Description Of the Tearoom Sex Study

In the late 1960's, Laud Humphreys conducted a study for his PhD dissertation. His study was to gather information on the types of men that engaged in homosexual encounters in the public restrooms; which were known as "tearooms" during that time. Humphreys' reasoning for this research was justified by himself because he was curious as to why there were so many men that were having anonymous sexual encounters with other men in public restrooms. At the time, there were also many laws that could convict those who were engaging in sexual acts that were seen as "immoral".

To conduct this research, Humphreys visited many restrooms, or tearooms. He would volunteer to be a "lookout"; which he called, "watch queen". He would let them know by signal when there were strangers or police officers approaching. As time went on, Humphreys began to gain trust and develop relationships with the men in the tearooms. With developing relationships, Humphreys was able to get the men to open up and give reasoning as to why they willingly particapated in these sexual acts. After he began speaking with participants, he decided to write down their license plates. A year later, he visted their homes as a "health service interviewer" and asked questions pertaining to their marital status, occupation, income, and children.

From his research, his hypothesis was confirmed. Humphreys learned that many of these men came from various social backgrounds despite what sterotypes believed the homosexual man was. He learned that as many as 54% of the men were in healthy marriages, 38% did not identify as homosexual or bisexual , but they were in marriages that were not as healthy, 24% identified as married bisexuals, 24% were unopen homosexuals, and 14% were open homosexuals.

The Tearoom Sex Study, better know as the Tearoom Trade, sparked many controversial discussion. Many of his peers and scientists believed this study to be unethical due to the participants not knowing they were being observed for a study. They also viewed Humphrey diguising himself as a health service worker to interview them as unthetical as well. They argued that conducting this research was an invasion of one's privacy.