place and that it isn’t a fit topic for discussion, strikes me as a variety of collective insanity” (2002: 529).
Gay Men’s Sexuality and Gay Anthropologists
The Hidden Observer
The ethnographic work available on sexual behavior in Western society has been mostly carried out in the field of anonymous gay sex. However, for many years, the ethnographers who conducted that research performed their task as unidentified observers (e.g., Humphreys 1970; Delph 1978; Style 1979; Leap 1999). Such studies have been relatively easy to conduct without developing close relationships with the “natives.” That trend won methodological and theoretical support from the school of symbolic interaction (as represented by Goffman in particular).
Laud Humphreys was probably the first researcher who conducted intensive ethnographic work among gay men. His Tearoom Trade (1970) remains a landmark not only for its methodological innovation and sociological revelation, but also for its ensuing scandal. Humphreys observed men having sex in public restrooms in the parks of an American city. He conducted his observations by adopting the role of a “watch queen,” warning the participants of the approach of the police and unidentified visitors. Humphreys could take notes about the participants’ visible, though silent, sexual communication, but he had almost no additional knowledge about their lives outside these meeting sites. The men were quick to depart and had no wish to carry on conversations that might have revealed their identity. They would have certainly left immediately had they suspected the presence of a researcher on the premises.
In order to obtain additional information about his subjects, Humphreys employed another unconventional method. He wrote down the registration numbers of the cars of his subjects parked nearby; he then used his connections at the relevant license administration offices to track down their addresses. He visited them at their homes about a year later, somewhat disguised and under the pretext of another survey. This was obviously a most serious breach of privacy, as well as a violation of professional ethics.
Against the fierce wave of criticism about the flawed ethics of his work, Humphreys defended his methods. He claimed, first, that he took all the measures necessary to protect the confidentiality of the men he observed. Second, he argued that his research proved that men who participate in this stigmatized activity were good citizens who might happen to be the readers’ next-door neighbors or close relatives. He believed he contributed to the obliteration of the myth and prejudice about the apparently deviant characters who associate in the sites of sleazy anonymous sex. He did not regret the first part of his observations but admitted he would not have repeated the second stage of his research, in which he interviewed his unsuspecting subjects at their homes. He believed, however, that no other alternative method could produce equivalent reliable data (1975: 223–32).
Since Humphreys published his pioneering research, many studies of close observations have been carried out in the field of anonymous sex, including in saunas, bars, public parks, and parking areas (e.g., Leap 1999). Most observers, who remained incognito at the sites of their research, employed the ideas and tools of symbolic interaction. This was long the method adopted to describe the “discourse” that maintains the intimate communication between silent bodies, as well as the strategies practiced by the participants to conceal their use of public spaces for “forbidden” behavior. Observers suggested contrasting opinions about the pros and cons of public “anonymous” sex. Were these sites the crucible for the development of gay supportive communities (e.g., Altman 1986), or were they the scene of brutal competition and depressing alienation (e.g., Bersani 1998)?
The Active Observer
In recent years, however, the methodology in the field of gay men’s sexuality took a new direction, propagated by openly gay anthropologists. This generation of scholars conducted their research equipped with a new professional conviction, which was combined with the urgency of a social mission. Their work was stimulated by their efforts to prevent the spread of AIDS.
Ralph Bolton, an American anthropologist, worked in rural Peru for many years. Only later in his career, in the 1980s, did he come out as a gay man and become one of the most active medical anthropologists engaged in gay issues. He undertook research on anonymous sex as part of a project that sought to reveal habits that might facilitate or curtail the spread of AIDS. His method of studying anonymous sex abandoned the old tradition of participant observation, which left the researcher in the safe position of a detached voyeur. Instead, he claimed, it was an advantage for the researcher to take full part in the activity under study. Employing this strategy in his research of gay saunas in Brussels, Bolton believed he could thus obtain more reliable information, far superior to that obtained through the “voyeuristic” tradition or through the methods of survey and interview.
Bolton’s active participation raised doubts and sometimes disdain in professional circles. He noted his mainstream colleagues’ ambivalent reception of his method and sadly concluded: “Real ethnography was not to be tolerated; distance must be replaced through the use of data-collecting techniques that keep informants at bay” (1996: 162).
That method was also reported in ethnographic work done elsewhere, such as that of Carrier (1995) in his many years among gay men in Mexico. Carrier reported extensively on his observations at sites of anonymous sex, his experiences of long-standing intimate friendships with individuals, and his continuing association with networks of Mexican gay men. His ethnography probably presents the most uninhibited report on the sex life of an anthropologist in the field. However, his conclusions raised some doubts among other gay anthropologists, though not for ethical reasons.
Murray’s (1996) critique of Carrier’s observations, supported by his own work in South America, is of particular importance. Although Murray also admitted he had sex with local men, he argued that the anthropologist who believes he uncovered “true” evidence because he had sex with his subjects may end up with information invented for the researcher. For example, an American ethnographer in a Latin American country might truly believe that local men indeed willingly take part as “passive” partners in anal and oral sex, despite their ethos that “manly men” would never do that. But Murray suggested that men in Guatemala might consent to adopt the recipient role in anal or oral sex with the American visitor, who is a privileged outsider, something they would not countenance with their compatriots. Therefore, Murray concluded, the anthropologist might be seriously wrong assuming that his shared gay identity and engagement in sex with his informants endowed him with inside knowledge and with an important lesson to teach the personnel involved in AIDS prevention: “The relationship between such data and native intra-cultural behavior and thought is far from obvious. Having sex with the natives is not the royal road to insight about alien sexualities” (1996: 250).
The fully participatory research strategy took an even more controversial turn when it was adopted for a project in Sweden. Benny Henriksson (1995) studied porno video clubs in Stockholm catering to a gay men clientele. He identified these establishments as substitute commercial sites for the gay baths, which had been banned in 1987 as part of the official battle against AIDS. However, an article in a local newspaper revealed that Henriksson did not conduct the observations himself. Instead he employed five assistants, who were not discouraged from having sex with the men they observed. They were told to avoid unsafe sex but otherwise were expected to report in detail on the verbal negotiations and actual erotic activities they observed or joined in.
A public scandal soon erupted. The sites studied by Henriksson’s assistants were raided by the police, and the institutions that funded the research were severely criticized. In the final report, Henriksson rejected the accusations leveled at his work by officials, professional groups, and gay organizations. He contended that his unorthodox use of participant observers was legitimate (relying on Bolton’s arguments in particular) and caused no harm to his research assistants, who had engaged in these activities prior to their recruitment to the project. He promised that the identity of anyone observed in the clubs
