6 ms·

A new law in Sweden makes it illegal to buy custom adult content

86 points by diggan 1y ago

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
diggan 1y ago
Original submission title, which I think better captures the actual change that has happened: "Buying custom adult content became illegal in Sweden first of July 2025". It seems moderators may have gotten a bit too eager with improving the title :) This is the official message/news from the government, but it's in Swedish only: https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2025/02/nya-lagforslag-for-att-starka-skyddet-mot-sexuella-krankningar-och-bedragerier-mot-aldre/ https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2025/02/nya-lagfo... Another perspective (also in Swedish) from the "Swedish Gender Equality Agency", which contains a bit more background on why the law was changed: https://jamstalldhetsmyndigheten.se/aktuellt/nyheter/starkt-skydd-mot-sexuell-exploatering-online/ https://jamstalldhetsmyndigheten.se/aktuellt/nyheter/starkt-...
- dang 1y ago
  It looks like a mod reverted the title to the article's original title (in keeping with the title guideline at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), but if it's not accurate, that's a good reason to change it (as the guideline also says). It's always better to use representative language from the article itself, though, so I've used the first sentence of the article instead.
- yupitsme123 1y ago
  I read the article but it's still not clear to me. Is normal porn already illegal there? Or do they just have a problem with "custom" porn?
  - jampekka 1y ago
    It's about their ban of buying sex services extended to internet.
    - yupitsme123 1y ago
      That's what I figured, but I don't quite get why normal porn, made by a director, is allowed, but not custom porn where the customer pretty much is the director.
      - Tadpole9181 1y ago
        Last I heard it explained, it's about the "real time" nature of custom content through streaming services. It creates a more immediate pressure to capitulate with (often increasingly extreme) demands at the risk of financial loss. A porn actress can look at a role, the type of content being made, and mull it over and compare to other gigs. A live streamer has a minute to decide if they'll do a weird request for rent money. There's a (at least perceived to be a) larger lever being used against their judgement than normal. I've also heard livestream content has a higher prevalence of trafficking? Not sure how true that is, so take it with a grain of salt.
        yupitsme123 1y ago
        Yeah, I guess the virtual nature of it allows a pimp, possibly in a foreign country, to put a bunch of girls in front of cameras and have them do whatever they're told to do. A typical porn video is slightly different than that. Still, from an American point of view this is interesting for several reasons. One, it seems somewhat prudish for the Swedes, who we often stereotype as being very liberal and sensible. Two, I can't imagine american lawmakers caring about or being able to pass legislation on such a niche issue.
        numpad0 1y ago
        I thought Asian gang-run virtual camgirl sites were virtually extinct... This is undoubtedly targeting likes of Patreon/OnlyFans, and only happening because participants there has working short path feedback loops from output to input. I don't quite see what's wrong about that, but lot of online porn bans seem to focus more on that than contents.
wileydragonfly 1y ago
The Fucked Company guy was doing this 25 years ago. I think his website lasted 24 hours before it got shut down. Sadly, I never did get to order my, “please make it stop, papa Smurf” video.
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  I followed that site during the dotcom crash when it appeared on /. regularly, but I wasn't sure what happened to it.
verisimi 1y ago
[flagged]
- miohtama 1y ago
  Sweden is the country where - They want to block VPNs https://bestreviews.net/sweden-the-next-country-to-ban-vpn-services/ https://bestreviews.net/sweden-the-next-country-to-ban-vpn-s... - Their MEPs want to crack down end to end encrypted chats https://mullvad.net/en/blog/the-european-commission-does-not-understand-what-is-written-in-its-own-chat-control-bill https://mullvad.net/en/blog/the-european-commission-does-not... - They want to backdoor chats https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/signal-exit-sweden-government/ https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/signal-exit-swede...
  - Jigsy 1y ago
    Sounds like they're stealing ideas from the UK playbook.
  - _zoltan_ 1y ago
    doesn't sound very nice tbh. yet people complain about just about any other country and somehow western Europe is idolized.
    - verisimi 1y ago
