Tea Room Trade

How ethical is this study?

A researcher was interested in the men who participated in sexual activity in a public place, that is, their personal characteristics and the nature of the sexual activity. His first step was to engage in observation of such activity in a public restroom in a park within a large city; these places were known as "tearooms." The general pattern was for the men to drive to the park, enter the public restroom, and engage in the desired behavior.

The researcher often served as what was called the "watch queen," that is, a lookout to prevent individuals who might cause trouble from interrupting the sexual activity. In general, interruptions of the activity occurred due to the presence of local teenagers or police. This activity was technically illegal when the study was done (in the 1960s), so it would have been troublesome if the police arrived on the scene.

He gathered his information on 50 sex acts (mostly oral sex) involving over 100 men. Then he obtained personal information about these individuals. He copied down their license plate numbers, went to the police and, giving a false cover story, obtained names and addresses based on the license plates, and subsequently interviewed the men. He informed them that it was part of a marketing research project.

Analysis of responses to the interview revealed that "when the characteristics of the participants were compared with those of typical males from the same urban area, no striking differences in terms of occupations, marital status, socioeconomic characteristics, and the like were found. Aside from their participation in clandestine homosexual activity, there was little to distinguish these men from typical adult males" (Reynolds, 1982, p. 68).

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Questions

1. What are the ethical issues that need to be considered to see if this study could be regarded as ethical?

2. What alternatives were there to the methodology used by the researcher?

3. Should this study have been done?

References

Humphreys, L. (1970). Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. Chicago: Aldine.

Reynolds, P. D. (1982). Ethics and Social Science Research. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.