Pushing back against the so-called Nordic Model of sex work

[SnugFinch]

Hi. I'm aware that my views might not be the most popular, but I am posting here in good faith.

Many of you know that Ash Regan has been campaigning to get sex work legislation in place which follows the neo-abolitionist model, or Nordic Model. This so-called Nordic Model claims that it will punish buyers of sex work, while not criminalising sellers, and that this will benefit sex workers and stop sex trafficking.

However, this is untrue. By criminalising buyers, it ensures that the only people who will buy sex are criminals who don't care about breaking the law. And because sex workers have a smaller client pool, they have no choice but to put themselves at the mercy of these criminals, and can end up suffering violence as a result.

This so-called Nordic Model has been law in the island of Ireland for nearly a decade now, and it has made things worse for the women involved, and it has done nothing to stop sex trafficking, as the facts in this article (and the testimony of a former sex worker) prove.

https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2025/02/07/on-problems-with-the-nordic-model-of-prostitution/

Ash Regan's bill has been delayed for the moment, but it hasn't been defeated. There is a growing worry that what happened in Ireland could happen in Scotland. And it could extend to England and Wales as well.

Feminists should want to end violence against all women. So why is there support for the Nordic Model, which has proven to be so hazardous to female sex workers?

I'm curious as to what your thoughts are.

I don’t think we should decriminalise it. I think we should bring back good old fashioned shame, decrease demand so sex work is less of an option and improve society for everybody.

@MoistVonL Having listened to numerous survivors of prostitution speak at feminist events, I believe them. They were clear that they felt the Nordic Model was the best way to prevent more women being dragged into the abusive sex trade.
Those who speak out in favour of it are those who are still enmeshed, not those who've found a way out.

Ever heard of selection bias? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias

What you have described is like going to the political convention of Party X, hearing that Party X's reforms are wonderful and are all working beautifully, and believing them, without ever hearing the other side of the story.

Nina Vuolajarvi (a woman) is an LSE academic https://www.lse.ac.uk/people/niina-vuolajarvi
who studies the topic.
She thinks the Nordic model doesn't work. She has written extensively on the topic https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/politics/criminalising-the-sex-buyer

the sex trade has not disappeared, and sex workers and people in the sex trade continue to be the main targets of policing, violence and exploitation.”

She talks about how sex work remains de facto criminalised

“ for example, landlords and hotel owners can be accused of pimping. Law enforcement clears activity in hotels or private accommodation through threats of legal action. As a result, sex workers are pushed into ever more precarious environments, and they are subject to a dire lack of housing and safe spaces.

She also presented evidence to the British Parliament

https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/60710/documents/6485

Findings from Sweden and Norway:

• Law endangers sex workers by undermining safety strategies (e.g. client screening, choice of location)
• Police harassment and surveillance common;
• trust in law enforcement diminished
• Stigma worsened; public support for criminalising selling of sex has increased significantly
• Minimal or no access to promised social services; no increased funding for support systems
• No robust evidence that the law reduces trafficking or the prevalence of commercial sex

Consequences:

• More violence and unsafe conditions
• Isolation from services and officials
• Undermining of sex workers’ autonomy and rights
• Harm is disproportionately severe for migrants and vulnerable populations

Tell me, is she "enmeshed" in the sex industry? Or is she simply an academic who has studied the matter, looked at the evidence, and reached a different conclusion? She may be wrong, of course, but then challenge her data and evidence.

You think we should decriminalise it where?

If you were thinking of England, it is already perfectly legal, as for example the City of London Police explains on its website: https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/sw/sex-worker-safety/#:~:text=If%20you're%20a%20sex%20worker%20you%20have%20the%20right,want%20to%20hear%20from%20you.

Men who pay to use people’s bodies are scumbags though let’s be fair. Their actions only add to the degradation of society and contribute to the disgusting way men speak about and treat women in person and online every day. I’d be happy for all of them to be in prison personally but accept that’s just my opinion. Others are available.

@ThisOneMe You are shifting the goal post. Whether the men in question are scumbags or not is not the point. I don't think many people have ever argued those men deserve the Husband of the Year Award.
The point is whether the Nordic model works, or whether it makes things worse.

What you and many others seem to be doing is focusing on what you would like (ban prostitution, criminalise the men) while completely ignoring the evidence on whether it works or not.

