Abstract
Prior to collecting data for The Declining Significance of Homophobia, I was expecting to study how homophobia continued to structure the daily lives of male adolescents. Notwithstanding some notable exceptions (Anderson, 2008; Savin-Williams, 2005), the literature on masculinities and education presented homophobia as an ever-present and seemingly inevitable part of school life. So it was true to an inductive form of inquiry that during data collection in my first research site, I shifted focus to examining the absence of homophobia and how that enabled boys to redefine masculinity and heterosexuality.
I realised my results were significant by the interest and antagonism they received from academics as I started to discuss my findings. This combination of praise and resistance seems to be a central facet of making an impact with studies of sexuality. It was an early feature of my academic career as well. Prior to my viva, I had articles accepted for publication in Sociology, Sociological Perspectives and British Educational Research Journal, as well as the contract signed for the book; yet my viva was one of the worst experiences of my life – a two-hour argument where theoretical differences were unable to be resolved and new ways of understanding men and masculinities were rejected.
Since being published in March 2012 in the USA, the book has garnered publicity and critical attention. Print media coverage has included The Observer, The Economist and The Sunday Times among others, as well as a host of online magazines and blogging sites. I have had the opportunity to appear on BBC Radio 1, Radio 3 and Radio 4, The World Service as well as national and local radio in Canada, Ireland and Australia. Finally, at the time of writing, the book has been reviewed in this journal and the Journal of Youth and Adolescence as well as in The Independent, Times Higher Education and Bent and several online sites. One of the highlights was a book launch at independent London bookshop, Gay’s The Word.
This dissemination was exciting and rewarding. As someone who identifies as a public sociologist and who enjoys engaging with the media, the benefits it brings to Research Excellence Framework (REF) submissions and academic standing were secondary issues. Indeed, one of the great pleasures in talking to journalists was hearing how this resonated with the experiences of their children, or how they had noticed similar changes in popular culture. Despite our best efforts, there is nothing like personal anecdote to make us feel more secure in our research findings.
Yet I also encountered many negative components during the dissemination of my research. The first of these came about through one of the key mediums I have used to disseminate my research – Twitter. For me, Twitter has been a great social tool to make contacts, interact with the public and other academics and disseminate my research to interested parties. Yet the free exchange of ideas became problematic as an individual started to harass me because I did not use the concept of metrosexuality in my research. What started as unsolicited emails and tweets ended in incessant homophobic tweets to me and my followers, multiple postings of a negative review of the book which she emailed to several academics, as well as formal complaints to my university. Following a sustained period of harassment toward me and several gay and female academics and journalists, complaints to the police were made, and I have a harassment warning letter against this person.
More sinister than this, however, was the resistance met by some gay rights charities and other embedded gay rights activists. This first manifested itself as an extremely critical view of the findings of my research – simply not accepting them as valid. It took a more disheartening form when I was then commissioned to write an article for a gay magazine, only to have it dropped ostensibly ‘for space’ but I now know because the findings did not correspond with the editorial position of the magazine. So entrenched were these views in general that I titled a public talk for IDAHO (International Day Against Homophobia) at University College London, ‘What did the Romans ever do for gay rights?’ This Pythonesque critique emanated from my book launch, where a member of this group asked, and I paraphrase, ‘If you don’t include the LGBT characters in soaps, the gay and lesbian comedians, the comedy and drama shows aimed at LGBT audiences, what difference is there really?’
Yet the response to my book that has been most shocking was when one charity contacted my university with a spurious ‘child protection’ and ‘safeguarding’ issue, inquiring whether it would impact on my future research. The two concerns raised were of a picture of a gay 16-year-old boy in pants in my book, and that I had accidentally posted under his name in 2012 in a comment on a blog. The photo, as clearly described in my book, is of a poster that the participant displayed across his school, with authorisation from the school administration; I then acquired written permission from the student (then aged 18) to use it in my book, and provided the publisher with a copy. The blog comment was an accident that was the result of sharing a third-person’s computer, three and a half years after data collection had finished and when said participant was 20 years old. Child protection and safeguarding concerns were outlandish at best.
It may be that the charity has very little knowledge of how long rigorous research takes, or that they did not read the book and only saw the picture. Sadly, though, I fear that it was a pernicious attempt to damage my credibility because my research offers a counter-narrative to that espoused by many gay rights groups. That they were willing to draw on homophobic notions of the gay male predator is particularly depressing. Yet the implication is clear – I was putting myself at risk precisely because my research has had an impact in the media.
Since the publication of The Declining Significance of Homophobia, I have learned that impact has risks. From internet harassment to attacks on my reputation, I have experienced some elements of the dark side of public engagement. It is evident that successfully disseminating research is not an inherently safe venture. Yet I am also mindful that while my research is controversial in its findings, the topic area – of masculinities, heterosexuality and homophobia – is a relatively safe one within the study of sexualities. Given sexual moral panics around pornography, prostitution and childhood sexuality to name a few, it is imperative to explore how to enable scholars working at the boundaries of sexual norms to make an impact without undue risk. For while my research documents a lessening of sexual policing pertaining to homophobia, the regulation of sexuality persists in profound and worrying ways.