Scandinavians To Have More Sexual Freedom

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31836, 14 November 1968, Page 18

Scandinavians To Have More Sexual Freedom

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) COPENHAGEN Denmark and Sweden, long known for their liberal laws and attitudes on sexual matters, are moving toward even greater freedom. the “New York Times” News Service reports.

The Danish Government has introduced a bill abolishing the already lax censor* ! ship of motion pictures for adults. It also plans to remove obscenity as a ground for any action under the criminal code. “It’s a difficult subject for public intervention,” a Ministry of Justice official said in explaining Danish attitudes on sex and censorship. “It’s a question of taste and morals and other non-legal matters, which are pretty hard to legislate.” The Government also promises to legalise the sale of pornographic pictures showing sex acts, after the legalisation of written pornography last year. Sales of pornographic material had fallen since they were legalised, the official said. But he acknowledged that sales of hard-core pornographic pictures had soared. Although nominally illegal, they are openly available. In Sweden, a Parliamentary committee on easier abortion laws is expected to recommend soon that a woman should be allowed to j decide, within 12 weeks of

conception, whether she wants to bear the child. An end of loosely enforced film censorship in Sweden and abolition of unenforced prohibitions on pornography are also being considered by Parliamentary groups and are expected to be proposed soon. Such official steps augment the reputation of Scandinavia as a sexually permissive society. This reputation is substantiated by statistics showing, for example, that in Sweden 48 per cent of firstborn children are born less than eight months after the wedding. With unmarried men and women who openly live together, conception is apparently not so much a scandal as a signal to set the wedding date. Norway and Finland, however, are not as liberal in laws or attitudes as are Denmark and Sweden. One of Scand i n a v i a’s strongest voices lamenting the decline of morals is that of Norway's Minister of Church and Education (Mr Kjell Bondevik). A Swedish Government Minister dismissed sex as a superficial force in Swedish life. A Danish Government Minister said: “T think 80 or 90 per cent of our young people are happily at work in factories and on farms and don’t think much ahn-it it. At night they watch television.”

Nevertheless, even the most casual visitor to Denmark and Sweden is soon aware that things are not the same as in the United States or Britain. Both Copenhagen and Stockholm openly display in shop windows, and beneath big signs reading “sex shop” or “porno,” a wide variety of pictorial and written hardcore pornography. American, British and West German flags outside many of the shops attract tourists, who, shopkeepers say, account for more than half of their sales. Most of the printed material is in Danish or Swedish. Danish officials expect that with the formal abolition of censorship, sex movies may become more extreme for a while but that the real change will come in filihs of horror and violence. Scandinavians often say they find horror and violence, such as is found in American films, more objectionable than sex. Frankenstein’s monster has never been seen on Danish screens. Despite the apparently free attitudes on heterosexual activity, homosexual activity, even though it bears no punishment for consenting adults, still operates in a furtive manner under a continuing moral stigma. Stockholm appears relatively quiet in this regard, although iConenhagei has perhaps a i half dozen “gay bars.”