      It shouldn't be idolised. Engineering people to love government is not a good thing. Americans are more free in practise than Europeans. The simplest way to see this is gun rights - Amrericans are allowed guns whereas the only corrective mechanism europeans have is to expound on how benign the governments are. Which is akin to the Chinese or N. Koreans expressing love for their 'dear leader'. But somehow, most europeans look down on the Chinese and US model.
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    I've heard the last two about just about any country where E2EE is still legal, on any continent. It sucks that the golden age of private communications seems to be drawing to an end, but it's far from a Swedish problem.
jug 1y ago
As a Swede, I can see how this law was created as a modern branch from the trunk that is criminalizing purchasing sex, but not selling it, in order to protect the sex worker. You see, in Sweden, all sex workers are seen as victims and those who insist they aren't are not listened to or seen as necessary collateral in order to protect the vast majority who are. So this is to protect all the victims on OnlyFans, for example. You'll be allowed to subscribe to them alright, but it will not be legal for a service provider to offer Swedes the ability to purchase custom content from them. Which is of course the _actual_ income stream from sex workers on OnlyFans. So that means Swedish sex workers can't raise a full income on OnlyFans anymore. In fact, OnlyFans has already disabled the DM system for all Swedish creators. Now, will this law care for where they have to go then? No, of course not. The law stops caring about them as soon as they've been thrown under the bus. I can understand the reasoning, but it's just halfway there. I think a more complete line of thought WOULD have raised the issue that these workers don't show themselves naked on OnlyFans just for fun, like instead of working in retail or in a comfy office gig. OnlyFans is not typically a first choice. In that sense, the Swedish law follows. Most there are probably "victims". BUT here's the deal; they're _victims of society_. They obviously need the cash for some particular reason and this way somehow works out for them better than others even if it means exposing themselves. And now this unusually safe haven (in these circles) that is OnlyFans where they are distanced from their buyers, even anonymized, is taken away from them. The platform where THEY dictated how far they'd want to go. Now they need to seek out shadier platforms. Shadier outlets. Apartments? Or maybe just do more drugs to dull their anxiety over not being able to provide for their kids or whatever. I'm sorry but I can't see much good come out of this.
- diggan 1y ago
  > where they are distanced from their buyers, even anonymized, is taken away from them. The platform where THEY dictated how far they'd want to go. Yeah, this is what I don't quite understand. I've read https://jamstalldhetsmyndigheten.se/aktuellt/nyheter/starkt-skydd-mot-sexuell-exploatering-online/ https://jamstalldhetsmyndigheten.se/aktuellt/nyheter/starkt-... to try to understand the perspective of the people who are driving this change, and I think this seems to be the core: > The development of online platforms has meant that the purchase of sex increasingly takes place without physical contact. This shift does not change the fundamental problem: that a person, often in a vulnerable situation, is coerced into participating in a sexual act in exchange for payment. The imbalance of power between the buyer and the person coerced into the act remains regardless of whether the act takes place in a physical space or in front of a camera. > Sexual crimes that take place digitally can have consequences as serious as physical assaults. The violation that occurs when someone is coerced to participate in a sexual act for payment affects the privacy, self-determination and mental health of the individual, regardless of the format. I still don't quite agree that the situations and activities are the same, and this move seems to make it inherently more dangerous for sex workers rather than the opposite. I guess ultimately the Sweden government (as always) think they can outlaw things and that will make those things go away because it's illegal, which I always fundamentally disagreed with, which is made clear by this: > It is hoped that the change in the law will not only reduce demand, but also help raise awareness of the vulnerability that may lie behind online prostitution. [...] it should not be allowed to buy access to another person's body, either physically or digitally.
Grosvenor 1y ago
