Episode
00;00;00;00
KB
Welcome back to the Oldest Profession podcast. I'm your host, Kaytlin Bailey, and today we are
talking about end demand laws. Sometimes you'll hear this policy referred to as the Swedish or
Nordic model, or even the feminist equality or partial decriminalization model. But no matter
what it's called, these policies try to eliminate the oldest profession by criminalizing clients and
the people who facilitate adult consensual sex work.
In this episode, you'll get to hear directly from sex workers and researchers in places like
Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, places that implemented the so-called end demand policy
decades ago. So, let's get into it.
[Opening music]
00;02;03;19
Kira
So when I started out doing sex work, I thought I was the only one doing it by choice because
that's how I been raised up by media, by the government in Sweden. So I was looking at other
people's ads and like, “Oh, somebody have made that ad for them. They never done that by
themselves because nobody wants to do this. I'm the only one here, who choose to do this.”
Kira
So I had to do all the, you know, mistakes and all the things that happened to somebody,
somebody that starts a new job without any supervising or any kind of help at all.
But yeah, now I am here a couple of years later and I'm super happy and I'm feeling so much
more healthy than compared to working in that factory. So, yeah, I can actually say that I think
sex work actually saved my life, since I think the working the factory would have killed me to the
end because I was working too hard and…
KB
You were listening to Kira, who initially reached out to me through Red Umbrella Sweden, which
is the sex worker rights group there. Sweden, of course, was the first country to criminalize
clients with the Sex Purchase Act of 1999, with the overall goal of reducing or eliminating
demand for prostitution, which was and is seen as violence against women.
Kira
So my name is Kira Stellar, and I started working with sex work around ten years ago.
Right now I have my own companies. I do online sex work where I actually have the company,
and I do everything there legally, moneywise and stuff. And on the side of that, I do meet ups in
all kinds, like BDSM and I'm an escort.
From the beginning, when I was young, I always had it in my mind, you know, I wanted to be a
stripper when I was young, but I was too afraid. So I was, like 35 or something and I was
working in a factory, and it was like, definitely using my body there. I was, like, feeling as fucked
at that place because they really forced us to work, and we had to work overtime. And I was not
feeling good at all. And they didn't let me take time off.
Kira
I started doing sex work by the side, and I did that for a couple of years when I was working in
the factory. And finally when they I was able to work part time for a while because I have kids.
And when they said like, “No, your kids are too old, you have to work full time.” I said, “Fuck
you.”
I walked out of there and I started my own company and started working as a sex worker full
time. But it was hard, I’m Swedish…
KB
The Swedish model was eventually exported to multiple countries, including neighbors Norway
and Iceland. Let's talk to a sex worker advocate from Norway.
Lilith
When you're selling something that is illegal to buy then you don't have access to the resources
that are expected of a business to have. And you're also expected to provide safety for the
customers that they also don't usually have. So, it creates a weird situation where, yes, you're
technically not doing anything illegal, but everything around you is illegal.
KB
And it's your responsibility to help mitigate or reduce other people's criminality.
Lilith
Yeah. Correct. Like, I'm in the position that I need the money. So it becomes my responsibility to
make sure that the people feel safe getting and giving me the money. That means, you know,
cutting back on my own safety at the times and, in regards to the, you know, being allowed to
provide my services, it means that I don't even have access to, like, digital services that
businesses use, so I have to do all that work manually. Which has taken me through quite a lot
of iteration about how you pay taxes in Norway as a sex worker, which, by the way, sex work is
taxed. It's not tax exempt just because it isn't considered work.
My name is Lilith Christine Nepstad Staalesen. I have been a sex worker for, god, at least, five
or six years now. I've been an activist and employee at PION, the sex workers interests
organization in Norway. And, yeah, in my free time, I sleep in the woods and scuba dive.
KB
Amazing. By sleep in the woods, do you mean camping?
Lilith
Yeah.
KB
Ok, all right, good, I was like…
Thank you.
Lilith
[laughs] Like am I a fey creature?
KB
I think that's very cool. Can you tell me a little bit about, you know, broad strokes, how you came
to sex worker advocacy?
Lilith
I was working at the bar. And at the bar did not pay me that much. So I, supplemented it with the
sex work, as you do.The customers at the bar found out about my ad and they didn't like that
very much, so they went to the owner of the bar and said, if you don't you get rid of her, we're
not coming anymore. So they went and they got me fired.
Fortunately, I was a member of a union, through my bar employment. And so I went to them.
This became a court case in which PION helped me a lot with expert testimony and such. I
actually won.
