1151203

research-article2023
CUS0010.1177/17499755231151203Cultural SociologyWoodward and Mayr

Article
Cultural Sociology

Secret objects in the home:

1­–16
© The Author(s) 2023

Potency, (in)visibility and Article reuse guidelines:

everyday relationships sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/17499755231151203
https://doi.org/10.1177/17499755231151203
journals.sagepub.com/home/cus

Sophie Woodward
University of Manchester, UK

Cornelia Mayr
University of Klagenfurt, Austria

Abstract
This article argues that the material dimensions of secrecy, which have been neglected within
academic research into consumption and into material culture, are ripe for sociological analysis
and attention. We draw on two empirical projects – one using qualitative interviews to talk
to women about their sex toys and the other ethnographically informed research into things
people keep but are no longer using - to explore secret things within the home. By taking a facet
methodology approach, we consider secret objects in relation to each other and interrogate how
secrets are made (in)visible through strategies and practices around objects within the home and
how the potency of secret objects is managed. We make two key arguments: first, considering
the relationship between secrecy and intimacy, we argue that there are three dimensions of
secrecy (which do not always coalesce): what is known about, what is verbalised, and what is
materialised. Second, we redirect the idea of relational work to material things, looking at where
things are kept, who they are revealed to and the silences around things, and argue that these
practices are part of the work of everyday relationships and intimacies. The article demonstrates
that objects are vital in understanding how secrecy, intimacy and everyday relationships are lived
and forms part of a wider argument for the sociology of culture to centre the unnoticed and
mundane.

Keywords
Consumption, material culture, materiality, home, sexuality, relationships, facet methodology

Corresponding author:
Sophie Woodward, Department of Sociology, University of Manchester, Arthur Lewis Building, SoSS,
Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.
Email: sophie.woodward@manchester.ac.uk
2 Cultural Sociology 00(0)

Introduction
A vibrator (a kind of sex toy) and children’s baby teeth (stashed away in an envelope)
appear at first glance to be completely different types of objects with little relationship
between them. These objects are from two different research projects – one using inter-
views with women about their sex toys, and the other an ethnographically informed
project looking at objects people are not using in the home. In this article we put these
objects, as well as others from our research, in relation to each other to explore what the
relationship is between secrecy and objects in the maintenance of everyday relationships
and intimacy within the home. By putting these seemingly very different - yet still
‘secret’ - objects in relation to each other, the article foregrounds the objects and the
spaces in which they are found and uses these to think through the relations between
people, objects, and secrets.
By taking a facet methodology approach (Mason, 2018) – which encourages a dia-
logic, inventive approach to qualitative research - we consider secret objects (even those
which seem to be very different to each other) in relation to each other to critically
explore the material dimensions of everyday secrecy. Facet methodology does not aim to
produce direct comparisons or to triangulate data or approaches but rather to produce
flashes of insight (Mason, 2018: 42). Neither of the research projects centred secrecy
initially but rather secrecy emerged through open ended qualitative methods and through
dialogue between the two authors. By taking the inventive facet methodology approach
in this article, we put objects in relation to each other to interrogate how secrets are made
(in)visible through strategies and practices around objects within the home and how the
potency of secret objects is managed.
We build on sociological literature on secrecy, following from Simmel’s theoretical
work (1950) as it has been developed specifically in relation to families and the role and
impact of secrecy on family relationships (such as Smart, 2011). There is, however, a
lack of academic work on the relations between objects and secrecy, which this article
addresses; we argue that objects are central to how secrets are negotiated and maintained
in everyday life, and the study of secrecy and everyday relationships is incomplete with-
out considering their material dimensions. While writers such as Smart (2011) and
Barnwell (2019) focus on the work that goes into keeping secrets (and keeping them
alive), we here extend this to what people do with everyday objects to keep or reveal
secrets. The purpose of this article is thus to expand on concepts of secrecy (Simmel,
1950; Smart, 2011) by considering it in relation to material culture which we do through
the concept of relational work (Zelizer, 2009). We extend this concept to everyday inti-
mate relationships and consider both social and material relationships. We explore the
multiple ways in which a secret is kept (or kept alive) through and within objects.
Specifically, we develop the argument that a secret only becomes and works as a secret
when it is put in relation to someone or something (as in our case) and that relationship
needs to be created, maintained and fostered through acts of storing, using, hiding, and
displaying things.
Objects are not just passive in keeping secrets but instead through their material pro-
pensities and properties (Miller, 2010) can act back (Buchli and Lucas, 2001) in keeping
or betraying secrets. We explore how objects present us with work to be done as they
Woodward and Mayr 3

may make secrets (in)visible. Smart (2011) highlights the role of silence, but we argue
that in addition to what is said/not said, we also need to think through the dimensions of
visibility. That is, how secrets are made visible or invisible through practices such as
hiding or displaying. In this article, first, we review the literature on secrecy, intimacy
and relational work to develop our approach to think through the relations between
objects and secrecy. Second, we outline the article’s facet methodology approach as well
as the methods of the two studies. Third, we analyse the data through three core themes:
the invisibility of secret things; how things are made visible; and finally, how the potency
of things is managed. We develop our framework of relational work throughout the data
analysis.
In centring the neglected area of things and the secrets that surround them we demon-
strate that they are vital in understanding how intimacy and everyday relationships are
lived. This forms part of a wider argument for the sociology of culture to centre the
unnoticed and mundane. More specifically, focusing on secrets and things illuminates
the relationship people have to objects within the home and highlights the possibilities
for a study of secrecy in relation to material culture. This approach allows us to broaden
and challenge wider assumptions of research into intimacy and relationships by arguing
that materiality is an integral aspect of the ‘work’ of everyday social life.

