On May 20, 2025, the Swedish parliament passed a new law that criminalizes the purchase of sexual acts taking place “at a distance,” that is, via digital platforms and without physical contact. It prohibits the act of promoting or financially exploiting an individual to perform a sexual act remotely for compensation and specifically bans clients from impacting the content of online sexual acts (Government Bill 2025; SVT Nyheter 2025). By targeting platforms such as OnlyFans, it aims to capture the sex industry’s digitalization and thereby decrease the vulnerability of specific groups and prevent new entries into prostitution.
The new policy updates the 1998 law that criminalizes the buyer but not the seller of sex—a pathbreaking law that quickly became an international symbol for Sweden’s gender equality regime (Erikson Reference Erikson2017). While the client criminalization ban was initiated and supported by nearly all political parties’ women’s sections and was seen as a feminist success and a means to reduce demand for prostitution and strengthen attitudes toward gender equality in society (Government Bill 1997/98, 55, Eduards Reference Eduards2007), it has also been highly contested. Critiques of the “Swedish model” have revolved around governmental control of sexuality (Kulick Reference Kulick2005), concerns that it perpetuates the victimhood and vulnerability of women in prostitution (Bucken-Knapp et al. Reference Bucken-Knapp, Schaffer, Levin, Showden and Majic2014; Dodillet Reference Dodillet2009, 330), and charges that it promotes a new moralism in disguise (Persak Reference Persak, Persak and Vermeulen2014).
At a first glance and against the backdrop of Sweden’s reputation as a forerunner in terms of gender equality (World Economic Forum 2024), the new prostitution law may appear unsurprising. Yet its success in the current political context is intriguing. The conservative government led by the Moderates (M) spearheaded the reform, supported by the Sweden Democrats (SD), a populist radical right party. Conservative parties originally voted against client criminalization in the late 1990s, opting for a continued social approach that favored criminalizing prostitution-related activities but not prostitution per se, or a double criminalization on moral grounds (Erikson Reference Erikson2017, 102). The SD, on the other hand, has a track record of refusing gender friendly reforms (Westerlund Reference Westerlund2021), while at times instrumentalizing gender equality and women’s rights for nationalist purposes using femonationlist tropes (Jungar and Jupskås Reference Jungar, Jupskås and Jungar2024).Footnote 1 Despite these parties’ skepticism, both endorsed the updated law, which passed largely unanimously.
This brief Note explores the rationale behind the adoption of Sweden’s new prostitution policy and the role that gender equality played in party discourse during legislative debates. We inquire as to whether gender equality remains a strong motivational factor for passing a policy that updates and strengthens anti-prostitution measures, and if so, whether there are signs of femonationalism in the debate. Building on research on gender equality policy in an era of anti-gender politics, we argue that in contexts with a strongly institutionalized gender equality regime, populist radical right parties adapt their politics to the existing order and infuse it with conservative ideals.
Although parties within the populist radical right (PRR) family will attempt to undermine gender equality regimes, parties cannot stray too far from what is considered acceptable in a given setting. Instead, they “re-package” the issue at hand to fit their agenda. While femonationalism could be one potential way of doing so, other examples emerge from the Swedish case. We find that the SD supports the Swedish prostitution policy yet reformulates its aims to exclude the concept of gender equality, both as its basis and overarching goal. While the SD as well as the conservative government at large may have mixed motivations for introducing and supporting gender equality reforms, we find no signs of femonationalist tropes in their argumentation related to the recent debates on prostitution policy. Rather, party discourse draws on a conservative perspective, emphasizing women’s vulnerability and need for protection as central elements.
Prostitution Policy and Sweden’s Changing Political Environment
Prostitution is commonly labeled as a morality policy, as legislation on the topic involves a conflict over fundamental principles, values, and ethical considerations (see, e.g., Mooney Reference Mooney1999, Smith and Tatalovich Reference Smith and Tatalovich2003). While some parties hold strong, ideologically derived positions on prostitution, as well as on similar issues such as abortion, and therefore are unlikely to compromise, they are often also internally split on these policies, as are their constituencies. Parties therefore often have “little to gain and much to lose from politicizing morality issues” (Budde et al. Reference Budde, Heichel, Hurka and Knill2018, 428).
