Bestiality. Even the word itself is a taboo! Most people think bestiality is some rare perversion in the darkest corners of the Internet. But what if bestiality is actually a part of your everyday life?
Bestiality is a topic so taboo, the word alone is enough to elicit reactions ranging from discomfort and disgust to moral outrage and ethical condemnation. Despite its relevancy within a wide range of fields, bestiality is largely absent from public discourse.
But what if these much-reviled acts aren’t some rare perversion of human sexuality relegated to the darkest corners of the Internet, but actually common everyday practices supported and enjoyed by the vast majority of society.
The definition of the term “bestiality” (or bestiality, for any non-Americans wishing to pronounce it as it’s actually spelled) has evolved overtime, from its origins signifying depraved conduct befitting an animal, to the modern denotation of “sexual relations between humans and animals.”[1]
I wanted to note that for the sake of clarity and expediency, I will mostly be using the term “animal” in place of the more accurate “non-human animal,” a decidedly awkward afterthought attempting to rectify a false division addressed in this very video!
Additionally, you can find detailed citations to everything I state, as well as a bibliography and loads of additional resources at the end of this article.
With that out of the way, time to take on this timeless taboo!
The Black And White Of Bestiality
Bestiality may seem like a pretty black and white matter: sex with animals is wrong, end of story. But such a quick dismissal, hastened no doubt by the discomfort of the subject, neglects to account for the cultural permeation of bestiality throughout history and our everyday lives.
Ancient mythology is rife with gods taking the form of animals in order to copulate with humans, among many other bestial themes[2] we readily teach children in middle school. But were a teacher to hand out a story involving sex between humans and animals written in the modern-day, suddenly a cultured appreciation of the Classics would become a potentially criminal distribution of pornography.
And while many states in America have strictly-enforced laws against as much as photographing a child posed with an animal in even a remotely suggestive manner, kids in America’s farmland can participate in wholesome after-school programs with lessons in boar semen management, [3][4] and how to sexually stimulate a pig.[5][6]
If we attempt to evaluate these examples objectively, which the subject matter admittedly makes challenging if not impossible, the division between the educational and the immoral or criminal becomes largely a matter of cultural context. Which begs the question: what, exactly, is so bad about bestiality?
Moral Outrage And Legal Censure
Criminologist Piers Beirne points to the Mosaic commandments (Exodus 22:19, Leviticus 18:23 and 20:15-16, and Deuteronomy 27:21) as “the earliest and most influential justification for censures of bestiality,” with “the prescribed penalty [of] death.”[7]
Remnants of this moral origin are evidenced in the language of some of today’s secular legislation, with several states in America, for example, retaining terminology such as, “crime against nature,” “unnatural,” “perverted,” “abominable,” “detestable” and, my favorite, “buggery.”[8]
Astoundingly enough, bestiality remained punishable by death throughout the early modern period, with Sweden executing up to 700 people between 1635 and 1778, along with the non-human animals involved, [9] and the last known hanging for bestiality in the United States carried out by order of The Connecticut Superior Court in January of 1800.[10]
Given it’s even pre-biblical censure, it may be surprising to hear that many countries still lack any laws addressing sexual contact between humans and animals. In 2015, Denmark was the last northern European country to ban bestiality,[11] leaving Finland, Romania and Hungary as the only holdouts in the European Union.[12][13]
In the United States, bestiality remains legal in at least eight states, and Washington D.C., with about seventeen of the remaining 42 having only enacted legislation since 1999[14]—though technically Ohio’s brand new legislation signed just last month still won’t take effect until March of this year…and only included a ban on bestiality as a way to pass an unpopular bill.[15][16]
Yay, moral integrity…
Of the states with laws already enacted, penalties and sentencing range from a misdemeanor with no set minimum (Nebraska)[17][18] to a felony with imprisonment of no less than 7 and up to 20 years (Rhode Island).[19][20]
The modern resurgence of legislation has revealed a shift in the conceptualization and legal classification of bestiality from “a crime against public morals,”[21] to an act of animal cruelty, with California and Oregon even going so far as to call it “sexual assault of an animal.”[22][23] Attorney Rebecca F. Wisch of the Animal Legal & Historical Center proposes that this terminology “may reflect these states’ assessment that animals are incapable of consenting,”[24] essentially granting non-human animals “victim” status.
What’s So Wrong About Bestiality?
With the extreme variation from state to state (much less country to country!) of not only the criminal classification of and penalty for bestiality, but also the very definition of what the act entails, we’re once again left with the question of what precisely makes bestiality so objectionable.
All bestiality legislation includes exceptions for accepted animal industry practices. So by eliminating any permissible actions, we can hopefully hone in on the root wrong of bestiality.
