Silence, Shame, and Disrupting Heteronormative Ethics in Sexualities Research: Autoethnographic Reflections of a Queer Researcher.

This autoethnography is a layered and strange account that explores the "tacit norm of silence" around sexual dynamics between researchers and participants in the field. Such situations go against the dichotomous ethical standards within sociology about the relationship between researchers and participants, which resulted in feelings of shame, guilt, and anxiety both professionally and within the author's personal life. These standards of ethics, and the resulting feelings when boundaries are crossed, serve as a disciplinary mechanism that promotes epistemic injustice regarding how queer scholars produce and disseminate knowledge within the academy. However, in confronting these feelings and challenging the stigma and silence around this topic, the author seeks to disrupt the normative ethical standards of research that marginalize queer researchers and maintain this heteronormative bias and the resulting epistemic injustice. Lastly, by remaining complicit toward this tacit norm of silence, sociologists do a disservice to students and future researchers by not preparing them to confront similar dilemmas and feelings while conducting research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]