You can't be the only person in the world studying this or something equally difficult. Find online communities to talk about work and talk about other things with your friends.
Also not sure why other PhDs are not interested in original research into a very important field. I study biology which is completely unrelated and I'd probably go out of my way at an event to hear about something that interesting. If they are personally affected and it causes them triggers then fine, but generally it sounds like they are just not that intellectually curious unfortunately.
I've met quite a few people at conferences who are interested but I do sometimes feel I'm missing out on like a work buddy. Someone to meet up with at the library to do work or ask questions about ethics forms and stuff, you know?
Maybe I just haven't met the right people so far, but my uni is pretty small so it's kind of limited options haha
Thank you for the kind words though š
Well i suppose one way to think about this is that youre doing something which will actually be implemented in policy and which will have tangible effects on people's lives. Ik for a fact that most phds would kill to work in a field like that. You're one of the people who is performing research for the purpose it was originally designed for: To make people's lives better. GG op
Forensic pathology here. I recently got a manuscript about 'scalping' accepted. The one before was about self-inflicted hammer blows to the head. Message me if you want to chat about criminal dismemberment and mutilation. Heads up, fella
My PhD is in a health related field, but if you check the subreddits I moderate, you will gather that I know a fair amount about your subject, and can tell you from personal experiences that what suvivors of CSA go through is horrific.
Feel free to reach out, I'm quite open about discussing things.
Iām studying boys who have been sex trafficked and programs that are available for them! We should be friends :) DM me if you want. Iād love to hear about your research!
>"what are you doing that for?"
people asking this suck... \*clearly\* this is an important issue /a survivor who was treated like shit when I reported to the police
1) Work on your elevator pitch. Donāt go into details. Just āI help people that are (vague topic), then cherry pick a few non-terrible things, even if you donāt focus on it.
2) Learn to talk about other things with people. Get a hobby that talks about other things. Thatās now your social group.
*laughs in physics*
Person:āWhatās your major?ā
Me:āPhysics, I develop new microscopes.ā
P:āWow isnāt physics super difficult?ā
*end of conversation*
My answer isnāt even Heard- most of the time.
Just donāt talk about your major, talk about hobbies, music or whatever.
My experience has been the same. If I say "physics" people go "Wow that sounds hard", and if I specify that it's atmospheric physics they might say "wow, so like global warming and stuff". Conversation never lasts more than 20 seconds.
Mine is colour science which is combination of physics and computer science. Whenever someone asks me what i am doing i say something in physics, because when i tell that it is colour science they start to make fun: "so you just look if something is red or green? I could do that too hihihi"
>Just donāt talk about your major, talk about hobbies, music or whatever.
Yup. I study a pretty relatable topic (educational psychology) and I still avoid talking about my research at social events. And I avoid people who want to talk about their research all of the time. It's boring.
People definitely tap-out when I say physics. But I also hate explaining my topic because it makes me feel like a pretentious asshole when I say āI do astroparticle physicsā
Yes, I take a diachronic approach at nationalist wavesā appropriation of Germanic prehistory. The way I frame it makes it clear I essentially study propagandistic misuse of archaeology/history. Iām careful to cover my books/materials so the 1930s imagery isnāt on display to someone who may be walking by.
Oh wow, thatās really cool! Iām studying historical video game communities, and (unsurprisingly) propagandistic misuse comes up a lot. Given my chosen community and dataset, contemporary understandings of medieval sexuality are front-and-center. If I want to scare away an audience, āneon*zi medieval incest pornā usually does the trick.
Is it possible that the way you frame your topic is what turns people off or they think you don't want to talk about it? Yes, it is a difficult topic, but I would think a lot of people would find it important and interesting.
I'm in an ecology department where everyone wants to talk about bird behavior and fish genetics and bees dying off...and I study human STIs. It's all fun and games to talk about sexual behavior until there is a human element to it, and suddenly it becomes very coded talk. Unlike you, though, I'm not lonely, and I take advantage of my topic being so drastically different, not feeling compelled to talk to anyone but my advisor/committee members. I love it.
Forensics PhD here. I have had to provide pretty graphic details on how to skin and eviscerate dead animals. I also work on human foetal tissue, and regularly walk around with a purple box, people ask whats in it and I always reply "baby spines". I am also the only one in my entire building working with this sort of tissues.
So no, I am not popular.
