"Det är ju bara sex liksom" - En kvalitativ studie om hur personer som säljer sexuella tjänster via Internet ser på sin situation

Authors: Therese Johansson, Moa Sundelin Title: “It’s just sex, man” - A qualitative study concerning personal experiences from those who sell sex through the Internet. [translated title] Supervisor: Lars B Ohlsson Advertisement on the Internet is getting more frequent and the prostitution business is no exception. Selling sex is a much-debated subject in Sweden and it is a very polarizing debate. The aim of this study was to create an understanding of the latest trend in prostitution in Sweden - to sell sexual services through the Internet. Those who sell sex through the Internet - what are their thoughts about their situation? What were their reasons to start selling sex? The intention with this study was also to let their voices be heard about the criminalization of the purchase, but not the sale, of sex. To get in contact with people who sell sex through the Internet, we started out by searching on escort sites and sent out in total 56 e-mails with information about the study. We got 19 replies and in the end we conducted 14 interviews through e-mail. We chose to analyze the material through the theory of stigma and deviant behavior, more specifically through the works of the sociologists Erving Goffman and Howard S Becker. We found that the majority of those who chose to participate in our study enjoy selling sex but feel bad about other people passing judgment on them. They feel that the social stigma makes it hard for them to be open about what they do. The main factors as to why they started selling sex were financial issues, bad mental health, or the fact that selling sex is a fetish that is sexually pleasing to them. The majority of the people in our study want prostitution to be completely legal and think that because of the criminalization, the “good” clients come to the Internet and the “bad” ones go to the streets. We also found that there is a clear distinction regarding how Internet prostitutes see themselves in comparison to streetwalkers