Introduction: Although research has shown that evidence-based family interventions in research settings improve the communication and understanding of parental mental illness, there is a lack of knowledge about interventions in an everyday clinical context. Aim: This study explores how families with parental mental illness experience family interventions in a natural clinical context in psychiatric services. Method: Five families with children aged 10–12 were recruited from psychiatric services in southern Sweden and interviewed in a manner inspired by naturalistic inquiry and content analysis. Both family and individual interviews were performed. Results: In striving to lead an ordinary life while coping with the parental mental illness, these families sought the support of the psychiatric services, especially in order to inform their children about the mental illness. Despite different family interventions, the family members felt supported and reported that the number of conflicts in the family had decreased. The parents were appreciative of help with child-rearing questions, and the children experienced a calmer family atmosphere. However, the partner of the person with mental illness experienced being left without support. Implications for practice: Our study shows that psychiatric services, and especially mental health nurses, are in a position to more regularly offer family interventions in supporting the children and the healthy partners.

BACKGROUND: While a large body of research has focused on the challenges experienced by healthcare staff when providing sexual and reproductive health services, little attention has been paid to the ways healthcare providers navigate these challenges. This study examined healthcare providers' accounts of encounters when providing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services to migrants in Southern Sweden. It sought to examine challenges and dilemmas experienced by healthcare providers, strategies used to navigate these challenges and dilemmas, and assumptions underlying participants' accounts.

METHODS: The data collection was conducted between September 2020 and March 2021. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze thirty-one interviews with healthcare providers working in youth clinics and women healthcare clinics. The analysis was guided by a conceptual framework combining person-centered care approach, Foucault's concepts on power/knowledge, and theories to navigate diversity in healthcare setting: cultural competency and cultural humility.

RESULTS: Three themes were identified in the analysis: 1) Between person centeredness and cultural considerations; 2) Knowledge positions and patient involvement; and 3) beyond the dyadic interaction healthcare provider-patient. Some participants understood person-centered care as individualized care where the influence of culture on the encounter should be de-emphasized, whereas others tended to highlight this influence. Many participants viewed the influence of culture as primarily driven by migrants' cultural backgrounds, and as a source of challenges and dilemmas. Participants' strategies to navigate these perceived challenges and dilemmas included practicing cultural humility and seeking cultural competency. Knowledge positions also emerged as an important aspect of participants' accounts of encounters with migrants. Many participants experienced that migrant patients were lacking knowledge about the body and sexuality. This disadvantaged knowledge position affected migrant involvement in care. Additionally, the study shows how participants placed their experiences in a broader organizational and social context. Participants highlighted several organizational challenges to encountering migrants and discussed dilemmas stemming from the interplay between migrants' structural and individual disadvantages.

CONCLUSIONS: The study findings illuminate the complex links between person-centered care and two important dimensions of the encounters with migrants: culture and knowledge positions. They also shed the light on the organizational and structural challenges surrounding these encounters. These findings suggest that multilevel strategies are needed to improve the quality of encounters when providing SRH services to migrants. These strategies could include ensuring universal access to SRH services to migrants, adjusting the encounter duration when interpretation is needed, and providing necessary resources to healthcare providers to build their structural competency.

Background

Previous research has shown that migrants in Sweden are disadvantaged in terms of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). SRHR policies might play a crucial role in shaping migrants’ SRHR outcomes. The purpose of the study was to critically examine: a) how migrants were represented in the discourses embedded within Swedish SRHR-related policies, and b) how migrants’ SRHR-related issues were framed and addressed within these discourses.

Methods

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) was used to analyze a total of 54 policy documents. Following Jäger’s approach to CDA, discourse strands and entanglements between different discourse strands were examined.

Results

Our findings consisted of three discourse strands: 1) “Emphasizing vulnerability”, 2) “Constructing otherness”, and 3) “Prioritizing the structural level or the individual level?”.

Migrants’ representation in Swedish SRHR-related policies is often associated with the concept of vulnerability, a concept that can hold negative connotations such as reinforcing social control, stigma, and disempowerment. Alongside the discourse of vulnerability, the discourse of otherness appears when framing migrants’ SRHR in relation to what is defined as honor-related violence and oppression. Furthermore, migrant SRHR issues are occasionally conceptualized as structural issues, as suggested by the human rights-based approach embraced by Swedish SRHR-related policies. Relevant structural factors, namely migration laws and regulations, are omitted when addressing, for example, human trafficking and HIV/AIDS.

Conclusions

We conclude that the dominant discourses favor depictions of migrants as vulnerable and as the Other. Moreover, despite the prevailing human rights-based discourse, structural factors are not always considered when framing and addressing migrants’ SRHR issues. This paper calls for a critical analysis of the concept of vulnerability in relation to migrants’ SRHR. It also highlights the importance of avoiding othering and paying attention to the structural factors when addressing migrants’ SRHR.

Consensual non-monogamy (CNM) involves being in a relationship that allows participants multiple concurrent sexual and/or intimate partners. Previous studies exploring attitudes toward different types of extra-dyadic sexual activity (EDSA) has typically distinguished between, on the one hand, polyamory/open relationships/swinging and, on the other, infidelity. The aim of this article is to develop further these discussions by showing how the distinctions between relationship types are drawn and/or blurred in social interactions, and how this requires moral work and negotiations of what ethical polyamory is. The research questions are as follows: 1. How are different CNM relationship types distinguished from each other, as well as intertwined and negotiated in social interactions? 2. How are ideals of consent, honesty, and communication reproduced and renegotiated in CNM relationships? 3. How does moral work become important for responding to negative attitudes toward CNM? The material consists of interviews with 22 persons practicing polyamory, CNM, or relationship anarchy, analyzed using thematic analysis. Results show that CNM relationship types are not clearly distinguishable but rather negotiated in social interactions both within a relationship and with others. Interviewees express that consent, honesty, and communication are central for their relationships, but also that they are negotiated. For example, honesty can be renegotiated by introducing an option of not telling your partner everything. Consent can also be renegotiated with some conditions, such as not actively searching out potential partners. They describe several different types of moral work: negotiating and reformulating others’ moral opinions, reversing moral hierarchies, and taking responsibility to explain and to soothe situations. These results contribute to existing research on attitudes toward CNM practices pointing out the importance of taking social interactions into account in order to explore the full extent of negative attitudes toward people involved in CNM relationships and how they handle these interactions.

