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Qualitative Sociology ISSN 0162-0436 Qual SociolDOI 10.1007/s11133-011-9197-x

My Auto/Ethnographic Dilemma: WhoOwns the Story?

Bernadette Barton

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My Auto/Ethnographic Dilemma: Who Owns the Story?

Bernadette Barton

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Abstract This article explores ethical issues of co-mingled data, demarcating the field andinformed consent in a study researching the consequences of Christian fundamentalistideology on the lives of “Bible Belt gays”. When what constitutes informed consent isambiguous, how does the qualitative researcher justify her decision either to include orexclude meaningful data? To illustrate these ethical issues, I analyze four instances of co-mingled data, two featuring Christian fundamentalists and two Bible Belt gays, in which Igain theoretical insights under conditions of blurry consent, and weigh potential harm tosubjects against the liberatory goals of the project.

Keywords Ethics . Autoethnography. Consent . Fieldwork

I have been researching the consequences of Christian fundamentalist ideology on the livesof what I call “Bible Belt gays” since 2006 for my forthcoming book Pray the Gay Away:Religion and Homosexuality in the Bible Belt. Like other researchers (Feigenbaum 2007;Gray 2009; Rostosky et al. 2009), I observed rampant displays of homophobia innewspapers, on televisions, billboards, yard signs and bumper stickers preceding the 2004and 2006 election season campaign anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives. During this period, Ialso began to feel the “toll” of homophobia. In my book Stripped, I developed a theory ofthe “toll of stripping” (Barton 2006), an exploration of the long-term, cumulative effects ofworking as an exotic dancer. I have also found the “toll,” the experiences of oppression andabuse that cumulate over time, useful to apply to my own experience of living as a sexualminority. In 2004, I began feeling the toll of being a Bible Belt gay. Once I did, I wanted todo something about it, and, for me, this logically took the form of sociological inquiry. Idecided to interview lesbians and gay men from the Bible Belt to explore their insights onhomophobia, closeting, and religious fundamentalism in the region. My insider status as anout lesbian well connected with local gay rights groups in the region, made recruiting

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B. Barton (*)Department of Sociology, Social Work and Criminology, Morehead State University, 341 Rader Hall,Morehead, KY 40351, USAe-mail: b.barton@morehead-st.edu

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interview subjects very easy. With a single call for research participants, more peopleresponded than I could manage. As word about my project spread, Bible Belt gays came tome and requested to be interviewed. After hearing a public lecture I give titled “The ToxicCloset: Being Gay in the Bible Belt,” many emailed me personal stories they felt supportedmy work.

At the same time, dramatically, almost every element of my life became “data.” By this, Imean not only my daily lived experiences with my partner and gay friends, but also myinteractions with neighbors, students and colleagues. Among the many issues that haveemerged during the course of this study is managing the volume of data I have collected.Doing so entails identifying what data I can ethically share in publications and publiclectures, what is off limits, and what is not data. In addition, of course, to complying withInstitutional Review Board (IRB) protocols, gaining basic verbal permissions from thosewho have shared their stories with me when I did not have a tape recorder and consent formhandy, and reading literature on feminist research ethics, I have mostly relied upon my ownethical standpoint of judgment, fairness and privacy to determine this. In all myinterpersonal interactions—from conversations with friends, to students, to colleagues tointerview subjects—my personal ethic is one of openness, transparency and honesty. I aman out lesbian. I don’t engage in behaviors I would need to keep secret because I don’t wantthe burden of secrets. It is important to me as a person—not just as a researcher—to be fair,compassionate, consistent, and non-hierarchical with all those I interact.

However, like other feminist qualitative researchers who take to interviewing andethnography like fish to water (Cotterill 1992; Finch 1984; Irwin 2006; Kirsch 2005; Stacey1988), I frequently face ethical “double-binds” in the field that test my feminist andpersonal ethos (Frye 1983). For example, the ease with which I, like other feministresearchers, can establish rapport with subjects can also potentially exacerbate a subject’sexperience of betrayal and deception should the published work reveal secrets, portray asubject in a less than flattering light and/or inadvertently be identifiable (Cotterill 1992;Finch 1984; Irwin 2006; Kirsch 2005; Stacey 1988). Reflecting upon her study on thewives of clergy, and their willingness to share intimate details with her, Jane Finch (1984)states, “I have also emerged from interviews with the feeling that my interviewees need toknow how to protect themselves from people like me” (p.80). In my work on religion andhomosexuality in the Bible Belt, the ethical issues I have wrestled with most often, and feelthe most uneasy about, concern consent, demarcating the field, and weighing the projectvalidity against the privacy of an individual research subject. Many ethnographers arguethat even under conditions of the most transparency, consent is always partial because thesubject of study can never be fully informed (Angrosino and Mays de Perez 2003; Irwin2006; Johnston 2010; O’Brien 2010; Thorne 1980). In other words, when what constitutesfully informed consent is itself blurry, especially in the case of field observations, which arenot held to the same rules of IRB approval and consent forms as audio taped interviews,how do I decide whether to include or exclude meaningful data?

