Post: #1

https://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/31303712/man...esearcher/

Quote:An obsessive voyeur who bought a hotel in the US so he could spend decades watching people have sex through peep-holes disguised as ceiling vents told a journalist he wants to be seen as a 'scientific observer' in a disturbing new report.

Gerald Foos bought a 21-room hotel in Aurora, Colorado in 1966, cutting rectangular holes in the ceilings so he could lie on his stomach and watch people in their most private moments.
Gerald Foos bought this hotel in the US so he could spend decades watching people have sex. Photo: Google Maps
Gerald Foos wanted to be referred to as a 'sex researcher and social observer' rather than a Peeping Tom in the book to be published this year based on his findings. Photo: Google Maps

He was married twice during his life, and both wives supported his self-professed 'uncontrollable desire to peer into other people's lives'.

In 1980, Foos contacted American journalist Gay Talese after reading 'Thy Neighbor's Wife - a study Talese had carried out about sex in America.

Foos himself had penned an unsolicited 'report' about the acts his guests engaged in behind closed doors, that he witnessed without consent, and was compelled to contact Talese to let him know of his 'findings'.

It would be the first contact of more than 20 years of correspondence between the two men.

In a report published today, Talese describes receiving the first letter from Foos, saying he was "deeply unsettled by the way he had violated his customers’ trust and invaded their privacy".
Gay Talese was contacted by Gerard Foos in the 1980s with his detailed logs on motel guests having sexPhoto: Getty Images

The letter read:

Dear Mr. Talese:
Since learning of your long awaited study of coast-to-coast sex in America, which will be included in your soon to be published book, “Thy Neighbor’s Wife,” I feel I have important information that I could contribute to its contents or to contents of a future book.

Foos told Talese he was 'trying to identify significant social trends' in 296 sexual acts he'd witnessed and recorded. He noted that 195 involved white heterosexuals who preferred missionary position.

He said he noted 184 male orgasms and 33 female orgasms. Only three percent of his guests failed to have sex, he said.

Foos attempt at a 'scientific' report found 62 per cent of people he watched while hidden in the ceiling led 'moderately active sexual lives'.

Twelve per cent were 'highly sexed', and 22 percent exhibited a low sex drive.

"The reason for purchasing this motel was to satisfy my voyeuristic tendencies and compelling interest in all phases of how people conduct their lives, both socially and sexually... I did this purely out of my unlimited curiosity about people and not as just a deranged voyeur," the man wrote to Talese in one of his initial letters.

Foos trusted Talese so much with his perverted obsession that he showed the journalist 15 years worth of detailed documentation of the acts he witnessed.
This is the book written by Gay Talese based on Gerald Foos findings and will be available for purchase on July 12, 2016. Photo: Amazon

Disturbingly, one of the instances documented suggested Foos had witnessed a murder.

"The male subject grabbed the female subject by the neck and strangled her until she fell unconscious to the floor," Talese reports Foos had written in the journal he saw.

After years of correspondence, Foos told Talese he was ready to tell the story in 2013.

He emphasised he wanted to be referred to as a 'sex researcher and social observer' rather than a Peeping Tom, despite never having had permission to watch anything he spent decades viewing from a secret nook inside his hotel attic.

Post: #2

Gay Talese, despite his unfortunate first name, is one of my favorite writers.

Read the entire piece:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/0...eurs-motel

I would also highly recommend his book about the Bonanno crime family, Honor Thy Father.

He's cultivated a signature look for himself. Like Tom Wolfe, he wouldn't be caught dead in anything but a suit.



He's an old school G, and it's great to see him putting out quality work into his 80's.

Edit:

I'll add this quote from the piece

Quote: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.”

Post: #3

I found the article quiet interesting.

Very rarely does anyone get to observe enough people, who don't realise they are being observed, to witness the full spectrum of human beings.

(The death of the drug dealer's girl was obviously a regrettable incident that clearly haunts the subject).

Post: #4

Is this "scientist" going to prison?

