Male sex workers in northern Europe: a challenging environment

I present the preliminary findings of the fieldwork I did in Sweden for my PhD research project called: \u2018Male Sex Workers. A comparative study of a fringe phenomenon in Italy and Sweden\u2019. During the fifteen months I spent in northern Europe I interviewed, among others, male sex workers, a pimp, organizations that fight for the rights of sex workers in Finland and Norway, organizations for LGBTQ rights in Sweden, social workers, nurses, and doctors of both clinics specialized in sex workers\u2019 health and for HIV and STIs preventions for gay people. In my presentation, I touch two mains points: on one hand the peculiar environment around sex work and sex workers in northern countries, and on the other hand how male sex workers do their job. Indeed, despite the almost twenty-year old legislation, Sweden is still a challenging place where to study sex work, the cleavage inside Swedish society is still very high between pro and against the legislation. Even if the so called \u2018Swedish model\u2019 has been implemented in both Norway and Finland, the environment in these two countries is completely different, despite the general idea of the existence of a \u2018Northern model\u2019. Sex workers\u2019 activities must cope with both the legislation who criminalised the clients and with the hostile environment. Where do sex workers come from? What are their main characteristics? What are clients looking for? What type of services do they offer? These are just some of the questions I answer during my talk