So, yeah, that's like the, the, first time it's been said in a court that you can't fire someone for
being a sex worker because that would mean they earned less money and had to supplement
settlements with more sex work and the. the entire reason for the, the law and, like, the ideas
behind the laws is that they want to get rid of sex work,
KB
That's amazing that this law meant to eradicate sex work ends up creating precedent for
anti-employment discrimination against sex workers. That's pretty amazing. And like, congrats
for being the unfortunate pioneer in that case.
Lilith
Yeah, like it very perfectly illustrates the opposites of the law of what it's meant to do or what it's
actually doing and how the philosophies crash because the laws are discriminatory. They are
built upon false facts. When you put them into reality, you see that they lead to discrimination,
which, creates vulnerabilities which creates more sex work.
Iselin
One of the main reasons that we got this law here in Norway was this idea that it was supposed
to have a normative function, it was supposed to make it less socially acceptable to pay for the
services of sex worker, sex workers. And this has, of course, happened. But the effect of this is
that sex workers also become more stigmatized.
KB
Iselin, if you wouldn't mind, could you start by just introducing yourself?
Iselin
So my name is Iselin Kristiansen. I'm based in Oslo. I'm a photographer and a researcher, and I
spent the last, I don't know, four or five years doing a research and documentary project on the
topic of sex workers. It's a collaborative photo project in which the participants are also
co-researchers and co-creators of the project.
KB
Iselin, speaking as a researcher, can you talk about the impact that these end demand laws
have had in Norway?
Iselin
And we have research on this, this is making the stigma much bigger than it used to be. So now
the population is more open to also criminalizing the sex worker.
So the stigma affects, of course, the one that buys. It really, really also affects the person selling
the services. I think that this idea of this normative function, when people talk about that, say
that, “oh, it's so good It has a normative function.” But then it’s like, no but this is actually the
stigma, you're saying that stigma is good and stigma is never, ever, ever good.
KB
Yeah. Let's look at that stigma and how it impacts sex workers trying to make a living. And one
of the ways that we can do that is looking at how the law is applied, based on what the police
and the general public think they know about sex work.
Kira
The law makes it harder for us, and it makes it really complicated to get a bank account, to…I
don't know how many times I've been at this social service to fight for my kids. Yes, because I'm
a sex worker. It's not…it's still legal to be a sex worker in Sweden. But I still had to fight for my
own kids because I'm not considered a good mom being a sex worker.
KB
That's Kira again, the working mom from Sweden you heard earlier in the episode.
Kira
And right now I'm also in an ongoing court case that is going on with my husband because he
knows that I'm a sex worker and therefore, he's being accused for being my pimp. And, the
prosecutor wrote in the text there like that he should have forced me to stay home and not go
away to seek customers. And I'm like, should he have tied me up to the stove or what's the
idea?
So that’s how they look at sex workers, that we are really bad, and the ones that doesn't exist is
really treated badly by the police and by social services. And, it's really hard.
KB
Kira, can you talk a little bit about the BDSM dungeon that you and your husband built on your
property?
Kira
Yes. So me and my husband both have, you know, an interest in BDSM. So since we live on a
farm and we have a lot of space in our barn, we actually built a BDSM dungeon that is for both
of us. So he actually has his own room, and I have my own room there. We own our property
and we are both owners, so it's like 50-50 owners. So I felt like, okay, I'm using my part of this
barn, you know, and he was never there when I had clients or anything, but, that's one of the
problems that he actually was aware that I did and that he helped me build this BDSM dungeon,
even though it was years before I actually started seeing clients. So that's why they can accuse
him for being my pimp. So the law is really complicated how they use it.
And three years ago that the police came and knocking on my door, and took me to the police
station and they went through my entire house, took all my computers, all my cell phones,
everything I own, like, you know, everything that could be connected to my sex work, like video
cameras and everything and all my cash, since they don't want us to use cash in Sweden,
everything. Even if somebody uses cash in Sweden, they look at you like it has to be illegal
money. Everybody uses cards in Sweden.
And they also went to my husband's job and grabbed him by the neck and right into the police
station. We were in two separate rooms, and they interrogated us for several hours. During the
time, I also had to fight to keep the phone in that room because I have kids and they usually call
during the days and I felt like I'm supposed to be the victim or…but that's not how they treated
me, they were really rough. And they also went through our house and looked for drugs
because, of course, I'm the sex worker, has to be drug related. I don't know if they use that to be
able to get a warrant for the house.
So after that, my husband got accused for being a pimp and first accused me for money
laundering. After a while, they realized that it's not money laundering because you are allowed
to take sex work money and put it into the company. So then they went through my accounts
and see that I got a little bit too much money into my private accounts. So it was tax fraud
instead. So I got accused for tax fraud during this. I choose to agree to it and say, yes, I did it
and only got a fine. And it didn't go to court.
