Usenet being what it is, dominated by Americans, makes some issues
   more confusing than others. How come the Nordic societies are so
   liberal on pornography and promoting indecent lifestyles (also known
   as homosexuality) but so repressive against prostitution, smokers (of
   usual cigarettes as well as joints) and other drug users? Isn't it a
   contradiction that films get censored due to "excessive violence" in
   the countries which all over the world are notorious for their free
   sex and as the base for Nazi propaganda? What a strange mixture of
   liberalism and intolerant censure!
   
   
   
  2.7.1 Sex in the Nordic cultures
  
   Section 2.7.1 is unwritten.
   
   Please write and ask in the newsgroup if there are any particular
   questions you would like answered!
   
   
   
  2.7.2 Domestic partnership (Same-sex "marriages")
  
   In all Scandinavian countries (i.e. Denmark, Norway, Sweden and also
   Iceland, but not Finland or the Faroe Islands) same-sex marriages,
   officially called "Registered Partnerships", are recognized by the law
   - with more or less the same rights and duties as in bi-gender
   marriages. In Sweden two very well-known female performing artists,
   Eva Dahlgren and Efva Attling, married publicly the spring 1996 with
   much fanfare.
   
   Denmark, Norway, Greenland, Sweden and Iceland have (in that order)
   made the cohabition between people of the same sex possible to get
   officially registered, which in most non-religious respects makes the
   status of the relationship equal to that of a married couple. As late
   as June 27th 1996 the law took effect on Iceland.
   
   Finland has not yet joined the other Nordic states, but is rapidly and
   under unusual parliamentarian means catching up. Being last will
   probably also mean that they will end up with the most radical laws.
   
   The laws are very short - what they do is state that gay couples who
   register are entitled to all of the benefits (and responsibilities) of
   their country's respective marriage laws. They do this by simply
   referring the Registered Partnership Acts to the respective sections
   of the country's Marriage Act that applies.
   
   The ceremony is performed much like a civil wedding ceremony. The
   Church does not perform such ceremonies, but some priests have chosen
   to bless partners in connection with the ceremony. The registration of
   a partnership makes no big practical change compared to living
   together without it, however for instance rules regarding inheritance
   are affected. The meaning is most of all emotional, as an act making
   the relationship "officially" acknowledged.
   
   The laws requires at least one of the partners to be a citizen in the
   actual country.
   
   Until recent years homosexuals in all Nordic countries have been in a
   situation where their partners have not been recognized by the
   official society at all, for instance often have not been properly
   informed in case of accidents and hospitalizations, and with severe
   problems to keep the lease of a shared flat in case of a divorce or a
   death. During the 1970s this started to change, and gay couples became
   equal to unmarried couples without children at the same time as most
   social benefits became depending on cohabition instead of marriage.
   And 1989 Denmark was first out with a specific law regulating the
   rights and duties of gay couples who live in recognized partnerships,
   i.e. common law marriages.
   
   Due to the Swedish Registered Partnership Act women who have entered
   into partnerships have also been granted social benefits in connection
   with a birth equal to if the other woman had been the married father
   of the child. It is likely that this implementation will be normal in
   the future.
   
   Still the authorities in Finland treat cohabiting same sex couples as
   single persons and not like unmarried heterosexual couples (common law
   marriage) which leads to an increased financial burden. This has
   implications to taxation, health insurance, and so on and on...
   
   In none of the Nordic states does the law permit the adoption of
   children by gay or lesbian couples, nor does it give the right to
   artificial insemination. Insemination is in Sweden illegal outside of
   the public health care system and the requirements make it impossible
   for lesbians without an infertile male husband to get inseminated. In
   Denmark insemination for lesbians is not illegal, however not financed
   through the health-care insurances.
   
   There has been some discussion about these laws, involving both
   requests for more radical steps and urging of Conservatism. Many
   homosexuals would probably agree that the partnership laws are the
   best possible result of pragmatic compromises by gay-rights activists
   and the straight [heterosexual] politicians who supported the law.
   It's a typical example of Scandinavian step-by-step reforms. And it
   will be improved further.
   
