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This extract shows how a retrospective ethics review of Laud Humphreys’ Tearoom Trade can be written as a continuous critical essay for University of Kent SOCI6014 Applying Social Research. It follows the SOCI6014 ethics review essay question. If you want the planning logic behind it, read our guide on how to write a retrospective ethics review essay. The study is discussed academically and without graphic detail, because the marks sit on the ethics, not the subject matter. Word counts and figures marked “illustrative” are examples, not rules.
Introduction and research questions
Humphreys (1970) set out to understand who used public toilets for anonymous sex between men, how these encounters were organised, and what kind of lives the participants led outside them. Three questions can be read from the design: what social rules and roles governed behaviour in these spaces; how did participants manage the risk of exposure; and how did their wider social characteristics compare with the stereotype of the “deviant” man held by police and the public at the time.
This essay evaluates the study as though it were before a research ethics committee today. It argues that the methodological design is coherent and productive, but that the ethical decisions, particularly the combination of covert observation with the later tracing and interviewing of men who had not consented, would not receive a favourable opinion in their original form. The essay then states what a defensible redesign would look like.
Philosophical underpinnings
The study sits most comfortably in an interpretivist tradition, drawing on the Chicago school habit of studying people where they actually are. Its ontology treats social reality as produced through interaction: the meanings of a glance, a gesture or a silence are made by participants and have to be learned by the researcher. Its epistemology holds that these meanings are accessible through close, situated observation rather than through counting or experiment. Symbolic interactionism is the clearest fit, and I would say so explicitly in an assessed essay, then justify it with one concrete feature of the design rather than simply asserting a label.
The same position carries an ethical implication. If valid knowledge depends on observing behaviour that people would alter if they knew they were watched, the researcher has a reason to prefer covert access. Humphreys defended covertness on grounds of accuracy and faithfulness to what people actually did, a point also noted by Galliher, Brekhus and Keys (2004). A reviewer should accept that the methodological argument exists, then ask whether it is strong enough to override consent.
Methods and their fit with the questions
| Method | Purpose | Fit with questions and position | Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Covert participant observation as lookout (“watchqueen”) | Record behaviour, roles and signals without disrupting them | Strong: answers the question on rules and roles and suits an interactionist focus on situated meaning | Observer role is deceptive; observer cannot ask why |
| Recording vehicle registration details and tracing addresses | Identify a sample of men for later contact | Strong for the question on social background, because it reaches men who would never volunteer | Uses personal data obtained without consent; creates a re-identifiable record |
| Interviews framed as part of a social health survey, with a changed appearance | Collect demographic and life-history information | Good for comparison with the stereotype, but weaker for meaning, because respondents answered a different question from the one being studied | Respondents did not know the real purpose; the data may be shaped by the cover story |
The fit between questions and methods is good for the first question, adequate for the second and strong but costly for the third. The design reaches a hidden population, which is its main contribution. Yet the interview stage fits the interpretivist position less well than the observation, since participants’ own accounts of meaning were gathered under a false description of the project. A stronger design, sketched later, would keep the observational insight and replace the deceptive follow-up with a consenting sub-sample.
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Ethical issues raised
Four groups of issues need separating. The first is deception and consent: the men observed did not know they were being studied, and those later interviewed did not know the real purpose. The British Sociological Association (2017) states that covert methods violate the principle of informed consent and may invade privacy, and that they should be used only where other methods cannot obtain essential data. The second is privacy and the public–private distinction. The setting was a public building, yet participants plainly expected discretion. The third is confidentiality and data security, because tracing names and addresses created an identifying record. The fourth is the risk of harm: at the time of the research, exposure could have meant arrest, loss of employment or family breakdown.
The ESRC (no date) frames the same concerns through its principles of minimising risk and harm, respecting dignity, and making participation voluntary and informed where possible. Notice that the BSA (2017) also says researchers are not absolved of responsibility for foreseeable harm by consent alone, which matters here because the harm potential was severe even for men who never agreed to anything.
