"Förtroende, diskretion, vänskap" : Informationspraktiker för erotiska minoriteter i Sverige 1975–1995

Sammanfattning: Introduction. The aim of this thesis is to examine information practices among erotic minorities in Sweden in 1975–1995. These minorities include among others sadomasochists, fetishists and transvestites. The survey moves within the subculture that existed around deviating sexual practices. The center of the survey is the association Club Sunrise who organized erotic minorities, where the majority of the members had a mainly heterosexual orientation.  Method. Sixteen semi-structured interviews have been carried out with people active in the Swedish subculture during the studied period. The empirical data also consists of the Club Sunrise member magazine SMART. The author also had access to material from other media, in which the members participated. Analysis. The material has been analyzed based on J. Tuomas Harvianien’s concept of embodied information literacy and Elfreda A. Chatman’s four critical concepts that serve as the basis for defining an impoverished life-world: risk-taking, secrecy, deception and situational relevance.  Results. People belonging to various erotic minorities have used all four of Chatman’s critical concepts, with an emphasis on secrecy and deception. They also obtained information through embodied literacy. In addition to these results, the investigation also resulted in a mapping of various associations and venues that existed in Sweden before 1995. Conclusion. Erotic minorities in Sweden 1975–1995 were in a state of information poverty. However, they have not suffered from any information poverty in their lives as a whole, but it has been expressed in their belonging to an erotic minority. To get in touch with like-minded, without revealing their secrets to outsiders, they used different concepts of secrecy and deception. They also found and identified each other through secret signs and symbols, special clothing or ways of behaving. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.