confidential information. The observer might reach this embarrassing realization long after assuming he/she had won the confidence of close informants who surely considered the ethnographer a safe haven for their happy or painful secrets.
Just recently the belief about my privileged position as ethnographer, one who could confidently rely on his subjects’ true reports about their life experiences, was shaken. This embarrassing discovery involved an informant whom I considered open to me and trustworthy beyond doubt. As the story of deception unraveled before me over a period of several months, I also learned the reason for and feeling behind the concealment of some sensitive information and the conditions under which secrecy is maintained even among intimates, the ethnographer included. My discussion, which seems to highlight a major issue of ethnographic methodology, is deeply interwoven with the existential conditions and predicaments of gay life. However, the ethnographer is not immune to the pains and stigma that affect his gay informants or invulnerable to the strategies of concealment they employ in their relationships with other people.
The question and professional dilemma I tackle stir up a broader issue than this specific ethnographer’s “trauma”: whatever the excuses for particular concealments, how does the discovery of a close informant’s hiding a major piece of personal information reflect on the quality of the ethnographer’s work? I remind the reader of Lovell’s assessment quoted above: “The ethnographer’s ability to penetrate the secrets of his or her objects becomes a major stake in the ethnographic quest.” Are anthropologists nowadays expected to prove a level of “truthfulness” in their fieldwork journey and their later reporting on their subjects’ lives, comparable, for example, to the thorough documentation of a lawsuit? A similar quandary concerning the ethnographer’s authority at presenting her data from the field, assumed by her readers to be guided by certain rules of evidence, was raised by Wolf (1992) comparing the construction of ethnographic portrayals with the writer of fiction, who is in total control of the “information” presented.
Except for a few famous cases, such as the Redfield-Lewis and Mead-Freeman debates or the Yanomami controversy, the issue of truthfulness or the reliability of ethnographic accounts has rarely been addressed in ordinary professional public discourse.2 It has become a nonissue, particularly since anthropologists have given up the positivist framework of earlier generations. True, one occasionally hears rumors about the shallow or dubious fieldwork venture conducted by colleagues or their students, but only under exceptional circumstances might a controversial ethnographic report necessitate official scrutiny. However, the lone anthropologist is usually the single witness to report to readers on his/her performance in the field, ascribing full authority to the accumulated field notes and the published text. Although the position of the subjects as readers and commentators has been enhanced in recent years (as expressed in writings on reflexivity in anthropology), they have not yet assumed the role of public critics in the real sense of the term (see, for example, Brettel 1993). Moreover, the subjects are not necessarily in a better position to know about sensitive issues related to all individuals in their own community. But whatever the lesson learned for ethnographic work, that particular case offered me a deeper comprehension of the existential conditions of gay life under the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Jeffrey—The Ethnographer’s Informant/Friend
Jeffrey remained my close friend from the early days of my 1989–1990 observations at CBST. I had a few other intimate CBST friends (whom anthropologists usually define as informants); however, many of that cohort of congregants died of AIDS.3 Other close acquaintances moved away from New York. With some, I lost interest in their affairs or the contact faded, as often happens with acquaintances and friends in daily life. But I never returned to New York, even for a short visit, without meeting Jeff for dinner and a long schmooze at a Village restaurant. We kept up that close bond even after he retired and moved from Manhattan to a new residence on Long Island.
My relationship with Jeff was cemented years ago when he invited me to join him at a monthly meeting of the Golden Shower Association, a group of gay men who shared erotic experiences together (see Chapter 1). It was a sign he considered me an intimate friend from whom he had no need to hide his most private sexual preferences. During the many years of our acquaintance, Jeff told me numerous details about his life—his early childhood, parents, introduction to gay life, employment history, past boyfriends, and continuing search for mates for love and sex (see Chapter 10). Jeff was acquainted with my writings, and we had many a good laugh about my use of the invented name for him, Jeffrey, as presented in my texts, when I called him or when I left a message on his machine. This was one of our shared secrets.
A Secret Revealed
In June 2008 I arrived in New York for a few days’ stay to participate in a professional meeting at New York University. I called Jeff and suggested that we meet when he got to Manhattan. Jeff responded enthusiastically and told me he planned to combine that visit with some other engagements he had in town. When he asked to stay at my place for one night, I willingly agreed to host him at the apartment I rented in Chelsea. Jeff showed up in the late afternoon and we enjoyed our dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant. He told me about his recent affairs, starting a new part-time job, and getting involved in a promising romantic relationship, a man he had met at a party in the company of local affluent gay neighbors.
I had to leave the apartment early the next day, scheduled to present a paper at a morning conference session. However, by around 5:30 a.m. Jeff was already awake, complaining of acute stomach or kidney pains. He could hardly stand up. I realized I must take him immediately to an emergency room. I helped him get dressed, stopped a cab, and headed to St. Vincent’s Hospital, nearby on Seventh Avenue.
I stood close to Jeff as he answered the questions needed for registration and reporting on his medical status. He was listing his past treatments and medications as he extracted from his bag a large container of pills. Suddenly, Jeff raised his eyes to me and said, “You’ll not like this,” and continued his report: “I’m HIV.” I was stunned but remained impassive. I knew that in recent years Jeff had suffered a series of medical problems. He had also gone through a period of depression. But I never suspected he was infected with HIV. I remembered a story he told me years before about a moment when his late mother’s voice had stopped him on the way to the Mineshaft, a sex club later identified as a major site of HIV transmission.
I was in no way uncomfortable with the discovery of having been in close social contact with a man infected with the dreadful virus. I was not embarrassed thinking that the paramedic who took notes of Jeff’s medical history might assume I was the cheated-upon partner in a gay relationship. But I felt betrayed at not being informed by a friend I strongly believed had no secrets hidden from me. I was conscious of the deep disappointment and the notion of failure of the mutual relationship we both experienced before the seemingly disinterested stranger. In Goffman’s terms, one might suggest that shame was not only Jeff’s share (1967: 106): “by the standards of the little social system maintained through the interaction, the discreditor is just as guilty as the person he discredits [through the unexpected revelation in our case].”
I refrained from any verbal comment and busied myself looking around as if curious about the hectic commotion in the crowded emergency room. In the meantime, however, Jeff managed to contact his family doctor on his cell phone and inform him of the situation. As soon as Jeff was put in a bed to await further examination, I left for the apartment to prepare for my long day at the conference. I managed to get to my session at NYU on time. I called Jeff a few hours later and discovered he was on the bus going home after being treated for his pains and discharged; he had been informed it was a nerve infection of some sort with no further complication. I called him again before my departure the next day, and he seemed to have returned to his normal affairs.
I soon got over my surprise, disappointment,
