MetaFilter posts tagged with sociology and research

The Tearoom Trade and the Breastplate of Righteousness

jonp72 — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 07:55:28 -0800

Laud Humphreys was studying to be an Episcopal priest in the mid-1950s when he learned, shortly after his father's death, that his father, Oklahoma State Representative Ira D. Humphreys, took trips to New Orleans to have sex with other men. After being dismissed as an Episcopal priest in the 1960s, Laud Humphreys then enrolled as a sociology grad student where he completed a dissertation about men who had sex with other men in public bathrooms in St. Louis, which Humphreys researched by agreeing to serve as a "watch queen", looking out for the police. After writing down the license plate numbers of the men having sex, Humphreys traced the men's addresses and contacted them in disguise, claiming to be collecting data for a public health survey. The research, which was condemned as unethical for its use of covert methods, was published in 1970 as Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. According to a summary of the Tearoom Trade, "Humphreys' findings destroy many stereotypes. Fifty-four percent of his subjects were married and living with their wives, and superficial analysis would suggest that they were exemplary citizens who had exemplary marriages. Thirty-eight percent of Humphreys' subjects clearly were neither bisexual nor homosexual. They were men whose marriages were marked with tension; most of the 38 percent were Catholic or their wives were, and since the birth of their last child conjugal relations had been rare. Their alternative source of sex had to be quick, inexpensive, and impersonal. It could not entail any kind of involvement that would threaten their already shaky marriage and jeopardize their most important asset - their standing as father of their children. They wanted only some form of orgasm-producing action that was less lonely than masturbation and less involving than a love relationship." Based on his revelation about his father's trips to New Orleans and what he learned at St. Louis "tearooms," Laud Humphreys concluded that many of the men he observed put on a "breastplate of righteousness" (an allusion to Ephesians 6:10-18) by displaying socially and politically conservative views in public to shift attention away from their private sexual behavior.

Next door, yet worlds apart, we look at each other

Mr. Six — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:10:58 -0800

While the nonpartisan Pew Research Center normally focuses on US domestic issues, such as the recently and narrowly failed flag-burning amendment, the Pew Global Attitudes Project takes a wider view with reports such as The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other and 16-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey, with results that are parts obvious, non-obvious, foreboding, hopeful and contradictory in how the two societies seemingly feel about themselves and each other. [mi]

mattpfeff — Tue, 08 Oct 2002 09:28:18 -0800

"If you like surfing the web, it is probably because you believe people are basically good." That's the Economist interpreting the results of a recent study by IBM researchers of how cultural characteristics apparently affect people's readiness to adopt new communications technologies.

dgeiser13 — Thu, 20 Dec 2001 21:51:40 -0800

Small World Research Project After all the work we've done training newbies not to use the Internet for their chain letters (via this New York Times article)

antimarx — Tue, 04 Dec 2001 21:14:46 -0800

Racial stereotypes hurt academic performances --on standardized tests--for whites.

tomcosgrave — Fri, 18 Feb 2000 08:22:57 -0800

We're not a bunch of internet-loners! We're vindicated - new study shows that people who become reclusives though using the internet are in a minority.