Can we agree that if only 1 man has been arrested in NI then the model isn't exactly working?
Can we agree that a model that criminalises the sex workers working together for safety, and which prosecutes more women for this reason than men is doing the exact opposite of what promised? Yes or no?

Please read my links above on the research of that LSE academic.

I admit it’s not very woke of me but I’m only saying what most people with common sense who aren’t involved in this scene think. The whole thing stinks, adds nothing and actively makes life worse for people. It’s ok to have standards, let’s socialise it out by calling it what it is and making it unacceptable.

@ThisOneMe I am not questioning your contempt for the men in question.
But do you agree or do you not agree that whether a reform works, whether it truly makes the women in question safer or not, whether it truly reduces demand and truly punished the men is more important than just saying you just want it banned or criminalised?

Do you not agree that there is something wrong in a system which prosecutes more women for working together for safety than men for buying sex?

Acknowledging that the Nordic model doesn't work doesn't require thinking that sex work is glamorous or that the men who buy sex deserve an award

Sex workers, trafficked women and children, the rest of society, heck even the punters themselves would be better off if we just said know what guys, this shit isn’t really in line with modern day thinking, it’s actively bad for all of us, let’s stop trying to look progressive and just tell them to cut it out. Some version of sticking the diseased lung photos on fag packets. But we could have genitalia instead. Prevent harm to the next generation. Although don’t get me started on vaping..

@ThisOneMe I don't follow. You are focusing on shaming the sex industry and the men who buy sex. Fine. Again, I am not challenging that.

But are you truly saying that for you it is more important to shame these people (regardless of actual consequences) than to look into what system and what laws make the situation better or worse?

If that's not your position, then I didn't understand what it is.

If it is, you sound like one of those people who think that outlawing something is enough, and never worries about looking into the actual consequences of a reform.

If a woman tells you that she wants to be a sex worker, that she is aware of the risks, but that she still wants to do it because she finds it better than the alternatives, is your reaction that she is entitled to do stuff you disagree with, as long as it is a free, informed choice?

If a woman tells you that she wants to sell a kidney, that she is aware of the risks, but that she still wants to do it because she finds it better than the alternatives, is your reaction that she is entitled to do stuff you disagree with, as long as it is a free, informed choice?

Or do you think that we, as a society, should set limits on what people are allowed to do?

People, particularly people who are struggling financially, sometimes make poor choices.

I don't think any little girl growing up has as her ambition to be raped for money multiple times a day by the sort of vile and disgusting men who use prostitutes. It's not so much a free choice as one born of desperation and poverty.

@OldCrone It's not so much a free choice as one born of desperation and poverty.

I have no doubt that in some cases it will be, but how do you know in how many?
How do you know in how many cases the alternative is not destitution and poverty, but a minimum wage job stacking the shelves at Tesco?

I quoted earlier the case of a woman in London who was accused of pimping then acquitted. The women in her agencies charged up to £300 an hour, and this was a while ago https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/uk-travel/england/london-travel/escort-agent-who-said-money-and-sex-were-favourite-things-is-cleared-xc2n0m9gmc0?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqfQkXNJPxJGDdm7a3aY9e3Je4MiCHNC-XSvuEv_Ni7aLopWMyEJzLgy&gaa_ts=697aa346&gaa_sig=6ldiZfT7bYB5ke0fzr3ATtHxgIPnkuxSZ19LhbjswVVqILjfHtJI_tT8hH6cnDVjz1YbPxRtrVI7wYaxS4wsCA%3D%3D
A quick google search will tell you that there is no shortage of women charging way more in London. I have no idea how representative or not they are, but your argument doesn't hold much water in these cases.

Your comparison with selling kidneys doesn't, either.
Selling a kidney is an irreversible action.
Sex work is something you can try for a while then leave. I have no idea in how many women it might leave psychological scars, but you can leave it.

Even if you wanted to ban sex work the way we ban selling organs, surely you should still be concerned with whether the ban makes things better or worse, no?

Surely you should still be concerned with a model that criminalises women working together for safety, no? Do you not think it is crazy and despicable to criminalise those women?

Do you not think that a system which prosecutes more women for that than men for buying sex is a system that's failed?

