Random Castle post
Mar. 11th, 2010 01:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starzkiI've been stewing on Monday's episode of Castle for a while now, for various reasons. I wanted to like this episode. Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic were hilarious. The subject matter was juicy, and there were interesting twists and turns. (Plus Lane from Gilmore Girls was in it!)
But I just had problems with it for mostly personal reasons.
First, I realize that this episode was somewhat based on the real-life case of a sociology student in Michigan who was researching high-end call girls, then wondered why she was breaking her back waiting tables when she could be raking in the dough as a call girl. This ended badly when one of the johns she started seeing off the books murdered her. Her secret life was a surprise to just about everyone. So, yeah, I got that pretty quickly.
However, I'm also a research student in a sociology-based discipline. I'm heavily versed in the idea and practicality of participant observation (heck, I have a terrible Cowboy Bebop fanfiction over at ff.net that is friggin' named "Participant Observation). What the victim was doing in the show wasn't research. It might have started that way, but she was reporting her own experiences as a dominatrix as though they were someone else's. That's really unethical. If a researcher takes part to such a degree that they actually are making decisions within the group they are supposed to be objectively studying, they're not researching, they've gone native. Also it's really unethical not to have some kind of full disclosure or debriefing plan of those being observed. A central tenant of any research is that people get to decide for themselves whether or not they want to take part in research. This would have never gotten through any Internal Review Board review and I'm surprised that her advisor wasn't more in the know about what she was doing. They also painted the guy who "blackmailed" her into dropping out of the fellowship race as a douchebag. While that may be, he could have just reported her to the IRB and her entire project would have been shut down, she wouldn't have anything to need a fellowship to pay for, and he would have actually been totally ethical to do and I think he should have done that in the first place.
Also, I can't believe it was never brought up, in the characters judging how "native" the victim went with her research, that no parallels were drawn between Castle and his own police research. Heck, the guy friggin' interrogates and tries to apprehend suspects! You really can't go more native than that!
Another thing that bugged me: Why did the boyfriend buy what I'm assuming was a really expensive, custom order leather cuff set as a "gag gift"? Really, wouldn't the cheapo novelty animal print fuzzy handcuffs been just as effective? I've been in leather kink stores (used to be one right across the street from me in my old apartment and I wanted to check it out). You have to already know enough about the product to know you're not seeing what you want off the shelf in order to ask for something custom. But no, it was just for goofs. I think that needed to have been written better.
One last thing. One of the interviews I've analyzed for my dissertation actually was with a woman who previously worked as a dominatrix. The show did get it right that their offices are right downtown in office buildings. My interviewee said she was most popular with the lunchtime businessman crowd. This also kept her free for her night classes. Unfortunately, this woman was also assaulted by one of her clients who was a very good customer. When she went to her boss, who had always told her that her health and safety was paramount, she was dismissed because the client paid so well. Hearing about this has made me really wary of the idea of selling BDSM. It's supposed to be safe and consensual, but when money comes into play, it can often trump both of those BDSM ideals. So yeah. This episode brought up a whole bunch of issues for me.
Wow, this got long-winded. Sorry!
But I just had problems with it for mostly personal reasons.
First, I realize that this episode was somewhat based on the real-life case of a sociology student in Michigan who was researching high-end call girls, then wondered why she was breaking her back waiting tables when she could be raking in the dough as a call girl. This ended badly when one of the johns she started seeing off the books murdered her. Her secret life was a surprise to just about everyone. So, yeah, I got that pretty quickly.
However, I'm also a research student in a sociology-based discipline. I'm heavily versed in the idea and practicality of participant observation (heck, I have a terrible Cowboy Bebop fanfiction over at ff.net that is friggin' named "Participant Observation). What the victim was doing in the show wasn't research. It might have started that way, but she was reporting her own experiences as a dominatrix as though they were someone else's. That's really unethical. If a researcher takes part to such a degree that they actually are making decisions within the group they are supposed to be objectively studying, they're not researching, they've gone native. Also it's really unethical not to have some kind of full disclosure or debriefing plan of those being observed. A central tenant of any research is that people get to decide for themselves whether or not they want to take part in research. This would have never gotten through any Internal Review Board review and I'm surprised that her advisor wasn't more in the know about what she was doing. They also painted the guy who "blackmailed" her into dropping out of the fellowship race as a douchebag. While that may be, he could have just reported her to the IRB and her entire project would have been shut down, she wouldn't have anything to need a fellowship to pay for, and he would have actually been totally ethical to do and I think he should have done that in the first place.
Also, I can't believe it was never brought up, in the characters judging how "native" the victim went with her research, that no parallels were drawn between Castle and his own police research. Heck, the guy friggin' interrogates and tries to apprehend suspects! You really can't go more native than that!
Another thing that bugged me: Why did the boyfriend buy what I'm assuming was a really expensive, custom order leather cuff set as a "gag gift"? Really, wouldn't the cheapo novelty animal print fuzzy handcuffs been just as effective? I've been in leather kink stores (used to be one right across the street from me in my old apartment and I wanted to check it out). You have to already know enough about the product to know you're not seeing what you want off the shelf in order to ask for something custom. But no, it was just for goofs. I think that needed to have been written better.
One last thing. One of the interviews I've analyzed for my dissertation actually was with a woman who previously worked as a dominatrix. The show did get it right that their offices are right downtown in office buildings. My interviewee said she was most popular with the lunchtime businessman crowd. This also kept her free for her night classes. Unfortunately, this woman was also assaulted by one of her clients who was a very good customer. When she went to her boss, who had always told her that her health and safety was paramount, she was dismissed because the client paid so well. Hearing about this has made me really wary of the idea of selling BDSM. It's supposed to be safe and consensual, but when money comes into play, it can often trump both of those BDSM ideals. So yeah. This episode brought up a whole bunch of issues for me.
Wow, this got long-winded. Sorry!