   The Icelandic law is similar to those passed in Norway, Denmark and
   Sweden, but it also gives gay couples joint custody of the children of
   either partner. Both partners then become the childrens' guardians and
   should the natural parent die, the other partner - the childrens' step
   parent - automatically becomes their sole guardian. Nowhere have gay
   couples had such rights up to now. In addition to this the Alþingi
   (the Parliament of Iceland) is scheduled to change several provisions
   in the criminal law, making it a punishable offense to defame or
   persecute gays and lesbians in public. In addition, the law only
   permits gay and lesbian couples to confirm their partnership in a
   civil ceremony; this in light of the Church of Iceland's firm
   opposition to church marriages of gay and lesbian couples. The new law
   enjoys the support of all political parties represented in parliament
   and only one member voted against the bill.
   
   Top politicians have in some cases chosen to be quite open regarding
   their own experiences and feelings of homosexual nature, as for
   instance Andreas Carlgren, the vice chairman of the Center party in
   Sweden; and in other cases chosen to regard these matters as strictly
   personal which well might be acknowledged in an interview or two, but
   which are not allowed to become a part of their image, as for instance
   the Norwegian minister of Justice, Anne Holt, and the Danish minister
   of Health, Yvonne Herlov Andersen. In the Nordic countries it's
   customary to respect the individual's choice in these cases.
   
   
   
  2.7.3 Pornography
  
   [ Lennart Regebro writes: ]
   Norway and Iceland don't allow pornography, but through the years the
   definition of what is pornography has got more liberal.
   
   Sweden has one of the world's best protections for Freedom of Speech,
   which made it hard to outlaw pornography. Thus, Sweden got its
   reputation of being the land of free sex, because in Sweden you could
   actually make porn magazines.
   
   Some time during the sixties, Denmark removed its laws prohibiting
   pornography, and became a mecca for Nordic porn. It still is in many
   senses. For example, the view on "unusual" sex seems much more relaxed
   in Denmark. Sado-Masochism seems pretty accepted, for example,while it
   in Sweden seems to be taboo. There is even a law against distrubuting
   "violence-sex", something that seems to be aimed against
   sado-masochistic pornography.
   
   Sweden (just like Denmark) doesn't allow distribution of
   child-pornography. Although you legally can own it, the police can
   take it, if it is evidence for child-misuse. Owning it is not an
   offense, although the law in Sweden is proposed to change on that
   point. [ someone else: ]
   Finland has its own major contribution to the porn industry in the
   famous (and newly deceased) artist Touko Laaksonen (alias: Tom of
   Finland), who from the 1940s and forward published a lot of often
   overt erotic drawings of Nordic males as forest workers, bikers,
   firemen and policemen with pretty faces, huge dicks, and a shameless
   amount of appetite for each other.
   
   
   
  2.7.4 Censorship in the Nordic countries
  
   [ Gunnar Medin writes: ]
   Denmark is an easy case. There is no censorship at all. Not for adults
   anyway. A film can be prohibited for viewing in a movie theater by
   children below 12 or 16, but no censor decide what adult people can
   see. (But some kind of pictures are unlawful to show, i.e. child
   pornography.) This does not mean that charges cannot subsequently be
   brought against publishers of the material for breaking of laws like
   racist allegations, libel slander or perhaps copyright issues. But the
   main thing is that there is never any preemptive censorship.
   
   Another thing is what the audience like! American films seem sometimes
   to get distributed in two versions. One cut for Northern Europe with
   more sex and less violence, and one for US with less nakedness but
   more violence. US films with relatively explicit sex scenes, e.g.
   Basic Instinct, are often made in one version for Europe and one
   shorter ("censored") version for the USA. The only reason I have heard
   of for censoring films in Sweden in modern times is violence.
   
   [ someone else: ]
   In Sweden, the same laws apply to what you can and what you can not
   show on movies and video. The difference is, that movies are checked
   for violations before being shown, while videos are only checked if
   there is a complaint.
   
   This means that a movie distributor /theater can never be convicted
   for what they show in movies since the censoring system absolves them
   from responsibility. In contrast, video distributors can be convicted
   for selling and renting videos with prohibited content.
   
   The same rule also holds for printed matter in Sweden. Books which are
   libelous, infringes copyrights, prints military secrets and so on, can
   never be censored before publication.
   
   The problem with doing this for movie theaters is that it takes so
   long time to get a conviction, so that the movie would have stopped
   showing anyway. In effect, it would "remove" the censoring, unless you
   would get long jail sentence. That would in turn lead to the much
   worse "self-censoring" system that exists in the US.
   
