OnlyFans users face prison under harsh new Swedish prostitution law

OnlyFans users in Sweden could face prison sentences under a harsh new law that treats buying online sex shows the same as paying a prostitute for sex.

The law, which will take effect July 1, also criminalizes profiting from or promoting others who perform sexual acts for payment on demand.

“This is a new form of sex purchase, and it’s high time we modernize the legislation to include digital platforms,” Swedish member of parliament Teresa Carvalho said after the bill passed.

Under the new law, it will be illegal to pay someone to carry out a sexual act remotely — such as on a live video stream — for the specific purpose of that act being viewed by the buyer.

The law targets live, specially-commissioned interactions — which are especially lucrative and popular among many porn stars on online platforms.

Watching and paying for pre-recorded adult content will remain legal.

Carvalho, who is part of Sweden’s left-wing opposition party, the Social Democrats, said the law is not aimed at targeting OnlyFans models themselves.

Instead, she said it will protect young people and other individuals vulnerable to exploitation.

She pointed to links between online exploitation and grooming with drug abuse, human trafficking, and prostitution.

The bill was proposed by the Swedish parliament’s justice committee and received cross-party backing.

In Sweden, paying for sex is already illegal and faces a sentence of up to one year in prison. Sweden’s sex trafficking laws focus on punishing the buyers, but not the sex workers.

Pimping carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

This new law cracking down on OnlyFans and other adult sites is similar to the SESTA/FOSTA law passed in the US in 2018 during President Trump’s first term in office, which punished platforms that facilitate sex work, Yigit Adin, activist at the European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance, told Netzpolitik.org.

But others in Sweden want the law to go further, and have called for a total ban on platforms like OnlyFans.

“It is a forum where sexual services are also sold. Prostitution or the sex trade is constantly taking new forms, and it is important that politicians and legislators keep up with the developments that are taking place,” Social Democrats politician Annika Strandhäll told the Swedish newspaper Expressen.

She also called on age limits on porn sites to shield children from harmful material.

“From the perspective of Swedish women, we see a big problem with the access to gross violent pornography that very young children in Sweden today have, just by pressing a button on their phones,” she said.

“We protect our children in many different ways from gaining access to different things that are not appropriate in our society. For example, if they go to a gambling site, or from having access to alcohol or similar,” she added.