So someone is going to build a marketplace and a matching engine? I have content with X, Y, Z properties, someone bids to buy that. or the reverse, There's lots of demand for X, Y, Z content, I'll produce it. If influencing the generation of content is illegal, is it now illegal to look at consumption states in order to decide what to produce?
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  I don't think it's the content per se it is the perceived personal relationship. Guys (mostly guys I'd say) who are paying OnlyFans performers are paying for the fantasy that the performer is really into them and performing for them. It's quite unhealthy IMO but I don't think that the performance of the same acts without the personal interaction will have the same effect.
  - diggan 1y ago
    > It's quite unhealthy IMO I agree, but the background of the law is because any sex worker is seen as a victim that should be protected, rather than that the law is changed to improve things for men. Maybe an indirect side-effect of the law would be to change the behavior of these men stuck in that, but judging by history I doubt it'll change many's mind.
  - standardUser 1y ago
    [dead]
giantg2 1y ago
"The power imbalance between the buyer and the person induced to commit the act persists regardless of whether the act takes place in a physical space or in front of a camera." Just imagine if they regulated labor in other industries this way. Employer-employee power imbalance is immense.
- bethekidyouwant 1y ago
  [dead]
- aspaviento 1y ago
  Exploitation is only legal if you aren't naked :)
- oezi 1y ago
  In all (most?) European countries we have a lot of protections exactly due to this. Minimum wage, minimum holidays, max working hours, minimum break times, paid sick leave. Employers would starve employees if oversupply of workers and governments would let them.
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    Funnily enough, by not recognising sex work as a job, sex workers actually lack these protections in many European countries. Furthermore, in Nordic countries, minimum wage and such are not government-mandated, but maintained by collective bargaining agreements negotiated by powerful unions. In Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and also Italy, there is no legally defined minimum wage.
standardUser 1y ago
The obvious solution is to legalize sex work - an industry the state is incapable of suppressing and the market is insistent on providing. In a high-income, high-trust society like Sweden they have significant advantages in perusing an approach that is perhaps more risky but also fundamentally less misaligned with the human condition.
- decimalenough 1y ago
  The "Swedish model" for sex work is that selling sex is not illegal, but buying it is. Which looks good on paper, but drives pretty much the same behavior of pushing sex work underground as the normal reverse model.
- akomtu 1y ago
  For some of us sex is like food: we know what it is, when to use it and when to stop. However for many others sex is like drugs: it overrides their self-control system and they become addicts. How do you make a law in this situation?
  - 3eb7988a1663 1y ago
    That is true of all vices, addiction of any form has societal costs. Gambling, smoking, alcohol, fatty food, etc. Sex work is just the one with the weakest political lobby, so it is easier to regulate.
  - standardUser 1y ago
    Laws don't solve those problems, as has been proven over the course of a hundred years in a hundred different nations. Only the most brutally repressive regimes can actually eradicate the types of sex and drugs they don't like. None of us want to live in that kind of society. So if eradication is impossible, and suppression has proven expensive, ineffective, and a constant assault on basic human rights, maybe we should try something else.
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    > However for many others sex is like drugs: it overrides their self-control system and they become addicts. How do you make a law in this situation? For some, food is like drugs: it overrides their self-control system and they become addicts. How do you make a law in that situation? Or is investing in Novo Nordisk across the North Sea good enough?
ilaksh 1y ago
Perspectives on this may shift as AI video generation continues to improve. Also I think this intersects with the efficacy of the country's social safety net. What is that like in Sweden?
- standardUser 1y ago
  That's a foreign perspective to a lot of Americans - that needing to "resort" to some activity to support yourself is seen as a critique or failure of what is supposed to be an equitable system in a wealthy nation. In the US, "resorting" to something to make money is Plan A, B and C.
