Researching eros—revisiting ethnographic chronicles of male sex in public places

Abstract

The growing debate and research on masculinity, male sexuality and sexual health suggests there is both academic and cultural anxiety about men at the end of the millennium. As men's sexuality is increasingly open to the public gaze, it is useful to revisit earlier studies and evaluate their contribution to mapping the social worlds of sexualities. Ethnographic studies of men's sexual behaviours in public spaces, particularly of gay sexuality in the late 1960s, 70s and 80s, have made a valuable contribution to the understanding of a gay ecology and development of the concept of a community. This paper is concerned with how knowledge (s) and discourses have been constructed through the production of ethnographic texts which focus on public sex. The aim is to review the relevance of these studies for contemporary knowledge of men and their sexual health needs. Some key ethnographic texts are identified and it is argued that they provide vivid, rich descriptions of how men negotiate the ‘interaction membrane' which enables sex to occur in public places. These studies have been important in mapping the territories and social worlds of gay men, and making visible the transgressive and subversive aspects of sexuality which are currently becoming part of mainstream culture. The paper concludes by suggesting that such studies point the way to new ethnographies of sex which accommodate revised notions of public space, such as the Internet, in order to refine our understanding of men's sexual beliefs, practices and health priorities.