Robert Allan Humphreys; Priest, Author

Robert Allan (Laud) Humphreys, professor, Episcopal priest and psychotherapist whose study of random homosexual behavior became the critically praised book “Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places,” has died.

The professor of sociology at Pitzer College was 57 and lost a lengthy battle with lung cancer on Tuesday at Sherman Oaks Community Hospital.

Son of an Oklahoma state legislator, Humphreys, who served a short jail term for taking part in a draft board demonstration during the Vietnam War, was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1955 after receiving his master of divinity degree from Seabury Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill.

He served in churches in Oklahoma, Colorado and Kansas before returning to school to earn master’s and doctoral degrees in sociology and criminology from Washington University in St. Louis. He was an associate professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University and the State University of New York before coming to Pitzer in 1972. He became a full professor at that Claremont Colleges school in 1975.

In 1980 he obtained a state psychotherapy license and established a private counseling practice.

Over the years he contributed articles to the Encyclopedia Americana on crime, while “Tearoom Trade” won the C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems as the outstanding book on a critical social issue for 1970.

A second book, “Out of the Closets: The Sociology of Homosexual Liberation,” was published in 1972.

In 1975 he issued a two-year study of 111 homosexual murder victims in which he concluded that most of their killers were heterosexuals who had a fear or hatred of homosexuality.

Humphreys was a member of the American Sociological Assn., the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the Pacific Sociology Assn. and many other professional groups. He also served in the Assn. of Gay and Lesbian Psychologists and the gay rights chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Survivors include a daughter, a son, and two brothers.

A Mass will be celebrated at St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church in Hollywood tonight at 7:30, while a memorial tribute will be held at Pitzer at a date to be announced.