Empty and quiet at nearly 10 p. The nearly half-mile long Malmskillnadsgatan Street begins at the bay that rings Sweden's parliament building, crosses over a glowing shopping plaza, and ends at a cluster of high-rise offices and a subway stop.
There, two middle-aged women with short skirts, long blonde hair, and light puffer jackets emerge and stroll slowly toward the water. When they run into a young man, they light cigarettes and chat him up.
An hour later, they're still talking. In Sweden, all that chatting could make the young man a criminal. In the fight to stamp out transactional sex, the Swedes have flipped the prostitution paradigm on its head.
Here, prostitution is perfectly legal. Women or men, for that matter can sell all the sex they want. It's only illegal for a man — and it's almost always a man — to pay for it.
Persson believes this arrangement protects women, challenges gender stereotypes, and puts society on a path toward reducing violence against women.
