For the first time in three years, opportunities for women around the world, in terms of education, health and politics, have closed in on those afforded to men, according to a new report released on Monday by the World Economic Forum.

At the top of the list is Iceland. Iceland, for 11 years in a row, is elevating women by closing their gender gaps. Coincidentally, Iceland is also a country I’ve been paying attention to for many years, and not just because it’s on my bucket list to visit. Iceland has been on my radar for a very different reason: their laws on human rights issues, specifically those that establish a culture free from the sexual exploitation of women.

In Iceland, prostitution is not illegal, but buying sex or profiting from prostitution is. In other words, their law decriminalizes all those who are prostituted, provides supportive services to help them exit, and makes buying people for sex a criminal offense, in order to reduce the demand that drives sex trafficking. In fact, 4 of the top 10 countries (Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Ireland) who have closed the gender gap, have this law on prostitution! That’s why it’s called the equality model. It recognizes that the person purchasing sex has an economic advantage. The sex buyer uses money, power and privilege to extract sex from someone with less money, power and privilege. “Prostitution is, in reality, very simple. It is sex between two people- between one who wants it and one who doesn’t. Since desire is absent, payment takes its place.” -Kajsa Ekis Ekman

The disparity between Iceland and Nevada couldn’t be further apart. In Nevada, it is lawful to both buy and sell sex, and one consequence of this is that Nevada has become a breeding ground for sex trafficking: Nevada’s illegal sex trade is the highest of any other state in our country. It is 63 percent larger than the next highest state. Sadly, the data also reveals that Nevada is in the top 10 states in the country for trafficked youth. The traffickers brag that recruiting in Nevada is the easiest because the laws have done half the work for them.

And those aren’t the only consequences: women in Nevada are sold, raped, beaten, assaulted, kidnapped and murdered at levels high above the national average: Nevada consistently ranks first in the nation for domestic violence fatalities, third in the nation for rape/sexual assault; fourth in the nation for women to be murdered by men. According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) almost half of the women (48.1%) living in Nevada have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner.

When prostitution is legitimized, then the entire practice of exploitation is normalized; when prostitution is viewed as “a job like any other,” it then gets the same access and opportunities as any other business. Pimps can run for office. A current county commissioner and pimp even came up with an event called “ Hunt a Ho ” where men with paintball guns get to run around the desert hunting women who work for him.

In other words, the entire community inadvertently becomes groomed. In RGJ’s recent podcast series called The City , a Reno strip club owner was portrayed as a misunderstood good guy, and a victim to be empathized with. This man owns 3 strip clubs, and is a local high school track coach.

Let me repeat myself: when prostitution is legitimized, the entire community inadvertently becomes groomed and does things like allow strip club owners to coach high school girls’ sports, and then portrays his sad childhood of being bullied as his excuse to exploit others.

The City’s portrayal of this poor powerful strip club owner, reminds me of the recent Harvey Weinstein interview where he stated he “ feels like a forgotten man ” and deserves a “ pat on the back when it comes to women.” Weinstein’s lawyer recently asked the judge for mercy on his $45 million dollar lawsuit because it is just “ too much to bear.”

The culture in Nevada accepting pimps as politicians and strip club owners into high school positions of authority is no different than Prince Andrew not regretting his relationship with child trafficker and rapists Jeffery Epstein because it proved “ actually very useful.” But useful to who Nevada?

In Iceland, strip shows themselves are illegal. In fact, the promotion of nudity to attract customers to a particular venue or event, private dancing, and the fraternization of clients are also illegal. And their laws on consent are clear. Consent must be clearly and voluntarily expressed. The consent burden is on the accused – rather than the court focusing on whether the victim said ‘no’ or tried to fight back, the accused will have to prove the other person consented. By comparison, Nevada’s culture seems to be more interested in finding empathy for predators.

Nevada would do right by re-examining this culture of exploitation, and how it infects our sense of intimacy: if a man tries to have sex with a woman who doesn’t want to have sex with him, we call that sexual harassment. If he goes further and has sex with her anyway, we call that rape. However, in Nevada, if he uses money to convince her to have sex with him, it seems to confuse everyone. The money the sex buyer leaves behind represents his privilege to pay to rebrand his act of rape and call it consent. Iceland is clear in their understanding of consent. His money would never serve as evidence of consent. That payment only provides the sex buyer with the narrative that he did not harm her. He even gets to think she liked it.

Allowing men to buy sex only aligns with his fantasy. It is not the reality of the survivor. The sex buyer and the community are then groomed to believe he didn’t cause any real harm and our law protects his fantasy. This only further perpetuates inequality. We as a society must end our blind loyalty to the sex buyers, the Weinstein’s, the Epstein’s, strip club and brothel owners and learn to stand for equality in our community.

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