Not sure if this article from yesterday's Times has already been posted:

Unofficially, there are many more who remain unlicensed. Estimates for the total range from 90,000 up to 400,000, which would be larger than the population of Bonn. Nearly half of them are thought to be Romanian or Bulgarian.
While some of them treat it as something like a regular job, with trade unions and pension contributions, surveys suggest that about two thirds of sex workers are doing it unwillingly, either because they are being coerced or because they are desperately poor.Just about the only thing virtually all of them have in common is that they are women......

https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/bonn-brothel-recreated-german-history-sex-work-exhibition-635zwmkhg

The idea that the model should prioritise the interests of the mythical, 1 in several million women who says “sucking 20 stranger’s dicks a day is my dream job how dare you restrict my choice!” instead of prioritising the millions of women who are trafficked, abused, drug affected, raped and murdered daily can only come from someone with highly questionable motives.

@Shortshriftandlethal On Germany: the point is not whether trafficking exists or whether it's a good thing. It's whether the Nordic model would make it better or worse! Why do you think the Nordic model would make it better? Care to explain? The (female) academic I mentioned disagrees with you in the strongest possible terms.

Again, geography: put a richer country next to many poorer (or less rich ones), add easy travel and right of free movement, and you will continue to have an influx of sex workers, criminalisation or no criminalisation.

@NotBadConsidering Nonsensical hyperboles and intellectually dishonest strawman arguments which put words in people's mouth do you no favours. E.g. talking about "millions of women murdered daily" in sex work is literally bs.
As above, the point is not whether some women are trafficked and abused, but:

• whether the Nordic model makes it better or worse. Same question for you: care to explain why you disagree with the LSE academic?
• the mere existence of women who may choose to do this freely triggers those who are driven and blinded by ideological fury, so it must be either denied or minimised. I get it.

can only come from someone with highly questionable motives.

Yes, of course, this has been the - yawn... - same old tired insult hurled at any man who has ever dared challenge the Nordic model. But, I am curious, when it's a woman, a female academic, who says basically the same things and backs them up with actual data and research, what accusations and insults will you hurl at her? Does she have questionable motives, too?

E.g. talking about "millions of women murdered daily" in sex work is literally bs

That’s not what the sentence said though, is it? Maybe your comprehension is a bit of an issue.

the mere existence of women who may choose to do this freely triggers those who are driven and blinded by ideological fury, so it must be either denied or minimised. I get it.

The mere existence of women who may “choose” is a gift to those who want men to be able to abuse women, because the idea that women may “choose” is always thrown up as justification for ignoring the abuse.

Yes, I think women who “choose” should be minimised because they minimise prostitution in the eyes of its apologists, in the same way that just because some women might be happy with men in women’s spaces doesn’t mean they get to be top of the deciding tree.

I mean, what’s even your argument? Have I missed your proposed solution? You think that because men haven’t been prosecuted then the model doesn’t work. Why are you so keen for men to not be prosecuted? Why do you want them to get away with it? Would you support a working model that made sure men abusing women by buying their bodies would be prosecuted?

@MoistVonL

Ok, I'll go with "legalising prostitution increases demand, which Germany and the Netherlands statistics show, and "Nordic Model reduces social acceptability of using prostituted women" as shown in the percentage of men using prostituted women in Sweden Vs Germany.

Demand has not increased in New Zealand, which has decriminalised prostitution. It is a different system from Germany and the Netherlands. I'm not sure if it is true that demand has increased in Germany and the Netherlands.

I'm sure that it is true that more men in Germany pay for sex than men in Sweden. There are cultural differences that have been around a long time and don't change much when laws change.

You may have heard at your feminist events that the proportion of Swedish men who pay for sex decreased from 12.7% to 7.6% after the Nordic Model was introduced there in 1999, or some version of this statistic. There were surveys in 1996, 2008, 2014 and 2017.

That's not the figure for men who pay for sex though. That's the figure for men who have paid for sex at some time in their life. The figure for men who pay for sex shows an increase from 1.3% to 1.8% in that same period. In 1996 1.3% of Swedish men were active sex buyers and in 2008, the next survey, 1.8% of Swedish men were active sex buyers.