Doing Secrecy through Objects

While there is a lack of literature on the relationship between everyday objects and
secrecy, there is a strong tradition of sociological literature on secrecy in everyday inter-
actions and relationships. Secrecy implies the conscious concealment of meaning or
information which is kept out of the circuits of social and personal communication.
Information is shared or concealed from other people and as such secrecy is inherently
relational; the sociological understanding of secrecy which concerns how secrecy deline-
ates different social relationships is deeply indebted to Simmel’s (1906) theorisation of
the role secrets – information withheld, disclosed, or ‘given’ off – have in demarcating
different types of relationships and intimacy. Simmel’s discussion (1906) of secrecy
explicitly interrogates different types of relationships (such as romantic or platonic) and
how these connect to degrees and types of secrecy. Keeping secrets or sharing them with
defined others is a way of keeping people close or marking boundaries to those who are
not and thus of managing intimacy. Balmer and Durrant (2021) argue that, for Simmel,
intimacy involves a play between both nearness and distance. For Simmel, shared knowl-
edges are a positive element of close relations, yet ‘they also presuppose a certain igno-
rance and a measure of mutual concealment’ (Simmel, 1950: 316–317). There is no
necessary correlation between disclosure and intimacy but rather what people tell others
(or do not) is part of the negotiation of everyday relationships.
Given that secrecy is part of how we manage everyday relationships, the literature on
family and relationships is instructive here. In particular, we here argue that Morgan’s
(1996) idea of family as a set of practices is useful. Family is not, in Morgan’s under-
standing, an institution or a pre-existing thing, but is instead constituted through what
people do; these practices are manifold, and for example Finch (2007) explores the prac-
tices of display as a central way in which family is practiced. The types of practices that
4 Cultural Sociology 00(0)

constitute family are multiple, and we argue secrecy is a set of practices (what is talked
about, what is made alive through silence). Thinking about the role objects have in fam-
ily secrets expands these practices of secrecy (hiding, storing, displaying, caring for).
These practices of secrecy are a way for people to draw the boundaries of intimacy – who
is included and who is excluded. Smart’s (2011) work on family secrets draws from
Gillis (1996) distinction between families we live ‘with’ (the actual relationships we
have) and families we live ‘by’ (idealised version) to argue that secrets can bridge these
two. Secrets ‘allow us to create a family story through which actual families come to
appear more like the ideal or mythical family’ (Smart, 2011: 541).This dovetails with
Susie Scott’s work on deception where she concludes that actions that purposefully hide
the truth can be beneficial to intimate relationships, due to ‘its potential to strengthen
social bonds, gloss over the cracks of strained relations and contribute to the smooth
orchestration of everyday life’ (Scott, 2012: 275). Conversely, Scott argues that keeping
things secret can, nevertheless, become oppressive and destructive in creating intimacy.
In a discussion of lying, Balmer and Durrant (2021) draw from Goffman (1974) and his
suggestion that people respond to lies depending upon whether they are benign or poten-
tially damaging.
While Simmel, Scott and Barnwell are concerned primarily with verbal secrets, we
explore the relations between secrecy and everyday relations through their material
dimensions; there is a lack of research addressing the role of objects in relation to secrecy
(with the exception of Hemmungs [2021] on the envelope) which this article seeks to fill
by centring secret objects in the home. Specifically, we look at secret objects (items kept
secret from others) as well as objects that have secrets connected to them. These may be
objects that are deliberately hidden, quickly put in places where they cannot be found by
unexpected visitors, or that we just keep private and do not talk about. Objects are a key
part of how we live everyday relationships, whether through objects that are gifted
(Money, 2007), displayed (Hurdley, 2006), or kept as they materialise memories and
connections to others (Woodward, 2021). Given their centrality in how everyday life and
relationships are lived, we argue that objects are also central to how secrets are kept or
revealed to keep people close or distant; a study of secrecy and everyday relationships is
incomplete without considering their material dimensions.
In considering objects and secrecy we include what people do with things (such as
hiding an object away lest it betrays a secret) and also, we seek to understand the mate-
riality of the objects – such as how an object can betray our secrets. Things are not pas-
sive but have effects; these effects are not determined by material properties, but instead
we argue that the material possibilities of objects emerge from an interaction between the
properties of objects, their histories, who uses them, where they are kept as well as social
and personal meanings attributed to them. Objects reveal things in ways that people do
not wish, as much as they may also conceal things. Simmel argues that the revelation of
the ‘wrong’ thing at the ‘wrong’ place to the ‘wrong’ people can have consequences
(Simmel, 1950: 331); when we consider this claim through material objects, we can see
that this revelation may not just be what is said, but also how objects ‘give off’ secrets.
While existing literature on secrecy – such as Smart and Barnwell – discuss the role of
silence and the untold (as well as what is told), thinking about things adds another
Woodward and Mayr 5

dimension to this: what is made visible through things; how secrets are materialised
(whether objects keep secrets or reveal them).
In this article we bring together relational theories of secrecy with Douglas’ (1966,
1991) theories of the potency of things to explore the power of secret things and secrets
around things in creating and disrupting relationships. An important contribution of
Douglas’ (1966) work is the idea that dirt is potent – it has the power to disrupt social
orders when it is ‘out of place’. We contend that this can be extended to objects in the
home and the possibility that things can ‘pollute’, where the wrong thing is in the wrong
place, or even found by someone else who is looking in a place they should not. We argue
that there are consequences to the potency of secret things as people must manage secret
objects, where they are kept and what is known about them. Secret things present people
with work to do that shapes the relation we have to the thing we keep (in)visible, family,
friends, and others. It is this to which we will now turn.