Why don’t we start with the rather inadequate parameters of what was traditionally considered the legal benchmark for sexual violation: penetration. This may appear to offer a clear-cut line in the sand, until we consider the long list of farming practices, not to mention animal experimentation and fur “harvesting” methods involving penetration.
So if penetration itself isn’t the issue, what about harmful penetration? That can’t be the issue either, as animal experimentation, fur “harvesting,” and common farming practices involving penetration can and do cause harm.
Is It Causing Harm?
Animals in the fur industry are routinely killed via genital and anal electrocution.[25][26][27] And we don’t even have time to list all of the bizarre manners in which animal experimentation throughout various fields of research involves an infinite array of harmful and painful penetration.[28]
Even in the food industry, or example, the vast majority of farmed animals today are bred via artificial insemination. Cows in the dairy industry are repeatedly impregnated through AI in order to maintain the flow of milk for human consumption. Like us, they only produce milk for their babies, who are taken from their mothers immediately after birth. Females are kept as future milk producers and males are either sent to a veal farm or shot.[29]
Aside from the psychological and emotional impact of having their babies taken time and again, the insemination process itself can be physically damaging, especially when considering that most inseminations are performed by non-veterinarians. [30][31] Since AI training involves practicing on live cows, some courses are held at slaughterhouses, though one UK vet advised that “novice inseminators should not practice on cows unless they are to be slaughtered on the training day.” [32][33]
Perhaps the objectionable element separating routine farming practices from bestiality is the deliberate use of force during penetration?
Is It Using Force?
For this I turn to author Jim Mason’s account of his time working in a turkey breeding facility as he describes standard industry practice:
“They put me to work first in the pit, grabbing and “breaking” hens… Breaking hens was hard, fast, dirty work. I had to reach into the chute, grab a hen by the legs, and hold her, ankles crossed, in one hand. Then, as I held her on the edge of the pit, I wiped my other hand over her rear, which pushed up her tail feathers and exposed her vent opening. The birds weighed 20 to 30 lbs., were terrified, and beat their wings and struggled in panic…
With the hen thus “broken,” the inseminator stuck his thumb right under her vent and pushed, which opened the vent… Into this, he inserted the semen tube… Then both men let go and the hen flopped away onto the house floor.
Two breakers did 10 hens a minute, or each breaker broke 5 hens a minute — one hen every 12 seconds.” [34]
In the pig meat industry, piglets are the product, so mother pigs, much like dairy cows, are subjected to a constant cycle of pregnancies. Even in the EU, where tethering stalls in which pigs were chained in place were outlawed, artificial insemination is one of a number of built-in exceptions wherein pigs may legally be chained in place.[35][36]
So, if forceful penetration of an animal’s vagina, anus, or cloaca resulting in physical and/or psychological harm and eliciting clear signs of distress is not what’s objectionable, maybe it’s when the action performed upon an animal is itself overtly sexual, not just the body part(s) involved.
Is It The Perverse Sexual Nature?
Take the following account:
“Each boar had his own little perversion the man had to do to get the boar turned on so he could collect the semen… He might have to hold the boar’s penis in exactly the right way that the boar liked, and he had to masturbate some of them in exactly the right way. There was one boar, he told me, who wanted to have his butt hole played with. “I have to stick my finger in his butt, he just really loves that,” he told me….he’s one of the best in the business.”[37]
Without context where would you place this on the line between the pornographic and permissible?
Would your answer change if I told you the passage was written by an internationally renowned and well-respected specialist in livestock handling and animal welfare? If so, what changed about the account itself?
That excerpt comes from Dr. Temple Grandin’s book, “Animals in Translation,” wherein she’s described in the “about” section as “a role model for hundreds of thousands of families and people.”[38]
Grandin continues her tour of porcine breeding practices, describing how unlike cows, female pigs have to be sexually excited in order to conceive—so workers must manually arouse them prior to insemination.
Okay…if the highly individualized, manual masturbation of male pigs to completion and sexual stimulation of females prior to the insertion of boar semen are acts openly recounted by a respected professor and role model to families, I fear our comparative evaluation may be an exercise in futility.
Especially when we take into account semen collection methods for bulls, namely the use of an artificial vagina, electroejaculation, or transrectal massage.[39][40][41][42][43][44] The first method often uses a “teaser” bull, “usually a specimen of low breeding value,” who is retrained—sometimes painfully via a ring through his nose—and functions as the “mount” for the “donor” bull, since the force can injure females.