The thorniest issues I thus face involve deciding how to, or even whether I should, shareautoethnographic and ethnographic observations I make of Christian fundamentalists andBible Belt gays who are not fully informed of my research project. Autoethnography is aqualitative research method that “combines cultural analysis and interpretation withnarrative details” of one’s own lived experience (Chang 2008, p. 46). In autoethnographymy experience—reactions, observations, biography, and emotions—are data. In this way,my story, which arguably I should own, is “co-mingled data”; thus telling my storyinherently means sharing someone else’s story (Blee and Vining 2010; Margolin et al.2005). This problem of co-mingled data, situations in which “information about consenting

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individuals is inextricably bound to information about another” (Blee and Vining 2010, p. 55),and consequently, consent, have been particularly salient in gathering data for Pray the GayAway. To illustrate these issues, I explore four instances of co-mingled data, two featuringChristian fundamentalists and two Bible Belt gays, in which I gained theoretical insightsabout my work under conditions of blurry consent, and attempt to weigh potential harm tosubjects against the liberatory goals of the project.

Seeing Fundamentalism

I live in Kentucky, a Bible Belt state in which 63% of the population identify asfundamentalist according to the 2008 General Social Survey question, “Do you consideryourself a fundamentalist, moderate or liberal?” Thus, a critical piece of my work involvesobserving manifestations of fundamentalist religiosity in the various social worlds I inhabitand visit. In so doing, I am “studying up,” interrogating the ideology, mores and behaviorsof a majority group—Christian fundamentalists-directly engaged in oppressing the group ofwhich I am a member: homosexuals. Sandra Harding (2005) explains that the value of“studying up,”—focusing on “the powerful, their institutions, policies and practices”—helps us “identify the conceptual practices of power and how they shape social life”(p.2011). Such scholarship is especially important to those researchers, like myself, whohope to effect social change.

In 2006, I began taking note of every expression of Christianity I perceived from bumperstickers, such as “1CROSS + 3NAILS = 4GVN” and “Jesus ‘08,” to pamphlets, music,newspaper columns, yard signs, billboards, charity cups, and references to Christianidentity in daily conversations. In this way, Christian expressivity, something I hadpreviously tuned out or giggled at if it were especially absurd—like the velvet painting ofJesus in boxing gloves—intensely sprang into life. Christianity was everywhere I looked. Itwas so vivid, in fact, I wondered how I had managed not to see it for so long. In myobservation, although Christianity plays a starring role in the Bible Belt, most people lackthe language and opportunity to discuss their religious experiences and ideas within acritical, analytical framework. Offered such a framework, as is the case when I interviewsomeone, give a public lecture on being gay in the Bible Belt, or even gently querysomeone about their religious upbringing during party small talk, I found most people eagerand grateful for the opportunity to talk openly about religion and homosexuality.

I continue to informally question the people with whom I come into contact about theirthoughts on religion, as well as pose such questions during formal interviews, because thefundamentalist mind frame was originally so foreign to me I feared I was not fullyunderstanding the experiences of Bible Belt gays. It was clear to me starting this projectthat, while I might argue that I share an insider status with Bible Belt gays because I am alesbian who has lived in the Bible Belt for the past 18 years, my religious backgroundmakes me an outsider to fundamentalist culture. I grew up Catholic, in a politicallyprogressive family in Massachusetts. My parents, especially my mother, taught me tobelieve that discrimination was morally wrong and that acting with prejudice toward amember of any minority group, including homosexuals, was unacceptable. My childhoodand adolescent experiences of religion were benign: liberation theology Catholicism,sprinkled with an education in Buddhist-like eastern spirituality, compliments of my father.Northeastern Catholicism, as I experienced it during the late 1970s and 80s, was also in awarm and fuzzy phase. Post Vatican II, influenced by the social movements of the 1960sand 70s, the priests, nuns and other religious teachers with whom I interacted tended to be

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pleasant, affirming and socially progressive. There was almost no discussion of hell inchurches or my home. I have a distinct memory of being a small child and saying to mymother, “Hell is scary. I don’t understand it.” Her response was, “Oh honey, you don’t need toworry about hell. We Catholics have purgatory. Hell is only for really bad people like Hitler.”

Catholics make up a larger percentage of the population in the Northeast than in otherregions. The American Religious Identification Survey notes that 39% of Massachusettsresidents identified as Catholic in 2008, down from 54% in 1990 (Paulson 2009). I leftMassachusetts to go to Ohio for my undergraduate education in 1988. Thus, my personalreligious upbringing was as a Catholic in a Catholic area. I was part of the religiousmajority and I believe this unconsciously influenced me to generalize from my experienceof religion to others, and made it especially difficult for me to see fundamentalism. Forexample, Catholic dogma contains many challenging constraints on sexuality andreproduction. Birth control, premarital sex, same-sex activity, and masturbation are stillsinful within Catholic doctrine. As a child, I watched as all the Catholics around me,including my family, regularly attended Mass, and simply ignored the elements of Catholicdoctrine unworkable in their lives. No one called anyone out about it; no one evendiscussed it. When I queried adults, from the teachers at my Catholic high school to familymembers, about this discrepancy between dogma and behavior, I was told some version ofthe following: “The institution had not yet caught up with people’s real lived experiences,but it will eventually, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

Most fundamentalist denominations advocate many of the same restrictions on sexualityand reproduction as Catholicism, and like Northeastern Catholics in the 1980s, most 21stcentury parishioners do not adhere to them. What is different though, and what my privilegeblinded me to, is that most Protestant Bible Belt fundamentalists actually try to conform tothe narrow dictates of their churches, and don’t just ignore the parts that don’t easily worklike I observed the Catholics do. At first, I could not believe that any individual wouldgenuinely try to live by what I perceived to be unlivable guidelines (i.e. a literalinterpretation of the Bible that prohibits homosexuality), especially when they experiencednegative consequences for doing so. The ways in which my outsider religious statusinhibited my understanding was made visible to me in an early interview with “Celia,” a40-year-old white lesbian from Eastern Kentucky.

