My commentary in The Sunday Times of Malta of September 22 discussed the decision of the Swedish hotel chain – Nordic Choice Hotels - to ban porn movies from their 171 hotels.

I commented that "It is ironical that a company in liberal Sweden decided to call it a day. I live in hope that local ´liberals´ will not dub them ´dinosaurs´ as they did Dr Vassallo". I was referring to the controversy that followed for Labour MP, Adrian Vassallo who wanted the police to proceed against hotels showing porn.

I received a very interesting email from a Swedish person living in Malta. I quote liberally from it while respecting – as promised – the anonymity of the writer.

“For many years feminists [in Sweden] have successfully fought against porn. For instance, there are not many shops in Stockholm specialised in porn as there were more than a decade ago. The feminists fought the battle against these shops by demonstrations outside the shops, painting their windows black and so on.

The hotel chain you mentioned is certainly not the first one to ban porn in Sweden. I would think it is fair to say that very few hotels in Sweden offer that kind of ´service´ today.

Best Western Hotels, which is the biggest hotel chain in Sweden, stopped showing porn in all their hotels in 2007. Many governmental bodies do not allow their employees, when on business trips, to stay in hotels that have porn as a service. There is also an organisation in Sweden that recommends hotels that do not show porno films. Now there are several hundred hotels in Sweden that do not have porn on their agenda.

Swedes have a very open mind about sex, no doubt about that. However, porno films and prostitution is not a natural part of that open mind.”

The reason given by Nordic Choice Hotel for their decision to ban porn from their hotels is that the porn industry is an exploitative industry. This has been proven time and time again. Many who end up in this industry (like many who work in prostitution) are victims of exploitation.

A study published in Psychology of Women Quarterly and quoted in jezebel.com gives another reason why porn is harmful to society. Researchers found that consumers of porn became less likely to support preferential hiring practices for women. The researchers hypothesise that a lot of porn seems to reduce women to objects of derision and humiliation. Subconsciously, they argue, this may translate to an assumption on the part of porn viewers that all women should be similarly objectified; if one woman appears to relish degradation, therefore all women must.

Exploitation and objectification of women are thus two of the reasons given showing that porn is not a neutral activity but a socially harmful one.