The most troubling technique, electroejaculation, involves inserting a probe into the bull’s anus and delivering electric shocks to stimulate ejaculation. It’s widely known to be painful and has been banned in some EU countries.[45][46][47]
Yet you can watch footage of electroejaculation on the Irish Farm Journal’s YouTube channel,[48] as well as hundreds of semen procurement and insemination videos across the platform,[49] including how to sexual excite a female pig, a topic covered in-depth in the youth education resources of the Pork Checkoff program.[50]
In my video “Do Animals Want to Be Eaten,” I provide examples of the sexualized portrayal of animals in advertising, often seducing the would-be consumers of their carcass.[51] Even mainstream television shows feature footage that, were the context even slightly altered, could result in the network losing its license and inviting a wave of lawsuits.
As a quick personal aside, I find the fact that YouTube’s wide array of borderline bestiality videos remain unrestricted and even monetized, yet the video of one of my speeches remains age-restricted, despite it’s censure violating YouTube’s own polices, just the slightest bit frustrating.
Moving on…
Is It A Matter of Intent?
I have to say, I think our comparative evaluation has hit a dead end. The only element we’ve yet to assess, is the intention and experience of the human committing the act. This is the determining factor in several state bestiality laws, like Delaware’s, which specifies the contact be “for purposes of sexual gratification.”[52]
But if that’s really the root of our objection to bestiality, then we’ve essentially gone full-circle to the original moral basis for its censure, despite the modern shift towards animal cruelty classification, and establishment of animals as victims.
How exactly does the intention of the person involved, or whether the act is part of their job description, or carried out in a medical context, help the individual being violated? I would imagine that someone’s job title would be of little comfort to the cow restrained and forcefully penetrated for her next round of heartbreak. And the enjoyment or lack thereof derived by the worker operating the anal probe wouldn’t do much to dull the painful electric current shocking a bull’s pelvic nerves.
Such absurdities are the result of our arbitrary shifting of animals from property to family to victim to profit margin, depending on our needs.
And as their roles shift, so too do the kinds of harms we may inflict upon them. In her response to philosopher Peter Singer’s controversial book review essay Heavy Petting, Dr. Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns addresses this progressive commodification:
“Historically, animal agriculture has facilitated bestiality, not simply because of the proximity of farmed animals, but because controlling other creatures’ bodies invites this extension of a license that has already been taken.”[53]
Abuse Or Standard Practice?
In one of the unfortunately numerous cases of extreme sexual abuse of animals within the food industry that fall so far outside of the prescribed norms they lead to criminal charges,[54] undercover footage and detailed notes from the investigators showed routine abuse at a pig breeding facility in Iowa, where thousands of mother pigs are kept in cramped gestation crates. Workers beat pregnant pigs with blunt metal objects, kicked them in the stomach and head, forced rods into their vaginas and anuses, and attacked lame and injured pigs with an electric prod, among other offenses.
The video also captured workers cutting off the tails and tearing out the testicles of piglets, “including some with…scrotal hernias, whose intestines would fully protrude when snipped”[55][56]—all without any anesthetic. And, in one of the most-cited offenses by the media,[57][58] workers were shown slamming sick or deformed piglets against the ground, leaving them, according investigators, to die slowly, their “skull[s]-crushed, paddling their legs and twitching, gasping for air, as others were piled on top of them in giant bins.”[59][60][61]
An article on NBC News includes comments from none other than Temple Grandin, described as “a leading animal-welfare expert,” who “said that while those are standard industry practices, the treatment of the sows on the video was far from it,” calling it “atrocious animal abuse.”[62]
Just to clarify, in case it wasn’t obvious, beating and violating the mother pigs was the “atrocious animal abuse.” The “standard industry practices” Grandin refers to are the unanaesthetized mutilation of newborn piglets and brutal slamming of “defective” babies against concrete. Not only are these practices legal, they are government-sanctioned methods within, but not limited to, the United States,[63][64][65] Canada,[66][67] and European Union.[68]
See, that’s the great thing about standard practices—I don’t know about you, but if I was shown that video and asked what was abuse and what was routine, I’d have gotten it totally wrong!
Atrocious Abuse Vs. Standard Industry Practice – Can You Tell The Difference?
Friend or Food: What’s the Difference?
When it comes to our relationships with non-human animals, we posses a remarkable level of cognitive dissonance complete with ample blind spots. One need only observe how we designate individuals as “friend or food,” by such arbitrary factors as geographical location or possession of a human-given name. In one country, a dog is viewed as a “pet”—even a family member. Yet born in a different part of the world, the very same dog would be viewed as “dinner.” Nothing about the dog herself has changed—only her geographical location and, more importantly, the perception of her role and value by the humans deciding her fate.