   [ Otto-Ville Ronkainen: ]
   In Finland, all films are subject to a preview by the State Film
   Approval Office, which can approve the film for all audiences or for
   audiences above a certain age. The highest age limit is K-18. If a
   film can't be shown as K-18 as such, it must be cut or it can't be
   shown. Nowadays the standards on sex are more lenient than in the US.
   Movies that are R-rated in the US can be K-12 or K-10 here.
   
   For video films, the Finnish system requires the limit to be K-16 or
   less, so K-18 films have to be cut to be released on video. However,
   such restrictions don't exist on import for own use, so the real
   enthusiasts can get their films uncut from England or Denmark, for
   instance.
   
   [ Kari Yli-Kuha: ]
   Currently, the Finnish censorship is about to be abolished, since with
   the current information technology it's practically impossible to
   prevent people from seeing whatever they want. It's not so important
   what the adults see or do not see, but removing censorship, the main
   purpose of which has been to guard children from the most hard-core
   violence, emphasizes the role of parents.
   
   
   
  2.7.5 Drugs in the Nordic countries
  
   This is a controversial theme, which maybe can be illustrated by the
   following quotes from the news group:
   
   [ Stein J. Rypern writes: ]
   At least Norwegian culture is pretty clear on this - drugs are out.
   
   Alcohol and nicotine are allowed, but with some restrictions:
     * advertising for either alcohol or cigarettes are prohibited
     * there are hefty "sin taxes" on both products,
     * there is a law against smoking in many public places
     * spirits, wine and beer in tax group 3 (with more than about 4.5%
       alcohol per volume unit) is only sold in the government monopoly
       shops (and licensed bars and restaurants, of course).
       
   Norway is culturally a part of the "vodka belt", where occasional
   drinking yourself into a stupor at parties is socially acceptable, but
   not really done all that much by people who are above the age of 20.
   
   There is a fairly strong taboo against drinking and driving. It still
   happens, of course - but most people have the sense to park the car
   and take a cab home or arrange for one person to stay sober and drive
   the others home when they have been drinking.
   
   What has all this got to do with drugs? Not a lot, I guess :-)
   
   Drugs just aren't socially acceptable. Might be part of the
   puritanical heritage of Norwegians; might be common sense - we know
   how to deal with drinking (we drink, get drunk, fall down, no problem
   :-), but not with using drugs. Several decades of good propaganda work
   by the health authorities have also firmly fixed the idea that
   "smoking marihuana leads to the use of heavier drugs" in our minds. It
   may or may not be true - I don't much care either way - I see no need
   for people to use drugs when we have the time-honored way of getting
   blasted - alcohol. :-)
   
   I guess people also see using drugs as something done by junkies and
   prostitutes and people who are down and out. There are no role models
   who advocate the use of drugs.
   
   I accept my neighbor's right to meddle in my decisions when what I do
   affect him. When I expect him to pay my medical bills (through taxes)
   if I need surgery or when I drive my car down the street where his
   kids go to school after drinking or using drugs. In those cases it is
   not just my personal choice, it is also my neighbors problem. Most
   Norwegians seem to be somewhat more inclined toward the common good
   than individual freedom.
   
   The "relaxed" attitudes of the Scandinavian countries are mostly an US
   myth, I suspect. Just because we don't have all your hang-ups about
   sex and don't pay lip service to "godliness" doesn't mean that
   anything goes over here :-)
   
   Coffee, loud music, fat food, skiing slopes too steep for you - all
   these things might cause some kind of damage to your health. It is
   neither desirable nor practical to try to ban everything that "is bad
   for you". I am willing to accept some risks.
   After all - life is dangerous - must be close to a 100% fatality rate,
   eh?
   ;-)
   
   Keeping drugs banned is practical politics as long as the number of
   drug (ab)users is fairly limited. Politics is doing what we believe is
   right, within the confines of what is possible in the real world.
   
   I don't think you can cure most drug addicts from their addiction. I
   would prefer to spend whatever resources we can afford to spend on
   preventing or actively hindering people from being recruited into drug
   addiction. Based on the principle "one stitch in time saves nine".
   Prevention tend to be less expensive both in terms of money and human
   suffering than trying to cure an existing condition. I don't know what
   is the cheapest alternative. I believe that it is that as few people
   as possible use drugs. I also believe that making drugs illegal, hard
   to get and as expensive as possible will make fewer people start doing
   drugs. I draw my line between smoking /drinking on one side and doing
   drugs on the other side. For practical reasons - it is a line I
   believe can be enforced.
   