How the Relational Work of Secrecy is Done

We here build on the idea of relational work – that is the work that goes into maintaining,
defining and creating relationships. The concept of ‘relational work’ is not new, we how-
ever develop it in a different direction to consider the work that goes into keeping/reveal-
ing secrets as well as the work these secrets present people with. Zelizer (2009) developed
the idea of relational work as a means to understand economic life and how people navi-
gate the intersections of intimate and economic relations. As Zelizer outlines, members
of the same household or any other intimate relationship go to great lengths to ‘erect a
boundary, mark the boundary by means of names and practices, establish a set of distinc-
tive understandings and practices that operate within that boundary’ (Zelizer, 2009: 35).
This is, according to Zelizer, the process of relational work that allows people to differ-
entiate between different social ties within a space (such as the household) as well as
between different spheres. Zelizer’s contribution is to economic sociology as she argues
that economic life is processual. More specifically, she reframes relationality as rela-
tional work that is ‘social interaction between economic actors that has to be accom-
plished’ (Bandelj, 2012: 177).
The idea of relational work has been developed in other fields from an interactionist
perspective focusing, for example, on interpersonal communication and politeness
(Locher and Watts, 2005) or in relation to specific industries/fields of work, such as
Bandelj (2012) who applies the concept of relational work to creative worker practices.
We are instead thinking through the ordinary everyday work of doing relationships and
the emotional and symbolic in relation to everyday objects and their relations within the
home. In doing so, we consider the idea of relational work in connection to material and
social relationships. We regard relational work in its material form and refer to it as the
practices people use to manage and take care of secrets in connection to things, them-
selves, and others.
In doing so we bring together ‘relational work’ with literature in the field of everyday
relationships, such as Jamieson’s (2005) concept of ‘doing intimacy’. Jamieson, building
on Morgan’s (1996) work, focuses on practices in developing a sense of closeness to
people. Both Morgan and Jamieson centre relationships, families and intimacy as things
6 Cultural Sociology 00(0)

that emerge through practices. We argue that central to this are the less explored areas of
material relations – what people do with things, as a way people demarcate and under-
stand the everyday relations within the home. Disclosing or concealing secrets to foster
intimacy or to protect a relationship are part of this relational work. There are various
strategies that people use to keep secrets, one of which is outlined in Smart’s research
into family stories where people keep ‘quiet about difficult matters’ (Smart, 2011: 549)
within the family. Secrecy then is not just about what is known, but also what people are
explicit about knowing. This dovetails with Konrad’s (2005) notion of ‘active not-know-
ing’ which is a way to keep critical issues at bay, leaving them unspoken about rather
than confronting them. Even when someone knows something morally questionable in
our family, as Konrad has observed, people may conceal their knowledge, learn to not
ask questions and discreetly remain quiet. Managing something untold in a family is thus
a way of keeping ‘civil inattention’ (Goffman, 1966) which requires that we carefully
avoid confrontation with such secrets.
While this concerns verbal secrets, in this article we extend these ideas to objects and
secrecy. By putting possessions in a place where they cannot be seen, people may be
engaged in practices of ‘active not-knowing’ (Konrad, 2005). This form of ‘civil inatten-
tion’ (Goffman, 1966) is useful to think through items that are supposed to be ‘secret’ but
are in fact known about, though not openly discussed. There are complex relations
between what is known and what is talked about, and as we discuss in this article also
what is seen, as we explore the visibility of objects. Money’s (2007) research into gifts
showed many people feel obliged to keep gifted items even if they did not like them, they
displayed them and kept their feelings quiet. Similar traits of moral obligation to secrecy
and things can be found in Hurdley (2006) where things are displayed on the mantlepiece
for complex moral and relational reasons.
In what follows, we centre our argument around three stages of ‘doing secrecy’ in
relation to objects and people: (1) how secrets and things are made invisible through
practices of secrecy in the home; (2) how secrets and things are made visible and what is
at stake when a secret object comes out of storage; and (3) how secrets and things are
made powerful or how their potency is managed. In particular, we show the multiple
ways people connect with, store, and talk (or do not) about objects surrounded by notions
of secrecy; and how the meaning of objects and their place in the home are created, main-
tained, and made potent through hiding or displaying them.

Facet Methodology Approach – An Inventive Linking of Two Projects

Through Material Culture
The idea for this article emerged through discussions between the two authors about our
research projects as we started to realise the synergies between the projects; secrecy was
not a focal topic for either project, but instead became an exciting lens though which we
could rethink our data. In developing this paper, we draw on a facet methodology
approach as outlined by Mason (2018). Facet methodology is a qualitatively driven ori-
entation to research which is open-minded, playful and dialogic. It is not trying to be
systematic or objective but instead to produce flashes of insight. Drawing from the
Woodward and Mayr 7