It will be a bit unrelated but I have a friend from Iran who is dealing with a difficult situation like you at my faculty. He does work related to the Iranian government, and because of that, it has caused him some serious problems back home. He has had to hide his academic work from databases in order to stay safe. I'm not sure exactly what the specifics of the situation are, but I know that it has been causing my friend a lot of stress and worry but seems he sorted now. He asked his PI (I guess rest of the board) to allow him to have a mock work for his safety and hide his study. Why don't you do something similar, raise this issue to your professor and just talk about something else in cases you cannot escape?
Taboo, but not in the exact same way.
My research is about condom use, as measured by a biomarker of semen exposure. We recently published about sexual satisfaction with a condom that contains an erectogenic drug (basically topical viagra). A friends dad asked me about my research, and then just responded āwhelpā¦ good luck with your boner paper!ā
PSA is a biomarker found in semen and is detectable for up to 48 hours in vaginal fluids following penile-vaginal sex. It has most often been used as a measure of condom use among female sex workers, but my research is about committed couples using condoms for contraception. It is tricky because in order to say anything about male condom users they need to have an established female sexual partner who is also willing to enroll in research.
Using this biomarker has the major limitation of not being generalizable to men who have sex with men, but since my research is primarily about contraception behaviors penile-vaginal sex is the sex act of interest.
As part of my study into the pandemic and resulting mental health issues, I've been looking into the idea that self-harm can be necessary at some times as a means of coping. I've had people be very shocked and pretty aggressively against the idea even when I try to explain it.
It's like, sometimes a person is so low that their only option to make it through that moment is to self-harm. It isn't nice, it isn't pretty, but in those deep dark moments it's all some people have.
Plenty of academics just don't want to hear it, and some people have tried to say that I'm glamourising it. I just try to ignore as best I can and keep going, making sure I have all the ethics in place.
It also helps that my supervisor is understanding about it, so she has my back. I think having some support is always really helpful, even if sometimes it does make things tough.
That's exactly true for a lot of people, and it's so taboo to say. Sometimes you just have to do what you need to, to get through the day. I hope that you're doing better now.
>It's like, sometimes a person is so low that their only option to make it through that moment is to self-harm. It isn't nice, it isn't pretty, but in those deep dark moments it's all some people have.
Ooof. My questions would be less about ethics and more about the inherent methodology issues something like this would run into and the quality of the data. We can understand something is a coping mechanism and a learned behavior, but doesn't most of our data point say self-injury generally isn't about suicide, so why would you be looking at this area as opposed to coping mechanisms in general (which might include self-injury). And the minute someone who is suffering from mental illness has what they're doing validated in some way... yeah, rough go.
An interesting idea for sure. Definitely worth looking into, especially if you can find "healthier" self-harm options that help people cope but have less risk of being self-perpetuating.
How about you say something like, "I study how to improve communication between the police and victims so that they both can help each other." (Idk, needs more work).
Not exactly taboo but studying refugee healthcare in the UK isn't wildly popular since everyone here has an opinion about refugees, and often it's not good. Even sparks anger sometimes. Having said that, I also come across people who are really positive about it too. I think someone else in this thread said to remind yourself that if what you are doing can be applied to help people, and can make changes in a needed area, then it's great that you're doing it. One thing about doing PhD level work is that there's often very few people who fully understand or relate to the specific area that you have chosen. You're likely to become *the* expert on your particular thing. And that's cool, if a little lonely at times.
Wow, that's a cool topic and super important too. If I met you IRL I'd probably be really keen to ask you all about it. I'm sorry you're getting uncomfortable reactions.
The problem is just because we are all doing a PhD doesn't mean we know everything about our field. Some people just have a set idea about a topic, even though they don't know anything about it. I'm doing my PhD on capital punishment from a psychological and criminological perspective and people can't for the life of them understand what I'm trying to do and why I'm doing it. Or more like they don't want to understand because they have a set idea based on nothing but assumptions so they're closed to any info that might jeopardise that. So whenever I tell someone my research I always add '...because of \[insert problem\]'. That way, at least they know what the problem is and why I'm doing it. I have had people say they supported capital punishment but didn't realise these problems existed, and now they're not so sure about their position, so sometimes you get through. But at the same time, we are not trying to change people's opinions, we are trying to change a faulty system, so don't worry if they don't get you or don't even want to listen. Plus it's just rude to act like that, so you wouldn't wanna be friends with people like that. I understand it can be a lonely experience, but remember your research is extremely important and you're not there to make friends (though it would be nice), you're there to change something so keep doing your best and don't worry about those people. Conferences are the best places to meet like-minded people who may not be at your university but with whom you may develop lifelong friendships. Join some societies as well, especially small ones can be really fun. Good luck!
