1/27/2020 I did it for the data | The Familiar Strange

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I did it for the data Search … SEARCH

JULY 15, 2019 / THE FAMILIAR STRANGE

Author: Sophie Pezzutto, a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the Australian National

University. She is conducting the rst ethnographic study of the transgender pornography
industry in anthropology. Her research interests are fame, social media, selfhood, and
loneliness. You can follow her on Twitter: @itssosophs and Instagram: @itssosophs

It is well past midnight in central Hollywood. My informant, Lil Camille, is dragging me

towards a white Mercedes AMG on a half vacant, dimly lit parking lot. “Come on!!!
Don’t worry, it’s ne! We do this all the time!” she exclaims, sensing the increasing
hesitation in my steps.

I had met Lil Camille and her friend Pink on a porn set earlier that day. We’d spent the
evening together on a sofa at an award show pre-drinking, smoking, chatting, and GET A LITTLE MORE FAMILIAR...
testing snapchat lters under a barrage of camera ashes from a stage nearby. At rst,
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they were surprised that I had come all the way across the ocean – from Australia – to our blog and receive new posts straight
learn about their world. But for some reason, they took a liking to me. They decided to to your inbox.
adopt me – taking me everywhere they went and calling me “sister”. It was like high Your Email:
school. I was the innocent, straight-edged friend with the thick glasses. They were the
cool kids who had decided to give me a chance. Like all the cool kids in high school,
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though, they also thoroughly enjoyed pushing my boundaries – roping me into their
various acts of rebellion.

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By the time we left the party they were both intoxicated, but adamant that I ride with
them to their hotel for a hang out and an interview. I trusted them and having only Ep. #51: Newsworthy stories,

been in the eld for a relatively short time, plagued by an unending angst about getting Becoming projects, Ethics of
danger & Balancing values: This
suf ciently ‘authentic’ data, my eyes lit up. “I would absolutely love to do that,” I said.
month on TFS
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1/27/2020 I did it for the data | The Familiar Strange

Before I knew it, the three of us hopped into an Uber with a guy Pink had been irting Collecting Relationships: the
with. The drive lasted only a few minutes before we pulled over. Instead of being at a Phenomenon of Ooshies

hotel, however, we were down a side street in front of a half-empty parking lot in the
middle of Hollywood (Hollywood is not a glamorous place at night).
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Pink ran into the parking lot, her hands wrapped around the guys’ arm and before I
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could process it all, our ride had disappeared into the darkness. “Come, come!” shouted 1,056 likes

Lil Camille, grabbing my hand.

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“No wait, why aren’t we at the hotel? And who the f*** is that dude anyway?” I was
beginning to panic. Be the first of your friends to like this

“Oh, just some random dude who’s been hooking me up with K [Ketamine] all evening,”
Lil Camille said. “He’s ne. He thinks he’s going to get laid. He’ll drive us to the hotel.” FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

“Wait, what?!” I muttered, too dumbfounded to protest.

There is just so much that can go wrong here, I thought to myself.

“Come on!!! Don’t worry, it’s ne! We do this all the time!”, Lil Camille exclaimed, this
time with more energy, pulling me towards the white Mercedes AMG.

This is probably the part where you should draw the line as a researcher, I thought. Call the
proverbial helicopter to airlift you out of the village.

But as soon as the thought had crossed my mind, I heard another voice whispering
back: But think of the data!

Getting results                  

That voice had, in many ways, been the result of all my experiences in academia up to
that point. It was the result of everyone telling me that it is an impossibly tough
environment – that I will most likely end up without a job in my eld, overquali ed for
any job outside of it. Only sacri ce, lots of publications, and ground-breaking research
would lead to steady work. This was my opportunity to prove myself worthy on the
neo-liberal terrain that is the academic labour market.

In addition to today’s pressures in academia, the trope in anthropology of ‘roughing it’

creates the perfect conditions for a con ict between career and wellbeing. Many
aspiring anthropologists are familiar with Malinowski’s description of being dropped
off on the south coast of New Guinea with all his gear, while the dinghy which brought
him there disappeared on the horizon. I remember being inspired by Kimberly Kay
Hoang’s Dealing in Desire, an ethnographic study of hostess bars in Vietnam during
which she became a hostess herself for several months.

