ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines how the radical feminist understandings of sex work that have informed the 'sexkopslagen' have been disseminated and concretised into popular consciousness through said legislation, with the 'sexkopslagen' having 'sent a signal' intra- and internationally, establishing new Swedish normativities and deviances. It focuses specifically on cisgender female and male sex workers, transgender sex workers, clients of sex workers, migrant sex workers and victims of sex trafficking have been comprehensively informed by abolitionist radical feminism. The chapter describes the abolitionist feminist social constructions that have informed mainstream Swedish understanding of sex workers themselves, and of the sex industry. As with female sex work, male sex work is seen in some broad radical feminist understanding to be structured by men's patriarchal dominance and power. Generalised social constructions, infantilisations and pathologisations have come to negate the possibility of agency and self-determination on the part of sex workers in Sweden.