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    > In the US, "resorting" to something to make money is Plan A, B and C. The idea of “resorting to OnlyFans” to support yourself is a myth, regardless of the country. OnlyFans isn’t a platform where anyone can sign up and start making a lot of money. The median creator maxes out at a little over a thousand dollars in a year from what I recall. Only a very few creators collect a lot of money. It’s similar to other social platforms where the majority of content creators get very little interaction. So this idea that people are “resorting to OnlyFans” to support themselves isn’t supported by the realities of the data and the payouts.
    - standardUser 1y ago
      I know plenty of people personally who have supplemented their income with OnlyFans and other types of sex work, but thanks for the lecture.
      - oezi 1y ago
        And do you want to live in a society which permits/encourages/requires this? Do you think it is possible to create a society where people don't need something like OF to supplement their income.
aktuel 1y ago
[flagged]
free_bip 1y ago
It looks like Sweden's politicians are too sheltered to understand that there are people who enjoy sex work. Instead of trying to make it safe and enjoyable for all parties, they're systemically punishing sex workers, and even redefining the word sex to include onlyfans content (?!) while simultaneously calling them "victims." The irony, of course, is that the only thing they're a "victim" of is those same politicians.
- quelsolaar 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - frozenseven 1y ago
    These are adults we're talking about. It's neither harmful nor any business of the government.
    - quelsolaar 1y ago
      I'm ok with outlawing adults with free wills, getting payed to play russian roulett even if five out of six wont take a bullet to the head. Adults can be exploited too. "neither harmful", tells me you know nothing about the subject.
      - wqaatwt 1y ago
        What does that have to do with children [as opposed to adults] working in the coal mines, though? Also while you might have a point in principle it has quite little to do with random chance like in the Russian Roulette example.
        quelsolaar 1y ago
        We want to protect vulnerable members of society. they come in all sizes and shapes.
LAC-Tech 1y ago
[flagged]
- 0xTJ 1y ago
  That is a wild false dichotomy, to assume that the alternative to buying custom adult content would be to have a baby. Plenty of people don't want babies, don't feel like they're in a financial situation to support kids, don't want a relationship, etc. What makes adult content "degeneracy"?
  - tbrownaw 1y ago
    > What makes adult content "degeneracy"? It's decoupling what shouldn't be decoupled in order to optimize what shouldn't be optimized. Rather like how your employer's janitors are from a service company, your uber driver is an independent contractor or whatever, your mortgage has probably been resold like five times, etc. All examples of having more complex interactions stripped out.
    - 0xTJ 1y ago
      What are you talking about, what is being "optimized"? People can do stuff for fun, because it feels good, or for whatever reason. Not everything in someone's life has to be done for a direct survival goal. People go for runs because they want to be fit or achieve personal goals, (probably) not because they want to be better at outrunning a boar that they're hunting.
      - tbrownaw 1y ago
        Degeneracy is about loss of expected complexity, yes? All your atoms are smooshed together into a uniform soup, all your call-center people have to follow an identical script, etc. Taking something that originated itself as a way to ensure continuation of the species and splitting out the fun parts from the continuation parts seems like the sort of thing that ought to count. And yes gyms probably should count as well, except nobody cares about that.
- 1y ago
mousethatroared 1y ago
[flagged]
temptemptemp111 1y ago
[dead]
flowerthoughts 1y ago
As someone who moved from Sweden to Switzerland, I think I'll want to stay here. Sweden is going downhill fast. Most of the issues seem to stem from dogmatic political decisions. The problem is most Swedes are unaffected by these changes, so they happen. The slowly boiled frog. And when the boundaries of what is and what is not allowed suddenly start having an impact on the people, they are so tight that it's too late (the law enforcement can only apply so much common sense), creating either revolt or civil war. I just hope it won't happen in my lifetime. (Yes, I buy into The Fourth Turning and Ray Dalio's philosophies to a large extent, the problem is it's not easy to forecast what tips the scale.) Democracy in Sweden is broken. Lobbyists are running the country.
theshrike79 1y ago
"Adut content"? So if someone creates AI generated porn images or stories or role play, would that be "custom adult content"?

