Jeremy Corbyn now supports the Nordic model

About fucking time too. I don' understand how anyone can be against it tbh. Unless they feel sorry for the poor men, and think women should also be criminalized, or womens bodies should be available to buy on the local high street.

I think you are simplifying it actually... Boiling it down to introducing a law criminalising punters...

What I’m trying to say is that The Nordic Model describes a political philosophy. It isnt just introducing a law criminalising punters, it isn’t just about policies re prostitution but also about welfare, the economy, crime etc

I am trying to say re prostitution the main thing (not the only thing) that distinguishes the Nordic model from other models is the political philosophy of shifting the burden of criminality from provider to purchaser.

It is not about particular laws.You don’t look at Sweden in 1999 and say ‘they introduced laws re purchasing, that’s the Nordic model’ because the Nordic Model is a political philosophy.

The comment I made was in relation to the discussion re measuring the effects of the Nordic model vs legalisation/decriminalisation. The current approach to policing individuals re purchasing cannabis (illegal on paper, police take a light touch approach) is that there has been an increase in people believing that cannabis is not illegal, increased numbers smoking it in the street, parks etc enforcement/lack of enforcement affects people’s attitudes hence my point re comparing changes in society and the in effect comment.

if countries have simply added laws to criminalise buying sex to existing laws then this is not the Nordic Model re sex work

The revolutionary Nordic Model originated in Sweden and this is precisely what they did. They added "the sex purchase law 1999".
Third party activity was already criminalised prior to this and detailed, not dissimilar to current UK laws. The criminalization of the purchase of sex, but not the selling of sex was unique to Sweden at the time.

Ireland were said to have adopted the Nordic Model when their Criminal Law Sexual Offenses act 1993 was amended to include the purchase of sex. The UK has always been hard on 3rd party activity but not the workers themselves.

Obviously countries that take a hard line approach to selling sex, and the workers themselves, would not be said to adopt the Nordic model even if they add a sex purchase law, unless they redo all their other laws around sex work.

No, I’m saying the Nordic model without enforcement of the law criminalising punters is in effect decriminalisation (re punters).

Legalisation or ‘full decriminalisation is something different and if countries have simply added laws to criminalise buying sex to existing laws then this is not the Nordic Model re sex work.

You're trying to say that nordic model not enforced is the same as decriminalisation.

I'm saying no it's not because decriminalisation means all aspects of sex work are permitted such as running a brothel, pandering, pimping, assisting sex work, soliciting and taking a cut. That's what decriminalisation means in practice.

Nordic countries that have the approach of not criminalising prostitutes but criminalising punters do not also permit running of brothels or pimping, taking a cut etc either.

Decriminalisation of sex workers themselves is very common but other aspects of prostitution quite rightly are commonly illegal.

You're trying to over simplify it.

(Or reductions re enforcement; reducing penalties etc)

I don’t think that makes much sense TBH.

There is; all aspects of sex work are illegal, all aspects of sex work are legal, then there are various mixes of legal/illegal.

The Nordic model is not a term that relates only to sex work, it’s a political philosophy which includes, but is not limited to, an approach to sex work.

The approach is to shift criminal responsibility onto the purchaser and away from the sex workers, based on a particular philosophical understanding of the power dynamics involved.

If something is legalised it goes from being illegal to legal. If something is criminalised it goes from being legal to illegal. Decriminalisation is used differently, sometimes interchangeably with legalisation, and sometimes to mean lack of enforcement, though it remains an illegal activity in principle.

Great news 👍🏻

Jeremy will say whatever he thinks will win him more votes. He will also promise the world because he has a never ending cheque book

Obviously it's not the Nordic Model if prostitutes themselves are also criminalised like in America. It is actually illegal to both buy and sell sex in parts of America.
NM does not criminalise the seller unless they are engaged in very specific illegal behaviour.
It's not decriminalisation unless all or most activities surrounding prostitution are also permitted.

It's funny because as soon as countries got the idea for men to be prohibited from buying sex it needed to be given a very special name...
When abolishionist laws in England first developed like a ban on brothel keeping in 1751 it wasn't called "The English Model" or given a very special name of any kind...

Not really because no one would ever say Britain has a decriminalisation model towards prostitution, with the absence of any purchase of sex ban. In Nordic countries they range from bring very strict toward women who sell sex to more relaxed but most have agreed on the purchase of sex to be prohibited alongside many other harmful activities around prostitution.

"The Nordic Model" on prostitution really is simply the 'radical' addition of the purchasing sex onto the list of illegal activities surrounding prostitution.

In New Zealand under decriminalisation virtually nothing is illegal, including running a brothel, living off the proceeds of another person's prostitution, and soliciting. The only illegal activity is coercion. Legal-but-regulated prostitution is in practice extremely laissez faire.

