John Gentry
Anth 410
Prof. Rebecca Robertson
03/09/14
The Ethics Regarding Sex and Ethnography
Sex carries with it a whole host of queries about ethics. No one knows this better than the
researcher, the ethnographer of sexual subcultures. The ethnographer must go into these settings
and somehow toe the line between the researcher and the participant, traversing ethical dilemmas
as they come all the while maintaining “credibility”. This can be extremely difficult depending
on the project and how involved you must become in order to truly get the “picture” of the
culture. This leads to a divide in the Anthropological community, a divide between those who set
the classic research guidelines and those who are going out into the field and while trying to
conform to them find that sometimes things are not so black and white.
In “Thinking Sex” Gayle Rubin outlines the idea that “sex is used as a political agent as a
means of implementing repression and creating dominance in today’s western society”.
Assuming this is true, ethnographic research on sex can also become dangerously close to falling
into this pattern of oppression. If utilized or implemented in the incorrect way the researcher can
run the risk of having their research do more harm than good. Realizing this the ethnographer
often must then compensate in order to prevent this whenever doing any research on sexual
subcultures. This is where the conflict then comes into play.
Research guidelines are “clearly” laid out, and anyone who has done any level of
ethnographic research has gone over them. There are issues with privacy, covertness, anonymity,
the law, etc. “Ethics committee guidelines shape the performance of research and the relationship
between researcher and researched” (Perez-y-Perez). Depending on what the research is on some
or all of these might come into play. However when one does fieldwork into sexual subcultures it
becomes apparent fast that, most of the time, all are being brought up and it can be difficult to
deal with this. The Ethnographer who is doing research into sex comes into conflict not only
with their own moral guidelines but also with the review boards, and often the facility that is
either funding their research or sponsoring it in some way.
“Our management of intimate ethnographic research was guided and restricted by the
ethics policies of the academic institutions where we were located. The purpose of such policies
is to summon into being ethical research and researchers (Murphy and Dingwall, 2007;
Wilkinson, 2001), yet new research methodologies and strategies for generating knowledge can
lead to conflict with the social, organizational and cultural practices of ethics processes” (Perezy-Perez). The research in question was regarding a Massage Parlor where sexual acts were taking
place and being paid for. Perez-y-Perez was working as a receptionist at the time and this led to
her being in an ethical dilemma. She was working at a place where “illegal” acts were taking
place; she was interviewing the workers and establishing an intimate relationship with them. The
Ethics boards and most Anthropologists would declare this to be unethical; if there is a “crime”
being committed the research becomes invalid in a way, the anthropologist has a duty to report it.
That is only one side though. While there are those who think that no matter what the
circumstances the anthropologist should be at the whim of the law and also the review board
there are those (such as Perez-y-Perez) who feel that in certain circumstances the “rules” don’t
apply and are in fact at odds with the actual research being conducted. Tony Stanley (coauthor of
“Ethnographic Intimacy” with Perez-y-Perez) states, “What would we do if a subject advised us
of knowingly infecting another man? Do we ask participants to stop just before they disclose
crimes? And if we do, in what way do we complicate the co-construction of the ‘research
subject’ for the purposes of institutional categorization and, therefore, audit and risk
management?” Stanley’s research was at a non-profit dealing specifically with HIV/AIDS
programs in New Zealand. He often dealt with individuals who, like mentioned, infected others
or were at the least looking to have sex while being infected themselves.
Like he states this created a conflict within his research. Him being am actual social
worker at the Non-Profit further complicated things, “As a social worker and researcher, this
raised a number of as yet non-traversed ethical issues. At that time, I was still entering the homes
of HIV positive men to enquire about social and sexual practices. This led to questions such as:
Where does the social worker and researcher begin and end? Do they? Should they?”
Overall this goes back to the Rubin quote. Society at large has created “sexual deviance”,
thus leading to laws determining certain sexual practices (such as prostitution and at one time
homosexual sex) to be considered illegal. If they are not illegal in the law they are looked upon
as risky to the nature of your research and to you in the common Anthropological communities
eyes.
So where do I stand on this issue? In Tim Dean’s article “Breeding Culture” he goes into
detail about his own sexual experiences and how they led to his research. His paper is about
“Bugchasing” or the act of willingly having sex with and HIV positive man in order to contract
the virus for yourself. In the paper Dean makes some large claims about how sexual desire works
stating “individuals will put their own desires over others”. Whether I agree with his arguments
or not isn’t the point, the point is that the article peaked my interest into the cultural phenomena
of Bugchasing and since reading his article I have sought out many more in an attempt to
understand how the culture works. Through this I have decided what I would like my career path
would like to shape into and I have realized the importance of ethnography as a tool in
researching other sexual subcultures not only academically but in a public health perspective as
well.
What this means is that I would end up doing ethnographic research similar to Tim Dean,
similar Stanley, similar to Perez-y-Perez. I read these papers and realize that if I am to
accomplish and create beneficial research to the community I look to study I have to be on the
side of the researchers who are willing to question the ethical review boards and the standards
that have been put into place by Anthropologists that haven’t actually been in the field where I
will choose to be. While I agree with some “rules of ethics” put into place I have begun to fully
understand the need to create a new level of ethics specifically for the realm of research in sexual
subcultures.
Research is too fluid to be constrained to one overarching set of rules made to apply to
everyone. Circumstance, intimacy with your subjects, acknowledging that sometimes crimes take
place and to fully understand why we can’t just jump to the law, and also understanding that we
owe those who are willing to be apart of our research perhaps more than the organization we are
under are integral to creating an ethnography that is complete, concise, unbiased and most of all
beneficial to those we are researching. Our world is one that still ostracizes and outcasts those
who break from the majority when it comes to sex. Perhaps we as Anthropologists must learn to
break away sometimes in order to create a factual end product.
Bibliography

Rubin, Gayle. "Thinking Sex." Trans. Array Pleasure and Danger. New York, N.Y.:
Routledge, 1984. Print.

Dean , Tim. "Breeding Culture: Barebacking, Bugchasing, Giftgiving." Massechusets
Review. 49..5 (2008): n. page. Print.

Perez-y-Perez, Maria, and Tony Stanley. "Ethnographic Intimacy: Thinking Through the
Ethics of Social Research in Sex Worlds ." Sociological Research Online. 16.2 (2011): n.
page. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.