It had been an emotional interview. Celia had cried several times while she discussed herfamily’s condemnation of her, and their implacable objection to her same-sex partner. Withthe unarticulated assumption that kinship ties trump religious affiliation (as it certainly hadin my experience), I asked Celia what might happen if she said to her fundamentalist auntwho had rejected her, “I love you and care about what you think, and it makes me sad thatyou won’t accept that I am gay and include my partner in family events.” Celia paused for along time and looked confused. She said that it had never occurred to her to say any suchthing. She explained, “God’s feelings on the matter are really the only ones that matter. Andyours don’t, mine don’t.” Celia suspected that if she asked for some verification of heraunt’s acceptance, her aunt would respond, “Celia, I love you, but you know what the Biblesays.” What this means, in lived experience then, is that the fundamentalist can draw on“morality” as objectively determined by God. It enables a usually loving aunt—Celiadescribed her as her favorite aunt—not only to reject her niece, but also to denyresponsibility for that rejection. Celia’s aunt gets a free pass from reflecting upon theemotional, psychological and social consequences of her actions-ostracizing her niece-because she is following God’s law, and doing His Will. To a fundamentalist reared withsuch beliefs, gay or straight, this is an obvious finding, part of the fabric of their culture:God’s law trumps everyone and everything.

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A Homophobic Student Essay

This ethnographic insight that I seamlessly share here did not emerge so neatly while Icollected data. I was, in fact, still puzzled after my interview with Celia. I continued to feelconfused, and did not believe that such familial rejection was commonplace amongst BibleBelt gays, so outside of my paradigm was it, both in terms of my religious experience andfamily life. The forcefulness, the determination, and the commitment that individuals feeland make to a fundamentalist belief system in spite what I perceived to be their own bestinterest finally began to penetrate my paradigm in Fall of 2007 when I received a virulentlyhomophobic student essay in a gender class I was teaching. The assignment was to analyzethe intersections of sexuality and activism in the documentary The Education of ShelbyKnox. This documentary explores the story of a teenage girl from Lubbock, Texas, whoworked to get sex education taught in the public schools. Her activist journey eventuallycaused her to question homophobia. One of my students, “Emily,” turned in a five-pagediatribe for sexual purity and against homosexuality. When I first read the essay, I felt sickto my stomach, and angry. I could barely read it, so unnerved was I by the language sheused in it to justify her beliefs. I had to face the undeniable truth that one of my students,who I had taught all semester, wrote this essay to me, her out lesbian professor grading her.

I come out in all of my classes, often on the first day of class, and almost always by theend of the first week. I believe that I teach best when I easily and comfortably referencerelevant personal experiences, and further, that it is important to model for all the students,but especially the gay ones, relaxed same-sex expression. When I was a less experiencedteacher, I came out by rather awkwardly stating that “I am a lesbian.” Now, I just bring upAnna, my partner, and discuss her and/or something we did, observed, or experienced as acouple in the context of the material and continue to do so throughout the semesterwhenever I think it is relevant. To clarify, I reference my same-sex status, and mentionAnna, as often I would a heterosexual partner were I married. The students typicallyrespond well. Some look a little confused and alarmed the first time I mention a partner andsay “she,” especially in the larger introductory sociology classes, but after I keep on doingso, they appear to get used to it. Thus, since beginning Pray the Gay Away, I find myself inthe field even in the classroom, and my students’ responses are more data to sift through.

While most students respond well to my disclosure in the classroom, and, in my opinion,the benefits of coming out far outweigh the costs, I have received some negative teachingevaluations because of it, dealt with some combative questions, and endured Emily’sfrankly abusive essay. I have in my possession a copy of her essay, not because I saved it fordata, but because I felt I needed to have an accurate record of the incident, including myresponse to her, to protect myself if she decided to complain about her grade with anyuniversity administrators. The essay received a failing grade because, in addition to it beinga polemic against homosexuality, it did not conform to the assignment guidelines. The factthat Emily, relatively quiet up until then in the classroom, turned in an essay that was likelyto both offend me and receive a failing grade made visible to me how real the threat of hellfeels to many fundamentalists. Consider the implications. What kind of community mustEmily have grown up in if, at 20-years old, she chose to tell her 40-something lesbianprofessor that homosexuality is an abomination in a written essay? Her willingness tocommit academic seppuku-a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment-for Godtells us much about fundamentalist Bible Belt culture.

Methodologically, I have struggled with how best to present this insight in publishedwork. I would like to quote directly from her essay as it vividly illustrates thefundamentalist mind frame with colorful and compelling language, and, in a previous draft

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of this paper, I did so. The paradox I face is one of dual responsibilities: the responsibility not toabuse my power as an educator warring with my responsibility to the overall project validity andthe Bible Belt gays I interviewed. Many grew up with people like Celia’s aunt and my student,bathed in fundamentalist ideology. For example, one of my interview subjects, Joshua—white,29, from suburban Atlanta—was raised in such a home, and, when his parents found out he wasgay, they tried to exorcize him. He called this experience “spiritual rape” (Barton forthcoming).Trapped in the house with his parents, their preacher and his childhood Sunday school teacher,each took turns saying comments like the following to Joshua, “You do know what a sin this isin God’s eyes. You are consciously spitting on the blood that Jesus shed for you.” For BibleBelt gays then, this highly evocative—at times violent—imagery and language was abackground discourse throughout their childhoods. One of my informants, Misty—white, 24from Eastern Kentucky—explicitly framed her experience growing up in a fundamentalistfamily and church as “ethnocide” (Barton forthcoming). In these ways, Emily’s essay is notonly co-mingled with me autoethnographically, but also illustrates the Bible Belt fundamen-talist culture Misty, Joshua and many of the Bible Belt gays I interviewed referenced.