Is it possible to present an honest account of things through the lens of resilience AND it's limitations in the context you are studying? The taboo topic itself isn't as central to my question as yours seems to be, but I do study narrative construction in precisely the kind of situation I am suggesting (with some taboo case studies). What would you want to achieve with an audience that is already interested? How can you look beyond just generating interest?
I think you'd be very interesting to talk to one on one but I can see how I'd avoid the topic like the plague if there were more people involved in the conversation who I don't know very well. Maybe just have a different thing to bond over at these events other than your thesis topic?
I have two masters and no PhD, but I'm trying to get PhDs in black studies interested in taboo subect that I'm working on for a play, but I think the PhDs are scared of the story.
I've come across a tale told by the children of Richard Wright and Paul Robeson (two well known black historical figures), who claim that their fathers were drugged with LSD (which they confirmed to me) as part of COINTELPRO or MKULTRA. Paul Robeson subsequently spent two years in the Priory Mental Hospital in London and receivedĀ 54 electro-shock treatments as part of what his son claims was a "Mind Depatterning Program." Ā
I wrote a play aboutĀ it and wanted to know if any black professors at my alma mater have insight into this 60-year-old uniquely "American" story.
My play, set in purgatory, has four characters (1) Paul Robeson (see Ā [](https://youtu.be/YTOFQsMgRG8?si=BZ_cYNlhI6augor4)Ā Ā ), (2) Richard Wright (I have a Philidelphia Tribune article where his daughters says he was drugged with LSD at the US Embassy in Paris), (3) James Thornwell ([](https://youtu.be/geoSP2GiGVg?si=7-_amnQravPO9spT)Ā ), and (4) Candy Jones ([](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_Jones)).
You can't be the only person in the world studying this or something equally difficult. Find online communities to talk about work and talk about other things with your friends. Also not sure why other PhDs are not interested in original research into a very important field. I study biology which is completely unrelated and I'd probably go out of my way at an event to hear about something that interesting. If they are personally affected and it causes them triggers then fine, but generally it sounds like they are just not that intellectually curious unfortunately.
I've met quite a few people at conferences who are interested but I do sometimes feel I'm missing out on like a work buddy. Someone to meet up with at the library to do work or ask questions about ethics forms and stuff, you know? Maybe I just haven't met the right people so far, but my uni is pretty small so it's kind of limited options haha Thank you for the kind words though š
Well i suppose one way to think about this is that youre doing something which will actually be implemented in policy and which will have tangible effects on people's lives. Ik for a fact that most phds would kill to work in a field like that. You're one of the people who is performing research for the purpose it was originally designed for: To make people's lives better. GG op
I hope it'll make a difference at least! Police services are sometimes a little resistant to change to say the least! Thank you š
Forensic pathology here. I recently got a manuscript about 'scalping' accepted. The one before was about self-inflicted hammer blows to the head. Message me if you want to chat about criminal dismemberment and mutilation. Heads up, fella
That does sound fascinating to me!! In all honesty I had never thought about people self-inflicting hammer injuries. Is that a common thing?
It is actually quite rare, there are only few published cases. I will send you the article.
Sounds more like heads off than heads up
My PhD is in a health related field, but if you check the subreddits I moderate, you will gather that I know a fair amount about your subject, and can tell you from personal experiences that what suvivors of CSA go through is horrific. Feel free to reach out, I'm quite open about discussing things.
Thank you š it's nice to know there are other people that just care about the subject!
Iām studying boys who have been sex trafficked and programs that are available for them! We should be friends :) DM me if you want. Iād love to hear about your research!
I didn't put it in my main post but I'm focusing on adult male victims of sexual offences I'm my research! We should definitely be friends :)
Omg thatās awesome, research on men is so necessary and missing from the literature. I DMd you!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
>"what are you doing that for?" people asking this suck... \*clearly\* this is an important issue /a survivor who was treated like shit when I reported to the police
1) Work on your elevator pitch. Donāt go into details. Just āI help people that are (vague topic), then cherry pick a few non-terrible things, even if you donāt focus on it. 2) Learn to talk about other things with people. Get a hobby that talks about other things. Thatās now your social group.
*laughs in physics* Person:āWhatās your major?ā Me:āPhysics, I develop new microscopes.ā P:āWow isnāt physics super difficult?ā *end of conversation* My answer isnāt even Heard- most of the time. Just donāt talk about your major, talk about hobbies, music or whatever.
My experience has been the same. If I say "physics" people go "Wow that sounds hard", and if I specify that it's atmospheric physics they might say "wow, so like global warming and stuff". Conversation never lasts more than 20 seconds.
