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from Clinical/Therapeutic Issues
Researcher Studies How MSMs Organize Sexual Culture In Public Parks
December 15, 2005 -
A federally-subsidized study published in the Journal of Sex Research
(11/1/2005) examined how MSMs (men who have sex with men) interact with one
another in a public park in New York City. The author, Miguel A. Munoz-Laboy
said that his paper ("Sexual space, spatial change, and the social
reorganization of sexual culture") was designed to describe how:
...the landscape of a public place in a New York City Park embodies
larger external structures within which sexual subjects actively organize local
sexual culture. Controlling the configuration and utilization of such space is a
technique of power used by the state apparatus. Based upon ethnographic
fieldwork, we describe how the sexual culture situated within this public space
is produced and reproduced in the micro-social practices of sexual subjects in
the face of structural constraints.
According to Munoz-Laboy, MSMs create their own sexual culture within public
parks but these cultures are restrained by government authorities who often
change the configurations of spaces within parks to discourage such activities.
The researcher chose a particular space in the park to watch MSM and how they
interacted with one another. His field research spanned a period between May
2000 and the late summer of 2001. He and a fellow researcher carried 16 oz. cans
of Coors Light with them to show MSMs that they were not cops and that they were
just "hanging out." He noted as well that during observations of MSM sexual
conduct that each observer refrained from taking notes or using tape recorders
so as "minimize disruption of the social setting."
Munoz-Laboy notes that two areas existed for sexual conduct: one for cruising
along a path and another "sex spot" where MSMs gathered for more lengthy sexual
encounters. He notes that communication between MSMs in this area "occurred via
a variety of nonverbal symbolic codes, which consisted of gazes, body posturing,
inviting smiles, hands fixed in spots on the body, and games of cat and mouse."
When the city of New York altered the areas within the park to discourage such
sexual encounters, MSM were simply more discreet in their behaviors in the same
areas. "Though the homoerotic desire of the sexual subjects did not change, the
manner in which they enacted them evolved with the structural constraint
expressed in spatial change around them," said the author.
In his conclusion, the researcher noted: "This paper is not about some sort of
government conspiracy to limit the freedom of its citizens. Our main argument is
that by analyzing ethnographic case studies, we can begin to understand the
complexities of sexuality, and in particular, how place provides the context for
the nexus of societal structure and individual agency."
The author says his study has led him to new questions that deserve further
investigation such as "How does the constantly-changing erotic spatial
confirmation of places like San Jose Park shape sexual pleasure and desire over
the sexual lives of individuals? How are non-identity-based sexual cultures
sustained over time, and what are their utilities within the sexual landscape of
the city?"
He received a National Institute of Mental Health grant to conduct this
research.
Additional Reading: Why Reveal the Dark Side of the Gay Movement?;
Gay and Sexual Liberation Groups Collaborate To Overturn Laws Governing Sexual
Behavior.
Updated: 8 February 2008
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