I Can’t/Can I Touch Him? Erotic Subjectivity, Sexual Attraction, and Research in the Field

Abstract

Sexual attraction and desire in the field have long been taboo subjects, where the researcher is expected to remain an objective observer, devoid of sexuality. Recently, scholars have advocated for the acknowledgment of sexual attraction and desire in the field as a way to think reflexively about the research process and subsequent impacts, known in anthropology as “erotic subjectivity.” This article reflects on the ethical dilemma of the female feminist researcher doing ethnographic fieldwork in such a space where sexual performativity and active desiring is demanded of them by the research subjects themselves. Based on an ethnographic account of professional men’s strip-tease show, this article details the dilemmas concerning the need to remain objective and distanced from such acts as a researcher, the feminist discomfiture in the blatant objectification and sexualization, both physically and visually of men, and the expectation to publicly perform sexuality by peers and research subjects alike.