metaphor of a cut gemstone, where the facets (side of the gem) catch light and refract it
differently, sometimes shining brightly, Mason (2018) argues that you can design
research through these facets (which may be methodological or empirical) and use them
to generate unexpected insights.
Mason writes of facets in terms of research design but this approach can also be
applied to forms of analysis (Woodward, 2019), where data is not triangulated, or even
directly compared (such as comparing two research projects), but instead is creatively
brought together. We decided to adopt this approach and considered objects from our
different studies in relation to each other to produce insights into the relations between
secrecy and objects. We rethought our own data through the lens of secrecy as well as
through the lens of the data of each other’s projects; this was centred upon particular
objects that were secret or had secrets around them. We asked questions of the existing
data sets as a way to generate insights, as well as adopting an object centred approach
where we put together very different kinds of objects and used this to think through the
relations to people and secrecy. This facet methodology approach allowed us to unsettle
assumptions; so, for example it may seem self-evident that you would want to keep a sex
toy secret as it is private, but how, why and where they are kept then remains hidden from
view. We may assume that an object on display – such as a box of letters later discussed
– is not secret as it is on display. Our paper starts to unpick these assumptions around the
relation between hiding and secrecy, to explore the relations between objects and secrecy.
This paper draws upon two independent empirical research projects: a study of sex
toys in Austria and the other research into unused objects in homes in the UK. The
empirical research into unused things centres objects that people keep within the home
but are not using (such as clothing that does not fit, unwanted gifted items or old phones
and chargers) often residing in attics, cupboards and garages. Seeking to understand the
relations between people, things and spaces as dynamic (as objects are moved about, or
wear down), the study developed an ethnographically informed study using a mix of
methods: qualitative interviews, observations and visual methods. The sampling strategy
incorporated a different range of living spaces: five modern houses, 10 flats (a mixture
of modern and old) and 15 old Victorian houses. These living spaces had a range of living
arrangements (living alone, with a partner, with family or friends) and included rented
accommodation, home ownership and social housing. One (or two) participants from
each house were interviewed – which started with a walking interview of spaces where
unused things where kept and how things came to be there as well as broader life histo-
ries and a follow-up in-depth interview around one space and all the items in it. The
visual methods included photography and sketching to allow insights into the materiality
of these things and where they were kept.
The sex toy study draws on the findings of qualitative research that considered the
role and meanings women attach to sex toys, such as vibrators, within their home. A total
of 32 women were part of the qualitative research, with semi-structured interviews being
the core method. In attending to issues concerning the purchase and appropriation of a
sex toy, the study followed the object (Appadurai, 1986) on its way into the home of its
user, seeking to provide a better understanding of how the value of the object is continu-
ally negotiated and altered, through where it is kept, how it is used and what meanings
are ascribed to it. The analysis of the interview data followed the procedures of a
8 Cultural Sociology 00(0)

phenomenological research approach. Words, statements, and phrases have been tran-
scribed and analysed in such a way as to allow the voices of the participants to speak.
What these two studies have in common is that both are qualitative, and both centre
things (sex toys in one case, in the other unused things) and their relationships (to other
people, to the self and to the spaces within the home). By putting these two research
projects into dialogue which both centred hidden objects, secrecy is a key theme that was
pertinent to both studies and the relationship between secrecy and domestic relationships
became a key theme within both studies. The exploration of secrecy raises methodologi-
cal issues of what is spoken about or disclosed. Both projects drew upon interview meth-
ods and within this people at times spoke about secrets around objects, but in their nature
many things that are secret will not be discussed with others.
When doing the research, we were both separately attuned to the need to ethically
respect our participants silences, and to be aware that people do not talk about things that
may be uncomfortable. In our analysis we pay attention to what is not said, and also
observations of objects and where they are kept (and in turn how people react).
Understanding and interpretation of the secrets around things comes from the relation-
ships between objects themselves, where they are kept and what people say about things.
How things disclose secrets is a theoretical as well as methodological issue, as we explore
through the data how things reveal or conceal secrets, through their materiality or where
they are kept, as well as the verbalised accounts of the secrets of things. As Smart (2011)
notes people keep secrets alive by how they are referred to, hinted at and silenced – we
remain attuned to this through our data analysis.

Secret Things and What is Kept Invisible. One way in which things are kept secret is by
being hidden away, and we open our discussion of the data by thinking through examples
where objects are kept secret as a means to keep a secret from others. Children’s baby
teeth are an example of an object that people hide in the house, as, if a child found the
teeth then the tooth fairy would be exposed as a lie. To give a specific example: one par-
ticipant in her early 30s lives with her partner and two children and while, like many, she
keeps her children’s teeth, she has them hidden away. She thinks that they are both
‘gross’, as the roots of the teeth are still visible, but also the teeth make her feel nostalgic
as her daughter’s childhoods seem to be slipping away. When her daughters lose a tooth,
it goes under their pillow for the tooth fairy to collect in return for a pound coin, as is the
custom within the UK. While she has never explicitly asked her daughters whether they
believe in the tooth fairy or not, her daughters still behave as if they believe in it. The
teeth are hidden in an envelope on a high-up shelf in the living room, further hidden
behind some books. If her daughters found the teeth, the mother’s identity as the fake
tooth fairy would be revealed and the shared secret of the tooth fairy exposed. The illu-
sion of the tooth fairy can only be kept alive by the teeth being invisible, as well as
nobody talking about where the teeth have gone. When the girls are older the teeth may
be made visible again, as there is no need for the secret to be upheld.
This is a secret a mother keeps from her daughters; however, in other instances objects
are ones that are kept secret from a wider range of people. A sex toy is a case in point. It
is one that is hidden from visitors to the home as well as close family relations as part of
the relational work of delineating intimacy (Barth, 2000; Jamieson, 2005) - with the
Woodward and Mayr 9

