Sex in the new europe: The criminalisation of clients and swedish fear of penetration

Abstract

This article was first published as “Sex in the New Europe: the criminalisation of clients and Swedish Fear of Penetration” in Anthropological Theory, Vol. 3, Issue 2, June 2003, pp 199-218. “Sweden is going through an identity crisis these days which has become acute with our entry into the EU” - Dag Sebastian Ahlander (1997) in the journal Moderna Tider “Prostitution doesn’t belong in our country”(Prostitution hör inte hemma i vårt land) - Minister for Gender Equality, Ulrika Messing (Kvinnofrid website, 1997) On May 29, 1998, the Swedish Parliament passed a law that made it a crime to purchase or the attempt to purchase “a temporary sexual relationship” (tillfällig sexuell förbindelse). This law was the culmination of nearly a decade of work by feminist groups and center/left politicians to convince lawmakers that they should ‘send a message’ that ‘society’ does not accept prostitution. But it was also a law that flies in the face of increasingly non-punitive approaches to prostitution that have been gaining ground in other European countries. At the same time that Sweden was criminalising the clients of prostitutes, Italy was debating whether or not to repeal a 1958 law which prohibited bordellos 1, Denmark decriminalised prostitution, Norway was abandoning its decades - old policy of trying to ‘rsehabilitate’ prostitutes, and was encouraging them to organise (Bodström & Zweigbergk 1994: 142-62), and the Netherlands and Germany were taking the truly radical step of placing the regulation of prostitution under lsabour law, instead of criminal law.