The figure for men who have paid at some time in their life went back up to 10.2% in the 2011 survey, and in the 2017 survey (the most recent one) it was 10%. We also have figures for women who have been paid for sex at some time in their life. In 1996 it was 0.3%, in 2008 it was 1.1% and in 2017 it was 1.5%. They don't tell you that in your (radical) feminist events.

My understanding of prostitution, and the flow of women into it in New Zealand, is that it is largely controlled by outlaw biker gangs who get the girls and women addicted to meth(or whatever it is these days) as a form of bondage.

I don't know how those surveys were conducted, but are you absolutely sure that people always tell the truth when they answer these questions?

Increasing numbers could indicate all sorts of things other than actual increasing numbers.

For example, if selling sex is illegal, a woman might be less likely to say that she's doing it, even on an anonymous survey, but under the Nordic model has nothing to fear so that same woman might be more likely to be honest.

If buying sex is socially acceptable, a man might be more likely to admit to doing it.

There are dozens of other reasons why people's answers might not be the truth.

How do the surveys account for the possibility of some responses being untrue?

How do you know in how many cases the alternative is not destitution and poverty, but a minimum wage job stacking the shelves at Tesco?

If your only choices were stacking shelves in a supermarket or having sex with multiple men every day for money, which would you choose? Please answer honestly.

@OldCrone It is ironic that you fail to realise you are, in fact, proving my very point!

There are plenty of women who do minimum wage jobs yet choose not to enter the sex industry.

And there are plenty of men who do minimum wage jobs and do not have the option to make more money selling sex, simply because there is no market for that.

I am not sure what your point is - can you clarify? Is it society's fault that minimum wage jobs exist? Should they not exist? Should everyone be a neurosurgeon? Should the minimum wage be higher? It has climbed enormously over the last decade.

My point is, banally, that the situation of the women who freely choose to do sex work because they make more money working fewer hours (yes, these women exist) is not comparable to the situation of the women who are trafficked or who may not be trafficked but are forced to do it (eg because no one will hire them because they have a criminal record or are illegal immigrants).

Not willing to answer my question then @YetAnotherDude ?

[Firstly, apologies for my earlier post. This included a link to a page from the Nordic Model Now (NMN) website with some graphic descriptions of the common horrors suffered by prostitutes. These aren't something to click through and read without being warned first. I hope Admin delete this post made very early this morning. Very sorry again and thank you]

The quote at the very top of this specific NMN page explaining why prostitution is inherently violent is worth repeating however:

"Prostitution is inherently violent because, by definition, it involves unwanted sex.

When both parties actually want sex, no one needs paying, because sex in those circumstances is its own sweet reward.

So if one party is paid, it suggests she doesn’t really want it. And unwanted sex is a violation of the integrity and dignity of a human being. So right there, at its core, prostitution is violent."

Personally, I'd remove the word 'sweet' as I always (very inappropriately) read this word in an Eric Cartman voice. But otherwise it's spot on.

If money needs to be paid, this isn't freely made, enthusiastic and happy consent to sex. It can't be. It's something else, something very cruel and dark, that no good man would find acceptable. Surely being wanted and desired is a wholly non-negotiable part of enjoyable sex?

The NMN's main website is at:
https://nordicmodelnow.org/

It is a nonsensical, intellectually dishonest, captious question.

Were you asking if I were a woman? As a man, it is not for me to say how women may or may not feel selling sex. How would you feel about men saying "If I were a woman, I would do this or would not do that"???

Were you asking as a man? Were you asking if, as a man, I would sell sex to men? Or to women? Or what?

There is no market for men selling sex to women.

There may be for men selling sex to men, I don't know. I would not do that. But that has nothing to do with your original question

Any more intellectually dishonest questions to deflect from the main points?

I thought my question was quite clear, but I'll explain further as it seems it wasn't.

You've said you're a man. So I'm asking the question of you, as a man.

I asked if you would have sex with multiple men every day for money, so I thought it was clear that I was asking you if you would sell your body to men.

There is no market for men selling sex to women.

Think about why that might be. That's one of the reasons I asked whether you would sell your body to men. The other is that there are plenty of men who might find the opportunity to have sex with multiple women every day quite attractive. Think about that as well.

There may be for men selling sex to men, I don't know.

An astonishing admission. Of course there is.

Now would you like to answer my question?