occasional exception of friends and sexual partners. As we will develop through the arti-
cle when women talk about or reveal these items is a way of marking which relationships
are intimate ones. To take a specific example: the sex toys of a 36-year-old woman are
hidden in her bedside table to conceal the objects from ‘relatives, friends, all those peo-
ple who should stay out of the bedroom’. In particular, she did not want ‘those things
lying around; just as you keep your dirty clothes in a laundry basket’. The sex toy has
material potency (Douglas, 1966; Woodward, 2021); when it is revealed or known about
it makes visible the owner’s sexuality. When we consider baby teeth and a vibrator in
relation to each other, we can see that both are objects that ones that need to be kept hid-
den: a tooth is evidently a tooth, a vibrator is evidently a vibrator. The dimensions of
secrecy here are both verbal (they are not talked about) but also material (as they are
hidden away). In order to remain a secret, they have to be managed and hidden.
There are clear differences between the two objects discussed here, however, as there
are strong moral codes around the proper place for sex in the home. Seen as ‘dirty’
(Davis, 1983) or an indicator of sexual pleasure that is expected to be private, unspoken
and unseen, means that what people do and say about their vibrators is negotiated within
existing social norms of what people should openly reveal or keep secret. There is also a
difference in the types of relationships that are maintained and generated though the
secrecy around these objects. Both have in common that they are secrets kept from chil-
dren. The baby teeth are kept from children in order to preserve childhood – children are
expected and able to believe in a fairy, a teenager or adult should not. In addition, a sex
toy is kept from children as they ‘are children’. One 44-year-old mother sought to put her
sex toys in the bedroom where her son does not go, because it ‘shouldn’t fall into the
hands of [her] son’.
Sex toys are, nevertheless, ones which are kept secret from most people: (most) inti-
mates, acquaintances, and strangers (Morgan, 2009). A 25-year-old woman, for instance,
deliberately disguised the order of her sex toys to conceal it from the postman. ‘He
doesn’t need to know about the things I order,’ she explained, ‘what would he think of
me?’ Another participant refused to pack the vibrator in the adult store’s shopping bag,
‘because it’s nobody else’s business; especially not. . .strangers’. Participants in the sex
toy study that ordered their vibrators online, often chose to anonymise the packaging and
disguise the delivery. Several women mentioned, that they would even hide their sex toys
from their partners to avoid imagined or potential humiliation. A 62-year-old woman
talks of keeping her vibrator secret because she thought ‘a vibrator can hurt a man’s
pride. He’d probably question himself and ask, ‘Am I not good enough?’ I certainly don’t
want to embarrass or humiliate him’. In fact, women’s deliberate concealment of vibra-
tors is part of what we consider as the relational work of protecting themselves and their
respective partners from the perceived consequences of disclosing owning a vibrator.
Keeping an object secret is motivated by the fear of what would be revealed or made
visible if the object was found. Finding a sex toy means that a woman’s sexual desire and
sexual preferences are made visible. While a parent knows that their adult child may be
sexually active, it is very different when this is made visible through a casually encoun-
tered or found sex toy. She is no longer just a daughter but a sexual being. Sex toys need
to be hidden away as their identity is in most cases unambiguous; a sex toy speaks of
sexual pleasure and makes visible what is morally understood to be private. When a tooth
10 Cultural Sociology 00(0)

is revealed or not hidden what is made visible is that the tooth fairy is not real. While the
children may no longer believe in this – and so it is not talked about – the shared illusion
of this cannot be maintained if the teeth are visible and so the teeth must remain
invisible.

Making Visible. We have explored how things are hidden away in order to keep secrets
and maintain intimate relationships. However, as we suggested earlier, secrecy rests on
the dynamic of both concealment and revelation. We explore here examples where
secrets are shared and explore what is made visible when stories around things or objects
themselves are shared/revealed. In the previous section, we discussed invisibility where
keeping things hidden was a way to also make invisible other knowledges whether this
is the sexual pleasure of a mother/daughter or that the tooth fairy is a fiction. When we
are faced with a sex toy or a baby tooth, these secrets are revealed; however, as they are
not verbalised (so a sex toy makes sexuality visible but we may never talk about this
verbally) we may share an ‘active not knowing’ (Konrad, 2005) an idea we will develop
more throughout the section as well as what happens when things are made visible.
When we consider the verbal and material dimensions of secrecy it becomes apparent
that these do not always coalesce; so, for example, we start with an example where the
object is kept hidden and secret, but its existence is talked about with others. Owning a
vibrator is a secret that is occasionally shared in chats with close friends. One 34-year-
old mother, for instance, felt ‘closer to [her] friends than ever before’, after her friends
recommended that she tried a vibrator; owning sex toys is a topic that is talked about
‘only with your partner’ or with close friends. Sharing ‘a little secret’ with a partner or
friends can be a deliberate choice to develop close bonds and shape patterns of intimacy.
In Jamieson’s (2005) terms, disclosing a sex toy to one’s partner or a close friend is a way
of ‘doing intimacy’. For many people, intimacy involves practices that enable, create,
and sustain a sense of closeness within families, romantic relationships, and friendships.
This close connection to those you are intimate with has to be protected against less
intimate relationships by regulating what information is shared (Simmel, 1906). A sex
toy, thus, is a medium through which – when talked about– someone can express her
intimate relation to the person with whom the object is used, with other close friends, and
to the object itself. Because talking about private stuff, such as sex toys, crosses the line
drawn around intimate relationships, a 51-year-old woman was careful about what and
how much to disclose as the sex toy ‘only matters to me and my husband’. ‘That’s our
little secret’.
When an object is hidden and invisible, people can make a conscious choice of who
and what to tell – as per this last example. However, when we are thinking through the
relations between secrets and objects, then in addition to what is said or not, objects
themselves are also a medium which can reveal things through their materiality. As we
will argue this is not just the straightforward revealing of a secret, as the relation between
what objects materialise and what is said about things is complex. We explore here,
through the example of a trifle bowl, the complex ways objects and secrets are connected
when a trifle bowl is moved from being stashed in the attic to visible in a kitchen. The
trifle bowl belonged originally to Jo’s (pseudonym of a participant) mother, who died
over 20 years ago. Jo’s father still lives in the same house that Jo grew up in and he has
Woodward and Mayr 11