Post: #5

Guess I can't really understand why some people pursue these bizarre fetishes to such extremes.

Even assuming this guy was a complete beta who could never get a girlfriend, with the money he spent buy a hotel he could have easily hired hookers or just visited strip clubs, or hell just view free internet porn.

Why anyone would waste this much time and money just to see some ugly strangers having sex is completely beyond me.

Post: #6

Talese is from my part of the Jersey Shore, the same county, but a little up the coast.

Post: #7

Quote:He 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."

Post: #8

(04-09-2016 09:41 PM)bigrich Wrote:  Is this "scientist" going to prison?

Pretty sure the statute of limitations has long since passed.

Post: #9

What a weird guy. At the same time, some questions can only be answered by unethical research methods. A good chunk of medical knowledge we have is from Nazi experiments on the Jews & Gypsies.

Post: #10

An interesting facet is, he found not one, but TWO wives who were willing accomplices in this.

Post: #11

(04-09-2016 11:48 PM)LeeEnfield303 Wrote:  

(04-09-2016 09:41 PM)bigrich Wrote:  Is this "scientist" going to prison?

Pretty sure the statute of limitations has long since passed.

This. And the hotel is now closed(as if anyone would go there now). As expected yelp reviews are rolling in and they're gold, here's my favorite:

Quote:great place to crank one out. i would always love to make eye contact with gerald through the ceiling air vent covers as i shot one off.

Post: #12

(04-10-2016 12:17 AM)Tytalus Wrote:  What a weird guy. At the same time, some questions can only be answered by unethical research methods. A good chunk of medical knowledge we have is from Nazi experiments on the Jews & Gypsies.

Most of this "scientific research" is invalid, because of subject group.

People specifically go to hotels to have sex (affairs, etc), so this "research" wouldn't be credible if we want to talk about the real sex habits and preferences of humans in general.

(04-10-2016 12:32 AM)Goldin Boy Wrote:  Is this "scientist" going to prison?
As expected yelp reviews are rolling in and they're gold, here's my favorite:

Quote:great place to crank one out. i would always love to make eye contact with gerald through the ceiling air vent covers as i shot one off.

There's actually only five reviews total, so here is the other clever one.

Quote:I really love how the proprietor kept such a keen eye out for me and my lovely wife! We felt very well taken care of; the accommodations are top-shelf. It's a very quiet establishment -- my wife and I didn't hear a peep all evening.

Post: #13

(04-09-2016 06:49 PM)Bacchus Wrote:  

Quote: Talese was speaking about his illustrious career at a Boston University conference on journalism called “The Power of Narrative” when he was asked by an audience member at the end of his talk which women journalists inspired him.

“I didn’t know any women writers that I loved,” Talese said, according to a a tweet from NBC reporter Andrea Swalec, before rejecting the suggestion shouted out from another audience member that Joan Didion may have influenced him.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national...-1.2586314

Post: #14

@debeguiled

Your post made me look up that story, and I found this hilarious story from one of Talese's teaching assistants. It reads like something from XO Jane's "It Happened to Me" files.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/postevery...se-sexism/

Quote:Our fallout occurred just a few classes into the semester. During a 10-minute break, Talese asked me to make him a cup of tea. The request seemed vaguely demeaning and inappropriate. But I wasn’t really in a position to consider it. My hands were already full with a stack of handouts he’d asked me to photocopy for him. “I’m on my way to copy these,” I nodded toward the stack. “There’s a kitchen just through there, with a kettle on the stove and an assortment of teas in the cabinet.” Our class met at Penn’s Writers House, a lovely 13-room Victorian on the main campus walk that’s a make-yourself-at-home sort of space. Other students from the class had already congregated in the kitchen — I could hear laughter as someone finished telling a story. I assured Talese that they would help if he had trouble finding anything, and then I headed upstairs to the photocopier.

After class that day, we ended up revisiting the tea episode, and Talese berated me for refusing his request. One comment still sears. “You’re not perky enough for me,” he said.