Area (2006) 38.

1, 99106

Undressing the researcher: feminism,

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

embodiment and sexuality at a queer

bathhouse event
Alison L Bain and Catherine J Nash
Department of Geography, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada K9J 7B8
Email: abain@trentu.ca
Department of Geography, Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1

Revised manuscript received 8 November 2005

In this paper we examine how the researchers body can be used as a tool for data
collection in the process of ethnographic fieldwork. We focus in particular on the
tensions inherent in undertaking embodied ethnographic research in the sexualized
setting of a queer womens bathhouse event in Toronto, Canada. Our discussion
addresses three moments within the research process: preparing our bodies to attend the
bathhouse; positioning our bodies within the spaces of the bathhouse; and interacting
with our bodies during the event. Through this discussion we argue that the body of the
researcher is a contested site of knowledge production.

Key words: Toronto, Canada, ethnography, reflexivity, body, sexuality

nessed a rapid growth in theoretical and empirical

Introduction
In this paper we explore the role of the body as an
ethnographic research tool. Through an examina-
tion of select moments in our ethnographic field-
work that reveal how we dressed, positioned and
socialized with our researching bodies, we explore
some of the tensions that arose from our experi-
ences as insiders and outsiders, participants and
researchers, covert and overt ethnographers, and
sexualized and non-sexualized beings, in a queer
womens bathhouse event. In so doing, we argue
that tensions, discontinuities and ambiguities are
integral to embodied research. The researching body,
we maintain, cannot be understood as stable or fixed;
rather it needs to be rendered explicitly visible as a
contested site of knowledge production.
Within the discipline of geography, debates about
the body have a relatively recent history a history
that has been strongly influenced by feminist scholar-
ship. From this feminist starting point, we have wit-
research on the body and on embodiment (Bell et al.
1994; McDowell and Court 1994; Rodaway 1994;
Bell and Valentine 1995; Longhurst 1995 1997;
McDowell 1995; Duncan 1996; Moss and Dyck
1996 2002 2003; Nash 1996; Pile 1996; Parr 1998
2001; Dewsbury and Naylor 2002; Dyck 2002;
Nairn 2002; Crang 2003; Little and Leyshon 2003).
Over the last decade, research on geographies of
the body has moved from definitions of the body,
to examinations of different conceptual approaches
of embodiment, and to explorations of the role of
space in constructing embodied subjects (see Little
and Leyshon 2003; Domosh 1997). Robyn Longhursts
(1997) work has also been instrumental in categoriz-
ing different theoretical approaches to the body in
the social sciences. Similarly, the edited collection
by Heidi Nast and Steve Pile (1998) has been central
to geographical explorations of how bodies and spaces
simultaneously (re)create one another. For geogra-
phers, the importance of the body goes beyond a

ISSN 0004-0894 The Authors.

