7 ms·

This 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 s

This 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 ago
What are the odds that the entire story is pure (and well written) fiction, and that Gerald Foos never existed?
- jzwinck 11y ago
  I 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 ago
    In 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 ago
  Gay 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.
  - partisan 11y ago
    Were you in the vent above him watching the whole time? Maybe he writes fictional pieces and then quietly flushes them down the toilet. Maybe there's a whole stack of fictional stories sitting on his desk waiting to be printed based on the popularity of this story. If I took one thing from this article, it's that you never know what other people do or don't do. It's the thing you know, but it's jarring when you are reminded of it.
    - qq66 11y ago
      Maybe he's a two-headed space alien.
    - yarou 11y ago
      Sure, but we have this nifty thing called Occam's Razor to immediately prune far fetched explanations, like someone secretly being a space lizard from Nibiru.
- cwhipasapa 11y ago
  There's an item about it in the Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29727885/aurora-motel-owner-decades-spied-guests-having-sex http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29727885/aurora-motel-owne... If the story checks out, I expect (or hope) the fallout will be a lot bigger in the coming weeks - that is assuming ISIS doesn't blow up the White house or Donald Trump commit suicide or something
- pivo 11y ago
  I actually suspected that this was fiction when I read the part about Mr. Talese's tie accidentally hanging down through the vent above the couple having sex. How could that possibly happen without him or the couple noticing it?
- pvg 11y ago
  Zero. The New Yorker labels its fiction as fiction.
mbrutsch 11y ago
> Foos is clearly a serial sexual offender When the "victims" have to be informed, decades later, that they even are victims, it makes you wonder.
- someone7x 11y ago
  To be fair, one of the victims was murdered because of the what he knew and did with that knowledge.
- russnewcomer 11y ago
  Sorry, it doesn't make me[0] wonder. It's still at the very least a moral failing. If it were encryption keys he was snooping on and not sex, would your response be different? [0]edit - I used the wrong pronoun (you) here in my initial post.
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    Yes, it's still morally wrong, but only on the level of a white-hat hacker who hacks into a system, snoops around a bit, but doesn't alter anything. I'm sure a lot of us here have done that...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  You can be victimized without being aware of it. Crimes against an infant, a comatose patient, etc. don't cease to be crimes.
  - bredren 11y ago
    Arguably, anyone living in the tax systems of those exposed in the Panama Papers are victims of the accused' possibly illegal, likely unethical tax avoidance.
    - 11y ago
knowaveragejoe 11y ago
Did you read the entire article? It's certainly illegal and distasteful, but the writings contain a lot of poignant commentary on modern life in general, not just sex; about war, eating habits, racial issues, and so on. I found this particularly interesting: > My voyeurism has contributed immensely to my becoming a futilitarian, and I hate this conditioning of my soul. . . . What is so distasteful is that the majority of subjects are in concert with these individuals in both design and plan. Many different approaches to life would be immediately implemented, if our society would have the opportunity to be Voyeur for a Day. Also this: > These experiences prodded Foos to concoct an “honesty test.” He would leave a suitcase, secured with a cheap padlock, in the closet of a motel room. When a guest checked in, he would say to Donna, in the guest’s hearing, that someone had just called to report leaving behind a suitcase with a thousand dollars inside. Foos then watched from the attic as the new guest found the suitcase and deliberated over whether to break the lock and look inside or return the suitcase to the motel office. > Out of fifteen guests who were subjected to the honesty test, including a minister, a lawyer, and an Army lieutenant colonel, only two returned the suitcase to the office with the padlock intact. The others all opened the suitcase and then tried to dispose of it in different ways. The minister pushed the suitcase out the bathroom window into the bushes.
- russnewcomer 11y ago
  I did read the entire article. I was very disturbed. The first of your quotes is actually part of what clearly disturbed me and made me think even more that Foos is clearly a sexual offender. The second of your quotes I found to be just a secularized and romanticized restating of basic Christian doctrine (or just the 'Golden Rule'), which makes me further disturbed that someone would have to wade through years of voyeurism to reach that conclusion.
  - daveguy 11y ago
    Just FYI -- the "golden rule" was around for thousands of years before Christianity. It is an essential human rule of empathy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule (Antiquity section)

ghshephard 11y ago

What are the odds that the entire story is pure (and well written) fiction, and that Gerald Foos never existed?