For my husband, he didn't agree that he's a pimp. So he went all the way to court. It took a
couple of years before they actually got there because, I don't know, they just wanted him to
kind of suffer. During this time, they have also taken him in a couple of times, interrogated him
and they have done really hard to really work on humiliating him because since he's, BDSM,
he's a rubber fetish guy. So they have, like, printed out pictures of him wearing rubber stuff, and
it's like, it doesn't have anything to do with this, but I think they use that just to humiliate us, you
know, because if it's in the police papers, it's open for everybody to see. They have put out my
name, my records, my facial pictures, and everything.
So this is a really ongoing problem. Also, the police went out in media, a really big media in
Sweden that made one of these trauma porn as we call it, you know, and they write about this
horrible sex worker, and she had this BDSM dungeon up in her barn. And, we live in a small
town, so it's kind of easy to figure out who it is.
So, after that, my husband, he needed to get a new job, but he had a really hard time to get a
job in this area because he's, you know, known as the guy that sold his wife. So now, he’s
actually living…he's coming home every second weekend because he lives far away and had to
get work, like, far away from home.
KB
Kira, that story is insane. I'm so sorry that you and your family have had to go through that. Can
you explain to me and our listeners how the laws in Sweden make that possible?
Kira
So we do already have a lot of laws that are supposed to protect people from, you know, be
forced to work with something they don't want to work with, but they still want to have this
pimping law and it's…I think the idea of it might be good, you know, that you don't want anybody
to, force somebody.
But in this case, they use the word you're not allowed to främja. Yeah, it's a Swedish word. It's
like it's underneath helping. That is like, lower than helping anybody. Almost like just knowing
that somebody is a sex worker can put you into, you know, being accused for being a pimp.
KB
Kira, all of that is horrific. Can you talk a little bit about how your children have been impacted by
all of this?
Kira
Yes. So I have already been to the social service several times since people reported me as a
sex worker to them, so I had to go there and say that, hey, I'm a sex worker. Yes, but my kids
don't know anything about this and they feel like, okay, it's a good environment after all, let's
make it go on. But when the police came here, they made a report to the social services, and
that's kind of like, I don't know, it's harder or, you know, they have to take it really seriously. So
this time they decided that we were going to talk to the kids about this.
But I told them, like, my kids, they don't know that I'm a sex worker. They see me as a staying
home mom.
And they’re like, “Yeah, but if we’re going to interrogate them, you have to tell them first.”
So I had to come out to my kids. They forced me to come out to my kids about it, and then they
can interrogate my kids about it, how they felt…
KB
How old were they when that happened?
Kira
Not really teenager, but, you know, like ten, 12 around that age.
I have a really hard time talking about my sex work with my kids. But they kind of remember how
I was when I was working in the factory that I had on repeat, like, “I don't have the energy to do
it. We have to do it another day. I don't have the energy. We have to do it another day.” I had
that on repeat constantly because I had no energy. I was so stressed out. I was so tired. And
now when I do sex work, I can put my work entirely around how my kids do or what they if they
need to have a day at home, I can adjust everything around their lives.
And I actually let my kids kind of choose, like, if you want me to, I can continue do this sex work
where you don't really see what I'm doing. I won't really tell you, but I will be home.
I will be home cooking dinner when you come home for school. And I will do that. Or I have to
get a regular job. But that's going to take me back to how it was before. And yes, my kids
actually wanted me to do sex work because then I would be a better mom for them.
00;20;20;00 [Break]
00;21;45;28
Astrid
My name is Astrid Renland, and I'm a criminologist. I'm working for a Norwegian Sex Worker
organization, which is an organization with funding from the state, but still with very low
economic resources. So I've been doing besides working for PION in the region, the Norwegian
sex worker organization. I'm also working as a freelance journalist as, well, as I'm doing a lot of
other things.
KB
Astrid is an expert on sex worker policy and the history of sex worker policy in Norway, and she
explained to me that in the mid 1800s, there was a little moral panic that temporarily led to the
criminalization of selling sex in Norway but that those laws were overturned in 1902. And so
between 1902 and 2009, buying or selling sexual services was not a crime in Norway.
Now I think it's important to have some historical context for prostitution in Norway, which has
historically been a pretty tolerant country. But in the 1990s, where this antagonism towards sex
buyers is really heating up in the region, you get a wave of immigrants from Thailand to
Scandinavia and specifically Norway. This results in an increase in visible brothels or massage
parlors that were offering sexual services, and starts to stir a bit of a xenophobic sex panic. At
the same time the anti-sex feminists of the country are emboldened and they start doing these
vigilante individual stings, right, dressing up or posing as sex workers and then publicly shaming
any clients they tricked into soliciting them.
