Interviews as encounters: issues of sexuality and reflexivity when men interview men about commercial same sex relations

Abstract

Few qualitative sociologists have considered how men who have sex with men hold diverse understandings of sexuality and how these matter in research encounters, especially as it regards ‘touchy’ interview topics such as intimacy, intercourse and men’s bodies. Drawing from transcripts and field notes concerning my experiences of interviewing 30 male-for-male internet escorts in Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto (Canada), Houston and New York (USA), as well as London (England), I analyse moments where, as the interviewer, I was sexualized by respondents. A first question was often posed to me at the start of interviews: ‘are you gay?’ The ‘are you gay?’ question not only seeks out a singular identity declaration but also flips over established researcher-respondent roles, indicating that the reflexivity of the respondent is as important as the reflexivity of the researcher in shaping the conversation to come. My analysis demonstrates why it is important to consider the impact of researcher bodies and speech acts during interviews. Arguing that there are specificities of talk and gesture concerning queer sexualities that researchers must be aware of during interviews, I focus on how my responses to respondent propositions and sexualization shaped and modified the meanings produced through the research encounter.