The idea that no one has been convicted of buying sex, sorry if I'm mistaken but does this not come from the Irish (republic) statistics?
Don't forget the purchase of sex only became illegal there in March 2017 so little over a year ago, and like I said it's not designed for the state to track down all punters to arrest them... they do need to be reported first so if no men have been reported that to me shows it's working. It's far from decriminalised when you still have laws against many other activities around prostitution.

In other countries with nm there have been criminal records for men who buy sex and the results have been positive.

I don’t know about the particularities if Irish laws but if it doesn’t decriminalise sex workers and criminalise punters then it’s not accurate to use the term ‘Nordic model’ surely? Simply adding sex purchasing to the existing law represents greater criminalisation without any shifting of responsibility.

Either way, decriminalising the selling and criminalising the purchasing is in effect decriminalisation re the purchaser/provider aspects if nobody is prosecuted.

Offred
(Sorry I am being realllly slow on reading this thread)
If somewhere has the Nordic model but no purchasers are actually prosecuted then what they actually have is decriminalisation in effect isn’t it?
Not exactly.
In the Republic of Ireland for example, they have the same laws as here in Britain apart from they added "purchasing sex" as a criminal offence alongside soliciting, pandering, living off immoral earnings (etc).
People think of a "pure" Nordic model meaning be everything is completely fine including someone taking a cut off a prostitutes wage, and only clients are acting illegally. But this doesn't exist in countries that apply the purchase of sex ban. Usually many other activities surrounding prostitution are also illegal.

Ok that video is depressing as fuck. Surely we as a society can be doing better than this? I may be for men’s rights, but perpetuating that sort of misery is a right we can do without.

It's like arguing that we shouldn't try to enact legislation about garment industry sweatshops because Savile Row tailors can love their jobs and be well paid.

I'm a fairly regular poster on MN. Feel free to check my post history if you have doubts about me.

I love the suggestion that I'm unfamiliar with you and that your past posts are any more convincing! The sentence I picked out was more than enough to know that, regardless of whether you are who you say you are, you are not the person to be consulted when it comes to the fate of the majority of prostituted women.

Thank you Tallulah that captures what is so wrong about the arguments whether legalisation or decriminalisation.

I find the idea that prostitution would be ok in a world where men didn't sexualise and dehumanise women baffling. If men didn't sexualise and dehumanise women there would be no prostitution. And if prostitution was introduced into a world without sexualisation and dehumanisation of women, then sexualisation and dehumanisation of women would commence in that world.

We will not succeed in persuading men that we are not sexual commodities for their use if we simultaneously legitimise their use of us as sexual commodities.

FFS my job is pretty shit at times but I'm not expected to risk pregnancy, STIs, thrush, bacterial vaginosis, cystitis, jaw cramp, split lip, vaginal tearing, and anal tearing several times per day and that risk list assumes that the punter isn't violent. Even Belle Du Jour hinted at this when she wrote out her typical chemists shopping list in her book, which included thrush cream and cystitis remedies. No other job expects this, hmm maybe that's because prostitution is exploitation based on sex class and not an actual job.

Who you take to bed is one circumstance where your choices should be absolutely free and uncoerced. Endorsing otherwise is endorsing rape culture. And as soon as money changes hands, the decision to have sex is transactional, it's no longer truly free.

Even this article that is critical of Nordic Model acknowledges that 6% of brothel prostitutes are trafficked and 13% fell coerced. If 6% of people in any other job were trafficked, there'd be outcry.

@zurichgnome whose choices are entirely free?

Who you take to bed is one circumstance where your choices should be absolutely free and uncoerced. Endorsing otherwise is endorsing rape culture.

All these statistics and surveys are all well and good, but how many women who have been trafficked or coerced into prostitution are able to answer them? And how do we know that anyone on the internet claiming to be a prostitute and happy with their job is who they say they are? 130 people saying on a thread on here that they are prostitutes and it’s totally their own free choice does not mean it is true, or that their experience is representative of all prostitutes or even a majority. I simply do not believe that the majority of prostitutes are selling sex through choice. I know of a woman who worked as a secretary in a brothel, she was well aware that the girls working there were trafficked, and has told some horror stories of new girls being drugged and ‘broken in’ by the male criminals running the operation, one of whom was her partner. The fact that we have trafficked people who are enslaved working in nail bars and used to grow cannabis in residential properties does not leave me with much hope that there aren’t thousands of women who are sex slaves in this country. Yes it would be good to be able to consult the people whom would be affected most by a change in legislation, but the women and children who are suffering aren’t going to be filling in surveys, if they could even be contacted. I would hazard a guess that the women who work as prostitutes and have the time and ability to come onto mumsnet and answer government surveys are not the ones we need to be listening to.

Let me repeat the second part again, then: But as I say, even if the vast majority had entered as a completely free choice, I still don't think people should be allowed to buy sex.

Also People get tied up in knots over whether prostitutes are 'happy' and doing it of their own free will, as if this is the key to the whole discussion.

I won't tie myself up in knots about it as I don't consider it to be the main point. I also would not put 1000 happy hookers above 1 woman who was there against her will.