Sweden Cracks Down on OnlyFans – Will U.S. Follow Suit?

Porn is an awkward topic.  Anyone old enough and not specifically avoiding it, knows a bit about the evolution of pornography.

Before getting to the article, here is the common knowledge history of porn.

Fifty years ago, there was Playboy.  The nudity was less raunchy than what is currently flaunted in public at a gay pride parade.  The joke was to say, “I get it for the articles”, but there was truth to it.  Great authors like  Jack Kerouac, Margaret Atwood, Ian Fleming and Kurt Vonnegut had stories published in Playboy.  More explicit porn was only available at shops near the airport.  

When VCR’s became popular, so did X-rated porn.  Cable TV was also in the game.  The Cinemax cable channel was nicknamed, “Skin-a-max”, and showed Playboy-style tasteful nudity.

When the World Wide Web was invented and the internet got faster, porn was unconstrained and everyone could see it.  Back in the day, “WhiteHouse.gov” was a presidential website, while “WhiteHouse.com” was a porn site.  The traditional porn industry nearly collapsed because it was everywhere for free.

OnlyFans opened up the porn industry to anyone with more greed than modesty.  Professional porn stars made more money than they ever did.  With a global market and economies of scale, libertines with conventional careers found that OnlyFans could provide an additional stream of income.  

Sweden, which in 1971 became the second country in the world to formally legalize all forms of pornography, has not been as soft on prostitution. In 1999, the country criminalized the purchase of sex, but not the sale, in efforts to protect vulnerable women from facing stiff legal consequences.

In the pre-videotape days, “Swedish Erotica” was a genre of porn because explicit content came from Sweden.  In 1999, Sweden implemented laws banning prostitution.  That is really late in the game.

As of July 1, Swedes could face up to a year in prison for paying someone for personalized online sexual services, including sexting and video content. The new law also criminalizes promoting or profiting from others who perform sex acts for payment on demand, forcing OnlyFans to pull out of Sweden.

This is an extreme governmental reaction to explicit content.  This isn’t prostitution in any sense because the customer and performer aren’t anywhere near each other.  This is a performer with a webcam getting fifty quid to pat her fanny on the internet.

For decades, an erotic dancer would give a personalized performance for a generous tip.  If this happened online, a Swede could get a year in prison.

“The idea is that anyone who buys sexual acts performed remotely should be penalized in the same way as those who buy sexual acts involving physical contact,” said Gunnar Strommer, Sweden’s Justice Minister and a member of the Moderate party.

Physical contact is a clear line of demarcation.  It’s not a sexual act if the person isn’t there.

Forty years ago, changes in the telecom industry led to the 1-900 pay-per-call industry.  Paying some fee per minute allowed the caller to talk to a psychic, get sports info or stock tips.  Phone sex lines were a big part of that.  A caller could have an intimate conversation about adult topics.  We would now consider the phone-sex operator to be a sex worker, and Sweden would consider that caller to be a criminal.

Contrast Sweden’s approach to the liberal view held by Germany, only fifty miles away.  In Germany, a disabled person can get a prescription for sexual assistance provided by the government.

This is not my issue because I am not going to Sweden or OnlyFans, but the legislation and culture seem to be intentionally redefining concepts.  That rarely improves a situation.

A sex worker can be a prostitute or bland woman posing as a saucy vixen on a chat site.  Those jobs are distinctly different.

American politicians want to get involved.

“Americans are being sexually exploited on OnlyFans,” said U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner, a Missouri Republican.

No, I don’t think they are.  OnlyFans is the epitome of free market capitalism.  Performers at any level can participate without the need for a manager or distribution network.  They have full control over how often they work and what actions they perform.  OnlyFans takes 20%.  Customers can freely choose what to patronize. 

If OnlyFans requires a credit card and user identity for all customers, then children would be effectively kept out.  That is an improvement over the situation everywhere else on the internet.

Nothing about OnlyFans is objectionable.  I have no interest in how other adults choose to spend their time as long as I don’t have to see it or pay for it.

Phony arguments could be made that people may be coerced into performing on OnlyFans, people may not know they are being recorded or video is faked by AI.  If the identity of content providers is verified, existing laws could handle all of these.   

Adult content isn’t going away.  It’s better to have it managed by a company with a financial interest in keeping it legal and ethical.  Focus on the illegitimate websites that can pop in and out of business.