Such subjective shifting of assigned worth is the very basis of anthropocentrism, a belief system that “regards humans as separate from and superior to nature and holds that human life has intrinsic value while other entities (including animals, plants, …and so on) are resources that may justifiably be exploited for the benefit of humankind.”[69]
It’s All About Us
Our anthropocentric worldview explains many bizarre displays of human doublethink. An example I covered in my speech “The Best We Have To Offer,” which concerns legislative issues pertaining to animal cruelty, was when the European Union signed the Treaty of Lisbon, recognizing non-human animals legally sentient, deserving freedom from hunger, thirst, discomfort, pain, injury, disease, fear, distress and mental suffering[70][71]—and then use this very recognition of their capacity to feel the same emotions and sensations as we do to design the exact manner in which humans may legally violate, imprison, cut, burn, alter, and murder them.[72] A preliminary report for the new legislation compared the financial cost of gassing verses grinding alive the estimated 335 million unwanted day-old male chicks born into the EU egg industry every year. [73] Finding live grinding, or maceration, to be far more cost-effective, it was codified as the method of choice in the resulting groundbreaking animal protection legislation.[74]
In her article “Pets or Meat,” Professor of Law Marry Anne Case highlights the complications arising from the condemnation of bestiality on the grounds of incapacity to consent. Citing how even the training of one’s pets is a form of persuasion difficult to “differentiate…with reference to consent,” Case concludes that:
“If we think there should be more strict or rigorous legal controls on having one’s pets trained to do what would violate the bestiality laws than on other stupid pet tricks, we should acknowledge straightforwardly that it is our attitude toward sex, more than our concern for animal freedom of choice or animal welfare, that motivates us.”[75]
Far from having the animals’ interests at heart, it appears that, as Dr. Davis wrote,
“the primary mainstream objection to bestiality…is that sex between humans and nonhumans, regardless of the circumstances in which it occurs including rape, is ‘an offence to our status and dignity as human beings.’”[76]
That’s the power of human perception. That our violation of their bodies is an affront to our “dignity.”
Davis describes how, in regards to bestiality, some animal advocates advanced the argument that “nonhuman animals are not in a position to give informed consent…by virtue of [their] presumed inherent intellectual inferiority to humans.”[77] Even in their supposed defense, we insult them.
Calling It What It Is: Sexual Assault
This is why, in “Rethinking Bestiality,” one of the few essays focusing on the issue of bestiality from an animal rights standpoint, criminologist Piers Beirne calls for “a concept of interspecies sexual assault,” independent of moral outrage, empty allusions to victim status, and lack of consent through idiocy. Referencing Carol J Adams, Beirne lays the foundation for a truly victim-centered approach to the sexual assault of animals:
“…in seeking to replace anthropocentrism with an acknowledgement of the sentience of animals, we must start with the fact that in almost every situation humans and animals exist in a relation of potential or actual coercion…
For genuine consent to sexual relations to be present…both participants must be conscious, fully informed and positive in their desires… Bestiality involves sexual coercion because animals are incapable of saying yes or no to humans in forms that humans can readily understand…
If we cannot know whether animals consent to our sexual overtures, then we are as much at fault when we tolerate interspecies sexual relations as when we fail to condemn adults who have sexual relations with infants or with children or with…[others]—who, for whatever reason, are unable to refuse participation.”[78]
I hope this rather intensive analysis of bestiality gave you some food for thought. Please share it around. I would like to thank my Nugget Army family for making it possible for me to conduct this research, deliver speeches all over the world and create hundreds of free educational videos.
If you’d like to help support Bite Size Vegan’s educational efforts, please see the support page for details. And be sure to subscribe to be notified of new content.
Now go live vegan, question your perception, and I’ll see you soon.
— Emily Moran Barwick
Tui Allen says
WOW! That took some thinking out and a lot of research. Well done. The world needs you so badly.
So every time someone takes a bite of meat, a drink of milk or an egg, they are condoning all this horror of bestiality. How could I have lived so large a section of my life so blind to all of this?
And my recent lunch of beans and corn and chilli was so delicious and satisfying.
Emily Barwick says
Thank you so much for this comment Tui. I am so, so honored to hear that this work is appreciated and the point conveyed clearly. It’s always extremely daunting to tackle complex topics, and especially ones of this nature! It mean a lot to hear that what I’m trying to accomplish is connecting—at least with someone! And that’s worth every hour of effort :)
Roger Nehring says
Thanks for your intelligence, sensitivity and dedication. This is superbly done and only the most adamant brute of a meat eater would not be moved to shame and horror by the evidence and arguments you have assembled.
Tui Allen says
Well said Roger. Agreed. Today I was thinking about how “others” think vegans are making a sacrifice to be vegan. Sacrifice! I just replaced some not-so-nice unhealthy food with nicer healthier stuff in my diet. How is that a sacrifice? It’s the “others” who are sacrificing their own health and the planet’s by eating carrion. Poor things!
Emily Barwick says
HA! Spot ON Tui!! Love this. Great point.