Journal compilation Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2006
100 Bain and Nash
superficial appreciation of it as a site or scale for the
study of social practice. Feminist geographers, in
particular, have played a significant role in extend-
ing discussions of embodiment through a focus on
critical self-reflexivity.
Feminist researchers also have longstanding con-
cerns about what it means to do feminist research,
and how it might challenge masculinist approaches
to research that have been characterized as disem-
bodied, objectivist and universalizing (Rose 1997;
Moss 2002). More specifically, feminists have argued
that there is a need for critical engagements in
debates about power relations, constructions of
authoritative knowledges, and appropriation of
others narratives in the research context. As Pamela
Moss (2002) has documented, feminist research
practices in the social sciences require scholars to
direct attention to the contexts of their research and
to reflect critically on spatial arrangements, attire,
deportment, relationship-building, and the interplay
of trust, friendship and authority between researchers
and participants. However, aside from Gill Valentine
(2002), few scholars have addressed the tensions
apparent in conducting research in eroticized or
sexualized contexts, such as a bathhouse.
Fieldwork and participatory research methods are
fraught with challenges related to the notion of
embodiment. As Sarah Oreton argues, fieldwork is
an activity saturated with sensory, corporeal experi-
ences and as such a researchers body, particularly
the naked or semi-clothed body, is an under-utilized
and under-theorized data collection tool (2004,
305). Yet how can the researcher take advantage of
the body as an ethnographic research tool when the
naked body is often readily disregarded as unrelia-
ble because it is a site of intense and unruly desire?
Feminist researchers such as Kim England (2002),
Pamela Moss (2002) and Sarah Hill (2004) suggest
that through critical reflexivity the body can become
a source of knowledge.
Critical reflexivity offers the researcher a way of
engaging with questions and issues by thinking about
personal beliefs, judgements, perceptions and multiple
subject positions in a self-consciously critical manner
and integrating these into the research process
(England 2002; Moss 2002). As Karen Al-Hindi and
Hope Kawabata have noted, through reflexivity the
researcher herself is an instrument of the research
and by extending this practice into the scholarly
writing process the reader can then have the oppor-
tunity to decide for themselves what impact the
individuals life and self has had upon the study
(2002, 109). It is within this methodological and
theoretical framework that we reflect on some of the
implications of undertaking embodied ethnographic
research in a sexualized setting. Our discussion is
structured around three moments within the research
process: preparing our bodies to attend the bathhouse;
positioning our bodies (literally and figuratively)
within the spaces of the bathhouse; and interacting
with our bodies during the event. To use the words
of Gill Valentine, we hope that by exploring these
moments we might begin to de-center our research
assumptions, and question the certainties that slip
into the way we produce knowledge (2002, 126).
Bodies in place or out of place?
To date, most ethnographic research on bathhouse
culture has been written from a gay male perspective
and has been undertaken by individual, usually male,
researchers who have participated in casual sexual
practices (e.g. Dangerous Bedfellows 1996; Leap
1999). In an effort to provide a different scholarly
perspective on bathhouse culture we have collabor-
ated as researchers on a project that documents the
queer spatial politics of the Toronto Womens
Bathhouse Committee (TWBC). The TWBC is a non-
profit organization that in 1998 hosted Canadas
first womens bathhouse event the Pussy Palace.
This event, now held on an irregular, bi-annual basis
for one night in a gay male bathhouse in Toronto,
originated as a means to address the invisibility of
queer womens sexuality through the creation of a
space that supports casual, kinky, and public sex
(Gallant and Gillis 2001, 154). The TWBC maintains
that the Pussy Palace validates minority sexualities
that do not conform to the middle-class norms of
private, marital/sanctified (hetero)sexuality (Gallant
and Gillis 2001, 156). For the organizers, the Pussy
Palace is a project of radical queer organizing in
which the establishment of a sexy space, such as
the bathhouse, encourages new sexual practices and
behaviours among lesbians that in turn initiates the
formation of queer rather than merely lesbian
identities (Nash and Bain in press). The raiding of
the fourth annual Pussy Palace in 2004 by Toronto
police officers, the laying of charges against two
volunteer organizers for contravening the Liquor
Licensing Act, large-scale demonstrations, high-profile
fundraising events and mainstream media coverage
of a week-long public trial that took a year to get to
court, brought the activities of the TWBC out of the
closet (Brown 2000) and made them publicly