So, on the one hand, because it happened to me and provides insight into my project, Ifeel some ownership of the incident and the essay. On the other, it seems unethical to quotefrom a student essay, even anonymously, without her permission. I talked through theseconcerns with a large number of scholars who offered much useful, if conflicting, feedback.Although I learned that I can legally quote from Emily’s essay because her identity isprotected, and the editors allowed me to decide whether to use it, I chose not to do sobecause to do so violates the spirit of the law. After I had decided this, I made one attemptto secure consent: I emailed Emily to ask her for permission. I have Emily’s email because,at the conclusion of our class, she continued to forward me (through 2008) patriotic andreligious chain emails. I emailed her the following:

I am writing to ask your permission to anonymously quote from a paper you wrotefor my Human Experience of Sex and Gender course in the Fall of 2007 in mypublished work. By anonymously, I mean that you will not be personally identifiablein any way. I have your email because you emailed me at my work address in Augustof 2008. I am currently working on a book about religion and homosexuality in theBible Belt. I’d like to quote from your Fall 2007 paper because in it you wellillustrate some commonly held Christian fundamentalist attitudes towards homo-sexuals. As you probably imagine, my work critiques such attitudes. I appreciate yourwillingness to consider my request and am happy to answer any questions you mighthave. I hope you are doing well.

Unsurprisingly, I never received a response fromEmily. Methodologically, I decided that while Ido own the incident—obviously since I just described it at length—I do not own her words.Further, I concluded that I have plenty of other colorful words that consenting interviewsubjects, like Joshua and Misty, shared that describe Christian fundamentalist settings. I donot need to potentially mistreat Emily to make my best case. In retrospect, I believe mysomewhat stubborn desire to use her essay was partially fueled by how hurt I had felt by it.Because I had personally been upset, on some level I think I felt I deserved to profit from it.

Exodus International

After I had collected almost all of my interview data, I became fascinated by the journey ofex-gay and ex, ex-gay people. Individuals who attempt religious-based ex-gay programs

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reject a homosexual identity. Those participating in ex-gay programs acknowledge that theyexperience or have experienced same-sex attractions while attempting either to changethem, or if the desires do not go away (which is the case so often even the leaders of ex-gayministries address it openly), they opt for celibacy. Because they equate homosexuality withsin, they do not accept this aspect of themselves or the same-sex partners with whom theyinteract. Several interview subjects had mentioned ex-gay ministries, and I felt exploringthe ex-gay phenomenon would add another dimension to my study. I secured modestfunding to attend the July 2009, 34th annual Exodus International Conference in Wheaton,Illinois (see also Wolkomir 2006, pp. 28–38). Although I was eager to see ex-gay ideologyand behavior up close, I also struggled with anxiety about voluntarily immersing myself inan environment governed by a world view so counter to my own. Attending an Exodusconference was a form of “white-knuckle research” for me (Blee 1998).

The conference was a public event. I paid to attend. I did not have to introduce myself orexplain my presence to anyone. Yet, the entire time I was there, like other ethnographers, Ifelt guilty, deceptive, and voyeuristic observing people who did not know I was a researcherwith social and political values I oppose (O’Brien 2010; Stacey 1988; Wolcott 2005; Wolf1996). I felt I was betraying my feminist principles. As Wolf (1996) explained,

Although many nonfeminist fieldworkers may deceive their subjects and feel badabout it, feminists have expressed considerable distress over this dilemma, becauselying directly contradicts attempts at a more feminist approach to fieldwork, whichincludes attempts to equalize a relationship and create more of a friendship. (p.12)

I experienced this role conflict most strongly while sitting intimately in a large woodenbooth with seven mothers of gay sons sharing their stories.

The parents’ support group was held in the campus grill, rather than one of the manyconference rooms. After some opening remarks by a long-time member of Exodus whocompared learning that her daughter was a lesbian to her near-death experience from aviolent appendicitis, the participants broke into small groups to share their personal storiesand offer one another support. I joined the mothers of gay sons. Before the mothersrevealed anything, I said, “I do not have a gay son. I am a researcher working on a projectexploring homosexuality and religion, and will leave if this makes any of youuncomfortable.” They all politely reassured me that it was fine for me to be there and Istayed, distracted by the guilt I was experiencing about my lack of full disclosure. Likemany ethnographers (Linneman 2003; Moon 2004; Stein 2001), I introduced myself with“partial truths” (Thorne 1980, p. 287). Barrie Thorne (1980) observes that “reviewingethnographies to examine modes of self-introduction (when they are mentioned at all), I havebeen struck by the widespread use of partial truths” (p.287). Partial truths are a practicalsolution to the problem of gaining access to certain groups, and the canny ethnographer isusually skilled at wielding vague language to accomplish her research goals.