Emily Barwick says
Wow thank you so much Roger! That means a LOT to hear. I really put my all into these and work to build a deliberate progression of the thought process. I make most of my videos with the non-vegan viewer in mind. So if I use terminology and framing that sits well within a vegan mentality, start out with more recognizable concepts and terms and then walk through to the conclusion, offering factual support so that viewers may come to the conclusion on their own rather than me saying “this is what you should believe.” Not usually an easy thing to craft and I by no means always get everything right.
Tui Allen says
Emily, as an author who must constantly consider “voice” I suggest you are doing an excellent job of treading this tightrope.
Emily Moran Barwick says
Oh I so thought I had responded to this! My apologies. Thank you so much again for this feedback. This is quite a precarious topic, as so many are, and it is SO very rewarding to hear it was a successful piece for you :D Many thanks!
pam says
Thank you thank you thank you for your dedication and life’s work.
Much love
Emily Barwick says
Thank you so much Pam! It is an honor to have the opportunity to educate on these vital issues to the best of my ability.
Marko Vegano says
Emily, don’t doubt your impact on the world. Sometimes people do change, but they say nothing. Sometimes they change and great things happen. But they change because of you. You passion, love and devotions is greater than a Pope’s understanding of compassion. I am sorry if I haven’t been very vocal, (Booter’s illness has taken much of my time), but I am listening and spreading the words you give to many non vegans. They are the ones that we were also once. But we change.
Much Love,
Marko
Tui Allen says
Well said Marko! I agree with every word.
Emily Moran Barwick says
Wow Marko! How did I miss this till now? My apologies! Thank you so very very much for your kind words. I cannot even begin to express how much this means to me. And I never doubt your support and dedication to spreading the vegan message. So sorry to hear about Booter :( I hope things are going better for you two. Much, much love and all my thanks.
Ana says
I’m blown away by the solid research backing up- truly this reminds me of a legal argument. Well written and excellently backed up by solid industry based research. I see this is as the groundwork for legal changes to come. Bravo Emily
Emily Moran Barwick says
Wow thank you so much Ana! I’m do glad to hear this—I’m never sure if my intentions with the structure and layout of the essays and videos actually come across effectively in the end. It’s so encouraging to receive this kind of feedback. :) (of course constructive criticism is very helpful as well!)… but this is pretty nice ;D Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Hawk says
Yes, there are subjects that are taboo. You are one of them in my house.
Emily Moran Barwick says
Ha! Well… I’m okay with that.
M Jenny Edwards says
Wow. I have spent the past 13 years researching, writing, and teaching medical, veterinary, mental health, law enforcement, legislative, and social services professionals on issues related to zoophilia and bestiality, and I am completely impressed by this video. It is not only factual and complete, it is fair and just, thoughtful and thought-provoking, and presents complex topics in a way that are understandable regardless of the audience. Kudos to you and your team for a job well done.
Emily Moran Barwick says
M Jenny, Thank you so much for your comment and I so apologize for taking this long to reply! I’m so very moved by what you’ve shared and incredibly touched to hear how effective you found this article and video. I take great pains to address topics in a balanced manner, and provide solid sources, while attempting to pull together “threads” as to present topics in a framework/perspective/context from which readers and viewers may never have approached them before. It means the world to me that this effort has been successful, and is very rewarding to hear—more than I can say! Many, many thanks for taking the time to comment!
Albert McConnell says
You are spot-on with your facts and your logical my in-laws have a ranch where they breed Great Danes and horses and I could tell you that it is typical to let the first ejaculation just fly in the breeze because the percentage of dead sperm is unacceptable first semen sales yours never had sex with another horse there’s a blanket that has been marked with the scent of a female in heat breeding horses will get an erection every time they are groomed and to calm him down they’re typically masturbated whether they are going to be bred shortly thereafter and have to lose the first ejaculate or not it is a way to stabilize the horses mood so basically anytime you have contact with this dun horse he will get an erection which means fight or flight hormones are question through your system and if he doesn’t injaculate his body will become acidic and his sperm quality will drop. I did not see anyone looking at this task as drudgery in fact they rather enjoyed it perk fringe benefits so to speak as far as the dogs go and male dog will jump on anything that gives body language wholesale fish melting and stinks they don’t lick people ask is to show difference in respect to the leader of the pack but what humans get licked they get aroused and the dogs can sense it and with a Great Dane they going to get whatever they want
Liz says
Thank you very much for your work on this intelligent, well-researched article. I’d known of the need for the dichotomy to be pointed out between the inhumane treatment of animals for industry and the supposed “for the animal!” moral outcry for more bestiality laws, but your in-depth writing on the industrial sexual mistreatment of animals was eye-opening, even for me. Stellar.