visible (for more detail, see Bain and Nash forth-
coming). Our research focuses on how the process
of queering space, which is often interpreted as
liberatory, can paradoxically discipline gendered
and sexualized selves.
Our case study of the Pussy Palace interweaves
several qualitative research techniques. Our primary
source of data is in-depth, semi-structured interviews
with past and present members of the TWBC, business
sponsors and participants. These interviews provided
rich, detailed and contextually grounded data
(Nightingale 2003) that we supplemented with a
short survey questionnaire distributed to participants
at the June 2004 bathhouse event, and with informal
participant observation. We attended two Pussy
Palace events where the majority of participants
did not know that we were researchers and, with
the permission of the TWBC, toured the bathhouse
during the set up of one event.
From our initial conversations as research collab-
orators, we determined that the only way in which
we could do research on a womens bathhouse was
to start from how we felt about this new kind of
space and what we thought it would be like to study
it. Prior to undertaking this research on the TWBC,
neither one of us had ever been to a womens
bathhouse event. We used interviews, a research
technique we were both familiar with, to develop a
preliminary understanding of both the organizational
history and politics of the TWBC and of the spaces
and activities of the Pussy Palace. During these inter-
views with organizers, sponsors and participants,
we were frequently encouraged to attend a Pussy
Palace event to experience the space first-hand. We
decided that participant observation would allow us
to better understand the practices of sexualities and
would effectively counterbalance descriptions we
had received in interviews. As lesbian women, the
nature of the project demanded that we reflect on
our own embodiment and what it means to place
our lesbian bodies and identities in deliberately
sexualized space.
In undertaking this research we were not looking
for sexual adventures or physical intimacy during
fieldwork, nor were we looking for sexual partners
in the people who were the subjects of our research.
From the outset, we decided not to use the space of
the bathhouse fully by having casual sex or actively
participating in any of the sexual activities planned
for the event. There were several reasons for this.
Namely, one of us was in a monogamous, long-term
relationship and our research is informed by a femi-
Undressing the researcher 101
nist ethic that does not support the exploitation of
power differentials for personal gain. Collaboration,
then, provided us with a sense of emotional security,
comfort and legitimacy. By attending the event
together we consciously and unconsciously super-
vised each others behaviours and interactions, and
functioned much like symbolic chaperones (Newton
1993, 8) for each other.
Dressing our bodies
In our preparations to attend our first womens
bathhouse event, we both experienced some angst
around what clothes we would wear for the evening.
We were not alone in our anxiety. Over the years,
the TWBC has fielded so many questions formally
and informally from participants about appropriate
attire that they post information on the FAQ section
of their website specifically addressing this issue of
what to wear:
You dont have to be naked, if you dont want to be.
We encourage you to bring something sexy to change
into, mainly because we want you to symbolically
leave behind the daily grind and get into a sexy mood,
but you get to decide what is sexy for you leather,
lace, flannel, whatever! Nobody is going to make you
take off your clothes if you dont want to. There is a
swimming pool, so if you dont intend on swimming
naked, you could bring a swimsuit. You should also
know that lots of women will be naked, wearing
lingerie, making out in public . . . so be prepared for
that. (http://www.pussypalacetoronto.com (Accessed
1 March 2005))
Reading these suggestions reinforced for us our
desire to blend in with other participants. Yet we
also recognized that we could be positioned as sexual
subjects in the eyes of others, and we wanted to
communicate that neither one of us was available
to participate in any sexual activities. Through our
choice of clothes we sought both to collapse and to
reinforce the spatial distance between ourselves as
researchers and participants.
Some writing on feminist research methodologies
has explored appropriate dress within fieldwork
settings, acknowledging that how the body is pre-
sented can influence how the researcher is perceived
and interacted with (McDowell 1995). The research
context within which scholars most commonly dis-
cuss appropriate attire is in interviews with elites,
such as executives in business and politics, where
conservative, formal clothing choices are the norm.