Norms concerning family formation are generally based on ideals of coupled love and the two-parent-family, however, family practices frequently go beyond these norms. Families consisting of more than two parents that are co-parenting have only been studied to a small extent. Analysing Swedish newspaper and magazine articles on more-than-two-parent families between 1992 and 2016 we ask: How are more-than-two-parent families displayed in Swedish media stories? Are they portrayed as legitimate families, and if so, how is this legitimacy discursively constructed? What role does recognition play in the media stories and how is it negotiated in the narratives? We use the concepts display (Finch 2007) and recognition/redistribution (Fraser 1998; 2003) in exploring the significance that recognition and legitimacy have for the depiction of families with more than two parents in the media material. The display of more-than-two-parent families in the Swedish media stories analysed is generally characterised by repertoires of modern family life, of love and intimacy and responsible and successful parenting. These repertoires are used to display the families as normal, modern, and legitimate. In addition to the repertoires mentioned, there are repertoires of importance of geographical location, of strategies and of critique of current legislation that further emphasise the legitimacy of the more-than-two-parent families in contrast to an outdated legislation that forces these legitimate families to strategise their intimate relationships. Despite several of the people interviewed being described as polyamorous or gay/lesbian, there are no tendencies in the empirical material to motivate the need for rights based on an essentialised polyamorous identity; rather, the focus is on the fact that it is the practical care relations that need to be protected.

Research on polyamorous parenthood has mainly focused on aspects of interactions with schools and authorities, where polyamorous parents have had to develop strategies of openness and concealment and dealing with stigmatization (Palotta-Chiarolla 2010; Riggs 2010; Sheff 2010). Aspects of sex and morality have primarily been explored in general in relation to non-monogamous practice and not specifically in relation to parenthood (Ritchie 2010; Samuels 2010). Based on interviews with 22 persons in Sweden who in different ways have experience of non-monogamous practice, we explore polyamorous parenthood, focusing on kinship practices, gender and sexual morality. The results of these analyses show that there are recurring themes of promiscuity as a risk that polyamorous parents have to handle. This can take the form of negative interactions with family members and society, practical issues with having sex with several partners or identity issues where good parenthood risks being at odds with non-monogamous practices. The boundaries of good parenthood and promiscuity and the negotiations between them are rarely highlighted in research, but have implications for the moral order of kinship for non-monogamous practice today. 

Polyamory means having a sexual and/or intimate relationship with more than one person at a time. In this study, we use in-depth interviews with 22 persons in Sweden who have experience of polyamorous or non-monogamous relationships to explore how polyamory can include imagining utopian relationships and spaces. Thematic analysis was done which indicated narratives of politically invested attempts to create communal living or societal change that resists capitalist and heteronormative nuclear-family arrangements as well as stories of everyday events that do not explicitly involve political ambitions. The range of utopian dreams and practices of the non-monogamous participants in our study, we argue, are examples of what Munoz calls concrete utopias, filled with joy and laden with disappointment in the face of potentiality and reality.

Denna rapport har som syfte att kartlägga kunskapsområdet sexualitet och samlevnad i svensk lärarutbildning 2016 med särskilt fokus på hiv, STI och SRHR. Resultatet visar att det finns skillnader mellan olika lärosäten, såväl i antal förekomster av indikatorer för kunskapsområdet i olika kurser som på olika utbildningsprogram och stadier. Flera lärosäten har kursplaner som skriver fram ett omfattande innehåll som rör kunskapsområdet sexualitet och samlevnad, medan andra lärosäten presenterar kursplaner med ett betydligt mer begränsat innehåll.

I resultatdiagram synliggörs tydligt två kluster av indikatorer med höga antal förekomster i kursplanerna. Det ena klustret av indikatorer är etik, genus, demokrati, normer, normkritik, det andra värdegrund, barnkonventionen, mänskliga rättigheter, diskriminering och kränkande behandling. Dessa indikatorer förekommer vanligtvis i utbildningsvetenskapliga kurser på alla nivåer samt i olika samhällsorienterande kurser och i akademiska ämneskurser som historia, religionsvetenskap och samhällsvetenskap. Indikatorer som hivprevention, STI, graviditet och preventivmedel saknas helt i de undersökta kursplanerna, i både grundlärarutbildning och ämneslärarutbildning. De förekommer inte heller i biologi, naturkunskap eller i de naturorienterande ämnena för grundlärare i årskurserna 4-6.

Utifrån kartläggningens resultat 2016 föreslås följande:

1. Kunskapsområdet sex och samlevnad behöver ringas in så att åtminstone en slags baskurs innehållande moment som rör stora delar av indikatorerna i denna kartläggning kan konstrueras. Denna bör vara obligatorisk för alla blivande lärare.

2. I enlighet med januariöverenskommelsen om att sex- och samlevnadsundervisning ska bli obligatorisk på alla lärarutbildningsprogram bör UKÄ lägga till ett examensmål, som behandlar kunskapsområdet sexualitet och samlevnad i examensordningen för lärarutbildningar för alla olika stadier inom den svenska skolan. Examensmålen bör omfatta såväl kunskap om och förståelse av sexualitet och forskningsbaserad undervisning, som färdighet och förmåga att undervisa om kunskapsområdet. (Ett examensmål om kunskapsområdet lades till i september 2020.)

3. För att tillgodose god kvalitet och gedigen kompetens hos såväl lärarutbildare som lärarstudenter behövs kontinuerliga och fördjupade utbildningsinsatser.