Astrid
So they had the they had like gab they, they pretended, they was standing there like and looked
like they were selling sex and, and, trying to stop the car. There was, there was, tagging like
“whore client” on the car.
KB
Wait, wait. I'm sorry. Hold up. Let me get this. I want to get this straight. So anti-prostitution
vigilantes were playing dress up as sex workers and luring potential clients into agreeing to pay
them for advertised sexual services. And then when they did, they spray painted their cars and
called them like perverts and pimps might. Am I getting that right?
Astrid
Yeah and it was this radical part of the women’s movement, the radical feminists. And they say
that they were attacking clients because this is basically the same as attacking the sex workers.
KB
So Sweden adopts the end demand model in 1999. And Sweden is a bit of a regional leader. So
of course, Norway, Iceland, other Scandinavian countries take note and start looking into
whether or not this model would be appropriate. Legislators in Norway are very interested in this
policy, and they went so far as to study it. Now Astrid, as a member of PION, an interested
party, a government-funded, sex worker-led advocacy and research center in Norway, helped
the government look into this and walked away with the demonstrable, empirical, measurable
results that further criminalizing sex work in Norway was going to lead nowhere good fast. That
instead they should continue to treat this as a social problem and not a criminal problem. And
that was the official recommendation.
And they published that report in 2005. But it's in the midst of another immigration wave, this
time from Nigeria, that resulted in a much more visible form of street-based prostitution. And this
sent the xenophobes over at the edge. And so, in 2009, Norway adopts the end demand model,
combining the feminist, so-called progressive or historically liberal impulse to save women from
bad options with the openly racist, reactionary conservative impulse to crack down on criminals.
And in fact, Amnesty International wrote a scathing report in 2016 about how Norway came to
implement these end demand laws, specifically kicking mostly Nigerian immigrants out of their
homes.
KB
I want to talk about Iceland.
Now, Iceland adopted the Nordic model in 2009. And Iceland is a very small country. Today,
there are about 370,000 people that live in the country. But Iceland has a global reputation of
being one of the most feminist countries in the world. And I want to talk a little bit about the
history behind that reputation.
In 1975, when feminism was sort of popping off all over the world, the women of Iceland got
together. And when I say the women of Iceland, I mean all of the women in Iceland got together
and organized a national day off, basically a national strike from both paid and unpaid labor. And
90% of the women of Iceland participated in this.
So let me break down a little bit of what that means, right? So obviously the women in Iceland
with jobs didn't show up for them, but also 90% of the women refused to participate in domestic
labor. And so what this meant is that men all over the country were like bringing toddlers to
work, ruining loads of laundry, going hungry, or burning hot dogs. There are all these really
amazing stories, actually, of like, men, like powerful men, showing up to the office with, like,
children with full diapers, hoping to make that like their secretaries problem. Except the
secretaries didn't show up for work that day either. And after only one day of simply, like, kicking
their feet up and, like, refusing to do the thing, the women of Iceland brought the entire country
to its knees.
And since that day, Iceland has had proportionally more women in power than any other country
in the world. But that's not why they implemented the Nordic model.
Logn
There's still this myth in Iceland which, you will recognize, Kaytlin, that there aren't really sex
workers in Iceland, or at least Icelandic sex workers.
KB
Yeah, I can 100% confirm that. The first time I visited Iceland, I did so as a tourist in 2016. And I
had just started telling my sex worker story. And one of the places that I like to do that was, was
with strangers on airplanes. And so I was seated next to this Icelandic man, and as soon as I
told him that I was a sex worker rights advocate, he told me that he thought that that was so
interesting, but that there, that there was not something that they had to deal with in Iceland
because it was simply too small a country.
And like even I, a historian, someone who's obsessed with this totally fell for that lie. And it
wasn't until I performed my show in Iceland, which is, of course, where you and I met, where I
was able to meet other sex workers that, like, not only live, but Icelandic sex workers, where I
was like, oh, that guy was just wrong.
Logn
My name is Logn. I am the co-founder of Red Umbrella Iceland or Rauða Regnhlífin.
So, I was born in Reykjavik, Iceland. I lived there until I was seven. I come from, I would say a
working class background. I lived in the undesirable part of Reykjavik. I grew up there until I was
seven, and then my family moved to the UK. I lived there until I was 25.
