The maroon boxer briefs: exploring erotic reflexivity in interview research

Abstract

This article addresses both participants’ and researchers’ erotic arousal during in-depth interviewing and explores how these emotions can be both productive and informative. I briefly overview the scarce literature available and propose a new framework where arousal is considered as playful. I provide three cases from my research where erotic arousal was informative. These reflect on participants’ and researcher’s arousal through interview transcripts and research journal. I suggest that ignoring these instances overlooks important sources of information about the interview setting and propose ways in which these emotions can be included as informative insights in the analysis of research. Throughout this article, I also reflect on the ways in which erotic arousal is embodied and, thus, not always rational, and the limits of reflexivity. Finally, I conclude by acknowledging some of the complications of erotic arousal before suggesting its benefits.