February 14, 2012
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Columnist Jonathan Power provides Prospect readers with a potted guide to Sweden. It’s not all sex and loose morals you know. Or is it? Nobel committee secretary Horace Engdahl gives his view:
Urbanisation came late in Sweden, and consequently the influence of the middle class with its strict norms of sexual behaviour has been limited.
Read the full article. It’s worth it.
As diverse as Sweden is, there are a few societal norms that are distinctly Swedish. Understanding a handful of them will hopefully prepare you culturally before you relocate. When you're invited home to a Swede, you better be on time and take your shoes off, writes expat Lola Akinmade-Åkerström. Read more »
Sweden is a country where almost everyone can speak English. So why bother to learn Swedish? Edina Varnagy from Hungary managed with English for a whole year but then found that Swedish could open doors – to a job, a social life and greater understanding. Read more »
"The ice dripped in the winter sun. It was the first day when the light had been intense enough to cause dripping in the sunlight. To hear it was an extraordinary wakeup call. The cycle was happening again as it always does, always will (or so we think). I imagined that on my summer island, the bees..." READ »
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August 9th, 2009 at 4:58 am
Here in america, a teenage boy popping a virgin is a big deal. Why is this different in sweeden?
August 19th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Because America is full of ignorant Republican right wing Christians who are convinced that the Bible is the all in all truth. Sex is wonderful, Fun, Healthy , and a great way to get rid of stress
August 20th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Because “popping a virgin” is a way to ridicule women. Men in America use the gender equality as an excuse to behave like assholes. The equality doesn’t exist at all and women have little in return for their struggle of 40 years ago. Men here are rude and disrespectful, they snicker and abuse women on a regular basis, both physically and mentally. They really have a sickening idea that women they they date are whores and skanks, not real human beings. Ask a European man that has met Americans living in Europe and begin screwing European girls how they really treat the girls. American men are hypocrites of the highest order.
August 24th, 2009 at 12:16 am
“Because America is full of ignorant Republican right wing Christians who are convinced that the Bible is the all in all truth. Sex is wonderful, Fun, Healthy , and a great way to get rid of stress”
Wow, that was a pretty general and idiotic generalization.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
I am an American and I live in the Deep South and I tend to agree with Ian. We are a country full of ignorant Republican right wing Christians who think the Bible is inerrant and who don’t hold women as anything more than a conquest. We are by and large a pitiful excuse for human beings and yet we are so stupid that we don’t even see how stupid we are. By and large of course.
August 28th, 2009 at 7:31 am
To “Naturally Obivious”…your observations of American men’s behavior is interesting considering that I have lived in 8 countries in the EU and have had women tell me that American men were generally more attentive, caring and understanding than there European counterparts. Of course this is generalizing, as you did. I live in Prague currently and I have seen Czech men beat their girlfriends and wives in public, in bars on numerous occasions and nobody even turned and paid any attention. I can tell you that would not happen in the US without major consequences. I don’t like uneducated and uncultured people of any nationality, but Americans that have traveled seem to be much more considerate than the average nationalist that supported Bush and Co. I, for one, have always treated any woman I have been with, with the utmost respect.
August 29th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
I suppose it’s due to Swedes not having much hung ups about sex and all, and also due to Swedish girls usually being with much older guys at a young age. i’ve met plenty of friends who told me when they were 14-16 they lost their virginity to a guy in their 20′s who they were dating. I know that’s not shocking, but still just strange. More teens in the USA lose their virginity with their partner similar in age. That being a guy’s 1st time at maybe 15 or 16, he feels pride in having “become a man” and having made his girl “a woman”. Kanske
September 6th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
“Sex is wonderful, Fun, Healthy , and a great way to get rid of stress”?
Really? Are the psychological identities involved in sex wholly positive?
Are the identities which people define each other as in sex mostly positive?
I don’t think so.A process of degradation is closer to the truth. An activity which
divides, as opposed to unites people.
