the tearoom trade experiment

Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places is a 1970 non-fiction book by American sociologist Laud Humphreys, based on his 1968 Ph.D. dissertation "Tearoom Trade: A Study of Homosexual Encounters in Public Places." The study is an analysis of men who participate in anonymous sex with other men in public lavatories, a practice known as "tea-rooming" or "cottaging". [1]

The Tearoom Trade Study. Without telling people that he was studying them, Laud Humphreys (1975) observed hundreds of homosexual acts among men in St. Louis, Missouri. Humphreys's study produced very important results. The men involved in this tearoom trade, as it is called, came from all walks of life, and many were married and living ...

In Tearoom Trade (1970/1975), Laud Humphreys' writes about the homosexual relations that took place in various "tearooms" (i.e., public bathrooms) in an unidentified American city during the mid- to late 1960s. By pretending to be a simple voyeur, Humphreys explains that he systematically observed these activities and even recorded the license plate numbers of a sample of tearoom ...

Laud Humphreys. Robert Allan Humphreys (1930-1988), known as Laud Humphreys, was an American sociologist and Episcopal priest. He is noted for his research into sexual encounters between men in public bathrooms, published as Tearoom Trade (1970) and for the questions that emerged from what was overwhelmingly considered unethical research ...

and the book, Tearoom Trade (1970, expanded edition 1975), gen-erated a storm of debate about the ethics of research that continues 25 years later in many introductory sociology and methods text-Peter M. Nardi is Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College. Ralph Bolton and Glenn Goodwin provided comments on an earlier draft of this article, which was

Abstract. This chapter explores the case of Tearoom Trade, a study conducted in the mid-1960s on the behavior and lifestyles of men who frequented public restrooms, known as tearooms, used by homosexuals for casual sexual encounters. The study was one of the first to document that many of the men who went to the tearooms were married, well ...

Tearoom Trade told, in the book's historical context of an unsettled sexual culture and the rise of radical sexual politics on both the left and the right. The Social Production of Sex Laud Humphreys began his dissertation research on the social organiza-tion of the tearoom in 1965, a time of volatile civil- rights activity and social change.

Laud Humphreys, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places, p. 26. n the mid-1960s Laud Humphreys undertook an intensive so-ciological study of male homosexual activities in public restrooms. The results were pub-lished two years ago in Tearoom Trade' (A "tearoom" is a location in which homosexual encounters are reputed to take place.) Hum-

This enlarged edition of 'Tearoom Trade' includes the original text, together with a retrospect, written by Nicholas von Hoffman, Irving Louis Horowitz, Lee Rainwater, Donald P. Warwick, and Myron Glazer. The material added includes a perspective on the social scientist at work and the ethical problems to which that work may give rise, along ...

Laud Humphreys. Routledge, Jul 12, 2017- Social Science- 256 pages. From the time of its first publication, 'Tearoom Trade' engendered controversy. It was also accorded an unusual amount of praise for a first book on a marginal, intentionally self-effacing population by a previously unknown sociologist. The book was quickly recognized as an ...

Examples include the Laud Humphreys research into the 'Tearoom Trade' (Babbie, 2004; Best, 2012), the Stanford ... The experiment is a scientific attempt by researchers to find evidence of the ...

Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places is a book of 1970, authored by Laud Humphreys. The book is established on his Ph. D. dissertation (1968), entitled "Tearoom Trade: A Study of Homosexual Encounters in Public Places." Humphreys determined to concentrate on interaction in tearooms, places such as public restrooms, where male ...

THE TEA ROOM STUDY. Laud Humphreys, a sociology graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis, published "Tearoom Trade", a study of homosexual encounters in men's rooms (called "tearooms") at public parks. To gather data for his doctoral dissertation on restroom sex. Humphreys pretended to be gay, and assumed the role of lookout for ...

I will first review each of these three ethical foundations for sociological research, then, I will examine Humphreys' Tearoom Trade study through the vantage point of each and the historical facts surrounding the controversies. Humphreys' study in casual public sex, when historically situated and examined through each of the three ethical and ...

By combining participant observation with structured as well as informal interviews, Tearoom Trade still furnishes a controversial example of recent social science methods. This enlarged edition includes the original text, together with a retrospect. The material added includes a perspective on the social scientist at work and the ethical ...

Like many studies of covert deviance, this paper is based upon a captive sample of persons who have come to the attention of law enforcement agencies. The existence of Laud Humphreys' research, however, makes possible a comparison of police generated data with data obtained through observations and interviews with "unapprehended" offenders. Because police observations were so detailed, a ...

tearoom trade study, fits what Best (1990) calls "the atrocity tale" which is then tied to a particular policy position (Best 1990: 132-137; T oulmin et al. 1979: 43-56; Mitchell 1993: 27).

Laud Humphreys, a sociologist, recognized that the public and the law-enforcement authorities hold highly simplistic stereotyped beliefs about men who commit impersonal sexual acts with one another in public restrooms. "Tearoom sex," as fellatio in public restrooms is called, accounts for the majority of homosexual arrests in the United States.

A social study conducted by Laud Humphreys on gay men during the late 60's and despite the controversy of the study it is still socially relevant. Despite th...

Argues that Humphrey's tearoom trade study, misinforms readers as much as it informs, regarding moral and ethical foundations for research with human subjects. States that Humphrey's tearoom study made significant positive contributions to the population he studied. Concludes that few studies in sociology have accomplished as much in a ...

-Tearoom Trade was Laud's most significant book...what emerged in this ground-breaking research was a sociological portrait of conservative and tormented lives: married men, family men, conservative men, whose personal proclivities and preferences were powerful enough, institutionally grounded enough, to break through the conventions of social ...

Abstract. The study focused on sexual activities that took place in the restrooms in public parks, which are one of many locations of these restrooms, which are called "tearooms" if they become a focus of homosexual activity. The researcher posed as a homosexual to gather information by means of participant observations conducted in these ...

paper will argue that this dominant view of Humphreys'tearoom trade study, focusing primarily upon respect for autonomy (informed con-sent), misinforms the reader as much as it informs of the underlying ... agree to every facet of an experiment. This is clearly not true. The underlying focus and function of informed consent is based