since remarried, and his new wife (Jo’s step-mother) moved in. The attic is full of things
that have accumulated over the past 40 years and has never been properly sorted and it is
a space that her step-mother never goes into. She knows there are things up there but not
what these objects are or their significance. Jo and her two sisters have all taken objects
from the attic and moved into their own homes. They all do so when their dad and his
new wife go on holiday (Jo and her sisters still have house keys) and therefore the secret
things are a shared secret between Jo, her sisters, and their father. The new wife is not
part of these secrets.
Some of the items belonged to Jo as a child, such as a doll or Fisher Price toys, and
others used to belong to her mum – some of these objects Jo has ‘smuggled’ out of the
attic into her own home, such as the trifle bowl. ‘We always remember her [mum] mak-
ing trifle in this at Christmas, so we've got trifle bowl. Don't make trifle, don't even like
trifle, but we've got the trifle bowl’. Now the bowl is situated in Jo’s kitchen, it is no
longer a secret object; however, the fact that it belonged to her mother remains a secret,
that her step-mother is not privy to. The object itself is visible and yet there are secrets
behind it; this is also apparent in other items of kitchenware that her step-mother uses -
‘kitchen pots, sieves and stuff’. The objects are in regular use, and clearly visible, and yet
their provenance and former owner is secret.
Given that her step-mother found them in the kitchen it is possible she knows they
belonged to Jo’s mother, and yet it is not spoken about. As Jo notes she does not want to
discuss it in the open and say ‘Oh, this was mum's actually [. . .] part of it is to protect
her feelings, but also because it's not hers [the step-mother]’. The secrets allow both a
protection of the stepmother’s feelings as well as for Jo to maintain a relationship to her
mother. Barnwell’s (2019) discussion of the slow violence of secrets in families reveals
how they are kept over time and that is instructive here. The secrets of whom the items
belong to, and the act of sneaking into the attic are ones that have gone on for 20 years
and the potential damage to the relationship if this were revealed is too great. This acts
as slow violence as the lingering resentment of things that have been thrown away, or of
her step-mother using things that are her dead mothers’. Jo wants to protect the ‘new
wife’ from feeling embarrassed while resenting her for using these objects.
What the trifle bowl example raises is that there are several dimensions in thinking
through the relations between objects and secrecy: the secret objects (such as the teeth
and sex toys we started our data analysis with), the talk around things (or lack of talk and
silences) and the knowledges around things. These three layers intersect in complex
ways. The fact that the trifle bowl is an object means that Jo is able to have the item in
her kitchen as it connects her to her mother but also because she does not tell the object’s
secrets, and as it was taken by stealth from her father’s attic, the bowl does not reveal its
secrets. This is a very different example to the vibrator and baby teeth, as the materiality
of the trifle bowl does not give anything away. Jo never talks about this with her dad or
her step-mother, so the secrets serve to keep her mum close as well as protecting her step-
mother’s feelings, and her father’s new relationship. While a secret may be seen to
exclude those who are not privy to it, when we consider an object like the trifle bowl, we
can see that this is not just creating intimacy through exclusion, it is also about connec-
tions to her mother and continuities in the relationships through this object. This was her
mothers’ object and so it is key in maintaining the relation to her.
12 Cultural Sociology 00(0)

Her father ‘knows’ about the provenance of many of the objects that are hidden in the
attic, or old kitchen things that his new wife uses; however, as the sieve and the trifle
bowl are not talked about these knowledges are not made explicit. Akin to the example
of the teeth and whether children know that it is their parents who keep the baby teeth,
there is a shared, but unstated sense of what can be talked about. This can be true when
a secret item is discovered: a 25-year-old woman spoke of an incident with her father-in-
law who accidently discovered her vibrator in the bathroom. To avoid learning too many
details about his daughter’s sex life, her father-in-law just remarked that she ‘should
better tidy-up’, as a form of ‘civil inattention’ (Goffman, 1966). They both knew it had
been seen, but as it was not explicitly stated the potential embarrassment was
diminished.

Managing Material Potency and the Power of Secrets. As shown so far, people manage
where they keep things, and what they tell about these things as part of the work of inti-
macy and relationships. However, if we consider the materiality of the objects and how
secrets are materialised then it is evident that secrets are disclosed not only through what
people choose to talk about but also through the things themselves. We started the discus-
sion of the data with examples of teeth and a sex toy that can reveal secrets if the objects
were made visible. In this last section we pick up this theme to explore how things are
managed affects the potency of a secret. We move to the final stage of relational work
where we consider the relations between things and how these mediate the potency of
secrets. We here move beyond thinking about individual objects and secrecy and move
to think about the relations between things in particular spaces; by thinking about where
things are stored, we can start to interrogate how the relations between things shape the
object’s potency and the power of the secret.
Where things are stored, and what they are stored with impacts what things mean; for
instance, the sex toys of a 25-year-old were safely stored in a blue paper bag under her
bed, a storage space where she also kept her DVDs. Another 54-year-old woman stored
her sex toy in a drawer where she also puts her underwear, and another woman’s vibrator
was kept in the bathroom cabinet. If the women look for other things that rest in the
drawer, cabinet or under the bed, but see the vibrator, it is one object amongst several
stored items. The sex toy is hidden and out of view but also in combination with these
other items it is less sexualised. An item may have its potency diminished then by what
it is kept with and where it is kept. It is not just that an item is hidden away, in some cases
items hidden in plain view are made less potent. For example, in the research into unused
things one woman, who is in her mid 40s and lives with her partner and baby, has a box
in full view on a shelf in the living room. It is an ornate wooden box which shuts with a
clasp but is not locked. It contains:

old photos and cards from my first wedding. . . I don’t want to get rid of them. I mean it doesn’t
mean anything to me now, but I don’t want to get rid. And it is just cards, you know, from the
day but it’s also a lot of photos and a video, whatever – maybe it was a VHS as well. (Laughs). . .I
definitely like the box so I’m definitely not getting rid of the box but I actually – I don’t see a
reason – I mean if my now husband found out, maybe he would consider about getting rid of it.
Woodward and Mayr 13