Emily Moran Barwick says
Liz, Thank you so very much for your comment and apologies for the delay! Hearing how effective this was for you is more rewarding than I can ever state! I work very hard to research and cite in depth, and to present things in a way that pulls together many “threads” such that viewers and readers may approach a polarizing topic in a new light. Thank you for taking the time to comment!
Liz says
Thank you very much for your work on this intelligent, well-researched article. I’d known of the need for the dichotomy to be pointed out between the inhumane treatment of animals for industry and the supposed “for the animal!” moral outcry for more bestiality laws, but your in-depth writing on the industrial sexual mistreatment of animals was eye-opening, even for me. Stellar.
Emily Moran Barwick says
Liz, Wow! That is very rewarding to hear! I really do try to get a balanced and well researched look into every topic I cover, especially more controversial ones, as well as draw connections that aren’t always readily apparent. I’m so glad to hear this was successful—this article and video in particular mean a lot to me. All the best and many thanks for taking the time to comment!
Ryry says
Hey…firstly just echoing above comments- thank you for such a well researched and well thought out piece of writing ..
I felt compelled to comment because i really was struck by how much there is a bizarre parallel with the legal approaches towards sex work – particularly in Sweden and the US but also many places. …I mean the reason i came across this was because i was looking up Swedish laws /the reform to laws re “beastiality” a few years back– as i can’t get over the fact that there was a period of time in Sweden- From 1999 up until the new law introduced on beastility in 2014(?)
.So 15 years – where the law recognized animals ability and capacity to consent to sexual acts with a human and where it was legal to have sex with an animal-as long as you didn’t physically hurt it…
But where, AT THE SAME TIME- as a sex worker- our ability to consent to sex was deemed to be non existent in the eyes of the law- ! and that there was more debate and nuance in the law criminalizing bestiality than there was with the law criminalizing “sex purchase ”
A lot of the time it’s said that Sweden decriminalised sex sellers and made it a crime to buy sex .
But actually there was no decriminalisation of anythinf…just another law added on top of existing laws…and sure- its not a crime in itself to sell sex or to be a sex worker in and of itself…either before or after 1999. But there were other laws to use against everyone around us (eg partner &/or our adult children = pimp if they live with us..we are pimping each other if we work together as sex workers …It’s illegal to rent to us, hotels have to kick us out if they find out we are working and then they should add us to a blacklist to ban us from booking hotel room again)
So kinda like how its ridiculous protecting us as an assumed victim of these sex acts but meanwhile all these other atrocities happen .. and then we are victims as if we are weak ourselves..and not that the legal environment and social conditions violate our dignity and normalize violence against us .
It’s just bizarre ..and its that weird thing where im not insulted being compared to or treated like an animal or loke im less able to communicate my ability to consent than an animal… But i know that the people making those laws definitely don’t mean that in any flattering way to me or other sex workers cognitive abilities… lol ..
This sex purchase ban enacted in 1999 was under the broader women’s peace bill .. or womens security (hard to translate word) .. But the sex work law was gender neutral itself…and it stated that it was now a crime to pay another person (or to plan or try to) for providing sexual services… payment was defined as not necessarily money but anything of value like alcohol drugs or furs (!) .
Crucially-the law makes anyone who sells sex a victim – regardless of whether we have made a decision to charge a fee for our labour and regardless of how we feel or how we experience each and every interaction we have with each person who pays us …
Ironically enough – if i make an agreement with someone in writing that says we have agreed to do a booking that day and that i will be paid as per my rates advertised Nd thats 1500sek ($170usd?) For X amount of time booking and i offer xyz services… and cancellation fees of 500sek apply if less than 24 hr before scheduled time
If i turn up later to this clients place N he decides to pull out of the contract and won’t pay my cancellation fee …
if i called police up the only thing they might be charged for would be attempt or plan to purchase sex ..