How Humphreys addressed the issues, and how well
| Issue | What Humphreys did | How he justified it | Evaluation | What I would do |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consent to observation | Took the lookout role without disclosing his research purpose | Argued that disclosure would have destroyed the behaviour and that the setting was public | Partly persuasive on access, weak on dignity: public space does not remove an expectation of discretion | Seek a gatekeeper or key informants, disclose the study to willing participants, and limit unconsented observation to non-identifying behaviour |
| Tracing and contacting men | Linked vehicle details to addresses and approached households | Presented it as the only route to a wider sample | Hard to defend: it turned an observation into identification of individuals who had not agreed | Do not trace anyone; recruit only through informants who invite peers to take part |
| Interview deception | Interviewed under the cover of a health survey, in a changed appearance | Presented the cover as the way to reach men who would otherwise be unreachable | Weak: respondents consented to something other than the research; debriefing would have been feasible for at least some | Full disclosure at interview, written consent and a right to withdraw data |
| Confidentiality and data security | Did not name individuals in the published account, a point defenders stress | Anonymised reporting after the fact | Anonymised outputs are good practice, but holding an identifying list is itself a risk that outputs cannot repair | Collect no identifiers; if unavoidable, encrypt, separate and delete at a fixed date |
| Risk of harm | Withheld identities from publication and treated the material with care | Defenders argue that no one was in fact harmed | A reviewer judges foreseeable risk, not outcomes; Warwick (1973) made this means-and-ends point at the time | Document a harm assessment and a response plan for disclosure or legal demands |
The most useful move in an essay of this kind is to credit what worked before criticising what did not. Humphreys did not name individuals in print, and the observation produced findings that challenged a damaging stereotype. Yet the often-repeated defence, that no one was harmed, is a statement about consequences. Warwick (1973) examined the study through the relationship between ends and means, and the review standard is whether the means were justified in advance, not whether luck held.
For the wider debate on when covert fieldwork can ever be justified, Calvey (2017) is a useful companion. It also matters that Humphreys himself later accepted that relying on informants who knew the research aims could have produced a stronger study, as discussed by Galliher, Brekhus and Keys (2004). That reflection is evidence for a better design, and I use it as such in the next section.
How I would address the issues
A redesigned study would begin with the same questions. It would obtain a favourable ethical opinion only if it replaced covert tracing with an open sub-sample and treated unconsented observation as the exception, not the default. I would observe public behaviour in a way that records no personal identifiers, recruit consenting informants for in-depth interviews, and treat consent as a process, as the BSA (2017) puts it, with options to withdraw. I would also plan for the foreseeable legal and social risks of the period, including the legal status of confidential data.
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Conclusion: would I give a favourable ethical opinion?
My opinion is that the study should not be approved as designed. The research questions were legitimate and the interpretivist design suited them, but the combination of covert observation, tracing individuals and interviewing under a cover story fails the tests of consent, proportionality and data protection set out in the BSA (2017) and ESRC principles. Covert methods are not forbidden outright by the BSA; they must be the only route to essential data. Here, informants who knew the aims offered another route, which is why I would grant approval only to the revised design above, subject to conditions: no tracing, disclosure to interviewees, a data security plan and a documented harm assessment.
The study remains valuable in teaching, precisely because it shows how an apparently justified set of decisions accumulates into an ethical breach. A strong essay says so without excusing the research.
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About the expert
This sample was prepared under the guidance of Dr Aisha Rahman, who holds a PhD in Criminology from the University of Birmingham and an MSc in Social Policy (Distinction) from the London School of Economics. She has 16 years of experience across teaching, research and academic supervision, has delivered 2200+ assignments, and specialises in criminology, social justice, social policy and case study analysis.
References
- British Sociological Association (2017) Statement of Ethical Practice. Available at: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/media/23902/statementofethicalpractice.pdf (Accessed: 24 October 2026).
- Calvey, D. (2017) Covert Research: The Art, Politics and Ethics of Undercover Fieldwork. London: Sage.
- Economic and Social Research Council (no date) Framework for research ethics: our core principles. Available at: https://www.ukri.org/councils/esrc/guidance-for-applicants/research-ethics-guidance/framework-for-research-ethics/our-core-principles/ (Accessed: 24 October 2026).
- Galliher, J.F., Brekhus, W.H. and Keys, D.P. (2004) Laud Humphreys: Prophet of Homosexuality and Sociology. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
- Humphreys, L. (1970) Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places. Chicago: Aldine. (Enlarged edition, New York: Aldine, 1975.)
- Warwick, D.P. (1973) ‘Tearoom trade: means and ends in social research’, Hastings Center Studies, 1(1), pp. 27–38. doi:10.2307/3527471.