The ascendance of PRR parties with conservative gender beliefs that seek to maintain traditional morals further complicates this picture (Akkerman Reference Akkerman2015; Hadj-Abdou Reference Hadj-Abdou, Fitzi, Mackert and Turner2018; Kantola and Lombardo Reference Kantola and Lombardo2019; Mayer et al. Reference Mayer, Ajanović, Sauer, Dietze and Roth2020). In some contexts, PRR parties’ legislative influence has resulted in policy reversals that undermine, if not fully dismantle, protections for vulnerable sectors—for example, in the case of violence against women (Alonso and Espinosa-Fajardo Reference Alonso and Espinosa-Fajardo2021). Adopting gender equality policies with moral components might therefore be particularly challenging in contexts where PRR parties hold power or wield significant influence (see also Reuterswärd and Fernandez Anderson Reference Reuterswärd and Anderson2024). At the same time, scholars note a femonationalist trend in Europe in which varieties of the PRR seek to advance xenophobic and nationalist agendas in the name of gender equality and women’s rights—a rhetorical strategy that uses gender equality to portray non-Western values, Islam, and immigrants as a threat, but might result in apparent support for gender equality policy (Farris Reference Farris2017).
The extent to which governments should regulate prostitution is a controversial sociopolitical issue. Conflicts relate not only to the question of whether prostitution should be considered a sinful, immoral act, but also the extent to which it affects gender equality (Euchner and Knill Reference Euchner, Knill, Knill, Adam and Hurka2015, 129). Swedish debates have since the 1970s revolved around proponents of a social position, favoring the criminalization of prostitution-related activities but not prostitution per se, on the one hand, and on the other, a criminalization position, advocating for criminalizing the buyer and at times also the seller. While both positions rely heavily on social welfare schemes supporting those seeking to leave prostitution (Yttergren and Westerstrand Reference Yttergren and Westerstrand2016), client criminalization specifically aims to clarify responsibility, reduce demand for sexual services, and change society’s attitudes in a gender equal direction.
Women legislators from across the ideological spectrum introduced the idea of buyer criminalization in the 1970s, drawing on an explicitly gendered analysis of prostitution as an unequal, gendered power relation, emphasizing demand as the cause and responsibility of the buyer as central to the solution. In contrast, some conservatives supported the alternative double-criminalization stance, opting for criminalizing the seller as well based on a moral understanding of the issue. Contrary to what has been claimed about the motivations behind the law, Erikson’s (Reference Erikson2017) analysis of the policy debate establishes that the victimization of women was not a distinguishing feature of the client criminal frame, nor a dividing line in the policy debate (p. 30). Interesting to note is that despite the split vote on the policy in 1998, the Nordic model gradually became a cornerstone of Sweden’s gender equality regime that governments of varying ideological orientations have actively promoted internationally (Langford and Skilbrei Reference Langford, Skilbrei, Byrkjeflot, Mjøset, Mordhorst and Petersen2021).
In 2025, the actors that pushed for the 1998 law were part of the opposition. The conservative Moderates head a heavily SD-influenced government. At the same time, a global trend of anti-gender politics driven by an ultraconservative anti-gender movement, including the Catholic Church as well as populist radical right parties, marks recent decades (Graff and Korolczuk Reference Graff and Korolczuk2022), calling into question gender analyses and dismantling gender equality policy (Kuhar and Paternotte Reference Kuhar, Paternotte, Kuhar and Paternotte2017).
Similar to other PRR parties, the SD has been a key anti-gender actor, pursuing an increasingly active agenda to this end, including bills seeking to limit abortion access, restrict sexual education, and increase the age limit for gender affirming healthcare, among other attacks on LGBTQ+ rights (Westerlund Reference Westerlund2021). Yet, at the same time, Nordic PRR parties have embraced certain types of gender equality policy as part of the region’s political identity, and increasingly expressed femonationalist views as part of their agenda. For example, they have criticized so-called “gender oppressive traditions” within migrant cultures including certain types of clothing, female mutilation, forced marriages, and honor killings (Jungar and Jupskås Reference Jungar, Jupskås and Jungar2024; Reinhardt et al. Reference Reinhardt, Heft and Pavan2024; Towns et al. Reference Towns, Karlsson and Eyre2014).