I started doing full service sex work in, I can't remember if it was 2014 or 2015. And I was doing,
in-person sex work as well as online sex work for a few years until 2017. I moved back to
Iceland in 2016, but I did go to the UK to work, because I didn't feel safe to work in Iceland, to
be honest. I had heard so many terrible things, you know, about the reality of it from
sex work activists on the ground in countries with a Swedish model like Sweden, and I was
terrified, honestly. So I would go back to the UK to work, until 2017, when I stopped. And that's
how I came into the, I guess, the sexual activist space.
KB
Logn, can you talk to us a little bit about how the end demand laws have impacted people doing
this work in Iceland?
Logn
So we have had a report from a sex worker, where the police told this woman that if she was to
share safety information, harm reduction information, about sex work in person, she would be
aiding and abetting, or encouraging prostitution, which could be classed as being illegal, which
has put us in a bad spot because we don't know what is safe for us to tell other workers as a
harm reduction group.
KB
Yeah. Of course, because anything that you do could be construed as promotion, right?
Information about how to do this work safely. Resources lists of safe service providers. That's
all, all pimping. It's all a promotion. And it's all exploitative in the eyes of this law.
Logn
We don't know what we can legally tell people because we don't want to have our organization
wrapped up in some kind of scandal of, like, us trying to encourage people into prostitution.
KB
And I don't think Logn is exaggerating at all. It's very dangerous to be an out sex worker in any
of these countries, but especially in Iceland, because it's such a small country. And in places
where these laws have been implemented, people hate sex workers.
Iselin
I have a pub that I go to sometimes. It was in this place, like, where recently I was sitting and
these two guys older than me were sitting and bragging, and they didn’t know who I was and
what I was working with so this was not this kind of context that I was talking about earlier, but
they were talking about, bragging about throwing stink bombs on brothels in the old days when
we used to have brothels, because there was a lot of brothels, actually, in this area.
And this is…and they think they are kind of probably they think they're signaling that they're to
the people around them that they're really good feminists, really good punks……
Kira
It's really, really tough to be a sex worker association in Sweden because you get so much
against you.
As l feel is that the government and media together have brainwashed people to think that
people never want to do sex work at all, and everybody that does it is forced to do it, and they
continue to spread that information in all kinds of ways.
So when I tell new people that I know that don't know that much about sex workers are mostly
surprised, because they actually don't know that people can choose to be a sex worker because
they think that everybody's forced to do it.
So I think that is one of the biggest problem with the law that we have right now, and how they
work around it, that they kind of try to end demand by saying that we don't exist.
Lilith
The Nordic model benefits no one. It does not benefit the sex workers because it makes their
lives harder. It does not benefit the people around them, because it creates a great divide. It
certainly does not benefit clients. I often would not champion the clients, but quite a lot of them
are good people and they are paying for consenting sex. And, they are made criminals by a
moral panic. And this law does no good for anyone. And, it especially puts people who are
already in a precarious situation into a worse one. It is by far one of the worst things you can do
for a group of marginalized people who need a better situation.
KB
Yeah. Can you talk just a little bit more about how this law specifically hurts victims of trafficking
and exploitation in the sex industry?
Lilith
if you are forced here, via trafficking or if you come here and know that you're doing sex work,
but the work is performed in a very exploitative manners, under these laws, you get fewer rights.
As I stated earlier, the human trafficking charge is often downgraded to a pimp charge. But, you
are no longer a victim of a crime. You are just the object of someone else's crime against the
state.
KB
Every sex worker that I talked to in every country that has implemented end demand laws. I'm
talking about Canada. I'm talking about folks that I've spoken to in Israel. I'm talking about folks
that I’ve spoken to in Ireland. Everywhere this law has been implemented, it is impossible to
screen clients.
Kira
I could tell my feeling about this.
KB
That's Kira again, the woman who quit her factory job so that she could spend more time with
her children.
Kira
Yes, I don't do any kind of screening of my customers. Yes, I live in a small town. I need all my
customers I can get, and my customers are too afraid to show me any I.D. or anything,
especially after they know that I've been in contact with the police against my will.
And since also I'm too afraid to take customers to where I live now, you know, to my house,
because mostly to save my husband out of, you know, being accused again. And since we live
in small town, they outed me in media, I can't really go to the hotels nearby either because they
know who I am. They know I'm a sex worker, you know, it's a small town. Everybody knows I'm
a sex worker.
KB
In Sweden, and under most versions of the Nordic model law, hotels are aggressively
discouraged from renting rooms to any known sex worker in the same way that landlords are
discouraged.
Kira
So I actually meet a lot of my customers out in the woods in a car. We meet up with our cars in,
in the middle of the woods somewhere, you know, and I have no idea who I'm meeting. No idea.
