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The Voyeur's Motel
- uptownfunk 11y agoHe also made note of guests whose behavior he found weird or upsetting: the guy who secretly urinated in his date’s bourbon; the obese fellow who checked in with a much younger man and then dressed him up in a furry costume with horns, saying, “You are heavenly; I have never seen a more beautiful sheep-boy."
- sridca 11y agoHe had come to believe that the arrival of the birth-control pill, in the early sixties, which he’d originally celebrated, encouraged many men to expect sex on demand: “Women had won the legal right to choose but had lost the right to choose the right moment.” He felt that the war between the sexes had escalated and that sexual relations were getting worse, not better. * He maintained that most men are natural voyeurs. “But most women prefer being watched to watching others,” he said, “which may partly explain why men spend fortunes on porn and women on cosmetics.”
- talles 11y ago[removed]
- talles 11y ago[removed]
- masklinn 11y agoIt's a link to The New Yorker, not penthouse. And Gay Talese is the article's author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Talese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Talese
- mgbmtl 11y agotl;dr: it's an article about a couple who bought a motel to spy on their guests, and did pseudo-documentation about their guests habits. There are no photos or anything inappropriate. Says a lot about sexual taboos in the US.
- bryanlarsen 11y agoNo, it's not NSFW. It's long, though, so probably not a great use of work time.
- metabrew 11y agoWow
- prawn 11y agoNo surprise to find that the TripAdvisor page for the motel in question is unable to find any current pricing... https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Hotel_Review-g29144-d119972-Reviews-Manor_House_Motel-Aurora_Colorado.html https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Hotel_Review-g29144-d119972-R... The author of the piece, Gay Talese, is well known for the very famous article Frank Sinatra Has a Cold: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra_Has_a_Cold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra_Has_a_Cold
- 300bps 11y agoThe end of he article details how the motel was sold in the 90s and subsequently completely razed.
- oska 11y agoNice last line. Also, I wonder if Foos' choice of name for his second notebook was a reference, at least in part, to the John Fowles novel? [1] I think it quite likely he was aware of the novel, given that he was a reader and given John Fowles' high level of fame in that time period. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collector
- rememberlenny 11y agoIf you haven't noticed, the New Yorker also redesigned their top navigation. It's a brilliant design from https://twitter.com/mimicdecipher https://twitter.com/mimicdecipher and implemented by https://twitter.com/erik_erikson https://twitter.com/erik_erikson
- conorh 11y agoI find these sticky top navs extremely annoying. I like to have the entire screen for reading, rather than partially obscured by an unnecessary header, I'm quite capable of going back to the top of the page if I need the nav thank you.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ableal 11y agoMy laptop noticed, and started its fan singing in praise. Had to go into reader mode to pull Firefox down from 50% CPU.
- Strilanc 11y agoThat "brilliant design" is permanently wasting 15% of the screen real-estate on showing buttons irrelevant to reading the article. (Why is it pinned??)
- russnewcomer 11y agoThis is a pretty disturbing article, and I feel like Talese should have reported Foos to the local authorities. Foos is clearly a serial sexual offender, and should have been reported or at the very least put into treatment. Talese admits that Foos is an unreliable narrator and is pretty clearly a voyeur for sexual purposes, mentally shielding himself by saying, "oh, I'm just a researcher." Journalism is one thing. This is enabling a predator, just as much as Foos' two wives.
- ghshephard 11y agoWhat are the odds that the entire story is pure (and well written) fiction, and that Gerald Foos never existed?
- jzwinck 11y agoI would expect the purchase and sale of the hotel is a matter of public record, so it should be straightforward to check if the guy really ran the place.
- saalweachter 11y agoIn the article, it mentions the sale of the hotel was recorded in '69, while the journal starts in '66. Meanwhile, the local police have no record of the murder, unsolved or otherwise. It's possible those discrepancies could be explained, but the author left them in there to likely indicate he believes the voyeur's account is a mix of fantasy and reality. Which gives it dubious value as a research document, ignoring the ethics of how it was collected. Which in turn makes it difficult to rationalize the way in which the data was collected, if the data is of no value.