.but it would be much more risky for me to report coz i will likely lose my housing (landlord will be ordered to evict me or else face pimping charges for renting to a sex worker) & I can be deported for making a living in a dishonest way even if im EU citizen.. and i might lose custody of my kids for engaging in “self harm” (sex work is harmful always ..and if u dont recognise that its just evidence that you are being so harmed and damaged you have started identifying with yr oppressors as a survival tactic and coping mechanism)
But perhaps worst of all…:”sex purchase” Is seen as victimizing the whole society AS WELL as every person who is paid for sex (regardless of how we feel about it)
So ..since its declared to be harming everyone…the police will raid sex workers homes or stake out our apartment or hotel room and arrest all our clients leaving and then tell us afterwards that they have charged a client. And then they emphasise there is nothing we need to do ..or rather nothing we can do… even if we didn’t want them to be charged (commonly the case) ..they have already been charged and opted to pay a fine rather than go to court and have their name on court records available to public…
Its interesting to see how much the ways gay sex and sex work and sex with animals are being “regulated” or “shamed” or normalised or criminalised under these different pretenses ..and the kind of morality that is held up as the reason…especially when it’s often much more about economics and profits under capitilism …
The examples above are especially fascinating to me also ..avout the way regulations have been made for ‘disposing’/mass killing of male chicks ..thag the way thats most cost effective has been chosen…
As i think about the way sex workers have been controlled thru time and history – the way that 100 years ago sex workers were repeatedly getting arrested and incarcerated in Sweden- because incarceration mean forced labour in the SPINHUS (spin house) ..rise at 4M and work thru til 7 or 8pm ..sewing or spinning yarns … so working in utterly shiy conditions for no pay ..in order to be “rehabilitated” ..finally enougg it just happened to help some businesses get rich off the industrial revolution right?
And then now we see trafficking rise up as this big thing to be worrying about but in reality the most common way that sex workers have their passport taken off them and have people lock then up and force them to work and transport across borders without consent = when governments do it via raid and “rescue” operations… leading to deportations and so called “safe return” home or forced “rehabilitation” in places such as India and Cambodia where Swedish companies like H and M now source much of their clothing…not just at poorly paid sweatshop but also in these places that are claimed to be rehab but refer to the women taken there as “inmates” ..and when sex workers escape over the 10 foot walls after locking the “superintendents into the kitchen and scaling the walls..the police are called to catch the runaways or its claimed pimps have come and captured them ..as if people want to be l9cked up like that…
It’s bizarre because its like the Swedish Model also has turned up into victims and then compared us to animals and weirdly even given animals greater recognition of ability to consent to sex with humans for 15 years… But now we are treated the same lol ..
But what got to me most was that line about the real issue people have about sex with animals being that its viewed as wrong coz its stooping to some low level that should be beneath us…that animals are inferior and we shouldn’t go there with such subhuman creatures.
And it’s making me realise ultimately THAT mentality is what is used against sex workers also…this intensified shaming of clients. Okay yes there are massive differences between the two scenarios also but on some level that just resonates so much ..so I felt lile i should share all this incase its as fascinating to anyone else as it was to me !
Anyway thank you again for this article..
Also apologies if you already know all of this stuff about sex work laws..I hope its. It patronising..I don’t mean it like that …I am just very autistic and get excited rambling on about things .. it occured to me that maybe you already know all the stuff above and maybe that’s why you nailed it so good but then i started writing and got carried away and before i knew it id written everything up there …lol..anyway I also figure only a few people outside of the sex work community inside Sweden and a then some sex workers outside of sweden really know much about the “Swedish model”approach to sex work other than maybe a few lies and myths they have heard promoted by the Swedish PR machine lol .. so even if u know maybe other readers are interested too!
Ryry says
Hey…firstly just echoing above comments- thank you for such a well researched and well thought out piece of writing ..
I felt compelled to comment because i really was struck by how much there is a bizarre parallel with the legal approaches towards sex work – particularly in Sweden and the US but also many places. …I mean the reason i came across this was because i was looking up Swedish laws /the reform to laws re “beastiality” a few years back– as i can’t get over the fact that there was a period of time in Sweden- From 1999 up until the new law introduced on beastility in 2014(?)
.So 15 years – where the law recognized animals ability and capacity to consent to sexual acts with a human and where it was legal to have sex with an animal-as long as you didn’t physically hurt it…
But where, AT THE SAME TIME- as a sex worker- our ability to consent to sex was deemed to be non existent in the eyes of the law- ! and that there was more debate and nuance in the law criminalizing bestiality than there was with the law criminalizing “sex purchase ”
A lot of the time it’s said that Sweden decriminalised sex sellers and made it a crime to buy sex .
But actually there was no decriminalisation of anythinf…just another law added on top of existing laws…and sure- its not a crime in itself to sell sex or to be a sex worker in and of itself…either before or after 1999. But there were other laws to use against everyone around us (eg partner &/or our adult children = pimp if they live with us..we are pimping each other if we work together as sex workers …It’s illegal to rent to us, hotels have to kick us out if they find out we are working and then they should add us to a blacklist to ban us from booking hotel room again)
So kinda like how its ridiculous protecting us as an assumed victim of these sex acts but meanwhile all these other atrocities happen .. and then we are victims as if we are weak ourselves..and not that the legal environment and social conditions violate our dignity and normalize violence against us .
It’s just bizarre ..and its that weird thing where im not insulted being compared to or treated like an animal or loke im less able to communicate my ability to consent than an animal… But i know that the people making those laws definitely don’t mean that in any flattering way to me or other sex workers cognitive abilities… lol ..