Outside of the office suite and the boardroom, the
Feminist Pedagogy Working Group (2002, 126) has
102 Bain and Nash
provided a practical and entertaining list of research
tips on personal presentation in a research setting:
Wear comfortable clothing.
Dress in a culturally sensitive manner.
Dress specific to research context.
Wear slip-on shoes.
Dont wear strong scents.
Dont smoke unless invited to.
Dont chew gum.
Wear a watch.
Turn off pager or telephone, if applicable.
Check teeth for spinach, poppy seeds, etc.!
Their top three suggestions were of particular relev-
ance to our research in the bathhouse.
The question of comfort in clothing is an interest-
ing one, as it shifts with role and context. Within
the sexualized space of a queer bathhouse we both
felt that we needed to find a comfortable middle
ground between the roles of researcher and observ-
ing participant. Comfort also suggests the ease, the
satisfaction, and the freedom of body and/or mind.
Freedom was important to both of us. We needed to
know that we could walk away from the bathhouse,
if it were to be raided by police (as it was in the
autumn of 2002). In order to make a quick exit,
neither one of us wanted to have to search for our
clothing in a numbered garbage bag or in a locker.
We did not bring a change of clothes nor did we
carry a wallet or a purse. Instead we dressed in a
hotel room, put money and identification in our
back pockets, and walked over to the bathhouse
located several major streets away. Our clothing had
to function on the sidewalk in downtown Toronto
on a mid-summer evening and also in the bathhouse.
Admittedly, what we each felt comfortable walking
down the street in for a short period of time and
standing in a queue in, was different.
One of us wore Birkenstock sandals, low-rise
combat-style shorts and a tight-fitting black tank top.
The other dressed in the same way that she would
for any other public lesbian social space in the
summer months: a loose, cotton t-shirt, black walk-
ing shorts and sports sandals. In the selection of our
fieldwork outfits, we both chose casual clothing that
we felt suited us and looked good. This gave us
confidence and perhaps contributed to our sense of
ease. It would be fair to say, however, that we both
have very limited experience at dressing in an erotic
or sexy fashion for public consumption. Our clothing,
then, while it left parts of our legs and arms bare,
was neither particularly revealing of body parts nor
overtly sexually playful. One could argue that by
wearing streetwear we were disrupting the ethical
flow of sexualized activity within the space of the
bathhouse. To our surprise and relief, there were
other women dressed like us. Although we may have
been in the minority, it certainly seemed socially
acceptable to remain clothed in streetwear at the
bathhouse.
The second and third recommendations that the
Feminist Pedagogy Working Group (2002) makes
are that the researcher should dress in a culturally
sensitive manner that is specific to the research
context. Cultural sensitivity in this instance would
have us wearing a combination of leather, lace and
rubber or nothing at all none of which we were
comfortable with. There is clearly a tension
between issues of comfort and of cultural sensitivity.
As researchers we were not very flexible, risqu
or imaginative in our choice of clothing. It was hard
for both of us to move beyond familiar presentations
and understandings of ourselves and our bodies.
Our focus on practicality and psychological and
physical comfort could be described as the antithesis
of queer as presented by the committee members
of the Toronto womens bathhouse. Queer for them
is about flexibility in presentation, openness to dif-
ferent forms of sexual expression and playful overt-
ness with respect to sexual intention. Queer for
them is also about sexual participation and activity.
Using these criteria, neither one of us embodied
queer. Neither one of us expressed a rebellious
sexual identity through dress, enactment or perform-
ance. Through the most fundamental acts as resear-
chers, of choosing what to wear, we challenged the
very queerness of the space we sought to understand.
(Re)positioning our bodies
Once we had determined how we would each most
comfortably dress and present ourselves at the Pussy
Palace, we had the privilege (not available to other
participants) of touring the bathhouse space prior
to the event. The Pussy Palace was held in Club
Toronto, a run-down male bathhouse on the margins
of Torontos Gay Village. It consists of two, four-
storey Victorian homes connected on each floor by
a series of hallways and stairs. The halls are narrow
and complicated by unexpected turns, dim lighting
and mirrors. Some corridors are lined with doors
that open into small, private cubicles containing a
single bed and a small side table. The first floor has
a small dance area, a large washroom, a sauna and