- qq66 11y agoGay Talese doesn't really write fiction. He may have never written a fiction piece in his life, it would be an odd time in his career to start.
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- uptownfunk 11y agoI saw "German-American" and started reading Foos's speech in the voice of Hannibal Lechter (from the TV show..)
- feintruled 11y agoI was momentarily confused how this article was dated in the future - I guess it takes the date of the print edition? Very interested to see if there is any fallout from this. As interesting as this story is, the author facilitated a crime for decades. I can't see any other way of looking at it.
- ceejayoz 11y ago> As interesting as this story is, the author facilitated a crime for decades. As well as committing at least one himself. > Despite an insistent voice in my head telling me to look away, I continued to observe, bending my head farther down for a closer view.
- joshontheweb 11y agoAll morality aside, this is a pretty fascinating glimpse into american/human personal culture. Adding morality back in and it is hard not to consider this a serious breach of trust and worthy of countless criminal charges.
- cwhipasapa 11y agoWhat did you find fascinating about it? (I assume you're referring to the content of the journals not the story about it)
- joshvm 11y agoThere is a certain morbid curiosity about it, for the same reason that people watch Big Brother obsessively. Worth watching "The Lives of Others" if you haven't already, though that deals with other problems. There is an argument that laboratory psychology testing is prone to bias. Any study which relies on self-reporting is liable to people under or overestimating. Any study which requires consent inevitably attracts people who would be interested in being experimented on. Morality aside, performing experiments and studies on people who have absolutely no idea what's going on is the ultimate way to remove bias. The sort of 'results' that come out of Foos' 'study' are fascinating because they simply cannot be obtained by any legal means. People behave differently when they know they're being observed. However fascination doesn't necessarily imply scientific utility... The sex is actually the least fascinating thing about the journals - even Foos was continually disappointed by how dull his subjects were sexually. What's interesting are his observations on the minutiae in people's lives, the mundane things people do when they know they're not being watched (even something as 'weird' as sitting on a toilet backwards).
- joshontheweb 11y agoThe story and the journal. I actually just got back from an overnight getaway with my wife last night where we stayed in a small privately owned motel. I couldn't help but find myself wondering who could have been watching. This sort of thing would be much easier to pull off with todays technology and I'm sure that it does happen more. How violated would I feel if I found out that a creep motel owner was watching? How would I feel about that compared to the government surveillance that is happening. I can confidently say that I am far more worried about big brother than the motel clerk. Although neither are welcome. I suspect there are many gems in his journals that mirror societal norms and deviations of the time. The inter-racial sex trends. The 70 orgys. I never knew you could sit on a toilet sideways or backwards. Why would you do this? Maybe I'll convert, who knows! The fact that he explained it all away in his mind is especially curious. It is easy to judge but are we as a society of major consumers of pornography and reality tv really that far away from this guy? There are some obvious legal distinctions in his actions but the compulsion seems alive and well in most people. The whole story just brought up so many questions and curiosities. EDIT: Spelling
- Overtonwindow 11y agoI must confess this was a fascinating article. Voyeurism is one of those weird things that I think most people deride, but wouldn't hesitate to participate should the opportunity arise.
- ryankupyn 11y agoThe most concerning thing about this article is the implications if someone like Foos has access to the levers of modern technology. Imagine if, instead of owning a motel, he worked on Dropcam at Nest (I certainly hope they have the ability to monitor and audit their own personnel, for their own sake). The article is really a brilliant example of how we should not view the organizations/institutions we interact with as impersonal abstractions, but should always consider the human beings - and human flaws/motives - behind them.
- LouisSayers 11y ago* turns head to look out for seedy looking ops / db admin guys in the room It is pretty crazy - only two people returned that 'suitcase full of money'.
