Mom, Dad... I'm a Sex Researcher
By Eric Sprankle
Over the past 8 years at Minnesota State University, Mankato, my research team has investigated various topics within the field of sexuality. From sex workers’ rights, to trans folks with genital piercings, to the sex lives of Satanists, the varied topics are united under the theme of better understanding the experiences of those who live in the margins of society. This makes for fun conversations during family gatherings.
Researching stigmatized identities and communities is rewarding work, but the work is, ironically, also stigmatized. The decision to disclose or conceal something that is stigmatized is known as stigma management. How to manage this stigma is discussed at length with students on my research team so they are well-equipped to navigate the personal and professional risks of disclosing controversial work.
Here are a few of the options we discuss:
Full Disclosure
I am at a point in my personal and professional life where I’m comfortable fully disclosing the details of my research with friends, family, and within my professional circles. In fact, my family and friends would be shocked, and likely even offended, if I abandoned sex research to take up studying butterflies (no offense to the lepidopterists out there). If students have like-minded social networks and are planning on pursuing graduate programs and careers that align with the research, then full disclosure may be the best tactic for them to live authentically. But even if a student is in a supportive bubble, they’ll inevitably be in a situation outside of that bubble where a full disclosure may not be the best option, and where scaffolding is warranted.
Scaffolding
Scaffolding, or as I like to call it, “the wedding reception tactic,” is a stigma management technique where the stigmatized information is slowly and incrementally disclosed if someone is unsure how the information is going to be received. Imagine you’re attending a wedding reception and you’re seated at a table with strangers and someone asks you, “How’s school going?” You have the option in that moment to disclose as little or as much as you’re comfortable. You may be excited about having joined a research team and decide to share that excitement, knowing a follow-up question could be, “What are you researching?” From there, you may keep it simple and respond by saying you’re on a sexual health research team. At any point you can pivot and redirect the conversation and/or ask about their work if you sense discomfort. However, often times, the mere utterance of the word “sex” may have piqued their interest and now they want more details, a lot more details, at which point you may be thinking to yourself, “Are you sure you want to go down this road, childhood friend of the bride??” If that’s the case, you respond with, “I’m exposing gay men to pornography clips to see if it impacts their genital body image.”
Now you’ve become either the most interesting person at the table or the most reviled.
Scaffolding allows you to abandon ship if you feel small amounts of the truth are not being tolerated, or to continue on toward full disclosure if there is tolerance. But if a person believes even a small amount of disclosure would likely be met with a family member slowly shaking their head in disapproval or an employer quickly putting an application in a fire to cleanse it of its sins, then they may need to rely on euphemisms.
Euphemisms
Sexual language is full of euphemisms that allow us to speak about sex more comfortably in a very sex-embarrassed culture. Fortunately, if someone needs to rely on this tactic, sex research allows for plenty of euphemistic language as well. You’re not studying the motivations of transgender people getting a genital piercing, you’re studying body modifications among a gender diverse population. You’re not studying the sex lives of Satanists, you’re studying relational satisfaction among religious minorities. That’s more digestible. Boring, but more digestible. Like plain oatmeal.
Every student on my research team needs to work on finding the right balance between authenticity and concealment when discussing their research. Research has shown having to conceal a stigmatized identity or behavior increases the risk of psychological distress (e.g., depression, anxiety). Conversely, disclosing involvement in sex research increases the likelihood of sexual harassment and assumptions about one’s personal sex life, particularly for women. It can feel like a double-edged sword.
Students needs to carefully consider the risks and rewards of conducting sex research to see if it aligns with their personal and professional goals. If the good outweighs the bad, and the authenticity outweighs the concealment, student sex researchers can look forward to lively discussions about the personality characteristics of kink practitioners at this year’s Thanksgiving dinner with relatives.
Further Reading
Hammond, N. & Kingston, S. (2014). Experiencing stigma as sex work researchers in professional and personal lives. Sexualities, 17(3), 329-347. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460713516333
Irvine, J.M. (2014). Is sexuality research ‘dirty work? Institutionalized stigma in the production of sexual knowledge. Sexualities, 17(5-6), 632-656. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460713516338
Irvine, J.M. (2015). The other sex work: Stigma in sexuality research. Social Currents, 2(2), 116-125. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329496515579762