86 points by diggan 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

Original submission title, which I think better captures the actual change that has happened: "Buying custom adult content became illegal in Sweden first of July 2025". It seems moderators may have gotten a bit too eager with improving the title :) This is the official message/news from the government, but it's in Swedish only: https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2025/02/nya-lagforslag-for-att-starka-skyddet-mot-sexuella-krankningar-och-bedragerier-mot-aldre/ https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2025/02/nya-lagfo... Another perspective (also in Swedish) from the "Swedish Gender Equality Agency", which contains a bit more background on why the law was changed: https://jamstalldhetsmyndigheten.se/aktuellt/nyheter/starkt-skydd-mot-sexuell-exploatering-online/ https://jamstalldhetsmyndigheten.se/aktuellt/nyheter/starkt-...

dang 1y ago
It looks like a mod reverted the title to the article's original title (in keeping with the title guideline at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), but if it's not accurate, that's a good reason to change it (as the guideline also says). It's always better to use representative language from the article itself, though, so I've used the first sentence of the article instead.
yupitsme123 1y ago
I read the article but it's still not clear to me. Is normal porn already illegal there? Or do they just have a problem with "custom" porn?
- jampekka 1y ago
  It's about their ban of buying sex services extended to internet.
  - yupitsme123 1y ago
    That's what I figured, but I don't quite get why normal porn, made by a director, is allowed, but not custom porn where the customer pretty much is the director.
    - Tadpole9181 1y ago
      Last I heard it explained, it's about the "real time" nature of custom content through streaming services. It creates a more immediate pressure to capitulate with (often increasingly extreme) demands at the risk of financial loss. A porn actress can look at a role, the type of content being made, and mull it over and compare to other gigs. A live streamer has a minute to decide if they'll do a weird request for rent money. There's a (at least perceived to be a) larger lever being used against their judgement than normal. I've also heard livestream content has a higher prevalence of trafficking? Not sure how true that is, so take it with a grain of salt.
      - yupitsme123 1y ago
        Yeah, I guess the virtual nature of it allows a pimp, possibly in a foreign country, to put a bunch of girls in front of cameras and have them do whatever they're told to do. A typical porn video is slightly different than that. Still, from an American point of view this is interesting for several reasons. One, it seems somewhat prudish for the Swedes, who we often stereotype as being very liberal and sensible. Two, I can't imagine american lawmakers caring about or being able to pass legislation on such a niche issue.
        numpad0 1y ago
        I thought Asian gang-run virtual camgirl sites were virtually extinct... This is undoubtedly targeting likes of Patreon/OnlyFans, and only happening because participants there has working short path feedback loops from output to input. I don't quite see what's wrong about that, but lot of online porn bans seem to focus more on that than contents.

wileydragonfly 1y ago

The Fucked Company guy was doing this 25 years ago. I think his website lasted 24 hours before it got shut down. Sadly, I never did get to order my, “please make it stop, papa Smurf” video.

burnt-resistor 1y ago
I followed that site during the dotcom crash when it appeared on /. regularly, but I wasn't sure what happened to it.

verisimi 1y ago

[flagged]

miohtama 1y ago
Sweden is the country where - They want to block VPNs https://bestreviews.net/sweden-the-next-country-to-ban-vpn-services/ https://bestreviews.net/sweden-the-next-country-to-ban-vpn-s... - Their MEPs want to crack down end to end encrypted chats https://mullvad.net/en/blog/the-european-commission-does-not-understand-what-is-written-in-its-own-chat-control-bill https://mullvad.net/en/blog/the-european-commission-does-not... - They want to backdoor chats https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/signal-exit-sweden-government/ https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/signal-exit-swede...
- Jigsy 1y ago
  Sounds like they're stealing ideas from the UK playbook.
- _zoltan_ 1y ago
  doesn't sound very nice tbh. yet people complain about just about any other country and somehow western Europe is idolized.
  - verisimi 1y ago
    It shouldn't be idolised. Engineering people to love government is not a good thing. Americans are more free in practise than Europeans. The simplest way to see this is gun rights - Amrericans are allowed guns whereas the only corrective mechanism europeans have is to expound on how benign the governments are. Which is akin to the Chinese or N. Koreans expressing love for their 'dear leader'. But somehow, most europeans look down on the Chinese and US model.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  I've heard the last two about just about any country where E2EE is still legal, on any continent. It sucks that the golden age of private communications seems to be drawing to an end, but it's far from a Swedish problem.