a whirlpool. The entrance to the outdoor pool is at
the back of the first floor. Lockers are found on the
second floor. The third and fourth floors contain a
designated sling room and a sadomasochism room.
The ceilings of many rooms are painted black and
walls are lined with mirrors to create the illusion of
secret spaces and hidden corners where participants
can discover unexpected scenes of sexual play. We
explored these spaces together as researchers when
the organizers were in the process of setting up the
Pussy Palace. With the lights on and music quietly
playing, TWBC organizers efficiently set up rooms,
arranged food tables and displays, and chatted
informally with each other and us. In such a
business-like atmosphere, the bathhouse lost much
of its mystery and potential seductiveness, allowing
us to feel a greater sense of ease in and familiarity
with the space.
When the doors of the bathhouse opened to par-
ticipants, we initially followed the flow of women
from the entrance to the locker room. We quickly
realized that as we had no intention of changing our
clothes we ought to position ourselves around what
we felt to be the most open and comfortable social
space the pool and deck area at the rear of the
building. We ultimately seated ourselves cross-
legged beside the pool with our backs to the patio
wall. This could be interpreted as a defensive tactic
because it allowed us a full view of the outdoor patio
space and fire escape, while not allowing anyone to
approach us unnoticed. Shortly after we arrived, we
circulated together through the various interior
spaces of the bathhouse. One behind the other, tak-
ing purposeful strides, we took advantage of the fact
that we looked like a couple (thus attempting to
avoid sexual advances from others) to explore the
bathhouse again. Indoors, lights had been dimmed
and bodies in various stages of undress jostled and
brushed up against one another to peer into rooms
and to squeeze past one another in narrow hall-
ways. The space had become disconcertingly and,
occasionally, awkwardly intimate. Our sense of
awkwardness was augmented by the notion that our
ethnographic research could be interpreted as
voyeurism. Admittedly, bathhouses present an ideal
environment for observational research because,
like the sexologist Charles Moser has explained with
respect to his ethnographic research on sadomaso-
chistic parties, voyeurism is common and even
encouraged (1998, 20). Much like participant
observation, the activity of voyeurism involves cre-
ating distance between the watcher and the object
Undressing the researcher 103
of his [or her] look (Jeyasingham 2002, 79). As
Dharman Jeyasingham goes on to explain: Visual
perception confirms distance, while the publicity of
the situation allows interaction across space, and
allows the spatial differences to provide erotic
meaning (2002, 79). As researchers we were not
seeking to foster the construction of erotic mean-
ing, nor did we linger in a space with the sole
purpose of watching women have sex. The complex
relationship between ethnography and voyeurism in
an eroticized setting where voyeurism is actively
encouraged is one that we are still trying to concep-
tually unravel.
Faced with the undeniably sexual atmosphere and
our own ambiguous presence, we both instinctively
used the role of researcher as a cover because it
provided a sense of psychological safety and protec-
tion. The role of researcher allowed us to temporarily
ignore some of the emotional risks associated with
being in such a sexualized space: sensitivities about
the size, form and texture of our own bodies and
their visibility to others; our potential attraction to
other women; and whether we might be considered
attractive or of interest to other participants. Many
of these concerns we purposefully ignored by ver-
bally and mentally retreating into an analytical
researching role. In our conversational interactions
with each other we were busy deconstructing spaces
and activities and taking mental fieldnotes; this left
little time or opportunity to dwell on, or even dis-
cuss, personal insecurities.
In our roles as researchers and participants in the
bathhouse we moved between covert and overt
ethnography. Our understanding of covert ethno-
graphy is informed by Hester Parrs (1998) work on
people with mental health problems. She interprets
covert ethnography as a process of participating
with, and observing, people and settings, without
informed consent for the purposes of research (Parr
1998, 29). She goes on to explain how the simplis-
tic distinction between covert ethnography as bad
because it is non-consensual and overt ethnography
as good because it is open and consensual is prob-
lematic because it positions these research practices
in opposition, when they should be understood as
inherently intertwined and central to the production
of geographic knowledge. While the notion that
covert ethnography and overt ethnography are inter-
related is conceptually useful, in practice we found
it difficult, as other researchers have also documented
(e.g. Visweswaran 1994; Moss 1995), to manage the
