Controversy: to what extent should the researcher get involved with his/her subjects?

Tewksbury, Richard. 2002. “Bathhouse Intercourse: Structural and Behavioral Aspects of an Erotic Oasis.” Deviant Behavior 23:75-112.

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Question: What is the extent of interaction between researcher and bathhouse patron?

Method

·      “45.5 hours of participant observation in two bathhouses”(p.83).

·      The “research employs what Styles (1979:151) defined as an outsider strategy of observing, but not fully participating”(p.84).

·      “The researcher adopting a potential participant role seeks to appear to those being researched as a ‘real’ setting member”(p.84).

Question: is this participation sufficient to do good research?

Bolton Ralph, 1995, “ Tricks, friends and lovers, Erotic encounters in the filed ” in Don Kulick, Margareth Wilson, (dir.), Taboo, sex, identity and erotic subjectivity in anthropological fieldwork, London, New-York, Routledge, pp. 140-167.

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Ralph Bolton makes a strong case for the sexual involvement of the researchers with the subject.

Ethically “Refusing to share sexuality across cultural boundaries helps to perpetrate the false dichotomy between ‘us’ and the ‘natives’ (p.140).” and hereby “may actually increase ethnocentrism, racism, intolerance, and sexism” (p.140).

Methodologically “Research on bathhouses could have been conducted through simple observation, supplemented by supplemented interviews”

·      “But the presence of non-participants in those settings alters the flow of interaction.”

·      “But most observations between bathhouse clients occurs as post-coital sharing in the private sex rooms or in the bar area.” (p.150).

In Terms of  Experience “The most direct resource available to the sex-researcher is his own sexual experience ”(Davis 1983) cited p.152.

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