I imagined that I would have nothing in common with those at an ex-gay event,especially the heterosexuals. I perceived them as bigots. As Kathleen Blee (1991) in herstudy of women in the Ku Klux Klan explained,

I was prepared to hate and fear my informants. My own commitment to progressivepolitics prepared me to find these people strange, even repellent. I expected norapport, no shared assumptions, no commonality of thought or experience. What Ifound was more disturbing. Many of the people I interviewed were interesting,intelligent and well-informed. Despite my prediction that we would experience eachother as completely foreign, in fact I shared the assumptions and opinions of my

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informants on a number of topics (excluding, of course, race, religion, and mostpolitical topics). (p.6)

And, like Blee, I expected no rapport, so I was surprised by how connected I felt to themothers of gay sons, listening to their painful stories, and watching as one after anotherbroke down and cried in that wooden booth, while they generally made comments thatillustrated they loved their sons, and wanted to support them. For example, one mothershared a long narrative about her last visit to her gay son. Her son had been busy with work,so she spent most of the visit with his partner. She explained that she prayed about the visitahead of time, and God had told her to be open and ready. With quiet triumph, she thenexplained that her son’s partner had questioned her about her religious beliefs, and she hadhad the opportunity to speak with him about God’s love. From her account, it sounded asthough she had been a pleasant guest who never said anything openly homophobic, evenwhen she shared God’s Word. Compared to some of the stories of the Bible Belt gays I hadinterviewed, whose parents refused even to let partners into their homes, this mother, whotraveled to Baltimore to visit her son, and willingly spent time with his partner, seemed tome just one step away from a PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) mom.And she was not the only one.

After listening to several similar accounts, I timidly ventured a question of the group. Iasked, “Since it seems like you recognized that your sons were different from an early age,have you ever considered that perhaps God made your sons like this? Are you surehomosexuality is a sin?” This query was met with a uniform shaking of heads “no,” asevery mother in the circle firmly said, “No, I’m sure it’s a sin.” The mothers were not rude,but they were clear: they had never considered homosexuality anything but a sin, andcertainly not part of God’s miraculous creation. In her study of two Methodistcongregations—one gay-affirming and one not—sociologist Dawne Moon (2004) asked asimilar question of conservative Christians. Her interviews subjects responded with a “lovethe sin, hate the sinner” argument. They explained that they believed it was ultimately moreloving to point out the sin and help the sinner, than accept the homosexual and condemnhim or her to eternal damnation.

As our discussion wound down, it became clear that not only were these mothers not two-dimensional homophobic caricatures, but they also perceived themselves as the progressivearm of the various Christian institutions within which they interacted. In this way, they arecloser allies of gay rights advocates than I had imagined because they, too, experience the“sticky stigma” of homosexuality, and negotiate painful homophobic attitudes (Goffman1963). Three of the seven mothers cried during our hour long support group meeting. Theyworried that their sons would end up in hell, and wondered what they had done wrong.While she cried, one mother discussed listening to her co-workers at her Christian schoolmake hateful, homophobic remarks. Her son had just come out to her, and was sufferingboth bullying and inner pain. This mother said that she felt closeted and silenced aroundthese co-workers, and in her church. Another mother responded supportively, “Weunderstand our sons’ struggles. We’ve seen that they have always been different. We canbe our son’s link to God and the church. We all have a personal brokenness.”

The mothers of gay sons closed their discussion with a prayer. We joined hands andbowed our heads as each woman shared her own personal thoughts with God and thegroup. I did not pray, but I experienced a moment of extreme disorientation when one of themothers, the “leader” of our little group, the really nice one who had visited her son inBaltimore and seemed like a PFLAG mom to me, prayed for my project. She said, “Lord,help guide Bernadette in her research. Give her strength and clarity and insight. With all

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your abundant goodness, support Bernadette in this important work. In Jesus’ name, wepray.” My hands started to sweat and my vision blurred as I was prayed for. I bit my lipshard to keep a nervous smile off my face. The tension I experienced from my owndeception grew so intense, I left the conference. I stayed only two days out of the five. I leftearly not because I was worn out with the people or the event, but because I wasuncomfortable with my own misrepresentation. I worried that I was taking advantage of theparticipants by engaging in conversations in which I invited others to share intimacies whilerevealing nothing of myself or my true intent. If I had stayed any longer at the Exodusconference, I feared internal pressure would cause me to come out as a lesbian and apolitical progressive, and I was not clear that that would be the best methodological choice.Other researchers have written about their decisions to be out, or not, to interview subjects.For example, gay sociologists Dawne Moon, Thomas Linneman and Arlene Stein studyingChristian conservatives, and their attitudes about homosexuality, did not disclose theirsexual orientations while performing ethnography and conducting interviews.

Marcy and Amanda

I have felt uneasy about, and unsure what to do with, insights gained under conditions ofblurry consent not only when I “study up” (Harding 2005, p. 2011)—that is, whenobserving Christian fundamentalists—but also with those that emerge accidentally, while Iam simply living my life among Bible Belt gays. In other words, I frequently face issues ofco-mingled autoethnographic data. In 2009 Anna and I became regulars at a cabin mountaincommunity. This cabin vacation community is in an area of the state anecdotally known asracist. By this, I mean that over fifteen different people, including people of color, haveindependently brought up the racist reputation of this county to me in conversation. Further,in three seasons of visiting this vacation spot, I have personally ever seen only two peopleof color. As quantitative data illustrate, prejudicial attitudes toward racial minorities areoften accompanied by sexist and homophobic attitudes as well (Henley and Pincus 1978;Herek 1987; Kirkpatrick 1993; Whitley 1999). In rural areas, like this county, white gaypeople from the region who have always been part of the fabric of daily life can sometimesadopt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” status, what I call “a condition of inarticulation,” and carveout a place in the community (Barton forthcoming). Such is the case with Marcy andAmanda at Willow Resort (these names and places are pseudonyms). Marcy and Amandaare a lesbian couple who share a cabin, live at the resort year round and manage the cabins.I know they are a couple because they have told this to another lesbian couple, Jan andMadeline, friends of ours who own a cabin there.