movement between the two.
104 Bain and Nash
Disciplined interactions with our bodies
Within the bathhouse the majority of the parti-
cipants did not know we were researchers and in
many ways we thought we were relatively successful
at blending in in terms of our dress and self-
presentation. While our success depended to some
degree on a politics of deception (Parr 1998, 34),
it is important to note that: neither one of us made
significant modifications to our familiar presenta-
tions of self in order for our bodies to be read in
similar ways as those of other participants, nor did
we participate in activities that we felt inappropriate
for our own lives. When directly asked by parti-
cipants how we heard about the bathhouse and
why we were there, we were forthcoming about our
research purposes and whenever possible provided
contact information. Nevertheless, some aspects of
our presence felt dishonest and exploitative. As
researchers we remained unidentified and perhaps
appeared unwilling to participate in more than a
voyeuristic and consumptive way. We may have
appeared to circulate through the space to consume
people, behaviours, activities and emotions for
academic gain. Our only immediate contribution
back to the individuals who crossed our paths was a
form of support for their choices conveyed simply
by our presence in the bathhouse and by our use of
smiles and eye contact with other participants. Our
own bodies, like theirs, had become embedded in
the space of a political project. In some respects
then, our covert research practices placed us in direct
opposition to the emancipatory aims of feminist
research methodologies and feminist theorizations
of the body that have informed our training as
scholars. We have had a difficult time reconciling
these positions.
Throughout the course of the evening, the awk-
wardness of the transition between covert and overt
research became particularly apparent when we ran
into members of the TWBC whom we had previously
interviewed in the more formal settings of homes,
businesses and restaurants when they had been fully
clothed. Within the space of the bathhouse these
same bodies were now deliberately on display,
carefully staged in a cultivated space for a select
group of women to consume some fleshy and
unsculpted, others taut and defined by muscle. Our
informants had stylized their queerness in such a
way as to present themselves as spectacles of self-
expression and agency. We were expected to valorize
the diversity and multiplicity of body shapes and sizes
on display as sexualized bodies of desire when, in
fact, sometimes our initial response was one of shock
or surprise. We were expected to rise to the unspoken
challenge of reconfiguring our interactions to be
more casualized and flirtatious. We were expected
to break out of our research pair to circulate through
the space of the bathhouse alone so as to initiate
sexual possibilities. By rarely separating, however,
we were challenging Pussy Palace etiquette which
disciplined participant bodies by asking individuals
to:
Be friendly and flirty. Do not stick with a large group
of friends all night. Walk around by yourself. You are
not going to pick up or get picked up if you are
surrounding by a posse. Take a chance and chat up
that cute girl in the whirlpool. If everyone is afraid to
make the first move, then nothing is going to happen.
(http://www.pussypalacetoronto.com (Accessed 1
March 2005))
Our goals as researchers were different; we had no
intention of deliberately attracting the attention of
participants or seeking sexual intimacy with others.
Several informants asked us directly whether we
had participated in any of the sexual activities that
had been planned by the organizers of the event
(e.g. erotic massage, g-spot discovery, sexual coun-
selling, lap dances). Others seemed to watch from
afar, to see how open, available and vulnerable we
were willing to be. The authoritative queer gaze of
several of the organizers whom we had interviewed
identified us as researchers, observers and outsiders.
The collective gaze of the organizers operated as a
regulatory mechanism that disciplined unruly or
disruptive bodies to cultural codes and social pro-
tocols. Did the organizers interpret our bodies as
researchers as unruly and disruptive bodies because
of all of our apparent inhibitions and reservations?
The gaze of the organizers, in conjunction with
some informal conversations, seemed to convey the
sentiment that we were not being honest in our
research if we did not participate, because we were
not completely using the space in the ways they
had envisioned. Later, in our debriefing discussions
about the experience, we felt some concern that our
credibility as researchers might have diminished in
the eyes of our informants because of our perceived
lack of involvement. Despite admonishments by
feminist researchers such as Heidi Nast that reflex-
ivity means letting go, allowing for the possibility of
being out of control (1998, 94), neither one of us
felt capable of or comfortable with substantially
blurring the line between researcher and participant

