masse against deportation. (The king of Denmark during the German occupation, Christian X, once claimed all Danes should wear the David’s star if the Germans ever introduced it in their country; happily, they didn’t.)
And yet, despite this tradition of open-mindedness and tolerance, Sweden (and Norway and Iceland, though apparently not Denmark) now fail to listen to sex workers while purporting to defend their interests. I do find this sad, Maggie. There’s a lot that is good in these countries; that they should also fail to live up to their very ideals is, to me, something profoundly sad.
“A detective’s attempt to stop sex traffickers was blocked by senior offices to save money, a tribunal heard. Det.Con.Jennifer Coleman, 33, of South Wales Police, said she was disciplined for passing on a tip that seven women were being held in a Sheffield brothel. She is claiming £30,000 for loss of earnings and said her boss told her “We are not interested in trafficking, we are interested in burglaries.” (Press report yesterday)
It would be interesting to know the story behind this. It seems odd to be disciplined – presumably suspended – for passing on a “tip” unless the constable concerned had a track record for passing on “tips” regarding “sex trafficking”, which turned out to be false.
The UK (and, I suspect, other parts of Europe) does have a problem with immigrant gangs involved in sex trafficking. This is a fact but it’s a shadowy world and there’s no firm information about numbers involved. However, it gives proponents of the Swedish Model ammunition, as well as drawing police attention to brothels that they were aware of but were content to ignore.
It’s certainly possible that this constable was disciplined for “rocking the boat”; the most important virtue in the minds of police seems to be solidarity with other police, so “making the force look bad” is viewed as a serious infraction. It’s also possible that the “trafficking” hysteria is losing steam among UK police departments after the abysmal failure of “Project Acumen“.
That actually worries me, even here in the Netherlands. But after Pym Fortuyn’s assassination, fear of immigrants has indeed increased, and to the extent that trafficking and prostitution can be associated with immigration, especially illegal immegration (and all the ‘bad vibes’ it already generates), this will make the task of changing prostitution laws more difficult. Indeed, the stereotype of a gang of bad, swarthy, foreign-accented guys (usually Moroccans these days) forcing poor women (even worse if they are, say, White Ukrainians who can be blonde, blue-eyed and stunningly beautiful) into a life of exploitative prostitution would ring a bell in many a person’s head, even here in the Netherlands, since the bad PR swarthy, foreign-accented guys get has been increasing.
The hype about sex trafficking in Europe was discussed by a very well-informed Swede in the first reply to one of Laura Agustin’s recent posts, and in the Netherlands specifically in a UN report quoted by Bandy Devereaux yesterday.
Two quite interesting texts. Thanks for the reference, Maggie.
Have you ever seen I Am Curious: Yellow? Something about this is making me think that the Swedish Model, Nordic Model, whatever you call it, was almost destined to show up. I don’t know what, and maybe I’m full of it because IAMC:Y is the only Swedish movie I’ve seen except for some dubs of the various Pippi Longstocking movies.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Swedish movie, though I have seen two truly awful Danish ones (Reptilicus and Journey To the Seventh Planet. I wonder if they contain a clue as to why Denmark is the only Scandinavian country to resist the Swedish poison so far?
Sjöman’s two movies, I Am Curious: Yellow and I Am Curious: Blue (yellow and blue being the two colors of the Swedish flag) are more of a mixture of styles, “experimental art” as it were, than mature movies; the director himself admitted as much. Also, he clearly was fighting the 60’s causes in Sweden, and he displays (in the ultimately tiresome mixtures of styles that he thought would stick as “innovative”…) a lot of naivety, IMHO. Oh, he got points from the left, and he was considered a great director in Sweden; but even in his country his fame is not going to be long-lived.
You may try Bergman instead, who is among my favorites (Woody Allen liked him, and clearly imitated him in several of his movies). Fanny and Alexander (which does explain a lot about Swedes, from a historical perspective), Scenes of a Marriage, Wild Strawberries (that one a little jewel), The Seventh Seal (the one with the famous scene of the hero playing chess with death), Autumn Sonata (about hate and love between mother and daughter)… He is insightful, though depressive; his movies are not packed with action, but with difficult-to-express feelings. Existentialism, if you will.
You might appreciate Ibsen more (though he’s a playwright, not a movie director); Peer Gynt is a very impressive play (though its eponymous anti-hero is almost the exact opposite of a Heinleinian protagonist).
Not that Scandinavians can’t be twisted and violent in their movies. If you ever look at Lars von Trier’s work, you’ll see that they can. His last movie Antichrist, in which he deconstructs gender relations is… almost unwatchable. Not only physical violence (of which there there are some horrible scenes), but also mental and psychological violence, as the protagonist couple destroy each other and any hope of feelings between them. Misogynistic? Misandric? Anti-human? I felt like vomiting. And yet…
They’re strange, these Scandinavians. Sick and perverted, but in a very… human way. (If Hitler and Gandhi had been Scandinavians, they’d probably be brothers. Maybe even twins.)
It’s funny how nobody seems to remember that the Scandinavians are the descendants of the Vikings and only gave up living by rapine and pillage less than a thousand years ago. Perhaps a study of Norse mythology might tell us something about the deep underpinnings of the “Nordic Model” in their psychology.
Yikes! Now I’m thinking I should stick to Pippi Långstrump!
Been wanting to find a sub of Ronja Rövardotter.
Det skulle vara mycket bra! 🙂
They’re complicated, often depressed (seeing the sun for only a couple of hours a day can lead to that); they tend not to trust emotions, and to isolate themselves from them; they love nature, and feel quite connected to it; they sometimes have very naive idealistic ideas in their heart, and sometimes not (Carl Bildt is an example of a Swede worth reading, in case you’re interested in Eastern European affairs). They don’t let others come close easily, and often seem to expect the worst from people. Yet their eyes are deep, and they pierce more deeply into the soul than many a nationality I have met.