The interpersonal dynamics of this close-knit resort community alone warrantsociological inquiry. But, of most interest for this article are my speculations about myinteractions with Marcy and Amanda. They have a country way of interacting at which Ihave achieved only spotty efficacy. My rhythm is off, my conversation too personal, I seemdifferent. In addition to this limitation, my usual techniques of connecting with others donot work well with closeted gay people. Marcy and Amanda have not come out to me. Infact, they avoid eye contact and small talk with me. They turn their bodies to avoid me.Passing them on a narrow sidewalk, I have felt them energetically repulse me as I walk by.They are so distant that I forget they are there at times and am surprised when theyremember who I am. Cabin owners speak well of them, and appreciate their good work inkeeping the resort running smoothly. If there is a problem I’ve heard many people say,“Marcy and Amanda will take care of it,” and everyone seems to have great confidence in

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them. But, while they share a cabin and, to me, seem obviously to be a couple (especiallysince I have solid verification from a reliable source), I have not heard a single other person(beside Jan and Madeline in the privacy of their cabin and only with Anna and me) everdiscuss their relationship status. This is the “toxic closet” in which Marcy and Amanda aredaily living the “condition of inarticulation.”

Every visit Anna and I make to the resort (over twenty times by now), we encounter andinteract with Marcy and Amanda, and there is always something I notice, even if it’s onlymy own changing behavior. Most recently, I’ve stopped referencing my partnership withAnna in front of them and other resort employees. I find myself gradually adopting thelanguage of vague articulation while on the mountain to conform to what I perceive of astheir communicative norms. During our last visit I did this unconsciously, with what I nowbelieve to be the expectation that doing so might make Marcy and Amanda morecomfortable, and that they then might be nicer to me, or at least our interactions might beless strained. Nor did I even realize I was changing my language until I reflected upon itafter the fact. I now perceive myself as being sucked into the “don’t ask, don’t tell”hegemonic undertow, even though I have strong negative feelings and beliefs about it.Thus, in my personal interactions with Marcy and Amanda—as just another guest on themountain—I am absorbed into their toxic closet condition of inarticulation and must decide,encounter by encounter, incident by incident, how I choose to position myself as a womanin a same-sex relationship to and around them. But I do not only interact with Marcy andAmanda as just another, albeit lesbian, guest. I am also a researcher studying these issues,and the known, but not known and certainly not talked about state of their relationship, thisoverall condition of inarticulation, poses an ethical bind for me. In other words, theunarticulated status of their relationship, in which everyone colludes, affects me as bothperson and scholar.

Blee (2009) observes, “In many hidden social worlds, those who are most accessible arelikely to be the wrong people to study” (p.17). Marcy and Amanda certainly qualify asmembers of a hidden social world to which I have special and unique, if constrained,access. Their daily lived experience of negotiating being gay and closeted in a small ruralcommunity in the Bible Belt illuminates another dimension of my project. But, although Ihave not asked, I think it is reasonable to assume they would not welcome an interviewquery. The “epistemology of the closet” creates the following methodological dilemma:exclude observations made of deeply closeted individuals from analysis, or make tentativeclaims that are, at best, speculative, and at worst, inaccurate, unverified, unethical and aviolation of privacy (Sedgwick 1993). My insights are thus one-sided observations fraughtwith the following ethical questions: am I violating any confidentiality or privacy issues byspeculating on Marcy and Amanda’s “maybe” partnership, and how I interpret their actions,in a publication? If they never come across a publication that includes data about them, is itmore acceptable? What is my responsibility to them and to people I observe during fieldwork who are unaware that I am collecting data? Do the value and validity of the dataoutweigh these ethical issues? This is the first time I have reflected upon my weekendencounters with Marcy and Amanda in a publication, and I feel equally uneasy aboutincluding or excluding these observations. I am choosing to do so in this venue because I haveobscured the particulars of the data so as to protect their privacy and think it is extremelyunlikely that they, or anyone they know, will read a sociological journal. At the same time, Iwill not include these data in my forthcoming book for selfish, personal reasons. I think somepeople in the cabin community will read Pray the Gay Away (I have been chatting about iton and off for the past year while socializing with individuals on the mountain), and I donot want to complicate my relationships with any staff or residents there.

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Gabrielle and Megan

In my research I have found that all Bible Belt gays either come from a family whotreats them and/or their partner less well than they would a heterosexual family memberor partner, or have been involved with a partner whose family treats them worse thanheterosexual in-laws. This is part of the fabric of life as a Bible Belt gay—at somepoint or other, and for some, ceaselessly, one will be treated as “less than” in intimategatherings and such is the case with Gabrielle and Megan. I am friends with bothGabrielle and Megan and have not formally interviewed either of them. I, along withmany others, tried to be supportive when they went through a painful, emotional,volatile break-up in 2008. In 2011, each still holds grudges, and they have yet to fullyseparate their jointly owned property. Gabrielle partially credits the dismissive wayMegan’s family, particularly Megan’s mother, treated her for some of the struggles theyendured as a couple. For example, at a holiday dinner, knowing that Gabrielle andMegan were a couple, and while Gabrielle was at the table, Megan’s mother queriedaloud to Megan in front of the whole family, “When are you going to find a nice youngman?” When I was writing on the “toxic closet” (Barton 2010), I remembered thesestories, contacted Gabrielle and asked her if I could use them to illustrate my theory of thetoxic closet as a “condition of inarticulation” in family environments (Bartonforthcoming). Gabrielle gave me her verbal permission and then emailed me thefollowing, “Here is a good example of Megan’s mother not acknowledging ourrelationship and making me feel like I wasn’t welcome. I am not sure what holiday itwas, but her mom said they would have dinner at 1, and then if I would like to come overaround 4 pm for dessert that would be fine.”

