Laud Humphreys
...did involve some deception, but it was for scientific research and all of the information that he gathered on the tearoom participants remained confidential, so in my opinion no harm was done. Methodology Humphreys (1975 : 22) wanted to look at a “specific style of deviant behavior” and in order to accomplish this, he divided his study into two different stages. The first stage was the participant-observation stage and this took over two years to complete (Humphreys, 1975 : 22). The second stage required Humphreys to conduct “interview schedules to more than one hundred respondents and in attempting to interview another twenty-seven” (Humphreys, 1975 : 21). Humphreys had gained some experience with homosexuals because he when he was an Episcopalian chaplain many of them had come to him for counseling (Humphreys, 1975 : 23). Though Humphreys now had an idea of what to expect, it was impossible for him to personally witness any type of deviant behavior in the tearooms because he was a straight man, an outsider. The only way for Humphreys to observe the deviant behavior himself was to “make contact with respondents under the guise of being another gay guy” (Humphreys, 1975 : 24). Through trial and error, Humphreys discovered that the best way to observe deviant behavior in the tearooms was to pass as a voyeur, which was a type of lookout (Humphreys, 1975 : 27). The lookout was the best role to assume because it was the least sexual role (Humphreys, 1975 : 28). Once he had gained a foothold into the culture, Humphreys was now prepared to take a sample of those engaged in d...