4. Ett nationellt centrum för kunskapsområdet sexualitet och relationer föreslås. Detta centrum bör vara ämnesövergripande och tvärvetenskapligt samt också fokusera på didaktik. Ett sådant centrum skulle kunna utgöra ett kunskapsstöd för lärarutbildningarna, särskilt under den inledande fasen, när sexualitet och relationer ska bli obligatoriskt och etableras på alla lärarutbildningar. Ett sådant centrum skulle öka möjligheten att alla lärarutbildningarna bygger upp och har tillräckligt hög kompetens inom kunskapsområdet. Ett nationellt centrum skulle dessutom vara ett stöd för verksamma lärare och skulle även kunna erbjuda fortbildning.

5. För att utveckla kunskapsområdet sexualitet och samlevnad behövs ny och aktuell forskning som också kopplas till internationell pågående forskning. Denna forskning kan vara både ämnesinriktad och skolinriktad och av både kvantitativ och kvalitativ art.

6. Den osäkerhet som lärare enligt Skolinspektionens rapport har när det gäller att undervisa om normer och om hbtq-frågor visar att lärarutbildningarna måste ha tydliga inslag som ger kunskaper om hur olika normer kan påverka och begränsa eleverna och även deras lärande.

Avslutningsvis visar resultatet av kartläggningen från 2016 en bild av att kunskapsområdet sexualitet och samlevnad förekommer i alla programutbildningar för blivande lärare. Dessutom visar kartläggningen hur kunskapsområdet uttrycks i kursplaners olika delar genom förekomsten av antalet indikatorer enligt konstruktiv länkning. Tillsammans med de sex förslagen på åtgärder ovan kan därmed kartläggningens syften anses vara uppnådda.

For decades, the media have frequently been instrumental in framing rape cases by linking the deed with the place. This study demonstrates that law courts are not innocent of such social framing; on the contrary, they are significant agents. We argue that courts, by shaping the plot in rape cases, participate in an ongoing cultural production of meaning, although in a more subtle and ambivalent way than the media. In a narrative analysis of three contemporary rape cases in Sweden, we bring together feminist research on place with the concepts of vulnerability and agency. We argue that place is framed as ambivalent in relation to vulnerability and agency, and dependent on the positioning of plaintiff and defendant. In court narratives, geographical places are made relevant, including the locations where the alleged rapes took place. Court narratives of rape include highly ambivalent connotations with place in relation to vulnerability and agency, distinguished by different narratives and outcomes in the various instances. The legal and social implications of our work should include an awareness of the relevance of place in relation to rape.

This study sought to explore how Swedish parents who had commissioned surrogacy abroad experienced the process of parenthood recognition. The study consisted of in-depth interviews with five couples and 10 individuals representing 10 additional couples who had used surrogacy abroad, mainly in India. The construction of motherhood and fatherhood in the Swedish system contradicts how parenthood is defined in the surrogacy process. This study found that the formal recognition of parenthood involved a complex and frustrating process where the presumption of fatherhood and step-child adoption as grounds for parenthood make people feel questioned as parents, negatively affecting parental welfare. Policy makers need to take into account the consequences of an unregulated situation regarding surrogacy, and focus more on the child–parent relationship when regulating surrogacy.

Denna antologi erbjuder forskningsbaserade och didaktiska perspektiv på religion och samhällsförändringar. Antologin är resultatet av ett samarbete mellan forskare från flera olika discipliner vid Malmö universitet och visar på den mångfald av forskningsperspektiv som ryms inom ämnesområdet religionsvetenskap i Sverige idag.

Antologin vänder sig till studenter och verksamma lärare samt en vidare intresserad läsekrets som önskar få tillgång till aktuell forskning och fördjupa sin ämnesteoretiska kunskap. Genom fyra teman belyses aktuella perspektiv på brännande frågor inom samtida religionsvetenskaplig forskning: Religion, kön och sexualitet, Religion, unga och skola, Religion, möten och förändringar samt Religion, politik och samtid.

I en samtid som präglas av ständigt pågående förändring är religion och livsåskådningsfrågor synnerligen aktuella. Mötet mellan historiska traditioner och nutida samhällsutveckling visar hur inte bara religiösa rörelser, utan också människors trosuppfattningar och identiteter, omtolkas och förändras över tid. Undervisningen i religionskunskap i grund- och gymnasieskolan utgår från att kunskap om religion och andra livsåskådningar är central för vår förståelse av en omvärld som i allt större utsträckning präglas av mångfald och förändring.

Sex dolls are a complex phenomenon with several diverse possible emotional, sexual and therapeutic uses. They can be part of a broad variety of sexual practices, and also function as a sexual aid. However, the media discourse on sex dolls first and foremost concerns how we perceive the relationship between intimacy and technology. A critical discourse analysis of the Swedish media discourse on sex dolls reveals six themes which dominate the discourse: (a) the definition of what a human being is; (b) a discourse on the (technological and existential) future; (c) a social effort; (d) a loveless phenomenon; (e) men’s violence against women; and (f) pedophilia. Accordingly, this discourse is very conservative and normative in its view of sexuality, technology, and humanity. Overall, the dominant themes do not provide any space for positive effects of technology on human sexuality, and if they do, it is usually as a substitute for something else.

With a phenomenological approach, we explored transgender and non-binary people’s strategies to experience sexual well-being. Ten self-reports (seven interviews and three written texts) were analyzed, and the analysis resulted in six themes. The first three (Affirming oneself, Having access to care, and Being respected as one’s gender) were strategies for sexual well-being realized through affirming one’s identity, receiving the gender-confirming care wanted, and having one’s gender identity respected by others. The other three themes (Masturbating and fantasizing, Communicating and being open, and Being sexually free in queer spaces) were strategies for one aspect of sexual well-being—pleasure. The results describe strategies that all can learn from: the need to accept and appreciate oneself, not just adapt to gender norms of bodies and behaviors, and to communicate. In addition, it illuminates that being norm-breaking, or stepping out of the gendered paths presented to you, appears to provide new opportunities for people to learn what they enjoy, and this could lead to a broader repertoire of pleasurable sexual practices—practices that take bodily prerequisites into account

This article introduces an approach within social work called green social. It is argued that this approach has a critical potential in its ability to respond to urgent issues concerning people’s current and future living conditions. It is further argued that in addition to its traditional involvement in problematic distribution of resources, social work can act upon linkages between social issues and issues concerning environmental and climate crisis when integrating areas of knowledge from other disciplines. Such linkages imply a revision of the construct ”person-in-environment” that traditionally denote a delimited notion of environment as the ”social environment”, thereby disregarding the biophysical environment that human beings are a part of. The article discusses concepts such as ”sustainable welfare”, ”de-growth” and ”transition” and presents examples of so-called ecosocial interventions while also making an argument for strengthening community work in Sweden.

