No more hotel porn for Swedish government officials

(AFP) Swedish civil servants, soldiers and politicians will no longer be able to stay at hotels that offer pornographic TV programmes after a government agency blacklisted accommodation with x-rated viewing options, officials said on Wednesday.

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The move against blue movies came from the military, which in Sweden negotiates deals with hotels which then apply to all other public sector officials travelling on business.

"The entire public administration uses the same hotel deals, so this should affect almost everybody," Major General Åke Jansson, who heads the military logistics unit that arranges the deals, told AFP.

Starting on July 1 deals will, as far as possible, only be made with hotels that are pornography-free.

The Swedish military, which welcomes female recruits and seeks to convey an image of gender equality, wants to do its bit to protect women, both in the porn industry and in hotels, Jansson said.

"In the military, we have been working to curb attitudes that are degrading to women, which in no way can be accepted," he said.

The initiative stemmed from discussions with Swedish women's organization ROKS, which claims that x-rated movies lead to increased abuse of women and widespread degrading attitudes towards them.

"We talk to a lot of abused women, and in many cases it turns out that men's interest in porn is linked to the abuse," head of the ROKS campaign Tina Olby told AFP.

The measure would also protect women working as hotel maids "who are forced to clean up after the men who watch these films," she added.

Jansson said his unit's special deals account for 92,000 hotel nights each year worth 80 million kronor (11 million dollars).

"We think we are so big that we can really have an impact on the (hotel) industry," he added.

However, the military will not stop at just hotels in its drive to wipe out "unacceptable" attitudes towards women, he said.

"We have also decided to halt the sales of so-called men's magazines in all stores" on military bases, he said.