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The decisive shift in Helsinki?s ten-year antiprostitution movement came when it connected fears about cultural mores to broader concerns that neoliberalism was eroding the generous Finnish welfare state. Though the laws that finally made the books affected only street-level prostitution, interviews with civic elites show that this was merely one area of concern, albeit one that more easily attracted civic prohibition. The 10 years during which desperate Russian women re-introduced streetwalking to the urban landscape also featured the introduction of the first strip clubs, topless restaurants, and a proliferation of sex shops. Attempts to regulate these were stymied by the unique factors of the Finnish case. Concerns for the exploitation of women did not attract broad support because of the perception that only Russian women worked in the sex industry. Even the feminist activists?left wing even within progressive Helsinki? cited only the sex industry?s effect on Finnish women and girls. This ?nationalistic feminism? was another implicit reference to the dangers of unfettered freemarket economies Moving the blame to global economic forces short-circuited the more contentious debates about sexual morality, enacting social change that had two dramatic consequences. First, the law designed to protect trafficked women necessarily failed because national and international agencies have been unable to find any evidence of ?trafficking?. Second, the law pushed the low-level prostitution market into the arms of the Russian and Estonian mafia, which has successfully taken advantage of Finland?s progressive sex laws and stability to operate a paradigmatic neoliberal sex industry. The real impact of neoliberalism, in Finland at least, may well be its demonstrated ability to motivate a broad spectra of political actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]