September 8th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Hey! I’m one a them Republicans from the South. If I high tail it over there to Sweden, can I get me some blond Swedish babe? She won’t make me eat pickled herring before sex will she?
September 24th, 2009 at 7:01 am
looks like you’ve had the short end of the stick there Jock. Of course you may be correct in some instances but i think affectionate, mature, respectful people are more than capable enjoying a sexual relationship without any element of shame and degredation. It’s like anything in life, you get back what you put in! :)
October 1st, 2009 at 6:26 am
“I have seen Czech men beat their girlfriends and wives in public, in bars on numerous occasions and nobody even turned and paid any attention. I can tell you that would not happen in the US without major consequences.”
You’re joking, right?
Do you really think police in the US help women in domestic disputes? You may want to do a little research.
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:10 pm
As an old man of Swedish American origins, I will say that there are more Swedes in America than in Sweden. Many of us look at the current Swedish culture and are appalled at its lack of anything to respect. The biggest news you have made for the last months in how much you steal from the hard working artists of the world. Frankly I am more than a little ashamed to call myself Swedish. The Swedes I know in America are hard working and respectfull to women and attend church at least occasionally. Swedish attitudes towards women were once at the forefront of the Women’s Liberation movement and Swedish Women were thought of as real leaders not just sex objects. I think some of you need to grow up and become Men.
October 6th, 2009 at 12:01 am
You need to get laid Jock.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I’m a Texan, professional and a (rare) politically liberal evangelical Christian. I visited Southern Sweden several years ago, and I could sense the egalitarianism of your culture, even in just 10 days. I appreciated this Swedish way of life, among many others.
While we Americans and especially Texans have a distance to go to match Swedish equality, I have to defend our men a bit. One of my favorite things about the South is how men treat women – women they don’t know and of whom they could never expect payment in return. In social settings, at the gas station, in professional settings, anywhere – If I’m approaching a door at the same time as a man, 9 times out of 10 I can expect him to hold it open for me and allow me to enter first. With my husband or just a male colleague, they subtly maneuver to the street-side of a sidewalk when they’re with a woman. In more rural areas, even young women are told “yes, ma’am” by unfamiliar males. These acts are not done for show – if you’re not paying attention, you could easily miss them. It’s simply part of their upbringing (from what I’ve been told and have experienced from working with non-Southern men, this treatment does not still exist to this extent up North).
I’d like to say to Naturally Obvious — You are associating with the wrong men. Too many women are hung up on the stupid, self-sabotaging “bad boy” attraction. If a man is nice to you, THAT’S A MAN YOU SHOULD BE DATING. You’re worth more than these “hypocrites of the highest order” you write about.
October 21st, 2009 at 10:33 am
komzik: you are absolutely correct.Although many American females are the bottom of the barrel, the men seem to be well received around the world.And everyone should bear in mind that the US is a very large country and if you’re going to compare the rural Sweden from the past, you should compare it to rural America.And let’s not forget the Lutheran ministers from Sweden who had a lot in common with the more fundamentalist Christian sects in the US.
And Christy: even in Sweden and in fact the rest of the world, females will naturally go for the macho Alpha man.It may be very subtle in places where people are more restrained like Sweden but it is undeniably there.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:28 am
Re: to Blah….I never mentioned the police. My point was, if a man in the U.S. was in a bar or restaurant and started hitting his girl in plain site of other patrons, more than likely, someone would get involved to intervene in the attack. And many times it would be a woman coming to the defense of the woman being hit. I’m just saying that in Eastern Europe there is a generally machismo view of women as second class citizens. Alcoholism is a big factor in the abuse as well.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:32 am
and following up again to blah…as a retired police officer in California, yes, the police are legally required to arrest and jail anyone involved in a domestic dispute, whether they are man or woman…it doesn’t matter who does the hitting, so you should do your research wise guy.