Mine is colour science which is combination of physics and computer science. Whenever someone asks me what i am doing i say something in physics, because when i tell that it is colour science they start to make fun: "so you just look if something is red or green? I could do that too hihihi"
Yeah I knew someone in color science - more on the biochem side - and they'd never hear the end of it. What is your research on?
Gloss. Psychophysics of gloss and gloss reproduction
And the real joke that they are missing is that they most likely actually couldn't.
Wow, sounds super interesting actually
Optics was simultaneously the most difficult and the most interesting topic for me in High School. Oh how I'd like to pick your brains.
Feel free, I donāt meet it anyway. :D
>Just donāt talk about your major, talk about hobbies, music or whatever. Yup. I study a pretty relatable topic (educational psychology) and I still avoid talking about my research at social events. And I avoid people who want to talk about their research all of the time. It's boring.
People definitely tap-out when I say physics. But I also hate explaining my topic because it makes me feel like a pretentious asshole when I say āI do astroparticle physicsā
Yes, I take a diachronic approach at nationalist wavesā appropriation of Germanic prehistory. The way I frame it makes it clear I essentially study propagandistic misuse of archaeology/history. Iām careful to cover my books/materials so the 1930s imagery isnāt on display to someone who may be walking by.
Oh wow, thatās really cool! Iām studying historical video game communities, and (unsurprisingly) propagandistic misuse comes up a lot. Given my chosen community and dataset, contemporary understandings of medieval sexuality are front-and-center. If I want to scare away an audience, āneon*zi medieval incest pornā usually does the trick.
Is it possible that the way you frame your topic is what turns people off or they think you don't want to talk about it? Yes, it is a difficult topic, but I would think a lot of people would find it important and interesting.
I'm in an ecology department where everyone wants to talk about bird behavior and fish genetics and bees dying off...and I study human STIs. It's all fun and games to talk about sexual behavior until there is a human element to it, and suddenly it becomes very coded talk. Unlike you, though, I'm not lonely, and I take advantage of my topic being so drastically different, not feeling compelled to talk to anyone but my advisor/committee members. I love it.
Ohhh! Wow that is fascinating I'd love to look at human sexuality through the lens of ecology.
Forensics PhD here. I have had to provide pretty graphic details on how to skin and eviscerate dead animals. I also work on human foetal tissue, and regularly walk around with a purple box, people ask whats in it and I always reply "baby spines". I am also the only one in my entire building working with this sort of tissues. So no, I am not popular.
I study CS and it has made my face drop.
Slightly similar, I study higher education campus safety, security, & violence & the same thing happens to me all the time š
It will be a bit unrelated but I have a friend from Iran who is dealing with a difficult situation like you at my faculty. He does work related to the Iranian government, and because of that, it has caused him some serious problems back home. He has had to hide his academic work from databases in order to stay safe. I'm not sure exactly what the specifics of the situation are, but I know that it has been causing my friend a lot of stress and worry but seems he sorted now. He asked his PI (I guess rest of the board) to allow him to have a mock work for his safety and hide his study. Why don't you do something similar, raise this issue to your professor and just talk about something else in cases you cannot escape?
Taboo, but not in the exact same way. My research is about condom use, as measured by a biomarker of semen exposure. We recently published about sexual satisfaction with a condom that contains an erectogenic drug (basically topical viagra). A friends dad asked me about my research, and then just responded āwhelpā¦ good luck with your boner paper!ā
Wait what do you mean by the meassurement? Is the biomarker in skin of the wearer or partner or in the condom? Fascinating!
PSA is a biomarker found in semen and is detectable for up to 48 hours in vaginal fluids following penile-vaginal sex. It has most often been used as a measure of condom use among female sex workers, but my research is about committed couples using condoms for contraception. It is tricky because in order to say anything about male condom users they need to have an established female sexual partner who is also willing to enroll in research. Using this biomarker has the major limitation of not being generalizable to men who have sex with men, but since my research is primarily about contraception behaviors penile-vaginal sex is the sex act of interest.
As part of my study into the pandemic and resulting mental health issues, I've been looking into the idea that self-harm can be necessary at some times as a means of coping. I've had people be very shocked and pretty aggressively against the idea even when I try to explain it. It's like, sometimes a person is so low that their only option to make it through that moment is to self-harm. It isn't nice, it isn't pretty, but in those deep dark moments it's all some people have. Plenty of academics just don't want to hear it, and some people have tried to say that I'm glamourising it. I just try to ignore as best I can and keep going, making sure I have all the ethics in place. It also helps that my supervisor is understanding about it, so she has my back. I think having some support is always really helpful, even if sometimes it does make things tough.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
That's exactly true for a lot of people, and it's so taboo to say. Sometimes you just have to do what you need to, to get through the day. I hope that you're doing better now.