   [ Mikko Hakala <hakala@cermav.grenet.fr> writes: ]
   The situation also varies from country to country. Denmark is most
   tolerable, and in contrast, Sweden's attitude towards drugs has become
   something close to paranoia, planning to criminalize even
   prostitution. I feel that since Palme's murder Sweden hasn't been the
   country it used to be. As if the nation had lost her faith in
   tomorrow.
   
   Norway and Finland are somewhere between. Probably more close to
   Sweden than Denmark. Most Scandinavians don't come personally in touch
   with drugs. They see drugs only in (American) movies. Therefore the
   Nordic sense of reality hasn't become part of their drug-policy.
   
   If one is caught in Finland with, say, with 2 grams of hash, there
   won't be any prosecution. BUT the considering, which takes one minute
   for a policeman in the streets of Helsinki, may take several days for
   a rural police chief in Kajaani. - Meanwhile the "criminal" stays in
   custody!
   
   [ From: Anders Nordseth <anders.nordseth@sn.no> ]
   In Copenhagen, Denmark, they also sell cannabis in the open, in the
   so-called Pusher Street in Christiania. There they have sale-stands
   where they sell hashish, and the police bothers only once in a while.
   
   I would agree that Norway and Finland are closer to Sweden than
   Denmark. For smuggling cannabis products in larger amounts you might
   in Norway risk 21 years in prison, which is the highest sentences one
   can get in Norway (the same as homicide).
   
   Recently, a person from Denmark was caught smuggling 30 kg of hashish
   from Denmark to Norway. He escaped from Norway and went back to
   Denmark. The Norwegian authorities wanted to seek extradition for him,
   but the Danish authorities didn't look at the crime as serious enough,
   so they didn't extradite him. He is a free man in Denmark, in Norway
   he would have been a "very dangerous criminal".
   
   Possessing smaller amounts of cannabis, is not that serious. In the
   bigger cities (like Oslo) you would usually get a fine, in smaller
   places in Norway you might risk some days in prison.
   
   The crimes involved with drugs are caused by drug addicts who need
   money to finance their use of drugs. If it wasn't prohibited, the
   price would not have been as high, and they wouldn't have to resort to
   theft, prostitution or robbery to finance their drug use.
   
   Use of alcohol leads to violent behavior more often than the use of
   drugs. A stoned person is quite harmless. I've been driving cab in
   Oslo for several years on weekend nights while studying. Drug addicts
   or stoned people have never caused me any problems, drunk people have
   very often caused me problems.
   
   It's a dilemma, what problems should we choose? My opinion is that it
   would be a more fair distribution of the problems if we legalize
   drugs. Today a lot of innocent people suffer for the criminal acts
   done by drug-addicts hunting for money. By legalizing drugs, more
   people will probably have personal problems, but less innocent people
   will have problems caused by drug-use. And remember, everyone has that
   choice to "Just say no". It might be a cynical view, but freedom has
   its costs.
   
   [ From: Nils Ek <armn033@cmc.doe.ca> ]
   The serious health risks imposed by cannabis, cocaine, heroin, etc.
   have been well established (at least to the satisfaction of most
   educated people) by responsible medical groups. In Scandinavia, those
   who abuse their bodies with alcohol and/or drugs are entitled to
   publicly-funded health-care. So perhaps it's no wonder that the
   governments decide they'd rather not put up with the medical as well
   as social costs of de-criminalized intoxicant drugs. Of course these
   arguments and conclusions have been vehemently denied by the addicts
   (or counter-culture drug proponents, if you will).
   
   Rather than tolerance, the issue may be one of: whom do you believe?
   The Nordics probably have more respect for their medical community
   than elsewhere, e.g. compared to U.S. where it's perceived as
   "big-business". Meanwhile the counter-culture types typically believe
   they have tapped into some ancient secrets of the orient. However, I
   believe that for many people, this has to be a turn-off because of the
   use in oriental "natural" medicine of bears' gall-bladders, tiger
   penises, and rhino horns. Perhaps this is why pro-drug arguments of
   (American) counter-culture seem to have less of a foothold there.
   

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  http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/scn/faq27.html ]