Sociology. Anthony Giddens
Further reading
Public spaces such as city parks have long provided an anonymous meeting place for sexual encounters between men in cultures which stigmatize same-sex relationships.
The search for anonymous, instant sex between men is known all over the world. A lot of men – married and unmarried, those with straight identities and those whose identify as gay – seek sex with people they do not know, many looking for sexual excitement without emotional involvement or commitment. Such encounters have often taken place in public places, such as specific areas of parks or in public toilets, to avoid discovery. In 1970s America the gay community called the toilet blocks where these encounters took place ‘tearooms’ while in the UK it was known as ‘cottaging’. In modern China, some saunas, clubs, public toilets and areas of public parks, such as Dongdan Park in Beijing, are known meeting places for men who have sex with men (often abbreviated as MSM).
Until the late 1960s, same-sex activity in public places was rarely studied as a form of interaction. The research of the American sociologist Laud Humphreys into ‘tearooms’ was among the first studies, published in his book Tearoom Trade (1970), which was controversial at that time. Homosexuality was not decriminalized in China until 1997 and since 2001 has no longer been defined as a ‘mental disorder’. Same-sex relations are tolerated more than in the past, but the equalization of legal rights that exist in other societies is absent in China. Traditional beliefs in duty to family and sexual relations only within heterosexual marriage have also waned somewhat since the 1970s political reforms, economic development and increasing internet access. Despite these social changes, homosexuality has long been viewed as a deviant form of sexuality in Chinese society and remains stigmatized. In both 1970s USA and contemporary China, the stigma attached to same-sex relationships presented sociologists trying to understand the tearoom phenomenon with the problem of gaining access to those involved.
Humphreys’ study was carried out before the emergence of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, and some of the activities he witnessed then are today seen as carrying more risks. In China, for example, men using public places for sexual encounters have emerged as a high-risk group for HIV infection (Shang and Zhang 2015). Many MSM encounters in China still take place without regard for safe-sex practices such as the use of condoms: Shang and Zhang recorded that 45.7 per cent of MSM reported having unprotected sex. Li and his colleagues (2010) argue that one reason for this lies in mainstream Chinese culture, where the concept of rouyu – a desire for direct physical contact – is widely used to mean ‘making love’. For those men seeking spontaneous, uncommitted sex with other men, condoms may be seen to interfere with achieving rouyu. As one participant told researchers, ‘No matter how thin a condom is, there is still a layer of something, and it [sex] is not between fleshes’ (Li et al. 2010: 1481).
Both Humphreys (1970) and Li et al. (2010) studied an aspect of social life that many people did not properly understand or just did not know existed. Sociological research has been an important source of more realistic knowledge about many areas of social life that were effectively hidden from view. Humphreys spent an extended period of time researching public toilets in order to collect information and make observations and later conducted survey interviews. He discovered that many men who otherwise lived ‘normal’ lives also found ways – and places – to engage in sexual behaviour considered unacceptable. Research studies in sociology often shine a light on activities that are poorly understood or that people did not know about at all. Humphreys also argued that, if society accepted homosexuality, it would help men to provide one another with self-esteem and mutual support. This highlights another important aspect of research – that it can lead to recommendations for positive social and policy changes.
Research projects are usually stimulated by a question the researcher wants to answer. Why did public toilets become places for men to meet other men for sex? Are married men in opposite-sex marriages exclusively heterosexual? Why do some men in China not practise safe sex despite knowing the risks involved? To generate such questions, sociologists must be engaged or ‘involved’ in social life, and many projects stem from the researcher’s personal experience and observations or their political commitments. For example, much of the research into human rights, poverty, social inequality and environmental sustainability is linked to researchers’ own commitment to reducing poverty and inequality and finding ways to tackle environmental problems. Emotional and political involvements such as these are quite normal and form one aspect of sociological research.
However, during the collection of data, in the analysis of the evidence and in reporting the findings, they must strive to prevent their prior emotional and political commitments from influencing their judgement, which could result in bias. The research by Li et al. was collated and reported in this relatively ‘detached’ manner, even though the project was prompted by a desire to understand why many MSM shun the use of condoms and to help to change this. They showed that traditional cultural beliefs continue in the twenty-first century and advocated a combination of online social media and traditional community-based interventions to promote condom use.
What is evident from these two studies, over four decades apart, is that sociologists, being humans, are inevitably emotionally and politically involved, looking to understand, explain and offer solutions to the social problems of the day. But, during their research, they also strive for relative detachment from their personal beliefs, and achieving a productive balance between involvement and detachment is crucial to all good sociology (Elias 1987b). Yet this is not easy, and, as we shall see later, philosophers have long argued about whether detachment or ‘objectivity’ is even possible in the social science disciplines.
Next we look at some ethical dilemmas facing sociologists who are engaged in empirical research. We then explore what is meant by ‘science’ before investigating the nature of sociology as a distinct discipline. From here we move on to examine the research process and briefly summarize the most widely used research methods and their applications. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the uses of sociology in society. As we shall see, there are some significant differences between the ideal of scientific work and real-world studies that inevitably have to deal with numerous obstacles. A sensible way to think about sociological research is to see it, like all science, as the art of the possible.
Human subjects, ethical issues
All research concerned with human beings poses ethical dilemmas – matters of moral right and wrong – for researchers. In this respect, the social sciences face issues that most research in the natural sciences do not. Is it justifiable for researchers to deceive the people they study about what the research is really about? What steps have been taken to make sure that participants have given genuine informed consent to being involved – a particularly important issue in research with children and vulnerable social groups? How will researchers protect the privacy and anonymity of participants? How will personal information be stored and for how long? Is there any risk of participants experiencing negative effects from the research and, if so, how will this risk be managed? Thinking through the ethical implications of any proposed research is important because, unless a project team can satisfactorily address the ethical issues, it may not go ahead.
Humphreys’ methodology was criticized as unethical because his fieldwork was conducted covertly, without the genuine informed consent of those he studied. Ethical issues are more prominent today than in the past, and researchers are no longer seen as the only knowledgeable experts with participants