Truth(s) & Validity

Gillian Rose (2001:2) writes: “Interpreting images [and textual narratives] is just that, interpreta- tion, not the discovery of their truth.” Qualitative researchers often face practical concerns about validi- ty. I might ask myself, are my participants’ stories truthful (or trustworthy)? I might seek to ensure that my own methodology is consistent (internally valid). In her discussion of qualitative methodology and validity, Wendy Simonds (1992:9-10) points out that qualitative researchers almost seem to (“defensive- ly” and “apologetically”) defend rather than describe their research methodologies. We, as a discipline, seem to fear that the lack of statistical significance and hard science behind narratives. We seem to be- lieve that using stories indicates a lack of dedication to our field or discredit our scholarly credibility.

Rachel Naomi Remen (2006:xxxix-xl) writes, “All real stories are true.” Although they are full of bias, they are unique. “The best stories have many meanings.” The meaning each person makes of those stories might even be different than what the tellers intended. Remen (2006: xl) continues, “All stories are full of bias and uniqueness; they mix fact with meaning. This is the root of their power. Sto- ries allow us to see something familiar through new eyes.”

In my narratives, there is no grand narrative. There is there a great overarching truth. Instead, when listening to my participants, I heard many stories. The stories I found became the source material for this study. Because I worked with social media, I found I didn’t have the best consistency in the be- ginning. While I made extensive notes I would few months later, the website or blog would be gone. Many of the discipline websites and blogs I researched shut down over time. I saved and printed many pages, but I could never print them all. I made notes about significant ones and kept the quotes and dates of importance. Many times, I went to search for a conversation or example and found it missing from the web. Until I got used to this type of abrupt ending, I would find it jarring and relying on my

memory or a note was not enough. Simply talking about how people, participants, communities and even their stories and blogs disappear is difficult to describe to you as part of my methodology. Begin- nings and endings of stories within stories are not always clear or transparent. Like the circuitous trajec- tories of my participants’ lives, some abrupt halts to blogs or communities are sometimes vague, com- plicated and frustrating. It is research.

Once this started happening (websites disappearing), I learned to print out the pages and high- light quotes, comments, and community interactions I found important or salient. I learned to date eve- rything. And I learned that letting go of many participants whose story I followed was part of the story itself. I grew fond of particular participants and I also grew familiar with some of them. The people who wrote and commented frequently felt like people I knew personally. When participants stopped writing or commenting or died, I went through my own sense of shared grief, especially when I was going through similar personal issues in my own relationships or life. I had to learn that new people and blogs replaced the old ones, but it made for terrible continuity when I was following a story or couple closely. The couples change. They break up. They change their identities and names. They get outed. They get tired of having this identity lead their lives. They got sick. They died. They had kids. They got bored. Sometimes they wrote about it. Sometimes they simply stopped writing and the absence of words or posts is all I found.

I also learned that people and communities create social space. Lurking (reading online only as opposed to delurking and becoming an active participant) (Rafaeli, Ravid, & Soroka 2004) there without interacting is the ultimate panopticon. I needed them more than they needed me. (It instilled for me the reciprocal confessional power of the researcher and the subject. The gaze and the gazed at.) And without them (even with their knowing permission and invitation) this research would have been impos- sible. In my appendices I have listed the communities, blogs, and manuals I investigated. What is online is unstable, not fixed, and goes away quickly. It gave me a new respect for creating social space and

community. Additionally, blogs and communities can be locked, so what was once public domain can also fluidly change. They are like identities and the people who navigate online communities changea- ble and not permanent. While I chose to read these areas with permission I did not read private, mem- ber only areas, considering them not public domain, regardless of permission was granted or not.

Telling how I found stories and who shared them with me is not enough. When using narrative analysis my framework is informed by intersectional, interactionist, queer, feminist, and constructionist ideologies. We never know anything fully. Everything involves positionality. Dorothy Smith (2010) uses standpoint theory to highlight how a world of research is both constructed and constrained. Sociolo- gist’s worlds are framed by men’s perspectives and if we used a women’s standpoint (or any standpoint, such as an alternative sexuality, or a different race’s or culture’s standpoint’s), we can find it easier to both observe and problemetize the inequalities. Smith (2010:525) states, “The only way to know a soci- ologically constructed world is to know it from within.” By allowing our positionality, and framing our standpoint as researchers, we can better observe the sociological world. When I observed the discipline lifestyle, I immersed myself as an ethnographer, doing participant observation. I conducted interviews to gain a better understanding of how and why participants desire a discipline relationship. I also went online, at the invitation of my participants, to observe how participants engaged in their online social space. This allowed me to better understand their communities and the discipline lifestyle culture. It also gave me a better and more nuanced understanding of how and why they distinguish and separate themselves from other groups.

When I first heard about discipline relationship communities, I was doing a research paper on BDSM for a class on deviance and social control. I found a link for domestic discipline and though it seemed to pertain to BDSM sexuality and sociology the author of the site, Vickie Blue (2003) denied it. She insisted she and others into DD and domestic discipline were more into “old fashioned domestic discipline.” Perhaps because of our dominant cultural scripts, discipline specific labeling of sadomaso-

chism, or because of my own beliefs, it took me quite a while to come to see my participants as a more nuanced sexual identity than BDSM participants. Until I was able to see discipline relationships as hav- ing a separate and distinct sexual identity, I was not able to really hear their narratives as distinct from dominant BDSM power and violent sex themes. After taking a year off, I came back to their stories. I read their manuals again. I read their blogs and re-read their interviews. My participants did not always agree with each other, but I came to understand them as having a distinct sexual identity from BDSM and to recognize the various social groups and communities online. It was also much easier, after a break, to investigate the ways my participants interacted within the discipline relationship culture, and how their culture continues to recreate the discipline relationship community. Taking time off gave me time and distance of a new perspective and to allow the communities to change and grow. It also gave me the ability to separate myself from my own political, sexual, and relationship concerns in order to understand the stories arising within discipline relationships.