She has never discussed the box with her partner, although she suspects he is not aware
of the contents. There are therefore similarities to the previous example of the trifle bowl,
in that the object is visible and not secret, but there is no talk about it, and therefore what
is known remains unclear. This is a good example of Smart’s (2011: 549) suggestion that
families engage in ‘active not-knowing’ (drawing from Konrad, 2005) around objects
that are potentially disruptive. It is however also clearly different as a simple look inside
the box would reveal the secrets, as it contains personal memorabilia from her first wed-
ding. There is significance in the act of displaying a box that could so easily disclose its
secrets: the act of displaying diminishes the significance of the secret. Were the box
stashed at the bottom of a wardrobe, or in a box of special memories, if discovered it
would be a more potent secret. Paradoxically by being on display its potency is dimin-
ished; the sex toys hidden with other objects come to seem less sexualised and secret, so
too here, the box by being on display seems less of a ‘secret’ box.
The sense that the hidden object can be more potent and secret is evident by the claim
of one 43-year-old woman about her sex toys: ‘the more you shroud it [the vibrator] in
secrecy and the more you keep the thing taboo, the more interesting it gets’. What is so
fascinating about the secret, Simmel (1906) would argue, is the choice of keeping it or
not, whereby information that people keep hidden becomes automatically more appeal-
ing to oneself and others. Simmel’s argument highlights that the more spatially and
socially distanced an object is from its keeper, the more fascinating and appealing it may
become; this can be managed through objects as they are hidden away and kept apart
from other mundane things. That is why many women found value in keeping the sex toy
hidden and not visible; the physical, temporal, and discursive concealment makes the
object even more potent. Conversely, the woman who kept her box of things from her
first wedding put it on display such that, if encountered, its significance is lessened, as is
the keeping of things from a first marriage. The potency of things is not just material but
the material and the symbolic are connected (Barthes, 1964).

Conclusions
In taking a facet methodology approach (Mason, 2018) and putting objects from research
into sex toys and into unused objects in dialogue with each other, we have argued that the
sociology of culture needs to centre the unnoticed, mundane aspects of everyday life.
Sometimes unspoken about, often unseen, these things nevertheless are key to how peo-
ple navigate their everyday lives, relationships and interactions. We have argued for the
need to consider the material dimensions of secrecy as objects are an integral part of how
everyday relationships are enacted, and thus also how secrets are kept. Moreover, secret
things and secrets around things offer a powerful lens for exploring the close connections
between objects and everyday social relations.
We have built on the literature on family practices and family secrets and pushed this
further in two key ways: first, considering the material dimensions of the relationship
between secrecy and intimacy has allowed us to highlight the three-layered relations of
secrecy: what is known about, what is verbalised, and what is materialised. We have
argued that these three dimensions of secrecy do not always map onto each other directly
– as, for example, an object may be visible but still be unspoken about. Through our data
14 Cultural Sociology 00(0)

we have considered the complex interrelationships between these dimensions focusing

in particular on (in)visibility as well as material potency. Objects can present people with
work as, for example, a baby tooth must be hidden away. However, objects can also
allow for some relief, seen in the example of the trifle bowl where keeping the bowl vis-
ible allows a connection to her mother, but not talking about it allows it to remain secret
from others. Hiding or displaying potent objects can be part of what keeps a secret alive
or diminishes the power of the secret. This potency, whether objects are hidden or dis-
played, can be animated to create, shape, and disrupt everyday relationships. We argue
that the meaning of secrets around things can stabilise over time and become discretely
embedded in our relationships; these embedded secrets can be disrupted and become
active or potent.
Second, in considering how people conceal, or reveal objects and stories around them,
we have brought together work on family practices with the concept of relational work
and adapted it to understand the work that is required to manage objects connected to a
secret, where they are kept and what is known about them. This form of work is, as we
have shown, a way to demarcate intimate relationships from children, romantic partners,
other family members, friends, or in some cases even strangers. Our research spoke to
the multiple and complex ways in which secrets are kept alive within those relationships
which include where things are kept, what they are kept with, what information about
them is withheld or disclosed. In this article, we have argued that ways of keeping mate-
rial things secret matter socially and normatively, for they speak not only of their secret
potency, but also of moral issues including to whom the thing is being kept secret, where,
and why. Secrets and objects centre on norms of what people ‘should’ openly reveal or
keep hidden within relationships. Constraints and freedom in creating meaning and
belonging to the object co-exist then with people’s insecurities, ambivalent feelings,
beliefs, and values that remain hidden in front of others. Keeping things secret might be
a way to protect oneself or someone else from potential embarrassment. But as much as
a secret can be protective, it can be destructive, causing harm in the form of ‘slow’ or
silent violence (Barnwell, 2019) and deliberate exclusion.
This relational work goes into maintaining relationships and importantly also prevent-
ing close relationships from being harmed. Keeping objects and knowledges about them
secret can be a way to demarcate intimates, as in the case of the sex toys where talk about
sex toys is kept to a few intimate people (partners, close friends). This intimacy is only
possible when less intimate relationships are kept out of the shared secret. Keeping
secrets around things and keeping things secret and hidden is part, then, of drawing the
boundaries between different relationships. Even when these secrets are accidentally
revealed (such as a sex toy being discovered by a parent – an intimate relation that should
not know about the sex toy), the relationship can still be preserved if people engage in
active not-knowing – not talking about or referring to the object. Secret objects are there-
fore only able to maintain intimate relationships when others are kept out of the secret;
secrets around things can be a way to maintain close relationships as well as protect other
relationships from damage. In the case of the trifle bowl, if the step-mother became
aware this belonged to her husband’s first wife, the familial relationships would be
harmed as the years of taking objects from the attic would be revealed as well as redefin-
ing her position as an outsider. As we have argued maintaining relationships is work, and
Woodward and Mayr 15