jzwinck 11y ago
I 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 ago
  In 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 ago
Gay 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.
- partisan 11y ago
  Were you in the vent above him watching the whole time? Maybe he writes fictional pieces and then quietly flushes them down the toilet. Maybe there's a whole stack of fictional stories sitting on his desk waiting to be printed based on the popularity of this story. If I took one thing from this article, it's that you never know what other people do or don't do. It's the thing you know, but it's jarring when you are reminded of it.
  - qq66 11y ago
    Maybe he's a two-headed space alien.
  - yarou 11y ago
    Sure, but we have this nifty thing called Occam's Razor to immediately prune far fetched explanations, like someone secretly being a space lizard from Nibiru.
cwhipasapa 11y ago
There's an item about it in the Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29727885/aurora-motel-owner-decades-spied-guests-having-sex http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29727885/aurora-motel-owne... If the story checks out, I expect (or hope) the fallout will be a lot bigger in the coming weeks - that is assuming ISIS doesn't blow up the White house or Donald Trump commit suicide or something
pivo 11y ago
I actually suspected that this was fiction when I read the part about Mr. Talese's tie accidentally hanging down through the vent above the couple having sex. How could that possibly happen without him or the couple noticing it?
pvg 11y ago
Zero. The New Yorker labels its fiction as fiction.

mbrutsch 11y ago

> Foos is clearly a serial sexual offender When the "victims" have to be informed, decades later, that they even are victims, it makes you wonder.

someone7x 11y ago
To be fair, one of the victims was murdered because of the what he knew and did with that knowledge.
russnewcomer 11y ago
Sorry, it doesn't make me[0] wonder. It's still at the very least a moral failing. If it were encryption keys he was snooping on and not sex, would your response be different? [0]edit - I used the wrong pronoun (you) here in my initial post.
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  Yes, it's still morally wrong, but only on the level of a white-hat hacker who hacks into a system, snoops around a bit, but doesn't alter anything. I'm sure a lot of us here have done that...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ceejayoz 11y ago
You can be victimized without being aware of it. Crimes against an infant, a comatose patient, etc. don't cease to be crimes.
- bredren 11y ago
  Arguably, anyone living in the tax systems of those exposed in the Panama Papers are victims of the accused' possibly illegal, likely unethical tax avoidance.
  - 11y ago

knowaveragejoe 11y ago

Did you read the entire article? It's certainly illegal and distasteful, but the writings contain a lot of poignant commentary on modern life in general, not just sex; about war, eating habits, racial issues, and so on. I found this particularly interesting: > My voyeurism has contributed immensely to my becoming a futilitarian, and I hate this conditioning of my soul. . . . What is so distasteful is that the majority of subjects are in concert with these individuals in both design and plan. Many different approaches to life would be immediately implemented, if our society would have the opportunity to be Voyeur for a Day. Also this: > These experiences prodded Foos to concoct an “honesty test.” He would leave a suitcase, secured with a cheap padlock, in the closet of a motel room. When a guest checked in, he would say to Donna, in the guest’s hearing, that someone had just called to report leaving behind a suitcase with a thousand dollars inside. Foos then watched from the attic as the new guest found the suitcase and deliberated over whether to break the lock and look inside or return the suitcase to the motel office. > Out of fifteen guests who were subjected to the honesty test, including a minister, a lawyer, and an Army lieutenant colonel, only two returned the suitcase to the office with the padlock intact. The others all opened the suitcase and then tried to dispose of it in different ways. The minister pushed the suitcase out the bathroom window into the bushes.

russnewcomer 11y ago
I did read the entire article. I was very disturbed. The first of your quotes is actually part of what clearly disturbed me and made me think even more that Foos is clearly a sexual offender. The second of your quotes I found to be just a secularized and romanticized restating of basic Christian doctrine (or just the 'Golden Rule'), which makes me further disturbed that someone would have to wade through years of voyeurism to reach that conclusion.
- daveguy 11y ago
  Just FYI -- the "golden rule" was around for thousands of years before Christianity. It is an essential human rule of empathy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule (Antiquity section)