- nathan_f77 11y agoThis was a great read. Probably the longest article I've read in a long time. I need more long-form content in my life.
- dcre 11y agohttps://longreads.com/ https://longreads.com/
- qq66 11y agoMake sure it's good long-form content, not just articles that are long. Gay Talese's other articles are a good place to start.
- basch 11y agohttp://redef.com/channel/media/feed http://redef.com/channel/media/feed http://readability.com/topreads http://readability.com/topreads https://longreads.com/ https://longreads.com/ http://longform.org/ http://longform.org/ longform has a great app
- Benjamin_Dobell 11y agoReally? This is Hacker News, not Reddit. Please take the immoral, illegal, crude content elsewhere. The fact that it's a well written article doesn't change the fact that HN isn't the place for this sort of thing.
- blubb-fish 11y ago> The fact that it's a well written article doesn't change the fact that HN isn't the place for this sort of thing. Oh, I beg to differ :)
- AndrewUnmuted 11y agoDo you not see the vast number of connections that can be drawn to today's dragnet surveillance discussions? I think this article adds some really intriguing and thought-provoking context to our current debate. Nevertheless, you're breakin da rules, son! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ceejayoz 11y agoThe HN guidelines: > Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click "flag" at the top.
- ggggtez 11y agoThe author takes a long time but eventually compares this guy to the unibomber. Why? Who the heck knows. I really don't think that's a justified comparison.
- klodolph 11y agoI think there's a common motive here (motive for publication). People who are disgusted by modern society, believe they have some kind of privileged moral viewpoint (see wrongs that others don't), and want to share it with the world but need to remain anonymous because of connected criminal acts.
- basch 11y agoeveryone wants a page in a history book no one wants their name uttered for a last time. to me it sounds like their ways of ensuring remembrance. the end goal being to become some kind of communal deity, foras an ancestral deity is much more at risk of being forgotten.
- cwhipasapa 11y agoThis is so monstrously evil I'm speechless, even discounting the alleged murder that may or may not have taken place. I can't believe the author knowingly took part in this and even enabled it. All men are voyeurs just like all men are born murderers - who hasn't at some point felt like taking a life in anger even if only for a brief moment. Most men just don't do it. There is no justification, scientific or otherwise for this (and those claims are extremely dubious anyway). I really hope, if this is true, there is some legal way for Foos to suffer some serious consequences, however short the rest of his life is.
- LouisSayers 11y agoI find it interesting to see how people react to this article. I try my best to see what can be learnt from this - he is offering insights into a private world that we don't 'get to see', and yes the alleged murder is a caveat to the whole thing - which should be treated (and is) treated differently to the rest of the story. I do find your comment quite judgemental and vengeful. I'm not condoning his actions, but simply saying that I think we benefit as a society more from learning from this man, including learning from his behaviour rather than spending our energy and resources hating on and wanting to punish someone for essentially an act (excluding the death) of which had no effect on the people being watched. To punish him in my mind is to say that we should keep these things in the closet (or attic in this case), and the lesson from that is only to hide what really goes on in the world instead of sharing what really goes on. I'd rather know about this and encourage others to share their stories.
- russnewcomer 11y agoWould your reaction be different if he were a sysadmin snooping on emails, didn't ever do anything from the snooping, just snooped?
- klodolph 11y agoTo be perfectly honest with you, as someone who worked in IT and knew how easy it was to snoop on emails if I wanted, I have decided that I am okay with a few strangers reading my emails. I decided that the alternative--being upset about something I cannot change and which impacts me little--is worse. I can't pretend to speak on others' behalf.
