Participating in interactive adult live-streams or ordering custom porn clips are about to be punishable by a year in prison in Sweden, where a new law expands an already-problematic model of sex work criminalization to the internet.
Sex work in Sweden operates under the Nordic Model, also known as the “Equality,” “Entrapment,” or “End Demand Model,” which criminalizes buying sex but not selling sex. The text of the newly-passed bill (in the original Swedish here, and auto-translated to English here) states that criminal liability for the purchase of sexual services shouldn’t have to require physical contact between the buyer and seller anymore, and should expand to online sex work, too.
Buying pre-recorded content, paying to follow an account where pornographic material is continuously posted, or otherwise consuming porn without influencing its content is outside of the scope of the law, the bill says. But live-streaming content where viewers interact with performers, as well as ordering custom clips, are illegal.
Criminalizing any part of the transaction of sex work has been shown to make the work more dangerous for all involved; data shows sex workers in Nordic Model countries like Sweden, Iceland, and France are put in more danger by this model, not made safer. But the objective of this model isn’t actually the increased safety of sex workers. It’s the total abolition of sex work.
This law expands the model to cover online content, too—even if the performer and viewer have never met in person. “This is a new form of sex purchase, and it’s high time we modernise the legislation to include digital platforms,” Social Democrat MP Teresa Carvalho said, according to Euractiv.
"Like most antiporn and anti-sex work legislation, the law is full of contradictions, all of which come at the expense of actual workers," Mike Stabile, director of public policy at U.S.-based adult industry advocacy organization the Free Speech Coalition. "Why is it legal to consume studio content, or stolen content, but illegal to pay a worker directly to create independent content? If you're really fighting exploitation, why would you take away avenues for independence and push people to work with third-party studios? Why is the consumer liable, but not a platform? These laws make no sense on their face because the goal is not actually to protect workers, but rather to eradicate commercial sex work entirely. Through that lens, it makes much more sense. This law is just another step in making the industry dangerous to work in and dangerous to access, to push it toward back alleys and black markets."
Sweden’s law isn’t isolated to European countries. In the U.S., Maine adopted the Nordic Model in 2023.
"I'm sure they would love to replicate this here, and while we're still a few steps away from them having the judicial clearance to do so, we've seen recently how quickly a moral or political imperative can shift," Stabile said. "People need to realize that criminalizing porn is not ever really about just criminalizing adult content — it's about criminalizing representations of sexuality and gender, and ultimately criminalizing those practices and communities."
The expansion of the law in Sweden goes into effect on July 1.
Updated 5/21, 3:34 p.m. EST with comment from the Free Speech Coalition.
