Sex Work: States Weigh the “Nordic Model” vs. Full Decriminalization

As various state legislatures debate whether and how to implement decriminalization, two primary competing approaches have emerged: “Full” decriminalization – wherein both buyers and sellers of sex could go about their business – and the “Nordic model,” which in the context of sex work refers to the approach of ceasing the prosecution of sex workers, while maintaining the enforcement of prostitution and pandering laws against sex buyers and “pimps.”

The two bills currently under consideration in New York, the “Stop the Violence in the Sex Trades Act” (SVSTA) and the “Sex Trade Survivors Justice and Equality Act” (STSJEA), embody the split in approaches to decriminalizing sex work – and naturally, both sides of the debate are convinced their approach is the superior model.

The first of those bills, the SVSTA would fully decriminalize sex work for sex workers, their clients and their managers (to use a term far less loaded than “pimp” or “madam”). The STSJEA, on the other hand, would impose the Nordic model in New York, leaving clients and managers at risk of prosecution.

Supporters of the STSJEA also position their bill as a mechanism for helping sex workers leave the sex trade – something which many actual, current sex workers who advocate for decriminalization don’t particularly want to do.

In a recent interview with Law360, Cecilia Gentili, an activist for transgender rights and former sex worker who is one of the founders of Decrim NY, an organization that supports the SVSTA, said what Decrim NY advocates is “decriminalization of two parties that agree to exchange sex, for money or for whatever they are exchanging it.”

“It’s very personal for me, because I am a sex worker, and I am also a person who experienced trafficking in my life,” Gentili added.

The sponsors and supporters of the rival bill, unsurprisingly, focus their rhetoric on elements of human trafficking, claiming that full decriminalization inexorably leads to a spike in trafficking crimes.

“We know that legalization and decriminalization in its various forms really kick trafficking into high gear and drag more people who are already existing in marginalization and who are vulnerable into this system of exploitation,” said Justin Flagg, a spokesperson for Sen. Liz Krueger of Manhattan, the sponsor of the STSJEA.

Gentili, however, said this concern on the part of those who oppose full decriminalization is overblown.

“Most folks who oppose this bill kind of base their opposition on ideas that we are advocating for trafficking, which is not the case,” Gentili said. “I know what being trafficked means.”

Gentili also noted that continuing to prosecute sex buyers also “back the whole stigma that clients are inherently violent or harmful.”

“That’s not the reality,” she said. “I have had clients who were not the best clients, but that happens to anybody in any situation where we exchange something.”

Attorney Larry Walters told YNOT that from the perspective of a sex worker’s legal rights and legal risks, “among the various proposals set forth to revamp prostitution laws, full decriminalization is by far the most beneficial for sex workers.”

“The Nordic Model of criminalizing only buyers of sexual services results in ongoing risk of police harassment of sex workers, client violence, and other threats to sex workers’ security or livelihood, according to research published by Amnesty International,” Walters noted. “Other studies in jurisdictions that have adopted that model, like France and Ireland, show an increased risk of violence to sex workers after the policy was instituted.”

As for sex workers whose work solely involves the production of erotic content, “decriminalization should theoretically have no impact since such activities are at least arguably protected by the First Amendment,” Walter said, but there might be a less direct benefit to adult performers in jurisdictions that decriminalize sex work.

“Decriminalization will end any debate in a given jurisdiction as to whether prostitution laws could apply to adult content production and signal a more friendly climate for online sex workers in that location,” Walters said.

Woman with red umbrella photo by Josh Hild from Pexels