In the wake of the ongoing climate crisis and its negative effects on public health, it has been questioned by climate activists whether it is right to bring more children into the world. Moreover, according to previous scholarship, having one fewer child is the most high-impact lifestyle change individuals in developed countries can make in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But do climate awareness and recommendations to have fewer children have any impact on how lay people reason around reproductive decision-making? In this paper, which is based on focus group discussions with people from different generations, we show how various and sometimes conflicting discourses on reproductive norms and responsibility are negotiated. Even though participants were highly aware of the ongoing discussions around the climate crisis, in the end it had little bearing on their decision to have children or not, and they justified reproduction through addressing other ways to contribute to a better world.

Reproductive decision-making and fertility patterns change with time and place, and are influenced by contemporary societal factors. In this paper, we have studied biosocial aspects of reproductive decision-making over time and generations in a Nordic setting. The aim was to explore intergenerational changes and influences on decision-making, especially regarding preconditions to first birth. Twenty-six focus group interviews were conducted in southern Sweden, including a total of 110 participants aged 17–90 years. The analysis of the interviews resulted in six themes: (i) ‘Providing security – an intergenerational precondition’; (ii) ‘A growing smorgasbord of choices and requirements’; (iii) ‘Parenthood becoming a project’; (iv) ‘Stretched out life stages’; (v) ‘(Im)possibilities to procreate’; and (vi) ‘Intergenerational pronatalism’. Our findings reflect increasing expectations on what it means to be prepared for parenthood. Despite increasing awareness of the precariousness of romantic relationships, people still wish to build new families but try to be as prepared as possible for adverse events. The findings also show how increasing life expectancy and medical advancements have come to influence people’s views on their reproductive timeline.

Research on reproductive decision-making mainly focuses on women's experiences and desire for children. Men included in this type of research usually represent one-half of a heterosexual couple and/or men who are involuntarily childless. Perspectives from a broader group of men are lacking. This study is based on the results of a baseline questionnaire answered by 191 men aged 20–50 years who attended two sexual health clinics in two major Swedish cities. The questionnaire included questions about sociodemographic background, reproductive history and fertility, but also two open-ended questions focusing on reasons for having or not having children. The results of these two questions were analysed by manifest content analysis and resulted in five categories: ‘(non-)ideal images’, ‘to pass something on’, ‘personal development and self-image’, ‘the relationship with the (potential) co-parent’ and ‘practical circumstances and prerequisites’. Reasons for having children were mainly based on ideal images of children, family and parenthood. Meanwhile, reasons for not having children usually concerned practical issues. The type of answer given was related to men's procreative intentions but not to background characteristics. In conclusion, men raised many different aspects for and against having children. Therefore, reproductive decision-making should not be considered a non-choice among men.

Being aware of factors that affect fertility can help people make informed decisions about their reproductive futures. To some, however, fertility information leads to worry and self-blame. In this paper, we explore how people from different generations discuss fertility and reproductive decision-making, along with their perceptions of fertility information. The study was conducted in southern Sweden with 26 focus-group discussions that included a total of 110 participants aged 17-90 years. The material was analysed thematically. Our results show that fertility knowledge and openness to talking about fertility problems have increased over generations. Participants who were assigned female at birth were more often concerned about their fertility than those who were not, and fertility concerns were transferred from mothers to daughters. While age-related fertility concerns had been uncommon in older generations, participants aged 25-40 often expressed these concerns. Young adults appreciated being knowledgeable about fertility but simultaneously expressed how fertility information could lead to distress. Our conclusion is that fertility information was best received by high-school students, and efforts to improve fertility education in schools are therefore recommended.

Sex education can be described as an important part of health education in school and one way of strengthening health education could be a collaboration between different professionals in the school team. The aim of this study was to describe teachers' and school nurses' experiences and perspectives with regard to sex education among students aged 11-12 years and to explore potential influencing factors. We employed a qualitative design, and the teachers and school nurses were interviewed individually. A thematic analysis was conducted on the interviews and the results showed that the classroom was considered to be the teacher's arena. Tradition and attitudes between professionals could be obstacles that affect collaboration between teachers and nurses and the study showed that there remains much to be done before collaboration at the same level between the groups can be established.

In this article, based on ethnographic fieldwork, and interviews with 29 self-defined BDSM practitioners, I explore the incorporation process of BDSM (Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism) in Swedish society. I argue that the so-called ‘good sexuality’ described by Gayle Rubin (2011) and Don Kulick (2005) is still alive as a normative principle in this context. Drawing on Foucault’s concept ‘biopower’ (1976), I show that to gain acceptance and to fit into a society characterized by ‘good sexuality’, BDSM has to be normalized. This normalization process is closely connected to a middle-class hegemony and results in limitations that in various ways affect the practitioners, as well as impacting the transgressive core of BDSM.

Based on a five-year qualitative ethnographic study of Bondage and Discipline/Dominance and Submission/Sadism and Masochism (BDSM) in Sweden, this paper examines the process of becoming among BDSM practitioners. In-depth interviews were completed with 29 self-defined BDSM practitioners, and their accounts were analysed using thematic analysis. Focusing on the Deleuzian concept of becoming, BDSM is understood as a dynamic and collective phenomenon closely connected to fantasies, memories and longing, and enabled through flows of desire. Practising BDSM can be understood as a process of increasing expansion, creation and connection, in which desire is seen not as something we lack or need but rather as a process of striving and self-enhancement. Exploring the becoming process more fully can provide a better understanding as to why some people choose to practise BDSM.

