arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

The swedish approach to prostitution

According to the Swedish law a prostitution/sex contract between a woman selling sex and a man buying sex is not an equal contract. As long as society remains male dominated, women selling sex will be in a more vulnerable position than men buying sex, and society will remain male dominated if we do not act upon each form of male dominance and men's right to buy women's bodies is a form of male dominance.

Male dominance means that society creates a pool of prostitutes by any means necessary so that men have what men need to stay on top, to feel big, literally, metaphorically, in every way… (Andrea Dworkin, 1997).

How is it possible that hundreds of thousands of women can be illegally trafficked into Europe each year, and forced to work as prostitutes in brothels, hotels, passage parlours or on street corners without anybody really noticing ? Might it be because trafficked women are swiftly settled into the legal and semi-legal sex markets that exist in every major European city, and might it be because the thousands of European men that every day visit these markets and buy sexual services do not really care who the woman is that provides the service, or why she has 'chosen' to prostitute herself ?

Trafficking in women and girls for sexual purposes have been one of the turn of the century's hot topics upsetting us, our national politicians and our representatives in the European Union. The media has fed us with images of women and girls from Africa, Asia and the former Eastern block countries being held hostage in brothels in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom etc. However, while all of us are deeply touched and horrified by the sexual torments of trafficked women and girls, surprisingly few seem to be ready to make the evident connections between trafficking, the existence of growing European sex markets and its customers. Trafficking in women and children is connected to the existence of legal, semi-legal and illegal sex markets, and the existence of these sex markets is directly connected to the fact that there are men who are willing to pay for sex (in all its varied and exploitable forms).

Although many European countries are seemingly upset with the increasing trafficking in women, few are prepared to make these links, and take political action aimed at questioning the demand side, i.e. the behaviour of potential customers (men). Although it is evident that without men buying sex there would be no basis for trafficking and sexual exploitation of women.
However, there are efforts being made, which aim to change the behaviour of men, and thus to address the 'demand' side of an exploiting sex market. The Swedish law from 1999 forbids buying of sexual services, and thus provide an alternative to the current European pro-prostitution trend. According to the Swedish law a prostitution/sex contract between a woman selling sex and a man buying sex is not an equal contract. As long as society remains male dominated, women selling sex will be in a more vulnerable position than men buying sex, and society will remain male dominated if we do not act upon each form of male dominance and men's right to buy women's bodies is a form of male dominance.

The World's 'Oldest Trade' and the Swedish Law that Criminalizes Buying of Sexual Services
Prostitution is often described as the "oldest trade" and the contemporary prostitution/commercial sex scene is legitimised by stories about happy whores in ancient societies. Sexual activity is presumably amongst the more basic of human activities, but this does not make selling and buying sex to a very old trade. The contemporary prostitution/commercial sex scene is to a large extent a post-1960s phenomenon. The sexual liberalisation of the 1960s led to a decriminalisation of prostitution/commercial sex. However, while the motives for much of the decriminalisation was to end the state's and church's repression of sexual behaviour, one of the undesired consequences was the development of an ever-growing, commercial, and today close to global sex industry, where the main products are women and children and where men are the main consumers.

In the 1960s and 1970s Sweden was at the forefront promoting decriminalisation of prostitution and other forms of commercial sex. However, already in the mid-1970s the women's movement and children's rights advocates started questioning who in fact were emancipated by free access to women through prostitution and other forms of commercial sex. The Swedish women's movement, while arguing for non-traditional gender roles and for women's sexual liberty, refused to confuse and mix up sexual liberty with prostitution, as they are virtually each others' contrasts. Hence, the preparatory work for the Swedish law started around 1975, and since then several government reports have been made proposing either status quo, or criminalizing both the sellers and buyers of sexual services, or criminali-zing only the buyers of sexual services. It is however only in 1999 that the question was decided.
The Swedish law from 1999 on buying of sexual services forbids buying and attempts to buy sexual services. That is, selling and attempts to sell sexual services remains legal in Sweden, it is only the buyers side that is made criminal. The legal construction chosen by the Swedish government to fight prostitution is unique and quite different from the liberal, pro-prostitution solutions chosen by for example the Danish, Dutch and the German governments.

The travaux préparatoires of the law states that the normative functions of the law are essential. That is, the law is a statement by the Swedish government that buying sexual services is not acceptable in an equal society. This, as the existence of prostitution, is a consequence of unequal gender relations and conservative ideas about male/female sexuality. The fact that this radical solution was chosen is probably partly due to the fact that all through the 1990s, women's and sex equality had been prioritised on the national political agenda (and that in 1999 there was almost 50% women in the Swedish parliament).
According to the prostitution survey from 1995 there were then in Sweden about 2.500 women who sold sexual services (600 women in street prostitution). 125.000 men bought sexual services every year (10% of the Swedish men have bought sexual services).

