”Att ljuga förändrar ju inte det faktum vad jag gör” : En kvalitativ studie om att vara öppen med att sälja sex

The aim of this study was to examine sex workers openness in regards to sex sale when communicating with other people and authorities. The essential questions that laid the foundation of this research were different factors that influence an individual on their choice of openness and concealment of their experiences, and also how they cope with the consequences of this. The results of this study are based on qualitative interviews conducted with five sex workers. The theoretical framework used to analyze the study’s findings is Erving Goffman’s theory of Stigma and Dramaturgical metaphor. The results indicate that sex workers experience difficulties with being open with other entities, including relationships and authorities. The underlying factors behind this appear to be among other things, based on current laws and social stigma in the society. Sex workers experiences of openness to people in their environment have been both positive and negative. Nevertheless, they have mostly been met with prejudices and dislikes. This signifies that many sex workers feel compelled to withhold and conceal their experiences to others. Our findings also show that sex workers use different strategies when coping with concealment of sex sale, which can have an emotional distress for some individuals