by NMN

Confusing love and sex: how the care system creates a context for grooming and child prostitution

In this searing article based on her own experiences, ‘Alice’ brilliantly articulates the disturbing reality of girls growing up in the failing British ‘care’ system and why they make such easy prey for pimps. Essential reading. Read More

by NMN

Dame Diana Johnson’s Sexual Exploitation Bill: The Debate

This article provides a very brief introduction to Dame Diana Johnson’s Sexual Exploitation Bill, which if passed as planned would introduce a Nordic Model approach to prostitution law and policy in England and Wales. The article then delves into some of the negative assertions about the Nordic Model that Lyn Brown MP made in the debate on the Bill’s first reading and shows that many are oversimplifications and/or are contradicted by the evidence. Read More

by NMN

What I learned about prostitution in 20 years as a hairdresser in Berlin

I have worked as a hairdresser for 20 years and for all that time I’ve had women involved in prostitution among my clients. Women who are so mentally and physically broken that everyday life can only be endured with drugs, which brings them into the next vicious circle. Women who are often in need of a hug and a listening ear… Read More

by NMN

The Law of Diminishing Returns

In this insightful article, Esther, who was herself in prostitution, reflects on the finding of the Médecins du Monde study that the income of people involved in prostitution in France has reduced since the Nordic Model law was introduced there in April 2016. She explains how such a reduction in income has been observed in several European countries and suggests it is related to the increase in the number of women entering the sex industry through “choice,” coercion, trafficking, and the fallout from the banking crisis from 2008 and the subsequent implementation of “austerity” policies – and the normalisation of BDSM practices through the mainstreaming of porn. Read More

by NMN

Swedish sex trade survivors back international campaign for the Nordic Model

This article, by a group of people who have experienced prostitution in Sweden, explains why they formed the organisation #intedinhora (#notyourwhore) and why they back the Nordic Model approach to prostitution policy.

“We see prostitution as neither work nor sex, but as an oppression built upon oppression based on gender, race, class and/or age. We believe this, not despite our own experiences of being in the sex industry, but because of them.” Read More

by NMN

Prostitution: Work? … Or exploitation? The discussion

This is an edited transcript of the discussion part of the ‘Prostitution: Work? … Or exploitation?’ webinar on Sunday 22 November 2020.

Siobhan: I just want to introduce our panel members. First we have Rebecca Mott. Rebecca used to do indoor prostitution of various types, all of which allow punters to be violent. She is now an Abolitionist, and has been blogging about her experiences for more than 12 years, explaining the conditions of prostitution and the impact of having trauma as an exited woman… Read More

by NMN

The Nordic Model: The best approach to tackling prostitution

This is a transcript of Megan King’s presentation at our ‘Prostitution: Work? … Or exploitation?’ webinar on Sunday 22 November 2020.

“I’m going to talk about the Nordic Model as the best approach to tackling prostitution. I’m Megan King. I speak as a survivor of the sex trade myself, initially being coerced into the trade and then I continued to sell sex off street independently, glamourizing my situation as a high-class escort, for a period of eight months across the south of England… Read More

by NMN

How living near the Holbeck red-light zone turned us into activists against the sex trade

This is an edited transcript of Paula and Claire’s talk at the Experience of Prostitution webinar on Sunday 27 September 2020.

Paula and Claire are campaigners against the decriminalised red-light zone in the Holbeck area of Leeds. They are part of the Save Our Eyes community group. Read More

by NMN

Three Dangerous Myths About Webcamming, Debunked

There are many popular myths about cam girls. The men who pay them often believe cam girls are lazy, superficial, money-hungry [insert gendered slur of your choice here]. A lot of women think the work will be sexually empowering, or at the very least, innocuous.

However, I once worked as a cam girl and got to find out first-hand what being one was actually like.  I learned that all the myths about webcamming are not only false and misleading but dangerous. Here is the truth behind three of the biggest myths… Read More

by NMN

The experience(s) of prostitution

This is an edited transcript of Linda Thompson’s talk at the Experience of Prostitution webinar on Sunday 27 September 2020.

“Hello everyone. My name is Linda Thompson and I am absolutely delighted to join the webinar today on the experience – no, the experiences – of prostitution.

I work for the Women’s Support Project. I am national coordinator on commercial sexual exploitation. I get funded by the Scottish Government to develop and deliver programmes of work to raise awareness of the harms and realities of commercial sexual exploitation as a form of violence against women… Read More

by NMN

‘Sex work’ advocates and the Nazi propaganda playbook

Last month Nordic Model Now! was asked to participate in a University of Exeter student debate on the proposition that “This house believes that sex work is real work.” As a group, we are ambivalent about taking part in such debates. On the one hand, they are seldom a conducive forum for understanding nuanced and complex issues – but on the other hand, if we don’t participate there is a risk that the audience won’t hear the feminist analysis of prostitution. No one else in the group was able to take part that night, so reluctantly I agreed. Read More

by NMN

Hidden in plain sight

This is a transcript of Rebecca Mott’s talk at the ‘Experience of Prostitution’ webinar on 27 September 2020.

“I was prostituted from the age of 14 until my early 20s. I will speak to what it is to be prostituted; to the conditions for the prostituted and the breaking down of their humanity.

To understand prostitution, we need to see deeper than the generalised language of it being a bad thing. Instead, I will speak about the mental and physical trauma of the prostituted…
Read More

by NMN

The Israeli Strip Clubs’ Swan Song

In this article, Israeli abolitionist activist, Luba Fein, discusses the recent announcement that signals the end of legal strip clubs in Israel and the long history of women’s activism behind it.

In September 2020, about two months after the Israeli Sex Purchase Ban came into force, the Tel Aviv municipality made a dramatic announcement: all the strip clubs in the city would be closed and no new clubs would receive a license. This meant the elimination of all the legal strip clubs in Israel, because Tel Aviv was the only place that still had them. Read More

by NMN

Unmasking the sex industry in Scotland

This is an edited transcript of a powerful and informative podcast, in which Siobhan from Nordic Model Now! talks with Linda Thompson about her work with women who have lived experience of prostitution in Scotland and why Scotland must urgently address the desperate poverty and inequality that is the backdrop to women’s involvement in the sex trade and introduce the Nordic Model without delay. Read More

by NMN

Interview with Rebecca Mott

We are honoured that sex trade survivor activist, Rebecca Mott, has been a member of Nordic Model Now! from the very beginning. Many times her insight and wisdom have helped us to keep our focus. Here she talks about blogging, sex trade activists, what being an abolitionist means to her, and advice to other women who want to speak out about their experiences in the sex trade. Read More

by NMN

The Colonisation of Intimate Life

The Mainstreaming of Sexual Violence and Hazard.

By Esther

This article is based on the second presentation at our recent webinar, Porn, Prostitution and Violence against Women.

“Expressions of fear and distress on the faces of porn performers are deliberately induced. The cruelty is the point. It associates sex as something painful for women in the eyes of the viewer…” Read More

by NMN

Why I nearly turned my back on feminism

In this important post, Ally-Marie Diamond explains how she was introduced to a feminist analysis of prostitution as a form of violence against women, her first tentative steps into the feminist movement for the abolition of the sex trade, and her desire to share her own painful experiences as a way of helping others understand the reality. She then goes on to describe how she was silenced and ostracised within the movement and her determination to put aside division and work with other women to bring about real change for the most vulnerable women and children. Read More