The survey also disclosed interesting information about the average Swedish prostitute and the average Swedish sex buyer. According to the survey the majority of Swedish prostitutes have been sexually abused as children or in their youth, and more than half of the prostitute have severe social and mental problems. The efforts made to identify specific features in the client show the sex buyer is the man who buys sexual services because he can only relate to women as sex objects, the man who buys sexual services because he does not want a relationship, the man who buys sexual services because he does not have a relationship, the man who buys sexual services because he is not satisfied with his relationship, the man who buys sexual services because he wants a relationship and the man who buys sexual services because nobody wants to have a relationship with him. The conclusion being that the average buyer of sexual services is more or less the average man.

A manifestation of the unequal power relationship
I am here to tell you that prostitution is not meant to empower women. Prostitution is not the great equalizer. It was never the intention of pimps and tricks to liberate women socially, economically, sexually, or politically. Their intention is to use women's and children's bodies for sex and money. Pimps want to get paid and tricks want to get their dicks wet. That's prostitution. (Kelly Holsopple, 1998) It is difficult to approach the issue of prostitution analytically, politically or legally without always stepping on somebody's toes. The Swedish approach that views prostitution as a manifestation of the unequal power relationship between men and women in contemporary society has been criticised mainly by men, some prostitutes and pro-prostitution networks. The criticism sometimes argues that the law at its worse is oppressive as it circumscribes free 'choice', and at its best that the law is inadequate as it might be difficult to implement. And of course, it might be possible to address some of the negative affects of prostitution through making women's bodies into merchandise, and prostitution and brothels into a business like any other. And it will always be possible to find women who claim that they enjoy prostituting themselves, that they like the sex, the men and the money, women that legitimate the point of view of patriarchy and the average man. However, in case we accept the fact that most contemporary societies, still, are unequal, and that sexuality is one of the arenas where inequality is produced and reproduced, and in case we accept the fact that both illegally trafficked and other women and children are severely abused on the sex market, it becomes very difficult to launch feminist arguments against the motives and logic of the Swedish prostitution law : Prostitution does not liberate women ! It is only, as noted by Holsopple a way for pimps to get paid and tricks to get their dicks wet.

Sari Kouvo, Dept. of Law, University of Göteborg, Sweden

The stories about the happy whores are coming by the fact at they was sacred whores, like in Grekland, or in Rome where half of the women where whores in the middle age. It's the same order of problem when the religions are saying at we must wait a life after the dead to be happy... Arff Arff Arff To be or to act. Be a slave or act like a free man-women

A consequence of the swedish legislation, is at the prostitution is not on the streets anymore, but on the internet, and at the prices habe been multiplied by a factor 3 or 4. Like what the rich can do every thing, even determine the ethics of the poor.

The swedish law is not applicate with the same maner in the south and in the nord of the country. In Malmö, the third city, about 300 men have been sentenced in the past year, and less as 100 in Stockholm, the biggest swedish city (Approximation, i hope i remember the amount correctly. The rate is correct, i'm sure.).

It depends wether the environment is male dominated or not. If it is not, a male buying sex seems dominant. But if it is, a male who must pay a woman for sex seems to have loosen an absolute privilege.
In very male dominated cultures, prostitutes are blamed because they are seen as independent women, free women. They are women who doesn't sold themselves but only rent their body out. That's why, in these cultures, working woman are called "prostitutes" too, even when they have another kind of job.

Sari Kouvo has never published anything on Indymedia. So why and whome posted this article? Who wants to criminalize prostitution? Swedish hypocrites? Or Belgian hypocrites?

I lack an objective approach in this article. It gives a verry deterred view of the actual situation. Some arguments I find even frightening.

First of all does the writer have a very litmited view of prostitution. Because what is prostitution ? Prostitution is having sex with other purposes than having fun (which doesn't exclude that You might also have fun at the same time). A woman or man fucking her/his boss to make promotion. A woman/man fucking somebody to get married to a rich and or famous partner/family... A woman/man fucking her/his partner, so there won't be any bad atmosphere in the family... A woman/man having sex to get money right away...
Only the latter, visual form of prostituion is tackled by Swedish law.

The only real argument against the visual form of prostitution I find in the text is, that there can never be an equal contract ! And the reason why is : because we are living in a male dominated society ? I m' sorry, but I cannot grasp the logic behind it ? Why can there not be an equal contract ??? What does it have to do whith a "male dominated society"???

Very strange also that one is all the time talking about female prostitution. But what about male prostitution ?? The female's right to buy a man 's body ? A form of female dominance ???