This is an awful story, but a good example of how homophobic others push BibleBelt gays into the toxic closet against their will, and I was happy to receive permissionto use it. However, the longer I thought it over, the more clear it became to me that Icould not use this example in my book because Megan and I are friends too. I wouldhave to get Megan’s permission to use it, and that would entail both asking her to sharesomething negative about her mother in a publication and bring up all her pain aboutthe break-up with Gabrielle. While subjects frequently reference partners, friends andfamily members in interviews, and I include mention of those others as pseudonyms inpublished work when doing so clarifies or supports a point, rarely do I personally knowthese other individuals, nor do they know me. I have never before thought twice aboutthe ethics of sharing stories subjects tell about other people so long as all identifyinginformation is obscured.

But, with Gabrielle and Megan, it is likely that if they do not read Pray the GayAway when it comes out, someone they know will probably do so, recognize the story andtalk about it with them. In this instance, my ethical constraint against writing aboutMegan’s mother in Pray the Gay Away is personal, not professional. Further, since I thinkit is extremely unlikely that either Gabrielle or Megan, or any lesbian they know fromCentral or Eastern Kentucky, would encounter, or seek out, this story published in asociological or feminist academic journal, I feel comfortable sharing it here, but not in apotentially more widely-read book. This particular situation has made more visible to methe problems that occur with co-mingled data. At our next lunch, I explained to Gabriellethat, although I appreciated her generosity in sharing the stories about Megan’s mother, Iwould not be using them in Pray the Gay Away for the reasons I just described. Gabriellewas at first surprised, then a little offended, and finally relieved after I concluded myexhaustive explanation.

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Demarcating the Field

The issues of co-mingled data, blurry consent, privacy and deception that the situationswith my former student, the Exodus mothers, Marcy and Amanda, and Gabrielle andMegan illustrate are partially a consequence of the blurry mental boundaries I have aboutwhen I am and am not in the field. Since I was arguably “in the field” before I evenconceptualized Pray the Gay Away and will still be in the field after I complete it, settinglimits that separate data from life has been one of my largest methodological challenges. Ihave been “out” as a lesbian since 1995 and in my current partnership for 13 years. In mydaily life I regularly come into contact with Bible Belt gays, not the least my partner, Anna,with whom I live. Anna is from Eastern Kentucky, and has been out since she was 14. Shehas been socializing in lesbian and gay male circles in Kentucky for 24 years. Between thetwo of us, we know a lot of gay people in Kentucky. So, every barbecue, every visit withAnna’s family, every dinner out, every social event is an opportunity for gathering data.Finally, even if I manage not to meet one other Bible Belt gay in the course of a day, I amstill a lesbian living in the Bible Belt, and I can never leave myself. In addition then tovoluminous interview data, and the observations possible at everything from Fridayevening happy hour to the Christian funeral of one of Anna’s relatives, every singleencounter I personally have with anyone or any text is potentially data.

Part of managing this enormous volume of information involves demarcating the field-separating out what is valuable from what is not, what is work and what is just my life andnot something I have to analyze and what is too private to share no matter how useful itmay be to my scholarly argument-and at all this I have been less successful. I have neitherfound nor erected any clear boundary separating work from life. My project has taken overmy life. I think this is partly because I am a member of the group I am studying, and partlybecause of my strong political commitment to the work. This has made for an intellectuallyrich few years, but also caused tension in my partnership, created imbalance in my life, andgenerated a number of edgy ethical issues, some of which I have just explored. Annarightfully accuses me of “working all the time” and resents my time spent away from her infundamentalist environments, like churches, conferences, and the Creation Museum. Andmy work, while absorbing and fascinating, is also on a very depressing topic, and I feelemotionally burdened by the weight of the stories I have collected.

This is a new challenge for me as well, one that substantively differs from those Iencountered in the previous qualitative research projects I have conducted. This study ofBible Belt gays is my third research project, and significantly larger in scope than theprevious two. My first major study, my master’s thesis, explored the degree to which StarTrek fans adopted what I perceived to be the utopic values of the Star Trek universe. Forthis project, I joined a local Star Trek fan club, conducted interviews and a focus group withmembers, and participated in most of the club functions for nine months. Although I was aStar Trek fan before I began the project, and remain a fan to this day, when I finished mythesis, I stopped attending club meetings. I had fully immersed myself in the world of StarTrek fandom for approximately 18 months, had a great deal of fun doing so and then,distracted by the increasing demands of a Ph.D. Program, I gradually became too busy tocontinue to attend monthly meetings, and left the hard-core Trekker world behind with fondmemories and no regrets.