Homosexuality, bisexuality, transgender and queer have long been a sensitive topic in Christian churches. As society has changed, some denominations have become increasingly affirming, while others see the changes as incompatible with Christian values.

 A Conditional Community is based on in-depth interviews with 29 lgbtq Christians and is the first Swedish scientific study on the subject. Using a phenomenological approach, the author investigate how sexuality, intimacy and faith are experienced by the interviewees and how their Christian identity interacts with their identity as lgbtq people. 

A Conditional Community is aimed at teachers, researchers and students in fields such as religious studies, sexology, gender studies and psychology. The book is also of interest to professionals who require knowledge on the subject, such as pastors and therapists. Furthermore, it can serve as a basis for discussions and reflection on faith, sexuality and lgbtq in the Free Church contexts.

This article is based on a five-year qualitative ethnographic study of bondage and discipline/dominance and submission/sadism and masochism (BDSM) in Sweden. In-depth interviews were completed with 29 self-defined BDSM practitioners. In the article, I investigate spirituality in two different contexts, namely within BDSM practice and in the charismatic Christianity. With a focus on power dynamics, pain rituals, and altered states of consciousness, I discuss the questions: What meaning is given to the concept of spirituality in a BDSM context, and how does this spirituality resemble spirituality in Christianity? Which common denominators between BDSM practice and Christian belief can be found, and how should we interpret the parallels that the informants emphasize between practicing BDSM and having a Christian affiliation? The article aims to broaden our understanding for spirituality in different contexts, and thus contribute to both the research field of BDSM as well as to religion studies. And as such, I hope this study can bring some clarity to the different spiritual experiences individuals may encounter, whether it happens in a BDSM context or in a religious context.

Experiences of being LGBTQ1 within Swedish free-church environments have not been highlighted to any great extent. In the autumn of 2020, I participated, as an observing researcher, in a study group consisting of LGBTQ persons and LGBTQ allies focusing on LGBTQ in the Christian free-church environment. The discussions took their point of departure in the question how we ensure that congregations are a welcoming and safe place for LGBTQ people. This article is based on the conversations that took place during these meetings. In the articleI will examine how power relations and tensions were described and investigate how LGBTQ persons and their allies handle and challenge them. The results of the investigation show that free-church contexts are permeated with hegemonic heteronormativity, the structural power of which operates both visibly and covertly. The participants talk about unlivable compromises, emanating from membership always being conditional and subject to certain terms for LGBTQ persons. The participants narrated their experiences, ranging from subtle com- ments or silences to ostracism and exclusion. All participants testified to the existence of various forms of conversion efforts in contemporary free church environments and recounted examples of how they had been pressured in prayer and pastoral care and conversations in which they had been silenced or told that it is possible to change one’s sexual orientation or identity.

This study investigates experiences of polyamory in a society where monogamy is the norm. Polyamory is when more than two people are involved in an intimate and/or sexual relationship. The relationships are known to those involved, and everyone has the opportunity to have multiple relationships at the same time. In-depth interviews were completed with 22 persons in Sweden who identify as polyamorous. Drawing on Ahmed’s phenomenological concepts of turning points and lines and Halberstam’s concept of queer time and temporality, the following questions are explored: What turning points can be seen in the informants’ stories? And what consequences are the informants exposed to when heteronormative expectations are not followed? In the theoretical language of Ahmed, living a life within monogamous boundaries would be considered as being “in line”. Going beyond these monogamous heteronormative lines can result in more relational choices by which one has to find out what kind of relationship works best instead of following a ready-made template. The majority of the informants feel forced to conceal their relationship constellations in several situations and contexts. Living a queer life is seen by others in society as not only incomprehensible but also immature and inexperienced. Interactions with healthcare professionals seldom offer any relief from this; instead, the informants’ stories of these encounters can be interpreted as instances of being stopped and blocked, resulting in stress and shame.

Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork within BDSM communities in Sweden, this article focuses on links between non-monogamy and BDSM. Drawing on Halberstam´s concept of queer space, the following questions are investigated: What are the connections between BDSM and non-monogamous communities? How does interaction between BDSM and non-monogamous practices create non-normative logic? The transgression of one norm makes it easier to transgress other norms as well, providing opportunities to find new ways of organizing relationships beyond the norms of monogamy. In order for an individual to be able to fully explore kinks in BDSM practices and at the same time respect the boundaries of a partner, nonmonogamy emerges as one logical answer.

Young LGBTQ+ people are over-represented in various forms of state care. They experience hardships during their placements and staff competence in addressing specific needs among LGBTQ+ youth is lacking. In this article, we investigate whether and how LGTBQ+ issues are considered and described in digital marketing for state care providers. The material consists of the homepages of residential care homes and secure state care institutions, which we analyse using critical discourse analysis. The results show that LGBTQ+ issues are largely invisible. Of the approximately 1,000 existing state care providers, only twenty stated that they worked with or had competence in LGBTQ+ issues. Among these, no secure state care institution offered LGBTQ+ competence at the time of the study. The descriptions of how care providers work with LGBTQ+ issues are characterised by heteronormativity where there is a mix of two types of language on the homepages regarding LGBTQ+ youth; on the one hand, a heteronormative, traditional description based on a binary understanding of gender; and, on the other, an LGBTQ+ inclusive language is used. However, the LGBTQ+ affirmative language has been imposed upon the traditional rather than being integrated into it, which comes across as superficial and unclear. International studies show that LGBTQ+ youth are over-represented in various forms of state care. Using critical discourse analysis, we investigated how LGBTQ+ youth, as a target group, are described and how LGBTQ+ competence is presented on the home pages of residential care homes and secure state care institutions for young people in Sweden. The results show that LGBTQ is largely invisible. Of the approximately 1,000 existing residential care homes, only 20 stated that they worked with or had competence in LGBTQ+ issues. No secure state care institution offered LGBTQ+ competence at the time of the study.

