Representing ‘Sex’ in the Research Process

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between methodologies used for sex research and the way sex is represented in everyday life. Drawing on a cross‐generational study of heterosexuality, this article asks how the relationship between researcher and participant contributes to the production of knowledge around sexuality and how this then relates to the practices and concepts which constitute ‘sex’. Working amongst women and men aged between 15 and 90, analysis involves comparing data drawn from interviews where a 60‐year age gap may separate the researcher and the participant; and those where both are similarly aged. Questions addressed within the article include: Does the researcher’s adaptation of her sexual terminology reflect sensitivity or ageism? How might it direct rather than enable the speaker? How can the data be interpreted as an account of sexual experience? How have participants sought to represent experience which they found emotionally charged, taboo or have difficulty translating into words? What the article argues, therefore, is that an adequate analysis of such data can be achieved only if they are recognised as the outcome of complex layers of social negotiation between two individuals whose aged, gendered and class‐based identities are sometimes shared and, sometimes, widely divergent.

Notes

[1] Funded in 2001 by the Economic & Social Research Council, ESRC award R000239508.

[2] See Hockey, Robinson, and Meah (2002).

[3] Angela Meah conducted all the interviews and the article refers to her as ‘the interviewer’, Angela or AM.

[4] The sexual terminology used reflects the English context of the study and is not easily translated for an international audience.

[5] All names are pseudonyms.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Victoria Robinson

Victoria Robinson is Lecturer in Sociology, at the University of Sheffield. She is the co‐editor, with Diane Richardson, of Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies, 3rd edition, (2007, Palgrave). Her forthcoming monograph on masculinities, the everyday and rock climbing will be published by Berg in 2008.

Angela Meah

Angela Meah is a Research Associate at Lancaster University Management School and the University of Manchester. Her research interests include young people and sexual health education, and motherhood, social identity transitions and consumption.

Jenny Hockey

Jenny Hockey trained as an anthropologist and is currently Professor of Sociology at Sheffield University. Her research interests include gender, heterosexuality, health, ageing and the life course. She is co‐author, with Angela Meah and Victoria Robinson, of Mundane Heterosexualities: From Theory to Practices (Palgrave 2007).