From researchers such as Liza Dalby who became a geisha in Japan, to Katherine Frank
who became a stripper for her ethnographic study of strip clubs, the anthropologist’s
dedication to “participation” – to truly understand, to throw off the false lab coat of
objectivity and get involved – is one of the discipline’s strong suits. It had always

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attracted me. At the same time, however, the trope of the anthropologist-adventurer is Tweets by @TFSTweets
so pervasive, that choosing a safer methodology or more ‘mundane’ eld site regularly
The Familiar Strange Retweeted
evokes feelings of guilt. 
Elina Moraitopoulou
@e_moraitopoulou

“You can’t take the subway to the eld!”, as Joanne Passaro cynically put it. Currently in search of resources and playful
ideas to introduce young students (ages 12-
16) to ethnographic methods. Any contribution will
be very much appreciated @culanth
@AmericanAnthro @TFSTweets
@_entanglements_ @KarenOReilly3 @NCRMUK

Jan 7, 2020

The Familiar Strange Retweeted

Esther R Anderson
@EstherR_And

my santan gopala shaligram (via @Manigarm) on

tour. this @TFSTweets post is a good explainer:
thefamiliarstrange.com/2018/06/07/liv…

Jan 5, 2020

Drawing the line

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@TFSTweets

Where do I as an ethnographer draw the line between career and personal wellbeing 2 NYEs ago @juliaehbrown wrote of her
appreciation for #social connection/health having
at home and in the eld? How much participation is ‘enough’ to get me suf ciently spent QT w old friends at a beautiful South Coast
town, evacuated this NYE. As communities face
high-quality data? #AustraliaBurning (+ distasteful fireworks) our
thoughts are with you
thefamiliarstrange.com/2018/01/04/ann…
What do I do when I’m invited to stay and watch an evening with red wine turn into an
orgy? What do I do when I nd myself in a car with people driving very dangerously?
What do I do when I am offered drugs after a long night at the strip club during an
intimate conversation? How do I react when someone touches me inappropriately?
What do I say when I am witness to something I profoundly disagree with?

This New Year, Think About Your Social…

No ethics protocol can ever exhaustively answer all these questions. No ethics training
Feeling ‘well’ can mean many different thin…
can suf ciently prepare me for every practical eld work situation, some quite thefamiliarstrange.com

dangerous, some potentially illegal, and some profoundly uncomfortable. To

Jan 2, 2020
participate or not to participate?
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In the end, the guy bought us dinner at a late-night diner, drove us dangerously fast
down Sunset Boulevard, and hung out with us in the hotel room while my informants
did drugs I had never seen nor heard of before. Eventually, as his hopes for sex were
dashed, he got aggressive and was swiftly thrown out of the room by Lil Camille and
Pink. The ef cient resolve with which they did so has left me with a deep respect for
them ever since. I came to learn that this was a regular hustle – an empowering way of
using rich, horny men to get free meals, rides and whatever else, whenever needed.
The rest of the evening we ended up just lying in bed, chatting until the sun rose.

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Hard limits

As an ethnographer of porn, I entered the eld with some hard limits and never
crossed them. I never ended up doing anything I regretted, but the pressure to push
myself and my boundaries was palatable that evening.

After nine months of heavy drinking, Kimberly Kay Hoang eventually gave up on the
hostessing and switched her methodology, serving as an English instructor to the other
hostesses during the day and attending the bars as a patron at night.

I, too, have scaled back on the industry parties, the alcohol, and general obsession
about not missing out on opportunities for the most authentic data. Now, I mostly do
sit down interviews, one-on-one in daylight – maybe with a glass of wine. I like to think
that I have lost only a little insight.

                                                                                   [Image by Sophie Pezzutto]

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 Blog, Ethics, Fieldwork Reflections

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DATA , FIELDWORK RELATIONSHIPS , HOLLYWOOD , INDIVIDUAL RISK ,

KIMBERLY KAY HOANG , PORN INDUSTRY

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