ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book outlines the legal debate that resulted in the criminalization of the purchase of sex. The abolitionist radical feminist discourse that has come to inform Swedish constructions of the sex industry is explored. Sweden has criminalized the purchase of sex, with sex selling decriminalized concomitantly. The world over, women who exchange sexual services for money and other forms of compensation have historically been seen as a threat to the health of normative society in terms of morality and in terms of the spread of disease. Swedish concern surrounding prostitution has not historically been so dissimilar to those more general problematisations of sex workers as a threat to normative society. A history of oppressive and violent social engineering, containment and control of problematised groups 'has shaken beliefs in the exclusively benign nature of their welfare state'.