It can be pitch dark, and I'm meeting a guy I don't have no idea what, you know, looks because
it's dark and we meet in a car.
And a while ago, we had that thing going on here in Sweden. They were, like, discussing that,
you know, women rather meet a bear out in the woods than a man, because we're more afraid
of men than a bear.
And I have to do the opposite because of this law that we have in Sweden that it's here to
protect me in making that total opposite that makes me go out in the woods and something
happened, I wouldn't have any idea of who I just met. And that's what the law does to me.
Lilith
I think the most egregious thing they’ve done is operating homeless, which it was a big thing
before, but they still do the same thing now, just not in such a large scale.
So the police will pretend to be a client or they will, you know, follow a sex worker they know is a
sex worker to the building where they work from or at least live. And they will contact the
property manager or the landlord there and tell them such and such person is a sex worker and
if you don't, they will throw them out now than if we're charging you with pimping. They risk
massive fines or jail time, if they don't throw them out.
And so, the sex worker becomes homeless. So we had stories about the sex workers, walking
out to get the groceries done and coming back to our locked door and didn't even get to get their
things. We regularly have sex workers who were thrown out, who lose their entire deposit.
Kira
As it is right now, even the government is discussing to make something similar as the Swedish
model to online sex work. So like camshows and all kind of, yeah, they want to ban not like
pre-made porn, but everything like cam shows, when somebody is sitting on the other side and
can decide what you are doing and that would be bad.
So they are actually discussing that and trying to get that to get through.
KB
I just want to jump in with an update for our listeners. After we recorded this interview, Sweden
did, in fact, pass this law that Kira is talking about, expanding the definition of sex buying to
include digital content.
00;40;38;17 [break]
00;43;37;00
KB
So far In this episode, we've heard a lot of voices from a lot of countries. But in this next section,
I want to spend some time with one person who's done sex work in several different places
under a variety of legal models, including Sweden, which of course was the first country to
adopt end demand laws in 1999.
Leo
I work under the name Leo Love. I have been a full service sex worker for ten years now. And I
also dabble in online work in the subscription sites and selling clips. I think most of us have, like,
a finger in every pie so to speak.
I actually grew up in the U.S.. I moved to Sweden just over four years ago now, and I have done
sex work on three continents under three different models of legislation, which I think has been
very interesting insights into the industry and how the legal models work.
So I began my career, if you could call it that, ten years ago in Australia while I was studying
there. And I have, like many of the people in my community, have multiple chronic illnesses and
physical disabilities. So I had worked in the restaurant industry for ages and I got fired from a
gig, and I was like, you know what?
I can't hack this anymore. My body physically can't do it. I can't be on my feet 14 hours a day
waiting tables, working in the bar. And so I was living in Victoria, in Melbourne, Australia, where
brothels were legal. The legislation model has changed in the past ten years. So I thought, you
know, let's give it a crack.
I'd always been kind of fascinated by porn performers and by this whole kind of taboo industry.
So I set up an interview at a brothel, bought a pair of heels at the thrift store, walked in there on
my shaky little bambi legs, so to speak. And, they asked me two questions. They assked, have
you done sex work before?
And I said no. And they asked, have you had sex before? And I said, yes. They're like, great,
come on in. I feel very, very lucky to have begun doing full service sex work in a legal brothel. I
was surrounded by these women who were experienced. And who really took me under their
wing and showed me, you know, ways to work that were safer and more pleasurable and what
to expect and how to be a sex worker, basically.
And I'm very grateful for that, because I know most people, especially people in criminalized
countries, don't have that experience and can't have that experience. So I'm grateful for that.
And then I moved back to New York, where I'm from, began doing independent escorting there
for many, many years and then moved to Sweden. And now work under the model of partial or
asymmetric criminalization that we know as the Nordic model or the Swedish model, or the
feminist model, or the end demand model, or the equality model, or whatever rebrand they've
come up with this year.
KB
Yeah. I just want to jump in and say that if this was such a positive and successful policy, then
probably it wouldn't have to keep changing its name so often.
Leo
So I have this, this, this, you know, trifold experience of working under legalization, under total
criminalization, and under the Nordic model of asymmetric criminalization. And it's a trip. It's a
trip to have these conflicting experiences.
My ideal form of working is in a brothel, which blows the minds, particularly of the Swedish
feminists who believe that that's like the most repressive means of working. But to me, it just
means no laundry and, like, no ads, you know?
In New York, I really kind of can fly under the radar, especially, you know, being an American
and white and, you know, living in certain neighborhoods. The police are not interested in me in
New York. And I have that, that privilege and that benefit.
