Initially, it is unclear what this piece is about, with a title that is, interestingly, purposely unrevealing.  Once deeper into the reading, the content becomes obvious as focusing on sexuality in all-female bands in the World War II-era in the United States.  After learning this was the subject of the reading, I could not help but feel excited, all to be let down when the author admits her research hit a dead end.  That dead end was the complete unwillingness of her interviewees, former band members of these all-women groups, to talk about their personal lives.  This surprising turn of events that started off as disappointment transformed into a really interesting perspective on not only the history of sexuality, but the nature of research itself.

Tucker’s admission that she went into her work expecting certain results and ending up frustrated and confused at the information she was given was very entertaining.  More often than not, going into research one always has the answer they want in the back of their mind instead of constructing it along the way.  To me, it seemed like she expected these women to be out and proud and almost thankful that someone wanted to ask them questions about being lesbians in the 1940s.  Instead she got highly secretive women who were very much aware of Tucker’s intentions and therefore worked actively against any chances of being asked about their sexual identities.  The shock experienced by the researcher at these attitudes of privacy was really captivating and at times, very relatable.  Having such a strong notion of how sexuality worked in the music industry during that period knocked down so effortlessly by these women was a really crucial moment for this researcher.  It also drew attention to the fact that sometimes the research question we start out with does not turn out to be the one we end up answering, and that that does not always have to be a bad thing.

One section of this piece I was personally fascinated by was the discussion of why the author felt like she was owed the coming out of these women.  The honest and intensive self-evaluation Tucker goes through in the middle of this piece was refreshing, as it provided very human moments of realizing you might be part of the problem.  The topics of “coming out” and the closet definitely brought up great questions, both in regards to how sexuality was viewed in the past as well as in the present.  Why do we place so much importance on classifying someone as gay or straight? Why didn’t Tucker take her loss more lightly and move on to focusing on the musical careers of these women?  Have we started relying on the LGBT community to fix their own problems by coming out instead of accurately identifying the institutional forces that create homophobia?

Another intriguing portion was the content of her research itself, most notably the different stories she tells of specific interviewees.  The particular story of the woman who lied about having a son that would not let her interview with Tucker just so she could avoid questions about her sexuality was amazing.  What Tucker thought was male oppression turned out to be another case of someone who valued their privacy, but was willing to risk that privacy to share her experience as a member of an all-woman band. These female musicians may not have wanted to talk about their personal lives, but they were overtly proud of their membership in these bands, and that was a really admirable fact about these women.  They battled sexism and racism, doubting of their abilities, and any evidence of nontraditional sexual identities.  While not discounting the importance of the nature of sexuality of that time, I believe Tucker had compelling information to work with, even if it meant she had to abandon her initial research path.  By being so obsessed with learning about how it was to be a lesbian back then, she realized she was taking away from the accomplishments these musicians made.

“When Subjects Don’t Come Out” was a fresh take on the harsh realities of researching human behavior and history in general.  Not taking such a firm, scholarly approach to this paper was what really made me like everything about it.  Learning about someone being so confident about the personalities of these women she had never met but only read about was a great tool to understanding different approaches to research.  Relying on one source or just a hunch you have about a subject is proven as problematic and therefore enforces the practice of using every available source before coming to a conclusion.

-Meghan Madonna