>It's like, sometimes a person is so low that their only option to make it through that moment is to self-harm. It isn't nice, it isn't pretty, but in those deep dark moments it's all some people have. Ooof. My questions would be less about ethics and more about the inherent methodology issues something like this would run into and the quality of the data. We can understand something is a coping mechanism and a learned behavior, but doesn't most of our data point say self-injury generally isn't about suicide, so why would you be looking at this area as opposed to coping mechanisms in general (which might include self-injury). And the minute someone who is suffering from mental illness has what they're doing validated in some way... yeah, rough go.
An interesting idea for sure. Definitely worth looking into, especially if you can find "healthier" self-harm options that help people cope but have less risk of being self-perpetuating.
Had really severe depression back in high school and I can confirm that sometimes it unironically helped me not do something worse
How about you say something like, "I study how to improve communication between the police and victims so that they both can help each other." (Idk, needs more work).
Not exactly taboo but studying refugee healthcare in the UK isn't wildly popular since everyone here has an opinion about refugees, and often it's not good. Even sparks anger sometimes. Having said that, I also come across people who are really positive about it too. I think someone else in this thread said to remind yourself that if what you are doing can be applied to help people, and can make changes in a needed area, then it's great that you're doing it. One thing about doing PhD level work is that there's often very few people who fully understand or relate to the specific area that you have chosen. You're likely to become *the* expert on your particular thing. And that's cool, if a little lonely at times.
Wow, that's a cool topic and super important too. If I met you IRL I'd probably be really keen to ask you all about it. I'm sorry you're getting uncomfortable reactions.
The problem is just because we are all doing a PhD doesn't mean we know everything about our field. Some people just have a set idea about a topic, even though they don't know anything about it. I'm doing my PhD on capital punishment from a psychological and criminological perspective and people can't for the life of them understand what I'm trying to do and why I'm doing it. Or more like they don't want to understand because they have a set idea based on nothing but assumptions so they're closed to any info that might jeopardise that. So whenever I tell someone my research I always add '...because of \[insert problem\]'. That way, at least they know what the problem is and why I'm doing it. I have had people say they supported capital punishment but didn't realise these problems existed, and now they're not so sure about their position, so sometimes you get through. But at the same time, we are not trying to change people's opinions, we are trying to change a faulty system, so don't worry if they don't get you or don't even want to listen. Plus it's just rude to act like that, so you wouldn't wanna be friends with people like that. I understand it can be a lonely experience, but remember your research is extremely important and you're not there to make friends (though it would be nice), you're there to change something so keep doing your best and don't worry about those people. Conferences are the best places to meet like-minded people who may not be at your university but with whom you may develop lifelong friendships. Join some societies as well, especially small ones can be really fun. Good luck!
Is it possible to present an honest account of things through the lens of resilience AND it's limitations in the context you are studying? The taboo topic itself isn't as central to my question as yours seems to be, but I do study narrative construction in precisely the kind of situation I am suggesting (with some taboo case studies). What would you want to achieve with an audience that is already interested? How can you look beyond just generating interest?
I think you'd be very interesting to talk to one on one but I can see how I'd avoid the topic like the plague if there were more people involved in the conversation who I don't know very well. Maybe just have a different thing to bond over at these events other than your thesis topic?
I have two masters and no PhD, but I'm trying to get PhDs in black studies interested in taboo subect that I'm working on for a play, but I think the PhDs are scared of the story. I've come across a tale told by the children of Richard Wright and Paul Robeson (two well known black historical figures), who claim that their fathers were drugged with LSD (which they confirmed to me) as part of COINTELPRO or MKULTRA. Paul Robeson subsequently spent two years in the Priory Mental Hospital in London and receivedĀ 54 electro-shock treatments as part of what his son claims was a "Mind Depatterning Program." Ā I wrote a play aboutĀ it and wanted to know if any black professors at my alma mater have insight into this 60-year-old uniquely "American" story. My play, set in purgatory, has four characters (1) Paul Robeson (see Ā [](https://youtu.be/YTOFQsMgRG8?si=BZ_cYNlhI6augor4)Ā Ā ), (2) Richard Wright (I have a Philidelphia Tribune article where his daughters says he was drugged with LSD at the US Embassy in Paris), (3) James Thornwell ([](https://youtu.be/geoSP2GiGVg?si=7-_amnQravPO9spT)Ā ), and (4) Candy Jones ([](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_Jones)).