I recently discovered an awesome blog about prostitution. It is run by a former prostitute, or \u201cretired call girl\u201d as she calls herself. The blog is called The Honest Courtesan and is very much worth reading. The author is clearly a clever person who rightly hates the modern feminists, or neofeminists as she calls them. Im ok with that term. Alternatives are gender feminists, third wave feminists.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Anyway, i was reading a couple of blog<\/a> posts<\/a> and stumbled upon this paper: The Swedish Sex Purchase Act: Claimed Success and Documented Effects<\/a> (mirror<\/a>)<\/p>\n There is no abstract, but the Introduction works as well:<\/p>\n \u201cIntroduction<\/strong><\/p>\n Sweden’s criminalization of the purchase of sexual services in 1999 is said to be a unique But there are some aspects of the Sex Purchase Act that can be said to be unique. One such The Sex Purchase Act was introduced by feminist policymakers who argued that prostitution Another unique aspect of the Sex Purchase Act is how persistently the ban, or the “Swedish At the core of the marketing campaign has been the stated success of the Sex Purchase Act. It In this report we will focus on the conflict between the stated success of the ban and the lack The authors of this report have researched different aspects of the Swedish prostitution policy We will begin this report by providing an overview of the laws and regulations surrounding I recently discovered an awesome blog about prostitution. It is run by a former prostitute, or \u201cretired call girl\u201d as she calls herself. The blog is called The Honest Courtesan and is very much worth reading. The author is clearly a clever person who rightly hates the modern feminists, or neofeminists as she calls them. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1850],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminismequality","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3100"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3102,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100\/revisions\/3102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nmeasure: to only punish those who buy sexual services, not those who sell them. However this
\nalleged uniqueness is questionable, and for several reasons. There are a number of other laws
\nand regulations against prostitution, which effectively make Swedish prostitution policy
\nsimilar to those countries in the world that attempt to reduce or eradicate prostitution with
\nlegislative means. Another reason the claim to uniqueness is doubtful is that one must
\nexamine more than the wording of a law or policy model (“it is only those who buy sex who
\nare being punished”) when analyzing it \u2013 one has to consider the actual consequences. For
\ninstance, a law against the purchase of the services offered in massage therapy, psychotherapy
\nor sexual health counselling would obviously not only punish the buyers, but also carry
\nnegative consequences for those who offer the services. Therefore, to only focus on one of
\nseveral prostitution laws, ignore its consequences and call this a “unique” policy model is
\neither ignorant or a deliberate deception.<\/p>\n
\naspect is the way it has been justified by policymakers.<\/p>\n
\nis a form of male violence against women, that it is physically and psychologically damaging
\nto sell sex and that there are no women who sell sex voluntarily. Furthermore, it was claimed
\nthat if one wants to achieve a gender-equal society, then prostitution must cease to exist \u2013 not
\nonly for the above-mentioned reasons, but also because all women in society are harmed as
\nlong as men think they can “buy women’s bodies”.2
\nIf the ban would have adverse effects for
\nindividual women who sell sex, or if it violates their right to self-determination would not
\nmatter. The gender-equal symbolic value of the Sex Purchase Act is more important.3
\nThis
\nradical feminist-inspired view of prostitution has existed in the West since the 1970s, but has
\nnot been applied at state level before. In Sweden, it was first embraced by the Social
\nDemocratic government in 1998, and later by the Liberal Alliance Government in 2006.<\/p>\n
\nmodel”, has been marketed. One of the stated aims from the very outset was to export it to
\nother countries.4
\nBoth governments, authorities, political actors and Non Governmental
\nOrganizations (NGOs) have devoted time and money to market it internationally. Pamphlets,
\nwebsites, articles, books and movies have been produced and lobby activities have been
\nconducted towards the European Union (EU) and the rest of the world with the help of this
\nmaterial and via workshops, seminars and debates.5
\nCountries considering changes in their
\nprostitution laws, have subsequently turned to Sweden for inspiration.<\/p>\n
\nis said to have reduced prostitution and trafficking for sexual purposes, to have had a deterrent
\neffect on clients, and to have changed societal attitudes towards prostitution \u2013 all this without
\nhaving any negative consequences. Most recently these claims were stated in the 2010 official
\nevaluation of the Sex Purchase Act, and repeated by Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask in an
\narticle for CNN.6
\nThe problem with these claims is that if they are carefully investigated they
\ndo not appear to be supported by the available facts or research. As soon as the official
\nevaluation was published, it was also criticized from several directions.7
\nIn the consultation
\nprocess following the publication of the evaluation, the critique was especially harsh from
\nthose referral bodies who conduct prostitution research, and those working with health and
\ndiscrimination issues (when law amendments are proposed in an official inquiry the report is
\ncirculated for consultation before it undergoes further preparation).8
\nThe criticism has
\nprimarily been focused on the evaluation\u2019s lack of scientific rigor: it did not have an objective
\nstarting point, since the terms of reference given were that the purchase of sex must continue
\nto be illegal; there was not a satisfying definition of prostitution; it did not take into account
\nideology, method, sources and possible confounding factors; there were inconsistencies,
\ncontradictions, haphazard referencing, irrelevant or flawed comparisons and conclusions were
\nmade without factual backup and were at times of a speculative character. 9<\/p>\n
\nof data that can back up these claims. Because, when reviewing the research and reports
\navailable, it becomes clear that the Sex Purchase Act cannot be said to have decreased
\nprostitution, trafficking for sexual purposes, or had a deterrent effect on clients to the extent
\nclaimed. Nor is it possible to claim that public attitudes towards prostitution have changed
\nsignificantly in the desired radical feminist direction or that there has been a similar increased
\nsupport of the ban. We have also found reports of serious adverse effects of the Sex Purchase
\nAct \u2013 especially concerning the health and well-being of sex workers \u2013 in spite of the fact that
\nthe lawmakers stressed that the ban was not to have a detrimental effect on people in
\nprostitution.10<\/p>\n
\nover several years. One of us has also conducted field work among people who sell sex in
\nSweden.11
\nThis particular report is based on research we have conducted in the context of a
\nlarger project conducted through the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. It is written with
\nan international audience in mind, the reason being that there appears to be a large demand for
\nknowledge regarding the actual effects of the “Swedish model” \u2013 knowledge that is based on
\nSwedish research but not filtered through the official discourse. To our understanding, the
\nresearch presented here has not previously been compiled and translated into English.<\/p>\n
\nprostitution, move on to discuss the documented effects of the Sex Purchase Act and end with
\na brief conclusion. \u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"