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 regarding the ethical nature of his research methods. He influenced generations of scholars who research issues related to sexuality and sexual identity.
Biography
Robert Allan Humphreys was born on October 16, 1930, in Chickasha, Oklahoma, to Ira Denver Humphreys and Stella Bernice Humphreys. "Laud" was chosen as his first name when he was baptized again upon entering the Episcopal Church.
Education
Humphreys graduated from Chickasha High School (Chickasha, Oklahoma) in 1948.
In 1965, Humphreys returned to study for a PhD which he earned in 1968. Afterwards, Humphreys was an assistant professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Illinois, from 1968 to 1970. He was associate professor of sociology at the School of Criminal Justice, State University of New York in Albany from 1970 to 1972. He was associate professor of sociology at Pitzer College, in Claremont, California, from 1972 to 1975; he earned full professorship at Pitzer in 1975, where he worked until about 1980, when he began to focus on his psychotherapist practice.
Humphreys belonged to several sociological professional organizations, including the American Sociological Association (ASA), the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the Pacific Sociological Association, and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. He was a charter member of the International Academy of Sex Research. In 1974, Humphreys came out as a gay man during a discussion at a conference session at the ASA. established in 1974 as a response to a presentation by Edward Sagarin that criticized homosexual sociologists as hiding in the closet. The authors establish the case that Humphreys was an extremely complex person and that he was professionally marginalized in the discipline of sociology.
Tearoom Trade
Humphreys is best known for his published PhD dissertation, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places (1970), an ethnographic study of anonymous male-male sexual encounters in public toilets (a practice known as "tea-rooming" in US gay slang and "cottaging" in British English). Humphreys asserted that the men participating in such activity came from diverse social backgrounds, had differing personal motives for seeking sexual partners in such venues, and variously self-perceived as "straight," "bisexual," or "gay." Because Humphreys was able to confirm that over 50% of his subjects identified as heterosexual men who were married to women,
Humphreys' study has been criticized by sociologists and other social and behavioral scientists on ethical grounds
According to Jack Nusan Porter, a sociologist who knew Humphreys and studied under Howard S. Becker at Northwestern University from 1967 to 1971, "Humphreys was enormously influential on graduate students and younger scholars in the field of deviance, ethnography, and what we called 'participant observation'. True, today one could not do such research because there was no 'informed consent' but then again, in many cases, when doing research on deviant behavior, one will never get 'informed consent' so we miss out on a lot of important findings. He was a true pioneer and a hero to all of us in these fields."
Humphreys' research materials, including detailed diagrams and maps of tearoom activity he observed, are housed in the collections at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives.
By 2004, Tearoom Trade had sold more than 300,000 copies. However, Earl Babbie, who writes about sociological research methods, notes that the controversy about "sociological snoopers" and research ethics was likely the result of societal homophobia and disgust with the research topic, and not due to real problems with research methods.
Schacht credits Humphreys with pioneering research on impersonal sex, now a common topic of research and advocacy in the context of HIV/AIDS. According to Brekhus, Humphrey's contribution to sociological theory, in particular to the development of the concept of identity politics, is often overlooked, but should be hailed as an important forerunner to modern queer theory. Nardi also lauds Humphreys' theoretical work, especially his concept of the breastplate of righteousness. Humphreys developed this idea to explain the apparent contradiction of presumably straight, married men holding a public conservative stance against homosexuality, yet engaging in impersonal sex with men in public settings.
In 2003, the presidential session at the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) was devoted to honoring Humphrey's pioneering work on sexuality.