Avhandlingen bygger på två separata delstudier förenade av den övergripande tematiken hedersnormer. Ur ett fenomenologiskt livsvärldsperspektiv undersöks tankar och erfarenheter i två olika grupper. Den första delstudien bygger på djupintervjuer med 15 ungdomar som lever i kontexter där familjegemenskap, socialt anseende och kvinnlig kyskhet ges stor betydelse, och där föreställningar kopplade till detta präglar deras vardag och handlingsutrymme. Ungdomarna har olika etnisk och religiös bakgrund men har vuxit upp i samma bostadsområde. Med sex av dem har uppföljande intervjuer gjorts efter några år. Delstudie nummer två har genomförts i samverkan med Kriminalvården. Den omfattar en analys av 64 domar varur olika grad av hedersrelaterade omständigheter kunnat utläsas, samt djupintervjuer med 13 personer dömda för brott som av myndighetens personal bedömts ha koppling till hedersnormer. Även här varierar etnisk och religiös bakgrund såväl som brottstyper och strafftider. Två av de dömda klienterna har intervjuats vid mer än ett tillfälle. I intervjuerna berörs upplevelser av normer och normkonflikter kring olika fenomen som familjelojalitet, värdering och reglering av relationer och sexualitet, kön och könsroller, våld, (icke-)svenskhet etc. Berättelserna beskriver ett invecklat spänningsfält mellan å ena sidan individuell frihet och autonomi och å andra sidan betydelsen av grupptillhörighet och kollektiv identitet. Gemensamt för båda grupper är att de lever i sammansatta världar där hederns betydelse förvisso är påtaglig men samtidigt svår att urskilja från andra påverkansfaktorer. I de uppföljande intervjuerna kan förändringar i normerna både på individ- och familjenivå skönjas över tid. Hedersrelaterat våld och förtryck har varit en uttalad angelägenhet för den svenska staten under flera decennier. Frågan har laddats med betydelse på olika plan och lett till konflikter och positioneringar i den akademiska världen såväl som i politik och praktik. Under åren har kontexten kring forskningsfrågorna förändrats genom sociala skeenden och politiska åtgärder i syfte att bekämpa problematiken. Detta syns bland annat i reformerna av lagstiftningen, där nya brottsrubriceringar med särskild inriktning på heder tillkommit, samt i nya formuleringar om ansvar för att motverka hedersrelaterat våld och förtryck i grund- och gymnasieskolans läroplaner. Därmed blir det intressant att resonera kring hur samhällets försök att komma tillrätta med hedersproblematiken kan förstås utifrån det empiriska underlaget, det vill säga rösterna från personer som själva på olika sätt lever eller har levt i kontexter präglade av hedersnormer. Avhandlingen utmynnar således i en diskussion kring hur systemnivån i form av samhälleliga intentioner och interventioner förhåller sig till nyanserna i de berördas livsvärldar. Några av de drag som framstår är att problematiken inte är enkel att förstå och tolka, och att hedern som fenomen är svår att särskilja och ringa in på det sätt som lagar och styrdokument kräver. Genom avhandlingen belyses att hedersrelaterat våld och förtryck förvisso är en allvarlig problematik som behöver mötas av insatser på många olika nivåer, men att det är fråga om ett komplext fenomen som innebär en utmaning för många olika verksamheter vad gäller både förståelse och hantering, och som kräver ett relationellt och dialogbaserat förhållningssätt med de målgrupper som berörs.

Since July 1st, 2020, honour is viewed as an aggravating circumstance in criminal cases in Sweden, and it is suggested that honour related violence and oppression should become a criminal offence in its own right. Interventions directed towards victims of honour crimes have been implemented, but fewer have targeted the offenders. The purpose of this article is to mirror the Swedish legal and discursive framework against the perspective of the perpetrators. While we discuss findings with relevance for practitioners, particularly in the light of recent legislative changes, our main focus is set on subjective understandings of honour crimes. In particular, questions about the perpetrators’ norms and worldviews, their perceptions of the concept of honour, and their experiences of the Swedish justice system are investigated. Using court verdicts and deep interviews, we highlight important themes under the following four headlines: (1) Collectivism, norms, and traditions, (2) Complexities of honour crimes, (3) Marginalization, social vulnerability, and stereotyping, and (4) Reflections in retrospect.

This article gives insight into some of the complexities that courts will have to handle given the recent and pending changes in Swedish legislation and provides knowledge that can be implemented in social and legal work to combat honour related violence and oppression.  

Hur kan vi förstå sex mot ersättning, samhällets reglering, sociala insatser och individers erfarenheter? Syftet med denna antologi äör att skapa fördjupad förståelse för frågan genom att belysa områdets komplexitet, nyanser och gråzoner. i boken belyses hur relationen mellan samhälleliga åtgärder och individuella erfarenheter påverkas av den sociala, rättsliga och politiska kontexten. Författarna presenterar en rad olika teman såsom sexarbetares sociala mobilisering, tillämpning och konsekvenser av sociala och rättsliga åtgärder, sexsäljares utsatthet för våld, sexköpares resonemang om sina sexuella praktiker, erfarenheter av digital och kommersiell dejting samt erfarenheter av att sälja sex i relation till dominerande diskurser om sexhandel.

Survivors Healing from Abuse: Recovery through Exposure (SHARE) is an eight-week therapy group for incarcerated women who have experienced sexual violence victimization. SHARE requires each member to complete an imaginal exposure and to listen when others share their experiences of victimization. While trauma-focused group interventions including SHARE are associated with reductions in internalizing symptoms, little work has examined how group characteristics predict symptom decreases. The purpose of this study was to examine whether group size was associated with symptom changes pre- to posttreatment. Participants (n = 140 across 29 groups) completed self-report measures of posttraumatic stress symptoms before and after completing SHARE. Multilevel modeling revealed the majority of the variance in posttreatment symptoms was attributed to individual factors rather than group factors. Symptom change was comparable for groups of two to eight women; declines in symptom improvement were observed at a group size of 10 participants. 