And here in Sweden, the cops are nuts, like the way that they conduct themselves and the
attitudes that they have, as well as the attitudes of the general public are unbelievable. Truly to
me, as an American in New York, I could screen my clients. I cannot screen clients in Sweden.
And because of the asymmetric criminalization, the burden is placed upon our clients, they're
not willing to make themselves, quote unquote, vulnerable in that way because their information
can and will lead to them being criminalized, losing their jobs, ending up in prison, losing their
families, losing their housing and so because they feel that they have that burden, they are not
willing to play ball with us when it comes to screening. So because they carry the burden of
criminalization, we carry the burden of reduced safety.
I also can't work out of my home here. I rent an apartment, and because we have laws that
criminalize third parties, which is meant to criminalize pimps and brothel managers, but as we
see with Kira's story, also criminalize family members, landlords, drivers, security personnel. I
can't work out of my home, so I'm forced to go to other people's homes, which makes me less
safe and exposes me to more risk and more danger.
And of course, you know, if the model of legislation here wants to focus on criminalizing clients,
how do you find the clients? You surveil sex workers, you find out where they live, you stake out
their homes.
I mean, there are police in Sweden that literally brag about climbing trees outside of sex
workers’ apartments and spying on them with binoculars like that actually happens. It's
unbelievable. The Swedish people really don't understand when I tell them I had more power,
safety, and control working in New York City under full criminalization than I do under this, like,
supposedly feminist and progressive laws that we've had here for 25 years in Sweden.
And 25 years, you know, if this law is like an ideology, you'd think that 25 years would be
enough time to work out the kinks. And that's not happening because there's no motivation to do
that.
The leftist spaces here really feel that they need to take up this narrative of the oppressed, sex
workers, you know, the misogynistic, upholding the patriarchy thing, which makes it really
difficult for us to find any allies in Sweden. We have zero allies in this country. Nobody wants to
work with us. Like, you know, I was saying, no one will rent space to us. No one will meet with
us. Was it two years ago now, perhaps that the legislation came through that changed the
minimum punishment for clients in Sweden from a fine to mandatory jail time.
And so we protested against that in Sweden, and we managed to also have, we flew in
speakers from across the continent who came and collaborated with us because no one, like we
said, no one in Sweden will collaborate with us.
I think we sent emails to, like, 150 different politicians in Sweden. YOu don't even have to come
to the protest. Just talk to us. Just hear what we have to say. You're making laws about us. Talk
to us. We've got responses from two of them. And no meaningful responses either, of course.
So, yeah, I mean, when you talk about “everyone wants to talk about us and no wants to talk to
us,” that is a huge, huge barrier for us.
Red Umbrella Sweden is a member organization of the European Sex Work Alliance, among
other sort of umbrella organizations of that nature. And our comrades across the continent are
continually shocked and appalled to hear about the treatment and the stigma in Sweden. 25
years after the implementation of the Nordic model, more Swedes are now in favor of
criminalizing selling sex as well. The stigma has only increased. And that's a clear failure of this
model. I mean, we were witnesses to a crime, but we're also victims of a crime, but we're also
traitors to feminism.
It's really hard to suss out kind of where we stand, but continually, the only consistent thing is
that where we stand is not good.
00;52;25;13 [break]
00;53;50;06
Kira
I was working a couple of years all by myself, and then I saw an ad about an association in
Sweden called, Fuckförbundet. It was a sex worker association that we had back then. And so I
went there and it was actually the first time I saw other sex workers that said that, you know, I
choose to be sex worker.
So it was such an intense moment for me. Like it was amazing. It was like if I was religious and
went to church, I think, you know, you get together, you meet other people that think the same
as you, that feel the same as you. And it was like, oh, wow.
So pretty fast, I got involved in Fuckförbundet and I'm also pretty involved in what we have now,
Red Umbrella Sweden. Yes, because I think it's super important that we have a community for
sex workers in Sweden because it feels so lonely here.
Lilith
I believe I first heard about the PION during a pride event the year before I became a
full-service sex worker. PION always had close ties to the gay, the gay community.
PION does peer support and outreach work. That means that when there are messages that the
sex workers in the area and advertisers should know about, we will get the word out to sex
workers. For example, if there's a violence happening, if, you know, people are handing out fake
money. Or if there's a big event happening that, they might be interested in joining,
And, of course, we take their needs back. We tell their stories and their needs to people who
need to hear that, like healthcare workers, politicians. We tell them what situation sex workers
are in, teach them also how to actually, like, better communicate with sex workers.
Logn
We started the group sort of informally in 2016. My first sort of reason, I guess, for wanting to
start Red Umbrella Iceland was there was nothing like this in Iceland.
