The Ethnography of Lesbian Sexuality
My review of the literature has been dedicated primarily to the study of gay men’s sexuality, leaving one to wonder if this again is a case of a male bias. However, as documented in Kennedy and Davis’s ethnography (1993) on the lesbian community in Buffalo, New York, until very recently women had not developed their own institutions, particularly bars, nor could they use public spaces for an open search of female partners for sex and love. The whole phenomenon of cruising, so basic to the life experiences of gay men, is almost absent in lesbian history. Baths, bars, and parks, for example, have been available for gay men in New York and other metropolitan cities for at least a century (e.g., Chauncey 1994). In those decades women could never stroll alone in public spaces, such as parks, without immediate risk to lives and reputation. Moreover, they lacked the money or freedom to entertain on their own outside their homes.
Only since World War II have women been able to claim their own space in certain bars. On the whole, therefore, the sexual life of lesbians has been less visible and has not attracted the interest of professional observers. Karla Jay, editor of a volume on lesbian erotic life, made an opening statement that seems most relevant: “As we come to the end of the twentieth century, the question of whether or not lesbians have sex is still a hotly contested issue” (1995: 1). I assume that a cultural ethos concerning the “sanctity” of women’s sexuality also inhibited the study of lesbians’ sexuality. That avoidance on the part of researchers was also evident in other domains of lesbian lives unrelated to the display of sexuality. Lewin (1996b) reported the pressures imposed on her by research funding agencies to change the outline of her research project and cloak her interest in the lives of lesbian mothers. Blackwood, a pioneering researcher in gay studies, pointed out the lesser position afforded to research on lesbian practices during the formative years of the anthropology of homosexuality in the 1970s, following the rise of the gay rights movement (2002: 77).
But there are signs of a new trend. A few among the leading cohort of anthropologists engaged in gay and lesbian studies have in recent years conducted research on some of the formerly invisible facets of lesbians’ sexuality. I refer here to Newton (1996) and Kennedy Lapovsky (1996), who offered their descriptions of the lives of major informants and of their own relationships with them. Amory reported on a lesbian dance club in San Francisco that survived for about three years, until 1992: “An important part of the celebration of sexuality involved cruising for girls, cruising other women’s bodies and striking a pose while others cruised you” (1996: 153). The author claims Club Q catered to a new generation of lesbians, whose sexual boldness could be intimidating for other women. Thus, cruising is no longer the exclusive domain of males’ behavior and observation.
Away from the United States, however, Sinnott presented a different perspective on female same-sex sexuality regarding the use of space in the formation of identity, sexual relationships, and community. Reporting from Thailand, she claimed that “masculinist or ‘western’ discursive patterns impose the linkage between ‘public’ spaces, cultural norms regarding men’s use of space, and the ‘liberating’ practice of same-sex sexuality” (2009: 228). For example, same-sex dormitory spaces (at school, college, factory, etc.) were found as one of the most productive sites for networks and sexual liaisons of same-sex relationships among women.
Observing Gay Institutions in New York
In the following presentation I will describe the experiences I went through when I came to study communities of gay men and was directly confronted with some of the issues discussed above. The field situations, the strategies I adopted as an observer, and my response to unexpected circumstances demonstrate the complexity of the issues involved in the research of sexual behavior beyond the dilemma of “partaking or not” in sexual activities.
During the 1990s and early 2000s, I carried out research at two gay institutions in Greenwich Village. I first studied Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (the gay and lesbian synagogue), and later the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center. These are very different organizations. I will not expand here on the characteristics that distinguish them but mention only one major feature that also affected my position and my work. CBST, a lay-led congregation at the time of my fieldwork,4 offered its members an opportunity to get together during the weekly (Friday) and festival services. The congregants could also meet and socialize at various committee meetings and other activities. I could attend most events, observe, and be observed in a community of people who were not an anonymous crowd, the growing number of participants notwithstanding. The Center, in contrast, was led by professionals, and its activities catered to numerous special interests and social groups. The 1995–1996 annual report presented a list of 120 organizations and groups associated with the Center. I could regularly attend only a small number of the activities and engage with but a few of the groups that met on its premises. Only rarely did I meet participants who regularly attended the activities of more than one or two groups. Naturally, in the synagogue my network of friends and acquaintances was wider and my relationships with them were closer.
I tackle now my own response as I confronted two major problems that emerged in my review of previous works in the field of sexual minorities:
(1) The ethnographer’s unannounced presence at the site of his research.
(2) The ethnographer’s sexual comportment during fieldwork.
I emphasize: I was not guided beforehand by an ideological or professional conviction as to the pros and cons of the anthropologist’s mode of active participation in erotic activities. Nor had I endured during fieldwork a personal crisis of any sort. I believe, however, that reporting the hesitations, decisions, moral dilemmas, and mistakes I made might add a more balanced perspective to issues of fieldwork that cannot be dismissed any longer.
In my previous ethnographic projects I often engaged in the subjects of family, kinship, and gender, but I did not initiate research in the field of sexuality. Moreover, I was careful to avoid any erotic entanglement with informants. For example, in my study of Moroccan immigrants in an Israeli village, I dealt with the changing division of labor between men and women (particularly in consequence of the engagement of women in farming). But that interest did not lead me to study issues of sexuality.
An exception was my work among Muslims in a mixed-population Israeli town. In a discussion of the Arab code of honor, a subject that seemed to dominate my informants’ worldview, I introduced the discourse of masculinity. My observations revealed the growing consumption of opium as a strategy by some men to prolong erection. I interpreted the recourse of young men to artificially strengthened sexual potency as a response to a prevalent notion of social insecurity that affected their sense of manhood (Shokeid 1980). My Arab friends often complained about conflicts with their wives, who seemed to imitate their far more emancipated female Jewish neighbors. However, in particular, their gossip about adulterous women made me aware of that issue. Nevertheless, I was not engaged in a direct study of sexuality.
Conducting Fieldwork in a Gay Synagogue
I was studying Israeli emigrants in New York (1982–1984) when a colleague at a local university asked me to help him supervise a student who was struggling with a Ph.D. dissertation based on his work at CBST. Never before had I heard of that type of institution. However, since the manuscript the student handed me lacked a clear description of the synagogue and its crowd, I suggested (in a telephone conversation) that I visit the synagogue to get a feeling for the place.
I had to make a decision about how to comport myself before setting foot in this “unconventional” field. How does one dress for a Friday night service in a gay synagogue? Need I wear a jacket and tie, as one often does in a mainstream synagogue? Or should I choose more casual attire, as fitting for a synagogue of radical Jews? I decided to take the middle ground and put on corduroys and a casual jacket, similar to what I would wear on campus. I was on time for the meeting with my student-guide