Backgroud: To become a parent of a child who is born small for gestational age can lead to challenges in addition to the newly accuried parenting role. There is currently a lack of knowledge regarding parents´experiences if having a child born small for gestional age. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe the experienve of becoming a parent of a child small for gestional age. Design and method: A qualitativ inductive approach was chosen with grounded theory as a method, a stratagic selection was used and individual interviews wiht open questions were performed. Results: The results showed that the parents expressed quilt over the childs´size and focused on the aility to nourish their child to keep their unexpectedly small child alive. An experienced concern about the childs´food intake could be seen throughout the entire interview material and the need for information was great. A common experience of the parents was that constant feeding of the child dominates their lived. Conclusion: The conclusion is that the unexpectedly small size of the child awakens the parent´s instinct to provide life-sustaining care and the parents need increased support and more information around the child´s condition. This requires well-trained professionals, because parents to children born SGA often harbour feelings of unpreparedness and guilt. Practice implications: Increased understanding and knowledge about parents´experience of having a child born SGA, healthcare sevices can optimize the potential for better attachment between parent and child as well as offer appropritae support.

In recent years, the dominant Western discourse on "female genital mutilation" (FGM) has increasingly been challenged by scholars. Numerous researchers contest both the terminology used and the empirical claims made in what has come to be called "the standard tale" of FGM (also termed "female genital cutting" [FGC]). The World Health Organization (WHO), a major player in setting the global agenda on this issue, maintains that all medically unnecessary cutting of the external female genitalia, no matter how slight, should be banned as torture and a violation of the human right to bodily integrity. However, the WHO targets only non-Western forms of female-only genital cutting, raising concerns about gender bias and cultural imperialism. Here, we summarize ongoing critiques of the WHO's terminology, ethicolegal assumptions, and empirical claims, including the claim that non-Western FGC as such constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. To this end, we highlight recent comparative studies of medically unnecessary genital cutting of all types, including those affecting adult women and teenagers in Western societies, individuals with differences of sex development (DSD), transgender persons, and males. In so doing, we attempt to clarify the grounds for a growing critical consensus that current anti-FGM laws and policies may be ethically incoherent, empirically unsupportable, and legally unsustainable.

PURPOSE: This study investigates whether Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) is associated with changes in sexual function and satisfaction and how such changes are experienced, focusing on invisible impairments after ABI.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A study-specific questionnaire was distributed in 2018-2019. The sample included individuals aged 20-90 years diagnosed with ABI due to subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), trauma, infection, or anoxia (ischemic stroke and intracerebral hemorrhage excluded), who participated in brain injury rehabilitation in Sweden, 2014-2016. Chi-square and Logistic regression analyses were used.

RESULTS: The study consists of 250 participants (response rate was 40%). Among participants 78% (194/250) had resumed sexual life. Participants reporting sexual changes also experienced more consequences related to ABI. Those with decreased sexual desire (63%, 148/234) reported more ABI consequences, including decreased memory (86% vs 65%, p = 0.000), decreased concentration ability (82% vs 65%, p = 0.003), and increased tiredness (91% vs 70%, p = 0.000) compared to those with intact desire. Such consequences can be invisible to others.

CONCLUSION: Visible impairments are known to impact sexual functions and satisfaction after ABI. Our results show how invisible impairments also have a great impact. From a biopsychosocial perspective, these results imply that individuals should receive sexual rehabilitation, irrespective of ABI impairment.

In relation to brain injury rehabilitation, research has stressed the importance of including sexuality issues due to increased risk for sexual dysfunctions after Acquired Brain Injury (ABI). This study aims to explore experiences after non-stroke ABI concerning individual and relational aspects of sexuality, received information about sexuality at rehabilitation, and gender differences. A postal nationwide survey was conducted in Sweden, 2018-2019. The sample included individuals who had participated in brain injury rehabilitation 2014-2016, response rate 40% (250/624). Among all participants 78% had resumed sexual activity, and there was a significant difference between males (84%, 118/140) and females (69%, 76/110, p = 0.004). Among all participants, 95% reported physical intimacy as important, 80% considered sex as important on an individual level, and 91% stated sexuality as important for the relationship (no gender differences). Significantly more females (52%) than males (22%) reported that they had tried sexual aids (p = 0.000), and more males (29%) than females (16%) reported that professionals addressed sexuality issues during brain injury rehabilitation (p = 0.024). However, only a few participants were offered specific sexual counseling during brain injury rehabilitation, such as individual counseling (3%), couples counseling (2%), and group counseling (3%). To conclude, the vast majority valued both individual and relational aspects of sex and sexuality highly, and more males than females had resumed sexual activity. Few had received information about sexuality after ABI, and even fewer females compared to males reported that the issue was raised during rehabilitation. Clinical implications are discussed in relation to sexual rehabilitation.

Using sexuality education (SE) to solve different social problems has become a defining discourse to explain what SE does. Since the late 19th century, SE has been a tool for combating and preventing social problems stemming out of venereal diseases, unintended pregnancies, low sexual moral, sexual deviance, low sexual- and reproductive health, gender inequalities, sexism, sexual exploitation, sexual violence, and a general lack of knowledge about the body and sexualities. Although SE has developed differently in various countries and taken on different directions, it continues to appear as a solution to prevent and solve a multitude of social problems. But if solving and preventing problems is the very core and purpose of sexuality education, I think it is suitable to ask how policies and educational programs ‘knows’ what problems to solve?

In response to this simple, yet important question, this paper, without denying the importance of SE, considers how the problem-solving ethos is discursively constructed and underpinned through problematisations. In this paper I use the WPR-approach to target the aftermath of policy. By departing from a policy that is already produced, I show how the Swedish Government first announced a policy reform and eight days later adjusted their message to correspond with public opinion. The empirical material consists of the announcement, a debate article by the Minister of Higher Education, and a selection of 20 newspaper articles published during the eight days in between. This paper provides an empirical example of how a problem-solving discourse underpins and narrates coherence between policy (solutions) and problems. In this paper I also consider how problematisations can work as a soothing technique of acceptance in which policy, as a solution, is in need for problems. 

