pleased he was not concerned about my omission of that piece of information. I assume that he considered my silence part of my discreet manner of avoiding gossip about my local acquaintances. I consoled myself for my poor ethics with a comment made by the late Rachel Eytan, an Israeli writer of whom I am fond. Her major, moving novel, The Fifth Heaven, tells the story of a girl abandoned in orphanages by her divorced parents. At a public lecture, intimating the autobiographical elements in her book, she said, “The author is a traitor who trades in his family secrets.” Without prior planning I had become an invisible partner in, and betrayer of, Nigel’s and Peter’s most intimate life experiences and romantic fantasies.
Discussion
Ethnographers and their subjects, like all human beings, have secrets hidden from close relatives and friends. On occasion they also experience unexpected revelations that their interlocutors and close partners inspire. Our informants might conceal personal or other sensitive information not necessarily because of manipulative calculations or for gain of any kind. As the cases I have presented above tell us, these concealments often result from fear of damaging social relationships and losing the respect, affection, and love of significant others.
I find support for my observations in the work of scholars from various disciplines; an example is Helen Lewis, a psychologist, who in her work focused on shame and analyzed transcripts of psychotherapy sessions (1971). Lewis proposed that shame arises when there is a threat to the social bond. Every person, she argued, fears social disconnection from others. Jeff’s reluctance to expose his HIV status had its roots in his painful experience with close friends. He described his feelings of degradation and fear of being perceived “like dirt.” Jeff’s memories of the traumatic experiences of revealing his medical condition to close friends remind us of the sociologist Lynd’s terms on the circumstances of shame: “Finding oneself in a position of incongruity, not being accepted as the person one thought one was” (1958: 37).
Like many others of his generation of gay men afflicted with HIV and its later development into full-blown AIDS, Jeff was totally unprepared for the physical and social devastation that threatened to ravage his life. It was not in the category of the well-known and somewhat “legitimized” medical epidemics and life-threatening diseases, such as cancer. It was not among the embarrassing but easily treated sexually transmitted diseases that are also shared by heterosexual men and women. It was a shocking realization that one is struck with an incurable, debilitating, and stigmatizing infection. No empathy was in store for HIV/AIDS victims, in contrast to victims of cancer or other life-threatening diseases (e.g., Altman 1986; Bersani 1988).
Jeff recalled that he once visited a medical clinic for treatment of an STD (a syphilis infection). He was struck by the number of good-looking men who must have shared the symptoms. They were treated with penicillin, a simple medical procedure, making the STD seem like a sort of a flu infection. But now he felt he was all alone, treated by the media, the gay community, and even close friends as if stricken by a defiling disease. In his agony he believed that he was seen even in gay society as a sex addict who must have satisfied his erotic drive in sleazy venues and turned himself into a receptacle of tainted fluids. In common with other writers at the peak of the epidemic, Bateson and Goldsby argued that “Homosexuality, extramarital sex, and IV drugs are still stigmatized as antisocial or sinful behavior by many, and the health problems that accompany them are sometimes seen as divine punishment. Moreover, internalized homophobia and low self-esteem make individuals value their own lives and health less, leave them with less hope for the future” (1994: 128).
During the early years of the epidemic many patients developed AIDS-associated Kaposi’s sarcoma, with ugly skin lesions. They made efforts to hide these marks of the disease and often avoided going out in public. The reaction of mainstream and many gay men to the victims of HIV/AIDS was reminiscent of the treatment of lepers, the outcasts of earlier generations. Ralph Bolton, a leading ethnographer of gay life, made a compelling defense of the gay society lifestyle, blamed by both heterosexuals and homosexuals for the spread of AIDS. He commented that “AIDS is about promiscuity. In the voluminous material on this epidemic, promiscuity stands out as the key concept, dominating and linking together diverse genres of thought and discourse about AIDS” (1992: 145). A similar position was taken a few years later by Murray: “Blaming victims is a leitmotif of public discussion of AIDS, derived directly from the view that “promiscuity” is an invariant, defining characteristic of gay men” (1996: 108). He also highlighted “the predisposition to equate the outbreak of unexpected diseases among gay men with anal transmission” (106). This statement implies the guilt of the receptive role (“bottoms”) in gay sexual intercourse, a theme angrily raised during my first meeting with Martin.
The situation of both HIV-positive men and those with full-blown AIDS has greatly changed since the discovery of new drugs that prolong life and erase the visible physical marks of the disease. This has not diminished the binary position and the worries of stigmatization between HIV-positive and HIV-negative men (Munoz 2009: 46–47). Jeff, a survivor of an earlier generation, was still experiencing the trauma of devastation and social stigma that its victims endured. I remember the public excitement caused by the late Mel Rosen, president of CBST, who revealed in Jewish Week (February 3, 1989) his medical condition as an AIDS patient. About the same time, he also announced his disease at a public event at B’nai Jeshurun, a major mainstream Conservative synagogue in New York. It needed a leading figure in the New York State health administration and a man of considerable personal charisma to come out with that stigmatizing secret. Mel Rosen was also endowed with a robust masculine appearance (he was the tallest man at any gathering), which made his appearance contradict popular stereotypes about the looks and demeanor of gay men. His statements, both written and spoken and to both homosexual and heterosexual audiences, displayed a forceful protest, as expressed by Bolton, against the “fact that people do lie about their sexual histories, about their drug habits, and about their HIV status” (1992: 177).
Jeff admired Mel Rosen, but he could not imitate his heroic example. Jeff was masculine in appearance and demeanor, presenting himself as a “top” in the sexual act. His somewhat macho clothing style and his comportment projected the image of an easily identifiable type of gay New Yorker. However, he lacked the extraordinary personal and social capital that made Mel Rosen a quintessential advocate of gay rights and helped him publicly admit his medical condition. Rosen was virtually fearless in that sphere of his personal life. Jeff, however, was afraid of losing my friendship and respect, as well as jeopardizing Martin’s love.
Albeit in a different social situation, I too had my fears. I was afraid of losing Nigel’s friendship, which would have also positioned my work in a new fieldwork site at risk. Without doubt, Jeff’s worries and my own were exaggerated or even completely misguided. But we had no way to predict the reaction of our buddies and mates once they discovered the secrets that threatened to expose us to shame and stigma. Certainly, the comparison covers two very different personal circumstances. Jeff’s revelation about his medical situation came about by default. In contrast, I volunteered the information about my deception. But the pain and the risk of the revelation must have been far more severe for Jeff.
“True Reports”
In retrospect, the unexpected circumstances that prompted the discovery of Jeff’s medical situation offered me a better understanding of the painful existential condition of a close friend and “informant” in the professional terminology. However, it presented an example of the exceptional experiences in daily life that might engage “ordinary” people—researchers and their subjects included (Shokeid 1992). Jeff’s case exposed the risk and the discomfort entailed in concealing sensitive personal information from one’s significant others. It also displayed the emotions and the calculation that might compel the individual to continue concealing his/her secrets. That suppression of personal information appears less threatening and less painful than the potential consequences of confronting close relatives and friends with damaging revelations. The study of sexuality and of the life of a sexual minority presents the ethnographer with