This sex purchase ban enacted in 1999 was under the broader women’s peace bill .. or womens security (hard to translate word) .. But the sex work law was gender neutral itself…and it stated that it was now a crime to pay another person (or to plan or try to) for providing sexual services… payment was defined as not necessarily money but anything of value like alcohol drugs or furs (!) .
Crucially-the law makes anyone who sells sex a victim – regardless of whether we have made a decision to charge a fee for our labour and regardless of how we feel or how we experience each and every interaction we have with each person who pays us …
Ironically enough – if i make an agreement with someone in writing that says we have agreed to do a booking that day and that i will be paid as per my rates advertised Nd thats 1500sek ($170usd?) For X amount of time booking and i offer xyz services… and cancellation fees of 500sek apply if less than 24 hr before scheduled time
If i turn up later to this clients place N he decides to pull out of the contract and won’t pay my cancellation fee …
if i called police up the only thing they might be charged for would be attempt or plan to purchase sex ..
.but it would be much more risky for me to report coz i will likely lose my housing (landlord will be ordered to evict me or else face pimping charges for renting to a sex worker) & I can be deported for making a living in a dishonest way even if im EU citizen.. and i might lose custody of my kids for engaging in “self harm” (sex work is harmful always ..and if u dont recognise that its just evidence that you are being so harmed and damaged you have started identifying with yr oppressors as a survival tactic and coping mechanism)
But perhaps worst of all…:”sex purchase” Is seen as victimizing the whole society AS WELL as every person who is paid for sex (regardless of how we feel about it)
So ..since its declared to be harming everyone…the police will raid sex workers homes or stake out our apartment or hotel room and arrest all our clients leaving and then tell us afterwards that they have charged a client. And then they emphasise there is nothing we need to do ..or rather nothing we can do… even if we didn’t want them to be charged (commonly the case) ..they have already been charged and opted to pay a fine rather than go to court and have their name on court records available to public…
Its interesting to see how much the ways gay sex and sex work and sex with animals are being “regulated” or “shamed” or normalised or criminalised under these different pretenses ..and the kind of morality that is held up as the reason…especially when it’s often much more about economics and profits under capitilism …
The examples above are especially fascinating to me also ..avout the way regulations have been made for ‘disposing’/mass killing of male chicks ..thag the way thats most cost effective has been chosen…
As i think about the way sex workers have been controlled thru time and history – the way that 100 years ago sex workers were repeatedly getting arrested and incarcerated in Sweden- because incarceration mean forced labour in the SPINHUS (spin house) ..rise at 4M and work thru til 7 or 8pm ..sewing or spinning yarns … so working in utterly shiy conditions for no pay ..in order to be “rehabilitated” ..finally enougg it just happened to help some businesses get rich off the industrial revolution right?
And then now we see trafficking rise up as this big thing to be worrying about but in reality the most common way that sex workers have their passport taken off them and have people lock then up and force them to work and transport across borders without consent = when governments do it via raid and “rescue” operations… leading to deportations and so called “safe return” home or forced “rehabilitation” in places such as India and Cambodia where Swedish companies like H and M now source much of their clothing…not just at poorly paid sweatshop but also in these places that are claimed to be rehab but refer to the women taken there as “inmates” ..and when sex workers escape over the 10 foot walls after locking the “superintendents into the kitchen and scaling the walls..the police are called to catch the runaways or its claimed pimps have come and captured them ..as if people want to be l9cked up like that…
It’s bizarre because its like the Swedish Model also has turned up into victims and then compared us to animals and weirdly even given animals greater recognition of ability to consent to sex with humans for 15 years… But now we are treated the same lol ..
But what got to me most was that line about the real issue people have about sex with animals being that its viewed as wrong coz its stooping to some low level that should be beneath us…that animals are inferior and we shouldn’t go there with such subhuman creatures.
And it’s making me realise ultimately THAT mentality is what is used against sex workers also…this intensified shaming of clients. Okay yes there are massive differences between the two scenarios also but on some level that just resonates so much ..so I felt lile i should share all this incase its as fascinating to anyone else as it was to me !
Anyway thank you again for this article..
Also apologies if you already know all of this stuff about sex work laws..I hope its. It patronising..I don’t mean it like that …I am just very autistic and get excited rambling on about things .. it occured to me that maybe you already know all the stuff above and maybe that’s why you nailed it so good but then i started writing and got carried away and before i knew it id written everything up there …lol..anyway I also figure only a few people outside of the sex work community inside Sweden and a then some sex workers outside of sweden really know much about the “Swedish model”approach to sex work other than maybe a few lies and myths they have heard promoted by the Swedish PR machine lol .. so even if u know maybe other readers are interested too!