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‘Big Sister’ names men trying to buy prostitutes in Iceland

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Summary of story from Iceland Review Online, October 19, 2011

A new underground movement called “Stóra systir” (Big Sister in Icelandic) has handed over a list to the Reykjavík Police of men who wanted to buy the services of prostitutes through various websites and classified ads offering “massages” in daily newspaper, Fréttabladid.

Iceland passed a law in 2009 which made the purchase of sex illegal.

The group held a press conference in Reykjavík this week – its spokespeople wearing cloaks, hoods and masks to remain anonymous – stating its intention was to ensure that the laws on prostitution were applied by police.

The group decided to take matters into its own hands after police authorities claimed it had neither the funds nor the manpower to fight prostitution which, the group stated, is clearly thriving in Iceland despite being illegal.

The Big Sisters said the list handed to police was the result of three weeks of investigative work.

“We advertised at [one website] and in the massage columns of the papers and in the beginning it was just to check the reaction,” one spokesperson said. “The demand proved extensive and so we expanded into [other websites].”

The Big Sisters say that even though the buyers of prostitution try to hide their identities, their computer skills vary and it is usually easy to find out who they are.

“We are good at what we do and we have assistants, for example women who have been involved in prostitution,” they said, explaining that they teach them the industry’s lingo

The group is demanding that the police take action, most notably ensuring that the relevant laws are enforced. The group is also demanding that the websites involved are shut down, and that the publication of ads for prostitution in the media in all forms be stopped. The group also called for the closure of porn clubs.

No one is safe now, Big Sister is everywhere, one spokesperson warned.

  1. I think sex should be made illegal. I mean, it is associated with so many illegal activities (prostitution, pornography, etc.) that making it illegal as such not would solve so many problems in one fell swoop. Making it illegal per se would also be logical since something that breeds illegality in such a way cannot but be intrinsically illegal.

  2. Columnist says:

    Well, many radical feminists do understand that the power differential between men and women makes hetero-sexual encounters, PIV in particular, ethically suspect.

  3. Columnist, as a class perhaps that is true however sex is rarely between the class women and the class men but rather two individuals who are far more likely to be close in terms of power than their classes would dictate (since male class analysis ignores the bottom long tail of class men). It’s disingenuous to apply class dynamics to any specific pair of individuals.

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