- MzHN 11y agoReading this I am constantly reminded of the story "GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide" [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7312212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7312212
- nosuchthing 11y agoIP cameras are generally publicly accessible from the internet by a massive amount of users due to them simply not knowing their camera system broadcasts in such a way. Most cameras will show up with a google search for the camera model's webpage viewer. http://www.opentopia.com/hiddencam.php http://www.opentopia.com/hiddencam.php
- Animats 11y agoVoyeurism, before low cost cameras. The Hollywood version of this is "Sliver", from 1993, starring Sharon Stone, William Baldwin and Tom Berenger.[1] This Gay Talese story is sort of a low-rent version of that movie. It's so close that I suspect it was written after seeing the movie. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliver_%28film%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliver_%28film%29
- cwhipasapa 11y agoI find your comment to be idiotic at best. Sorry to go off like that, but by your logic people who condemned Dr Mengele are being judgemental (sure I know the crimes are not nearly at the same scale). The fact that you find this interesting or fascinating (and it is a moot point whether the observations are really contributing anything at all to human knowledge) is completely besides the point. I don't understand how some HN readers wouldn't think 2wice about condemning what the NSA does (which has some justification and would be really fascinating if we could all see it) and think of giving this a pass (presumably since it did not involve your own privacy).
- klodolph 11y agoHanging a lampshade on your comparison to Nazi experimentation by Dr. Mengele does not make up for the fact that the comparison is not apt at all. Let's keep our fingers off the launch buttons, please?
- LouisSayers 11y agoTo condemn one's actions, and to judge a person are two separate things and are not mutually exclusive. Given that my comments are 'idiotic at best', I think you've proven the point that you are quick to judge.
- dang 11y agoViolating the site guidelines (by calling names) then heading straight for Mengele is definitely not what makes for a good comment here. Please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11434103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11434103 and marked it off-topic.
- Zigurd 11y agoOh man, I just now used "John Yoo" as a pejorative. Did I go Mengele on the law there?
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- tryitnow 11y agoThis is some of the best longform I've read in a while. If you're wavering between reading it or not, read it. I immediately bought one of Talese's books after reading this article. He's a fantastic writer.
- tryitnow 11y agoThis is some of the best longform I've read in a while. If you're wavering between reading it or not, read it. I immediately bought one of Talese's books after reading this article. He's a fantastic writer.
- mrexroad 11y agoI am very curious about everything and everyone I see . . . and so I have felt invisible also, as a child feels himself invisible, beneath the radar of adult supervision. The consequence of so much unsupervised freedom was that I became precociously independent. Do children today still feel "invisible, beneath the radar" given today's general lack of "so much unsupervised freedom?" Or was Foos invisibility/curiosity dynamic just a product of his disorder? In college, I was career given advice along the lines of, "you're a student, you're still under the radar and get access to so many things normally off limits to the public. use this. go to different types of companies, ask for special tours, ask questions you don't think they'll answer--learn how things really work. you're not competition to them, yet." Though now days, I'm pretty sure students are on the radar, and would just be routed to the official corporate intern/co-op/recruiter/etc program.
- wglb 11y agoGay Talese is a great storyteller. However, there is something slightly off about the story, most fully exhibited by the lack of verification of the murder that Foss claimed to at least partially witness. Also, there are some convenient events that sustain the narrative, such as the fact that he was able to follow one of the guests home and see her crying through the window. One wonders if what Foss was telling him, however train-wreck compelling, was only about half true.
- mcphage 11y ago> One wonders if what Foss was telling him, however train-wreck compelling, was only about half true. No doubt that's why Talese included all of those inconsistencies in his story.
- ableereelba 11y agoI agree. There is something off: the neck tie, the SOB comment, so careful yet no fear of animals, the complicit wife, loner/sports star, a murder...
- ableereelba 11y agoGerald foos: April fools?
- silverbacknet 11y agoSo many of the quotes feel like pure projection. The guy makes up little fantasies about everyone he spied on, even assuming his tales are true, he certainly doesn't interview them afterward to see if he guessed right or was way off. For every fact there's a lot more deep ruminating that would be more at home in LiveJournal than a sociology study, but it was his journal, so I can't really fault him for that. If it's true, it's an interesting peek into his mind, and confirmation of some public vs private social mores, but all the pontification on society and morality and futility is just so much old man yelling at clouds.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]