The paper presents data from a larger thesis project that aims to explore how sexuality education (SE) take shape by interviewing teachers about their experiences of working with SE and observing a working group assigned to develop teachers’ practices concerning SE. In the teacher interviews I was surprised that some teachers began to talk about their own embodiments of age, gender, and sexuality to describe how they were able to teach and talk about sexuality and relationships with their students while others found it more difficult for the same reason. In this paper I ask, how do intersections of age, gender, and sexuality interfere teachers practises in teaching SE.

This paper illuminates how teachers are influenced by age, gender and sexuality in teaching about sex and relationships. In this analysis grounded in feminist theory, age, gender and sexuality are considered to be enacted as doings. Six interviews with teachers working with sexuality education in K-12 schools in Sweden were chosen from of a larger body of material consisting of 21 interviews with professionals engaged in school-based sexuality education. The six interviewees were selected because they explicitly addressed how teachers’ age, gender and/or sexuality come to matter in the classroom. Findings show how male and female teachers organise their teaching in relation to normative expectations of age, gender and sexuality. In sexuality education, the diverse life-courses of (hetero)sexual women offer a wide range of pedagogic possibilities for female teachers to address issues of sexuality, consent and relationships whereas male teachers are constrained to doing safe(r) forms of masculinity by directing attention away from their bodies and experiences. In understanding these results, I argue that the figure of the tant has been key in forming the pedagogic backdrop to Swedish sexuality education, hence embedding a normative ‘who’ in the ‘how’ to teach sexuality education.

The Nordic countries' progressive sexuality education (SE) has become synonymous with gender equality, sex-positive attitudes, and norm-critical awareness (Allen & Rasmussen, 2016; Bengtsson & Bolander, 2020; Zimmerman, 2015). In global comparison, Nordic SE is perceived to be a queer utopia regarding LGBTQ rights (Kjaran, 2017). Despite the prominence, feminist scholars argue it to cultivate forms of sexuality through notions of secularism and progressive pedagogy (Scott, 2018). According to Scott (2018) has Western sexual freedom represented the “fulfilling of natural inclinations of all women” (p. 157) in which sexual desire becomes a defining attribute of the human and a form of “natural law outside of history” (ibid). Svendsen (2017) argues the secular logic within Norwegian SE to be an ‘operating technology’, constructing a secular native and a religious Other. Similar constructions have been found by Honkasalo (2018) in Finnish textbooks, where culture is assigned to non-Finnish Others in contrast to liberal and progressive ""Finnish"" sexuality.  When seemingly neutral and depoliticized notions of sexuality, the human body, health, and morality are addressed in SE, it becomes crucial to think about how these notions affect educational practices. In this paper we continue the path of critique and explore Swedish SE to understand how ‘Nordic nativeness’ is constructed through educational practices. Our data consists of observations, interviews, and textbooks in which we highlight how ‘the native’ and ‘the Other’ are represented. In our paper, we use a thematic analysis to flesh out how positions of ‘nativeness’ and ‘otherness’ are represented in SE. Our preliminary findings support previous research but also present a paradox in which attempts of widening perspectives simultaneously re-construct and re-position nativeness and otherness. Although the empirical example is from a Swedish context, the paper’s results are of interest to a wider audience because it contributes to an understanding of how sexuality education is actively positions different ethical, social, political, and cultural values. 

Sexuality education (SE) takes place in fields of tension where biology, legislation, norms, and values intersect. Drawing on Ahmed's phenomenological account of whiteness, this article examines how Swedish whiteness is constructed and reproduced within SE. In Sweden, SE is formalised as an overarching, subject-integrated knowledge area where the biology subject plays a crucial role in its delivery. To include a wide spectrum of SE, where both planned and unplanned aspects of teaching are considered, as well as tensions in the content, we have analysed eight semi-structured teacher interviews and five biology textbooks. Our analysis shows how Swedish whiteness is reproduced as a form of institutionalised orientation constructed by norms, social values, people, subject knowledge, policies, and legislation, all intertwined in a complex web. This web places SE, teachers, and pupils in a racial landscape that constructs and reproduces specific forms of Swedish whiteness by assigning each a position in relation to familiarity. This familiarity provides a taken-for-granted starting point in SE, where 'here' is constructed as a place of progression, openness, and possibilities for happy future sexual lives, while other places come to stand out as hyper-visible examples of the less familiar, less happy, and 'far away'. From this outpost, teachers and biology textbooks construct and reproduce Swedish whiteness through 'happy stories' of Swedish exceptionalism. Although these positive messages in SE may stem from good intentions, our findings show that a colourblind view of racial hierarchies in the rendering of 'happy stories, about, for example, gay rights, free abortion, and equality also contributes to reproducing whiteness and reinforcing ideas about race and Swedish exceptionalism in SE.

Considering an increasingly repressive focus on sex buyers in recent years, the focus of this study is to explore social work in Sweden targeting individuals who purchase sex. The aim of this study is to explore social workers' understanding of the purchase of sex as a social problem. More specifically, the study focuses on social workers' approaches to the purchase of sex in relation to values, professional practices, and political goals, and how they navigate these aspects in their encounters with individuals who purchase sex. Based on interviews with 10 social workers who meet such individuals, an inductive thematic analysis has been employed. The participants navigated between focusing on the individual sex purchaser and his situation, and having moral opinions on the issue, with some being positive to force change through repressive measures. The participants tried to navigate social work's role in relation to social policy and political ambitions regarding the purchase of sex in Sweden, and did this by navigating between doing moral work, being diplomats or specialists. They did moral work both as individuals and as working groups, which was influenced by moral values, professional ideals, and ideas about social work's role in relation to the judiciary system.