within an eroticized setting. We both firmly believed
Sarah Oretons argument that intimate contact,
between those in positions of power in social
research is inappropriate, unethical, and unprofes-
sional (2004, 306). Yet to remain apart also raises
the question of the validity of our work in the con-
text of whether the research results fairly and accu-
rately reflect the aspects of social life we claim they
represent (Acker et al. 1993, 145 in Al-Hindi and
Kawabata 2002, 104). Can we truly be said to
understand the TWBCs regulation of us in their
project to queer space? In other words, how can we
assess the success of the TWBCs project within our
own embodied ways of knowing and being in the
world which we negotiated in order to experience
the very project we were studying?
Conclusions
In this paper we have raised more questions than
answers in an effort to interrogate the partiality of
knowledge. We have demonstrated how the mater-
iality of the researchers body can neither be
ignored nor taken for granted in the production of
knowledge because it is deeply embedded in a
complex interplay of powers at play in the research
setting. Through a discussion of how we dressed our
bodies, positioned them, and interacted with them
(and other bodies that were dressed and positioned)
in the field, we have explored some of the tensions
that arose from our experiences as insiders and out-
siders, participants and researchers, covert and overt
ethnographers, and sexualized and non-sexualized
beings in a queer women bathhouse event. As self-
identified lesbians we were both inside and participants can be both disciplined by the space
outside the Pussy Palace project of queering space
and queering identities. While we could understand
and empathize with participants experiences and
viewpoints and while our bodies conveyed both
sameness and difference (Valentine 2002), in our
interior dialogues and conversations with each other
we have struggled with what Kath Browne has
described as assumptions of sameness in categories
of sexualities (2003, 135).
In our discussions, we both realized that how we
understood ourselves as possessing singular lesbian
identities inscribed and operationalized within
intransigent and material bodies affected our under-
standings of the TWBC project. The central objective
of the TWBC is the queering of identities through
the creation of a space where alternative cultural
practices could be performed, denaturalizing and
Undressing the researcher 105
confounding normalized ways of doing and being.
Engagement in certain kinds of sexualized experi-
ences thought to be or represented as unfamiliar
and new to participants was designed to remake
previously understood constitutions of selves (iden-
tity) and self (subjectivity). Both of us experienced
the space as a challenge to our selves and our
identification as lesbians. Our experiences raised
awkward questions about whether we could or
should explore alternative self-understandings as
queer rather than lesbian.
Perhaps we have already unconsciously challenged
the singularity of our lesbian identification and
extended the boundaries of our comfort zone simply
by attending several bathhouse events. With each
event we have both felt more at ease in the space,
and more at ease within our own bodies as well as
with the bodies around us. Much like other partici-
pants, our lesbian bodies have been partially disci-
plined by the codes of conduct and etiquette
established by the TWBC. While we may not have
actively participated in the games of sexual foreplay,
we are now familiar with the rituals and expectations
of participation and the sexualized performances we
can expect to see within a sex-positive space. We
have gradually become more comfortable in queer
bathhouse space, which is part of the objective of
the TWBC in establishing new norms or under-
standings around public displays of queer sexuality.
While we are beginning to understand the process
of queering space, and the challenge it poses to
singular identities and subjectivities, our increasing
comfort level and understanding of queer space
demonstrates that our bodies as researchers and
and the bathhouse organizers and can resist the
disciplining power of queer space as we use the
space for our own research ends.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their
detailed and constructive feedback on an earlier draft of
this manuscript.
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