My second research project, a study of the experiences of exotic dancers tookconsiderably longer, contained many more methodological challenges and was much less“fun.” Unlike the Star Trek project, and also unlike my study of Bible Belt gays, my biggestmethodological challenge researching exotic dancers was gaining the trust of informants. I

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have written about this at length elsewhere (Barton 2006, 2007). After an anxious12 months struggling to get any woman to interview with me, I seriously consideredparticipant observation, that is, working as an exotic dancer to gain entry into the field. Myprogress was stalled, my degree was at stake, and I was feeling desperate. I never did sothough. In the final analysis, I found myself too repulsed by the strip club environment, andtoo wary of the patrons, to dance. I lucked upon a key informant and gradually, laboriously,managed to collect 37 interviews with exotic dancers in three different parts of the UnitesStates. Thus, when researching dancers, the costs were almost all on the front end of thework in gaining the trust of informants. Further, as soon as I felt it was methodologicallyreasonably, I stopped going to strip bars. The clearer the world of strip bars became to me,the less I wanted to be in one. I washed the strip club “field” off of me as quickly aspossible when studying the experiences of exotic dancers. In this way, I was clear what didand did not constitute the field.

In contrast, my insider status with Bible Belt gays creates a different set of costs andbenefits, and ethical issues, than did my outsider status with exotic dancers in my earlierwork. With Bible Belt gays gaining trust has never been an issue, while potentially abusingthat trust still is. And, as an insider, I am experiencing other costs throughout the project—not the least being that since the work is “about me” in a way my exotic dancer researchnever was—I struggle not to take personally homophobic responses from people whoattend my public lecture on “Being Gay in the Bible Belt” or with whom I simply discussthe book I am writing. To illustrate, the first comment people usually made when they learnI have studied exotic dancers is something lewd and insulting like, “Of course they’re alldrug addicts and hookers.” This is unpleasant and annoying for me, and I always respondby correcting this misperception, but I never feel like the people who make these pejorativecomments are talking about me.

Throughout this manuscript, I have speculated on whether I own the research storiesshared here so that publication of them does not constitute an ethical violation of others.However, even if I make a strong enough case that these autoethnographic observations aremine, I still fear that publishing them potentially compromises a feminist epistemology ofshared knowledge. Like many feminists, I am uncomfortable with having more power thanresearch subjects (Stacey 1988; Wolf 1996). While it is almost always the case that theresearcher is more powerful than her subjects, if only because she has the possibility toshare the final story, being a member of the group I am researching has brought issues ofunequal power into sharp relief for me. As an insider, situations of co-mingled data, blurryconsent, deception and betrayal are numerous, and the “inherently unequal reciprocity withinformants” more salient (Stacey 1988, p. 26). At the same time, not publishing the insightsI gain in the field, not using all the tools in my toolbox to showcase the lives of Bible Beltgays, is also a betrayal of my subjects. There are “serious moral costs involved” in eithercase (Stacey 1988, p 26). Thus far, I have laboriously negotiated ethical issues on a case-by-case basis. Comparing my different research roles—from participant observer (with Star Trekfans in my first research project) to observer (with exotic dancers) to almost “complete memberresearcher” (Angrosino and Mays de Perez 2003, pp. 113–4) (with Bible Belt gays)—I find,like Katherine Irwin (2006), that subjectivity is not inherently better than objectivity infieldwork, and being an insider not necessarily an improvement over being an outsider.

The editors of this special issue asked me to speculate upon “when the field is no longerthe field.” In other words, since, for me, in the project on Bible Belt gays the field iseverywhere and everything, when do I foresee myself exiting the field? When will itrecede? The short answer to this is: when I find a new research project. Reviewing myhistory as a qualitative researcher, I recognize that, while my previous projects have not

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been about me in the way that the work on Bible Belt gays is, I have approached all of myqualitative projects with an attitude of complete immersion. When I studied Star Trek fans,it was Star Trek and science fiction around the clock: shows, movies, conventions,discussions. When I researched exotic dancers, again I watched, read, and discussedelements of the sex industry constantly. Both these topics were very interesting to me andheld my attention for a long time. Even now, I retain a personal and scholarly interest inthem and, in fact, am currently teaching a course on each, one titled the Sociology ofSpeculative Science Fiction and the other, Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the Sex Industry.Similarly, I predict that I will continue to be curious about Christian fundamentalism andthe lives of Bible Belt gays long after my book is published. I expect this field will notbegin to recede from my daily lived experience of it until I throw myself whole-heartedlyinto another compelling, all-engrossing study, and, even then, it will simply move from thefront to the back burner and simmer with my other old projects.

Acknowledgements I would like to extend a special thanks to Kathleen M. Blee and Ashley Currier fortheir thoughtful feedback on several drafts of this manuscript, as well as inviting me to participate in thisspecial issue and the accompanying conference. Thanks also to Samuel Faulkner, Philip Krummrich, AnnaBlanton, Constance L. Hardesty, Linda Morrison, Kelsy Burke, Amy McDowell and all the presenters andparticipants at the October 2010 “Beyond the IRB: New Frontiers in the Ethics of Qualitative Research”conference held at the University of Pittsburgh.

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Bernadette Barton (Ph.D. University of Kentucky 2000) is Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’sStudies at Morehead State University. She is the author of Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers (2006),New York University Press. Barton’s current research explores the experiences of lesbians and gay men, andis the focus of a forthcoming book titled, Pray the Gay Away: Religion and Homosexuality in the Bible Belt.Barton writes and lectures on contemporary issues of gender, culture, sexuality and the sex industry.

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