while objects allow secrets to keep people close, the very act of drawing a boundary of
those ‘outside’ the secret entails the possibility of harming other relationships.
The article points towards the need for further sociological analysis to fully under-
stand the relational work needed to manage secret objects and its effects on relationships,
but also through their affective dimensions. Almost every participant in our studies felt
like their relationship with somebody might be impacted should the secret (thing) be
discovered. This raises the question of the potential emotional expense of their work to
maintain the relationship, which starts to come through some of our data and approach.
A study of secrets and objects is particularly well suited to an exploration of emotion
work and how those expressed or repressed feelings affect the sense of belonging to our
stuff. People do relational work to keep secrets in order to preserve intimate relation-
ships; this work emerges from the material possibilities of the objects, and personal and
social norms and histories.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

References
Appadurai A (ed.) (1986) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Balmer A and Durrant M (2021) Simmel and Shakespeare on lying and love. Cultural Sociology
15(3): 346–363.
Bandelj N (2012) Relational work and economic sociology. Politics & Society 40(2): 175–201.
Barnwell A (2019) Family secrets and the slow violence of social stigma. Sociology 53(6): 1111–
1126.
Barth F (2000) Boundaries and connections. In: Cohen AP (ed.) Signifying Identities:
Anthropological Perspectives on Boundaries and Contested Values. London: Routledge, pp.
17–37.
Barthes R (1964) Elements of Semiology. New York: Hill and Wang.
Buchli V and Lucas G (2001) Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past. London: Routledge.
Davis MS (1983) Smut: Erotic Reality, Obscene Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Douglas M (1966) Purity and Danger: An analysis of concept of pollution and taboo. London:
Routledge.
Douglas M (1991) The idea of a home: a kind of space. Social Research 58(1): 287–307.
Finch J (2007) Displaying families. Sociology 41(1): 65–81.
Gillis J (1996) Making time for family: The invention of family time(s) and the reinvention of
family history. Journal of Family History 21(1): 4-21.
Goffman E (1966) Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings.
New York: The Free Press.
Goffman E (1974) Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. London: Penguin
Hemmungs E (2021) In the service of secrecy: An enveloped history of priority, proof and patents.
Journal of Material Culture 26(3): 241–261.
Hurdley R (2006) Dismantling mantelpieces: Narrating identities and materializing culture in the
home. Sociology 40(4): 717–733.
16 Cultural Sociology 00(0)

Jamieson L (2005) Boundaries of intimacy. In: McKie L and Cunningham-Burley S (eds) Families
in Society: Boundaries and Relationships. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, pp. 189–206.
Konrad M (2005) Nameless Relations: Anonymity, Melanesia and Reproductive Gift Exchange
Between British Ova Donors and Recipients. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Locher M and Watts R (2005) Politeness theory and relational work. Journal of Politeness
Research. Language, Behaviour and Culture 1(1): 9–33.
Mason J (2018) Qualitative Researching. London: SAGE.
Miller D (2010) Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Oxford: Blackwell.
Money A (2007) Material culture and the living room. Journal of Consumer Culture 7(3): 355–
377.
Morgan D (1996) Family Connections: An Introduction to Family Studies. Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Morgan D (2009) Acquaintances: The Space Between Intimates and Strangers. Maidenhead: Open
University Press.
Scott S (2012) Intimate deception in everyday life. In: Denzin N (ed.) Studies in Symbolic
Interaction: Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 251–279.
Simmel G (1906) The sociology of secrecy and of secret societies. American Journal of Sociology
11(4): 441–498.
Simmel G (ed.) (1950) The Sociology of Georg Simmel. New York: Free Press.
Smart C (2011) Families, secrets and memories. Sociology 45(4): 539–553.
Woodward S (2019) Material Methods: Researching and Thinking with Things. London: SAGE.
Woodward S (2021) Clutter in domestic spaces: Material vibrancy and competing moralities. The
Sociological Review 69(6): 1214–1228.
Zelizer V (2009) The Purchase of Intimacy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Author biographies
Sophie Woodward is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester and co-director of
the Morgan Centre for research into everyday lives. She carries out research into everyday con-
sumption, clothing, material culture and fashion and has an ongoing interest in creative and mate-
rial methods. She is the author of five books, including most recently Material Methods: research-
ing and thinking with things (2019), and Birth and Death (2019 with Kath Woodward). She is
currently writing a book on her research into dormant things.
Cornelia Mayr teaches and carries out research in sociology. Much of her interest plays with the
intersections of intimacy, norms and interactions, material culture and consumption and she has
published her research in the Journal of Consumer Culture, the International Journal of Consumer
Studies, Sexualities and the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. She loves to adopt a critical
perspective on routines and habits of everyday life.