American lawmakers who want to crack down on the X-rated OnlyFans online platform are looking to a new law in Sweden that bans the purchase of live online sexual performances for inspiration.

The new law went into effect this month and puts Sweden in a leading position in the regulation of online sex work. Under Sweden’s new law, purchasing a sexual act online could put the internet viewer behind bars for a year.

A member of the Swedish Riksdag, Teresa Carvalho, supports the legislation. “We see how a new digital sex industry is rapidly emerging as sex purchases have moved online. It is prostitution in a new guise,” Ms. Carvalho says on X.

In the United States, a group of lawmakers have been calling for a crackdown on OnlyFans for years. An American law similar to the one in Sweden could be financially devastating for the platform.

More than 1.4 million American women reportedly create content on OnlyFans and about 67 percent of the London-based company’s revenue reportedly comes from the United States.

But critics say bans on online sex work are misguided. Human Rights Watch has called for the full decriminalization of consensual adult sex work, including online. The advocacy group warns that criminalization exposes sex workers to abuse and exploitation by law enforcement officials. It also claims it makes sex workers more vulnerable to violence, including rape, assault, and murder, by attackers who see sex workers as easy targets because they are stigmatized and unlikely to seek help.

Congresswoman Ann Wagner doesn’t buy that argument. She has been a leading voice in criticizing OnlyFans, especially over concerns about the exploitation of young females. She previously called for an investigation into the financial agreements made by the company with online creators.

“As public officials, we must do everything in our power to ensure children and vulnerable individuals are protected from harm and sexual exploitation,” Ms. Wagner says.

During the Biden administration Ms. Wagner joined more than 100 Republican and Democratic colleagues to ask the Department of Justice to conduct an investigation focusing on child sexual abuse material on the website and how OnlyFans ensures minors are protected from exploitation.

The lawmakers claim that OnlyFans has become a major marketplace for buying and selling images of sexual abuse involving children. 

The United States is already tightening the screws on non-consensual images online. In May, President Trump signed the Take It Down Act, bipartisan legislation that enacts stricter penalties for the distribution of so-called “revenge porn” and deepfake images created by artificial intelligence.

Senator Lee wants to take things a step further. He supports a nationwide ban on distribution of all pornography. In May, he introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act that would define obscenity as material that “appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion” or depicts actual or simulated sex acts without “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

The Supreme Court has decided that most pornography is protected by the First Amendment unless it involves children or is considered obscene.

In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously described his threshold test for obscenity as “I know it when I see it.”

Senator Lee says that definition makes it difficult to assess and uniformly label obscenity. His legislation would allow the prosecution of anyone who spreads pornography online over state lines or from foreign sources.

As for the Supreme Court, it decided this term that age verification laws are OK to block online porn from minors without infringing on the First Amendment rights of adults.