Doubts about Sweden’s "sexual revolution”

Press, 25 March 1981, Page 16

Doubts about Sweden’s "sexual revolution”

By

CHRIS MOSEY

in Stockholm

Sweden’s “sexual revolution” is 10 years old this year. The anniversary is a sad one for Mr Hans Nestius, one of the campaigners who fought vigorously for repeal of the old morality laws. - J ? Today he is on the side of those fighting pornography. His achievements have been a ban on child ■ pornography- 'and firmer application of the law against public display of obscene material. Mr Nestius, chairman of the National Swedish Association for Sexual Information, discounts nearly all the arguments he once used in favour of freeing pornography. The fight for the relaxation and eventual repeal of the law went hand-in-hand with the fight for free abortion and proper sex education in schools. “We wanted everything to be free and open,” says Mr ; Nestius sadly. “We wanted light and air. “When we took up the fight

against the forbidding of pornography, the porn that was around was shoddy, of very bad quality. It was stamped through and through with the double morality that , prevailed at the time; To most men there were two sorts of women — the mother, Madonna figure who bore your children, and the slut with whom you had your sexual fulfilment,” says Mr Nestius. “We thought we could bring about a happy, warm, positive pornography with serious writers, artists and photographers producing warm, sensual depictions of the sexual.act. We though we would drive out the shoddy, dirty pornography.” From his office window he looks out over Sweden’s largest porn bookshop. “What happened was that sex capitalism took over. There had always been excess in pornography, but before it was printed in yery small quantities. Today •there are huge editions of magazines catering for sado-

masochism, for example, or perversions with animals. “We argued that there would be a decline in rape and prostitution because pornography would act as a safety valve. Instead both have in“The only thing that has decreased has been the number of complaints to the police of indecent exposure. Personally, I have a feeling that this is just that today’s woman is more liberated and can’t be bothered to lodge a complaint. “Pornography does not stand for sexual freedom, for openness, for-sexual radicalism, as I once used to maintain. It stands for the other side of Puritanism. It stands for shame and. guilt. “Free pornography is a contradiction in terms. Pornography can’t be free and open. It depends for its existence on tempting with the forbidden fruit, the guilty secret.” Copyright, London Observer Service.