Sweden’s Updated Prostitution Policy: Populist Radical Right Influences and the Shift Away from Gender Equality
2026-07-06
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.