Tearoom Trade Laud Humphreys

Robert allan laud humphreys october 16 1930 in chickasha oklahoma august 23 1988 was an american sociologist and author.

Tearoom trade laud humphreys.

He was a charter member of the tearkom academy of sex research. Humphreys asserted that the men participating in such activity came from diverse social backgrounds. Impersonal sex in public places laud humphreys 1970 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. Perhaps not surprisingly given the topic the research was highly controversial however this was not just due to its sensitive subject matter.

Dissertation which was entitled tearoom trade. An exchange in norman k. The tearoom trade study is a study by laud humphreys conducted in 1970 to obtain information on male homoerotic behaviors that occurred in public bathrooms. In 1970 laud humphreys then a washington university phd student wrote his infamous thesis tearoom trade which was a study of homosexual behaviour between men in public toilets in a u s.

Without disclosing his role as a sociology researcher humphreys played the role of watchqueen that is he looked out for intruders while men performed. A study of homosexual encounters in public places the study is an analysis of male male sexual behavior in public toilets. Laud humphreys and the tearoom sex study. In the 1960s in los angeles supposed homosexual behavior was a felony charge under the law.

Humphreys is best known for his published ph d. Humphreys argued his deception was justified as the acts were so stigmatised he would not have got the information otherwise. Gay slang and cottaging in british english. 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.

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 many believe to be unethical research methods. He influenced generations of scholars who research. 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. Laud humphreys died in from lung cancer.