Mia
It's also so difficult to find people that have been engaged in sex work or are currently in sex
work because Iceland is such a small country. There's only, what, 350,000ish people and
everyone knows everyone.
KB
Mia, would you mind introducing yourself?
Mia
So, hi. My name is Mia, I'm one of the members of Red Umbrella Iceland. I sort of started this
kind of advocacy work and volunteer work in 2021 or 2020 is kind of like…because I moved
back to Iceland in 2020. I had been living in Berlin and I had been stripping there, which was
kind of the, the how I started in the sex work. And, I came back and there was just…I was used
to being very active in the feminist scene in Iceland and, like, taking part in all these kind of
rights, like this rights activism.
But then I noticed in some Facebook groups, like feminist Facebook groups, they were debating
sex work. And I came in there, like, pointing out that they shouldn't talk like this about sex
workers, and they should be listening to sex workers, and that this was not a welcoming
environment for sex workers to speak about their experiences.
So like it's such a stigmatized industry and this kind of undercurrent of Puritanism where it's like,
oh, no, you know, doing sex work is bad and you're like dirty in some way. It really makes it
extra hard for people to even get connected with the community.
Yeah, so I feel very hopeful. Like we're always building a better community and kind of, getting
in touch with more sex workers. Sometimes it takes people a while to contact us and then when
they finally do and just speak to us, they feel relieved because we're not shaming them and
we're not judging them.
And what held them back from contacting us was that they were just so scared to talk, talk to
anyone about this. But I also feel, like, with the OnlyFans boom that like happened during Covid,
there was increased, like, conversation about this in general and about sex work and there
started to be so many sex workers in Iceland on OnlyFans
Logn
So when we get things, like, recently, we got a message from a full-service worker, who we like
to check in on every few months, like we do with most of our people in our community. And she
said it means so much to me that you, like, that you contact me and that you give me space to
talk, because no one does that for me. There is no one else. And it just made me realize how
important the work that we're doing is, because there is no one else. There is no one checking
in on, like, very vulnerable people and people who are incredibly isolated all over Iceland.
Logn
And so, I don't know, it was a beautiful moment for me to kind of sit back a little bit and realize
that what we're doing is important, even though we might not get a lot of mainstream media
attention, or people might be in the, in the mainstream, people might be a little bit scared of us.
It shows that what we do is important, which…it's an amazing feeling, but also a really strange
feeling, you know. So, yes, we keep our community together. We work hard to make sure that
no one feels left out or isolated, no matter what their experience is. And I think that that's really
important.
KB
Having had an opportunity to speak with sex workers all over the region, I can tell you that
organizers in Sweden and Norway are not optimistic. Public opinion against sex work is simply
too entrenched.
But there's a lot more reason for hope in Iceland. A part of it is because Iceland is such a small
country that small changes can have a big impact. And I can tell you that sex workers who have
been organizing there are starting to get noticed. Before the last election, Red Umbrella Iceland
reached out to all nine parties and heard a respectful response from five of them.
Later this year, Old Pros is teaming up with Red Umbrella Iceland and other regional sex worker
advocates to host a one day conference called Sex Worker Stories and Public Policy. We’ll
hosting that conference at the Nordic House in Reykjavik on November 1st, 2025.
I'll be performing my show, The Oldest Profession, and you'll also get to hear from many of the
folks that you heard on this episode, including Iselin, the incredible photojournalist from Norway.
We’ll be hosting panels and conversations giving the people of Iceland, including policymakers,
an opportunity to hear directly from sex workers about how these laws impact us, so we can
explain why criminalizing our clients, our livelihood, and our landlords doesn't reduce violence or
exploitation.
I want to give the last word to Leo, who has done this work on three continents.
Leo
I don't need people to like sex work or sex workers. I don't need them to approve of what I do. I
don't need them to like my clients.
I don't need them to be okay with it. What I need is for them to not use their personal prejudice
to make my life harder.
[Closing music]
01;03;21;06
I want to thank all of our guests for taking the time and sharing their story. I also want to thank
all of the sex worker advocacy groups that came together to pool their wisdom, resources, and
knowledge to make this episode possible. For more information about all of the folks that we
spoke to and organizations that you can follow, go to our show notes.
This season was produced and audio engineered by Bambi Rising, with original music from
Adra Boo. Research support was provided by the Sex/Tech Lab at the New School. And I want
to give a special shout out to our volunteer intern for helping us clean up our transcript–thank
you so much, Maya Shook.
The Oldest Profession podcast is one of many projects produced by Old Pros. And remember,
we have a resource guide that goes with every episode. You can find out more at
OldProsOnline.org.