In Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. A critical review.
Humphreys argues that sociologist have avoided studying deviant behaviours because it poses serious problems from methodological and emotional obstacles. These concerns test them as they have to break ethical grounds that undermine who they are when they divorce themselves from ingrained rational norms. In order to conduct his study Humphreys hides his identity while pretending to participate in nefarious homosexual activity. Yielding data needed to understand why homosexuals display deviant behaviours. Devising workarounds to tackle obstacles he encountered in his research on this minority group looked on with derision by society in the 1970’s. This essay will argue that in order for sociologist to study deviant behaviours ethical and moral grounds must not hinder their ability to seek information from their subjects. Divorcing social norms does not mean a loss of justification in order to gain insights into secret worlds hidden because of the undesirability of breaching social norms.
Passing as a deviant Humphreys was able to get an insider’s view of deviant homosexual’s behaviours to try and counter defences developed against outsiders to protect themselves. Humphreys attributes his unwillingness to use his professional credentials to ensure ‘a social desirability effect’ (Travers 2013, 244) did not occur and break down these adapted defences to gain a candid account of data that ensures Humphreys work is founded on sufficient methodic sincerity (Malinowski 1932 ,3). In order ‘to make contact with respondents under the guess of another gay guy’ builds rapport to gain trust and ease (Travers 2013, 241) for Humphreys to observe what happens in ‘Tearooms’. Through the divorce of social norms by passing as a deviant Humphreys gains the observance of a ‘pure type’ of social action (Weber 1978, 4) to get rid of the limitations brought on by moral and ethical grounds in allowing him to observe freely and with less influence on how deviants acted.
Because of this Humphreys not only provides a strong valid point that social norms hinder sociologists if they choose to allow ethical grounds to limit their research. The very bias that makes these behaviours being labelled as deviant distorts the motives for their actions as the only other studies conducted regarding this group was from law enforcement agents catching them in the act or when seeking psychiatric help. In turn the undesirability of not being part of deviant behaviour is in part just an irrational bias brought on by what we feel as being radically differing from the values at the time which made it hard for society to understand these actions emphatically (Weber 1978, 5-6). Justification of divorcing from social norms is further supported when Humphreys poses the question, How ‘normal’ could that activity be? If they had chosen to allow scientific ethics to rule their research would they have been able to observe a ‘show’ and uncover the defences adapted by the deviants they observed.
Serving as a ’watchqueen’ allowed Humphreys to be part of the action without observing a ‘socially desirable effect’ (Travers 2013, 244) to distort the data he records observing his subjects performing their acts without the fear of them making a ‘show’ and preserving their scientific integrity. Humphreys quotes Bruyn on the challenge he encounters when observing as a participant of becoming natural with the observed, maintaining scientific integrity and ethical integrity (Bruyn 1966, pp 206 -210). And based on the quantity in his data Humphreys succeeds in ensuring they have a lot of and varied because of how natural he becomes in the ‘Tearooms’. However it must be pointed out that on ethical grounds at the time they had failed Bryun’s stated ethical integrity because Humphreys hides who and what they are there for. This again highlights that if they had allowed themselves to limit what they were doing to get data because of moral dilemmas without divorcing from social norms their research would not have had much data to work with.
As an ethnographer Humphreys provides a near accurate presentation of deviant behaviour because of their participation as a deviant with very systematic sampling of data collection based on t ‘time and place sampling’. Humphreys delves deep into the deviant’s hidden world and was able to record minute details in great quantities with a large data set to paint a clear behavioural picture. More importantly he does not exclude anything in his studies ensuring nothing is missed. Even if at the time data collected looked like there were human errors in car registrations, he points out that these instances could be a more direct deviant defence to ensure they are covering themselves. This is one of the strong points in his work because the degree of care and amount of data he collects attempts ensures nothing left is to chance. Humphreys ensures that any perceived presuppositions they may have based on societal biases by exclusion of certain irrelevant data everything they record does not get distorted from the ‘pure type’ of rational action(Weber 1978,4).
Although on ethical grounds Humphreys fails as a sociologist when he hides his identity to the homosexuals, he still displays beneficence when he omits their identities in his records. Along with hiding who they are, the records are also kept at a secure vault to avoid incriminating his subjects if his records are found by the authorities (von Dietze). This is a very big saving grace for Humphreys in that he protects his subject from the deviant acts they are performing in the ‘Tearooms’ while at the same time he was able to collect so much data to enable him to paint a clear meaning in order to ascertain what are true and valid behaviours observed (Weber 1978, 4) by them. For Malinowski this indicates that as an ethnographer Humphreys has succeeded in gaining the inside story of the deviants life from the through the divorce of social norms because without this they are looking from the outside in. This then gives the reader the true picture or an insider’s perspective of what their experiences are (Jennings).
Based on the number of data collected by Humphreys through direct observations provides an observer subjective perspective interpretation but would’ve lacked any concrete motives or meaning. As Weber story of the man chopping wood the observer would come to a rational conclusion that they are doing so because it is their job or they need firewood. However because Humphreys only succeeds in a strong hypothesis from the great quantity of data collected, it would still be a hypothesis. In order to validate their sociological work they incorporate ‘in-depth interviews’ (Travers 2013, 242) to the subjects through a men’s health survey conducted for the area their subjects belonged. While this achieved the stated aims in verifying Humphreys hypothesis on the subjects backgrounds they did so without them knowing the extra questions asked in open question form were not collected ethically. Without the divorce of ethical grounds the data they collected would in turn be based on in conclusive hypothesis as there would be gaps in them and limit the view from the inside of the group thereby distorting their interpretations.
In conclusion the success of Humphreys work in understanding deviant behaviours would not have been possible if they had limited their approach because of social norms and only through divorcing from them were they able to provide us with a clear and accurate picture of who and what made up these deviants . More importantly it allowed him to present an insider’s view on why it happened based on the divorce of social norms. Without it the defences adapted by deviants a greater possibility in observing a ‘show’ rather than pure picture to collect their data. In turn the hindrance of social norms of derision would only give a picture of law enforcement and psychiatric studies that may not have had the intended picture because the aims were not Humphreys aims in understanding deviants in their ‘natural environment’ without disturbing or influencing their behaviours which would mean the failure of the work as a sociological study of deviant behaviour. It is interesting to note that because at the time social norms meant everyone that were ‘straight’ looked in derision based on ingrained rational views that put these deviants and even labelled the acts and the person as deviant did not really give a good picture of what it meant to be a gay man in the past.
Reference
Bruyn S (1966) The Human Perspective: The Methodology of Participant Observation, Prentice Hall, 206 -244
Humphreys, L. 1975 Chapter 2: Methods – the Sociologist as Voyeur. In Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. Chicago, IL: Aldine, 16-44
Jennings, Mark. “Observation and Social Research” Lecture, Murdoch University, Perth WA, March 26, 2015
Malinowski, B. 1932 Introduction: The Subject, Method and Scope of this Enquiry. In Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge, 1-25
Travers, M. 2013. Chapter 10: Qualitative Interviewing Methods. In Social Research Methods, 3rd ed. Edited M. Walter. Melbourne: Oxford UP, 227-253.
von Dietze, Erich. “Ethics in Social Research” Lecture, Murdoch University, Perth WA, March 19, 2015
Weber, M. 1978. Chapter 1: Basic Sociological Terms. In Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 3-26.