Motivations Behind Digital Client Criminalization
Debates on digital client criminalization focused on anti-prostitution legislation as a way to strengthen vulnerable individuals’ safety and positions in society—a perspective that follows earlier policy discussions, although it never figured at the center of debates during the late 1990s. A striking difference, however, is that the gender equality perspective and analysis was largely absent in 2025. Statements by the conservative Moderates, the Center Party, the Liberals, the Left Party, and the Green Party all revolved around the need for an updated policy to strengthen protections and support for vulnerable groups, particularly women, and primarily those forced into prostitution.
Notably, the solution of double-criminalization—historically promoted from a conservative perspective with moral underpinnings—is not present at all in the debate. Neither are arguments favoring the legalization of sex work. The Social Democrats, who once ensured that Sweden’s 1998 prostitution policy became reality, was the only party to explicitly refer to a gender equality rationale, arguing that prostitution is an “exploitation of a skewed balance of power between the sexes.” It was also the only party to seek a stricter alternative to the proposed bill, with legislators arguing that “the digital sex industry must be met with the same power as the physical” (Sveriges Riksdag 2025).
The SD remained positive to the updated policy, with representatives maintaining that the party supports a “moderately conservative perspective that society needs to protect those that for various reasons have ended up in a situation where they, against their will, choose to sell material, at the cost of those that do it based on free will” (Sveriges Riksdag 2025). The party’s only reservation revolved around ensuring that the proposed legislation would have its intended effects. Representatives of the SD also publicly supported the prostitution policy elsewhere. In a debate article dated January 2025, SD representatives in the municipality of Norrtälje argued that the prostitution policy is one of Sweden’s most significant markers against women’s exploitation and emphasized that it is “not a ‘free choice’ but exploitation of individuals in different vulnerable situations” (Norrtelje Tidning 2025). However, far from considering the policy a crucial part of Sweden’s gender equality regime, the party labeled the reform “conservative,” based on a need to protect vulnerable populations, and made no reference to gender equality.
In spite of the SD’s history of embracing femonationalism, nationalist references or attempts to use gender equality as a tool against multiculturalism and immigration remained absent in the debate on prostitution policy. Moreover, rather than dismissing the proposed bill, the party unexpectedly embraced it. Beyond the SD’s conservative motivation for supporting the policy, a potential reason for this surprising move could be related to the role that client criminalization occupies within the Swedish gender equality model. For a party that idealizes liberal gender equality values as part of Swedish core values, “it becomes very difficult for the SD to write off these ideas altogether” (Towns et al. Reference Towns, Karlsson and Eyre2014, 241), making opposition to a cornerstone policy potentially complicated even for a PRR party.
Conclusions
The swift process of updating Sweden’s prostitution policy is puzzling against the backdrop of the country’s conservative government and its significant PRR influence. Recent studies conclude that such environments render it more difficult to pass gender equality reforms, particularly when it comes to policy issues with an inherent moral component. While this brief Notes from the Field cannot fully answer the question of the rationale behind parties’ endorsement of an updated prostitution policy, our analysis suggests some tentative results. In contrast to other gender equality issues, we see no signs of femonationalist discourse on behalf of the SD in the debates on prostitution. Rather, the party reframed the policy and its history in line with a conservative perspective that focuses on protecting vulnerable women, which also constitutes its main motivation for support.
Our findings suggest that PRR parties may adapt to an institutionalized gender equality regime but will attempt to undermine it by reframing policy issues to better suit their agendas, for example, by omitting gender equality as the aim and basis for prostitution policy, and instead emphasize conservative elements. These results open up largely unexplored questions concerning the environment in which parties operate and how it matters for their approach to gender. To what extent do PRR parties adapt their gender project to national contexts? Does their approach to gender equality policy differ not only depending on issue characteristics but also on prevailing gender norms in their given contexts? Overall, the passage of Sweden’s updated policy suggests that the current political environment has not (yet) undone the existing gender equality model, which continues to affect party politics.
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