jug 1y ago

As a Swede, I can see how this law was created as a modern branch from the trunk that is criminalizing purchasing sex, but not selling it, in order to protect the sex worker. You see, in Sweden, all sex workers are seen as victims and those who insist they aren't are not listened to or seen as necessary collateral in order to protect the vast majority who are. So this is to protect all the victims on OnlyFans, for example. You'll be allowed to subscribe to them alright, but it will not be legal for a service provider to offer Swedes the ability to purchase custom content from them. Which is of course the _actual_ income stream from sex workers on OnlyFans. So that means Swedish sex workers can't raise a full income on OnlyFans anymore. In fact, OnlyFans has already disabled the DM system for all Swedish creators. Now, will this law care for where they have to go then? No, of course not. The law stops caring about them as soon as they've been thrown under the bus. I can understand the reasoning, but it's just halfway there. I think a more complete line of thought WOULD have raised the issue that these workers don't show themselves naked on OnlyFans just for fun, like instead of working in retail or in a comfy office gig. OnlyFans is not typically a first choice. In that sense, the Swedish law follows. Most there are probably "victims". BUT here's the deal; they're _victims of society_. They obviously need the cash for some particular reason and this way somehow works out for them better than others even if it means exposing themselves. And now this unusually safe haven (in these circles) that is OnlyFans where they are distanced from their buyers, even anonymized, is taken away from them. The platform where THEY dictated how far they'd want to go. Now they need to seek out shadier platforms. Shadier outlets. Apartments? Or maybe just do more drugs to dull their anxiety over not being able to provide for their kids or whatever. I'm sorry but I can't see much good come out of this.

diggan 1y ago
> where they are distanced from their buyers, even anonymized, is taken away from them. The platform where THEY dictated how far they'd want to go. Yeah, this is what I don't quite understand. I've read https://jamstalldhetsmyndigheten.se/aktuellt/nyheter/starkt-skydd-mot-sexuell-exploatering-online/ https://jamstalldhetsmyndigheten.se/aktuellt/nyheter/starkt-... to try to understand the perspective of the people who are driving this change, and I think this seems to be the core: > The development of online platforms has meant that the purchase of sex increasingly takes place without physical contact. This shift does not change the fundamental problem: that a person, often in a vulnerable situation, is coerced into participating in a sexual act in exchange for payment. The imbalance of power between the buyer and the person coerced into the act remains regardless of whether the act takes place in a physical space or in front of a camera. > Sexual crimes that take place digitally can have consequences as serious as physical assaults. The violation that occurs when someone is coerced to participate in a sexual act for payment affects the privacy, self-determination and mental health of the individual, regardless of the format. I still don't quite agree that the situations and activities are the same, and this move seems to make it inherently more dangerous for sex workers rather than the opposite. I guess ultimately the Sweden government (as always) think they can outlaw things and that will make those things go away because it's illegal, which I always fundamentally disagreed with, which is made clear by this: > It is hoped that the change in the law will not only reduce demand, but also help raise awareness of the vulnerability that may lie behind online prostitution. [...] it should not be allowed to buy access to another person's body, either physically or digitally.