(I hasten to add that my experience with Swedes is not very extensive. It’s just my… impression.)
Do you remember Hans Bjelke, that laconic Icelander in Jules Verne’s A Journey to the Center of the Earth? He was a stereotype, but… one can see where the stereotype comes from.
ABBA. I forgot to mention ABBA. Probably because they didn’t do any movies. Or maybe they did, and I just don’t know about it.
Sweden is opening a spaceport, in some sort of partnership with Spaceport USA.
Aren’t they a tad high-latitude for a spaceport? Those are best built as close to the equator as possible.
Have to admit I wondered about that myself. Maybe for putting stuff in polar orbits?
Polar orbits are indeed more accessible from higher latitudes — that’s why the Australian spaceport is situated at Woomera (31° South).
Isn’t “woomera” a word for the device often called an “atlatl?” If so, it’s a good name for a place from which spacecraft are launched.
There is a musical group in Sweden called Wild Strawberrys (that’s how they spell it: with a y). They made this. The title, “Du Är Den Som Jag Vill Ha,” translates to “You Are the One I Want.”
I rather like it.
I’ve only seen one Swedish film myself– Show Me Love (original Swedish title– Fucking Amal). And I don’t know a great deal about Swedish culture in general. So my ideas may not be very accurate..
But the impression I’ve received over the years is that despite their liberal image, Sweden seems to be one of the most conformist countries in Europe. I know many writers have commented on this before. It may be because Sweden had very little ethnic or religious diversity until recently (or maybe not).
I do know that the famous Swedish ‘Socialism’ is primarily of the Welfare State variety. As was pointed out above, Sweden is actually one of the more Capitalist countries– they always rank very high on the indices of Economic Freedom. But their Welfare system is very large, all-encompassing, and like all welfare systems, it is very paternalistic.
Sweden routinely brags that they have the strictest drug laws in Europe. They were among the first to have a near-complete smoking ban. And if I’ve not been misinformed, they even had alcohol prohibition for some time in the first half of the last century.
Sweden strikes me as a very hard-core Government-Knows-Best sort of regime, probably one of the worst offenders among long-time democracies.
As I said before, though, I don’t know the country really well, and I’ve never been there, so my view is probably pretty distorted. But it is the impression that has gradually taken form in my mind, from bits and pieces I’ve read about Sweden over the years.
Sorry. I knew I should have checked some of my information before writing that last post.
Sweden never had full prohibition– it was their cultural neighbours, Iceland, Norway, and Finland that did. Sweden did have a ration system for alcohol from 1914 to 1955, and they do have a government monopoly on alcohol to this day (but that’s true of a lot of places).
But this is still a strong example of paternalistic government.
I want to point out that there’s at least a few people who do want to change laws, etc., but have time limits. I’m 1 of those. But, I do what I can do with the time I have. I spend the most time on support/activism for MVS (the surviving family/friends of murder victims). When I 1st got involved with this, I didn’t do a fraction as much as I do now. But, at least I was doing SOMETHING and that mainly was parole protest petitions. 1 of the wonderful things about the Internet is you can get on mailing lists in order to at least TRY to change laws, sign petitions, etc. It’s wonderful. If I and others didn’t have the time limits I know we’d do more. But, even if you only do small things, it’s SOMETHING. All the efforts can add up over time and truly change things. I’ve seen this with MVS issues. If I got a petition to decriminalize prostitution, I’d sign it. To be honest, I’ve never seen 1. I’m wondering if there’s any out there. I really wish I had more time to sign petitions, etc. But, I do what I can do with the time I have now. It makes me sick that for so many years I didn’t do anything. Becoming an MVS literally shocked me out of that (thank God) as it was very needed. I hate how there’s so many things wrong in the world that need to be fixed! But, we do what we can do and that COUNTS. Even if things don’t change, at least we TRIED and you have to do that at the LEAST. Thanks for listening.
You’re absolutely right, Laura; I couldn’t spend nearly as much time on this column if I had to work outside my home for a living, which is exactly why so many social causes are dominated by upper-middle-class white housewives. Unfortunately, that also often means the views which dominate those causes tend to be those typical of upper-middle-class white housewives. 🙁
The activist/support organization I refer MVS to a lot (Parents of Murdered Children) I don’t know if the leadership at their main office is like this (upper-middle-class white housewives), but I’d love to know as I’d love to meet them all 1 day. The leadership of the chapter that I belong to and used to go at meetings at wasn’t like this which I think is great. From what I can see in the newsletters it still isn’t as the leadership people go to the meetings all the time. I look forward to retirement as then I can do the work with this group I’ve never been able to do because of working full-time. But, I do what I can do at this time. I’ll never go back to not doing anything. It’s wonderful you have the time to do this blog as you’re doing things to change the world. The people who don’t have jobs or are retired and don’t do any volunteer work when their health allows them to do so make me sick. Thanks for NOT being 1 of them!
You’re welcome, Laura, and I must thank you and all my other readers for supporting my effort. I never expected it to take off like it has,and perhaps one day I really will be able to make a concrete difference for my sisters. 🙂
My Internet is down, and I can only do ANYTHING online when I’m somewhere else. And wouldn’t you know, this is happening just as the Olympic Games are about to start, meaning I won’t be over at Laura’s as much. Which means I’m falling behind on EVERYTHING and it will only get worse. I wanted to let you all know why I’m not around, and that I’m not dead, and that I’m going to be lagging like a TRS80 trying to run Crysis.