The formulation also proves that the person writing about the subject doesn't understand prostitution at all or is biassed. It is not because a "trick" is prepared to pay a certain price, that he/she buys the prostitute or his/her body. The prostitute is always free to refuse a client, or to determine which services he/she is willing to give. (Which is by the way all the time happening in practice, and part of the frustration of the very badly reputated Maroccan tricks in the Antwerp red light district).It's not the client who is going to determine what he/she is going to do with the prostitute.

By the way, the whole sentence is put in a wrong way. Man/women don't have the right to "buy" prostitutes, but man/women have the right to sell their sexual services. That's all what is prostitution about. The right to do with Your sexuality, what You want to do.

By putting the whole question like "the right to buy a body", You are actually referring to slave trade, and like this from in the beginning, You are trying to push the discussion in a certain direction. Shame on You...

All the other arguments are nonsense, or meant to blackmale the whole prostitute-sector.

"It was never the intention of pimps and tricks to liberate women socially, economically, sexually, or politically."
Here You are linking prostitution automatically to pimps, which is pure demagogic talk .

"Their intention is to use women's and children's bodies for sex and money." and "Trafficking in women and children is connected to the existence of legal, semi-legal and illegal sex markets"
Here You are linking prostitution automatically to pedofile activities, again You loose all intellectual objectivity.

"Pimps want to get paid and tricks want to get their dicks wet." Again linking prostitution automatically to pimping : very demagogic...it's like nazi's automatically linking jews to criminal activities.

"And it will always be possible to find women who claim that they enjoy prostituting themselves, that they like the sex, the men and the money..."
Like it will allways be possible to find women who didn't like the job... Again any kind of objective analyses is missing here. Actually it is very good You made this statement. Because rarely one will find an objective report about prostitution, because or the reporter is against prostitution, and then he/she will choose a victim or somebody with bad experiences, or he is in favour, and then he will choose somebody who was happy about it. Actually people step into prostitution out of different reasons : because they were forced by financial problems, or because they just want to make big money, or because they like the sex and they want to join the usefull with the fun, sometimes because they are forced by criminals.

Your "information" that "more than half of the prostitute have severe social and mental problems", is an attempt to declare prostitutes, or at least half of them, for mentally sick. I think that when You make studies about policeman/women, You might get similar results. It is also not an argument to forbid prostitution. Apart from that it makes me think of stalinist methods to declare enemies for crazy... Not to forget that part of the prostitutes are drugaddicts, who are forced by Swedish society into criminal activities or selling sexual services to finance their sick-making drugs. When You take this people out of Your statistic sample, I think the result will be that the Swedish prostitute is the average woman.

"The contemporary prostitution/commercial sex scene is to a large extent a post-1960s phenomenon" You don't even know anything about prostitute's history...And also this time You are linking prostitution to the commercial sex scene, again a demagogic linkage...

"However, while all of us are deeply touched and horrified by the sexual torments of trafficked women and girls, surprisingly few seem to be ready to make the evident connections between trafficking, the existence of growing European sex markets and its customers. " However, surpisingly few seem to be ready to make the evident connections between the neo-liberal economic policies imposed by IMF, Worldbank onto third-world and eastern-european countries, which lead to a growth of poverty never seen before, and to an explosion of female prostitution, of which we in the west can hardly guess the extend. I would say : get out of Your hypocrit intellectual well protected left-wing feminist ivory tower, and come to the real world. Go to the slums of Lagos, Rio de Janeiro, or Bombay, and tell Your nice story over there...

The prostitution sector should be organised in a way that man and women are free to enter, without force, and free to leave. The best way to counter criminal activity, is to make prostitution as public as possible. No need to make it an official job, in order to give people who enter the sector out of financial reasons, to leave it as fast as possible. Forbidding prostitution can happen in two ways: by criminalising the prostitutes or by criminalising the clients ("the Swedish unique approach" !). Neither of them is disirable, because it forces prostitutes in the illegality, where exploitation is worst. The problem of trafficking of third-world or eastern-european females, can best be countered by changing IMF and Worldbank economic policies. Out of humanitarian reasons, the few women out of these countries who are able to reach the west, should never be send back against their will, because the faith awaiting them over-there is 10 times worse (e.g. their life-expectancy will be reduced by 30 to 40 yers !). The best way to fight the growth of prostitution is to reduce income-inequalities. The best way to fight prostitution from drug-addicts is to change the way society is dealing with the drugs-problem.

The encreased propaganda in Europe against prostitution has the same origins like the encreased fight against third-world refugees : it 's the consequences of a failing economic policy that one wants to get out of the street-sight, in order to be able to continue with the neo-liberal future that the white-collar elite (socialist, green, conservative, or liberal, there is no difference) designed for the world, to enrich themselves.