Grosvenor 1y ago

So someone is going to build a marketplace and a matching engine? I have content with X, Y, Z properties, someone bids to buy that. or the reverse, There's lots of demand for X, Y, Z content, I'll produce it. If influencing the generation of content is illegal, is it now illegal to look at consumption states in order to decide what to produce?

SoftTalker 1y ago
I don't think it's the content per se it is the perceived personal relationship. Guys (mostly guys I'd say) who are paying OnlyFans performers are paying for the fantasy that the performer is really into them and performing for them. It's quite unhealthy IMO but I don't think that the performance of the same acts without the personal interaction will have the same effect.
- diggan 1y ago
  > It's quite unhealthy IMO I agree, but the background of the law is because any sex worker is seen as a victim that should be protected, rather than that the law is changed to improve things for men. Maybe an indirect side-effect of the law would be to change the behavior of these men stuck in that, but judging by history I doubt it'll change many's mind.
- standardUser 1y ago
  [dead]

giantg2 1y ago

"The power imbalance between the buyer and the person induced to commit the act persists regardless of whether the act takes place in a physical space or in front of a camera." Just imagine if they regulated labor in other industries this way. Employer-employee power imbalance is immense.

bethekidyouwant 1y ago
[dead]
aspaviento 1y ago
Exploitation is only legal if you aren't naked :)
oezi 1y ago
In all (most?) European countries we have a lot of protections exactly due to this. Minimum wage, minimum holidays, max working hours, minimum break times, paid sick leave. Employers would starve employees if oversupply of workers and governments would let them.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  Funnily enough, by not recognising sex work as a job, sex workers actually lack these protections in many European countries. Furthermore, in Nordic countries, minimum wage and such are not government-mandated, but maintained by collective bargaining agreements negotiated by powerful unions. In Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and also Italy, there is no legally defined minimum wage.

standardUser 1y ago

The obvious solution is to legalize sex work - an industry the state is incapable of suppressing and the market is insistent on providing. In a high-income, high-trust society like Sweden they have significant advantages in perusing an approach that is perhaps more risky but also fundamentally less misaligned with the human condition.

decimalenough 1y ago
The "Swedish model" for sex work is that selling sex is not illegal, but buying it is. Which looks good on paper, but drives pretty much the same behavior of pushing sex work underground as the normal reverse model.
akomtu 1y ago
For some of us sex is like food: we know what it is, when to use it and when to stop. However for many others sex is like drugs: it overrides their self-control system and they become addicts. How do you make a law in this situation?
- 3eb7988a1663 1y ago
  That is true of all vices, addiction of any form has societal costs. Gambling, smoking, alcohol, fatty food, etc. Sex work is just the one with the weakest political lobby, so it is easier to regulate.
- standardUser 1y ago
  Laws don't solve those problems, as has been proven over the course of a hundred years in a hundred different nations. Only the most brutally repressive regimes can actually eradicate the types of sex and drugs they don't like. None of us want to live in that kind of society. So if eradication is impossible, and suppression has proven expensive, ineffective, and a constant assault on basic human rights, maybe we should try something else.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  > However for many others sex is like drugs: it overrides their self-control system and they become addicts. How do you make a law in this situation? For some, food is like drugs: it overrides their self-control system and they become addicts. How do you make a law in that situation? Or is investing in Novo Nordisk across the North Sea good enough?

ilaksh 1y ago

Perspectives on this may shift as AI video generation continues to improve. Also I think this intersects with the efficacy of the country's social safety net. What is that like in Sweden?

standardUser 1y ago
That's a foreign perspective to a lot of Americans - that needing to "resort" to some activity to support yourself is seen as a critique or failure of what is supposed to be an equitable system in a wealthy nation. In the US, "resorting" to something to make money is Plan A, B and C.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > In the US, "resorting" to something to make money is Plan A, B and C. The idea of “resorting to OnlyFans” to support yourself is a myth, regardless of the country. OnlyFans isn’t a platform where anyone can sign up and start making a lot of money. The median creator maxes out at a little over a thousand dollars in a year from what I recall. Only a very few creators collect a lot of money. It’s similar to other social platforms where the majority of content creators get very little interaction. So this idea that people are “resorting to OnlyFans” to support themselves isn’t supported by the realities of the data and the payouts.
  - standardUser 1y ago
    I know plenty of people personally who have supplemented their income with OnlyFans and other types of sex work, but thanks for the lecture.
    - oezi 1y ago
      And do you want to live in a society which permits/encourages/requires this? Do you think it is possible to create a society where people don't need something like OF to supplement their income.

aktuel 1y ago

[flagged]

free_bip 1y ago

It looks like Sweden's politicians are too sheltered to understand that there are people who enjoy sex work. Instead of trying to make it safe and enjoyable for all parties, they're systemically punishing sex workers, and even redefining the word sex to include onlyfans content (?!) while simultaneously calling them "victims." The irony, of course, is that the only thing they're a "victim" of is those same politicians.

quelsolaar 1y ago
[flagged]
- frozenseven 1y ago
  These are adults we're talking about. It's neither harmful nor any business of the government.
  - quelsolaar 1y ago
    I'm ok with outlawing adults with free wills, getting payed to play russian roulett even if five out of six wont take a bullet to the head. Adults can be exploited too. "neither harmful", tells me you know nothing about the subject.
    - wqaatwt 1y ago
      What does that have to do with children [as opposed to adults] working in the coal mines, though? Also while you might have a point in principle it has quite little to do with random chance like in the Russian Roulette example.
      - quelsolaar 1y ago
        We want to protect vulnerable members of society. they come in all sizes and shapes.

LAC-Tech 1y ago

[flagged]

0xTJ 1y ago
That is a wild false dichotomy, to assume that the alternative to buying custom adult content would be to have a baby. Plenty of people don't want babies, don't feel like they're in a financial situation to support kids, don't want a relationship, etc. What makes adult content "degeneracy"?
- tbrownaw 1y ago
  > What makes adult content "degeneracy"? It's decoupling what shouldn't be decoupled in order to optimize what shouldn't be optimized. Rather like how your employer's janitors are from a service company, your uber driver is an independent contractor or whatever, your mortgage has probably been resold like five times, etc. All examples of having more complex interactions stripped out.
  - 0xTJ 1y ago
    What are you talking about, what is being "optimized"? People can do stuff for fun, because it feels good, or for whatever reason. Not everything in someone's life has to be done for a direct survival goal. People go for runs because they want to be fit or achieve personal goals, (probably) not because they want to be better at outrunning a boar that they're hunting.
    - tbrownaw 1y ago
      Degeneracy is about loss of expected complexity, yes? All your atoms are smooshed together into a uniform soup, all your call-center people have to follow an identical script, etc. Taking something that originated itself as a way to ensure continuation of the species and splitting out the fun parts from the continuation parts seems like the sort of thing that ought to count. And yes gyms probably should count as well, except nobody cares about that.
1y ago

mousethatroared 1y ago

[flagged]

temptemptemp111 1y ago

[dead]

flowerthoughts 1y ago

As someone who moved from Sweden to Switzerland, I think I'll want to stay here. Sweden is going downhill fast. Most of the issues seem to stem from dogmatic political decisions. The problem is most Swedes are unaffected by these changes, so they happen. The slowly boiled frog. And when the boundaries of what is and what is not allowed suddenly start having an impact on the people, they are so tight that it's too late (the law enforcement can only apply so much common sense), creating either revolt or civil war. I just hope it won't happen in my lifetime. (Yes, I buy into The Fourth Turning and Ray Dalio's philosophies to a large extent, the problem is it's not easy to forecast what tips the scale.) Democracy in Sweden is broken. Lobbyists are running the country.

theshrike79 1y ago

"Adut content"? So if someone creates AI generated porn images or stories or role play, would that be "custom adult content"?