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    pedanticpossumJoanna Rothkopf
    4/11/16 3:42pm

    This man is a predator. He can couch it in research, but he’s a predator.

    Stumbling across someone in the wilderness having sex and watching for a few minutes? Morally wrong, but not indicative of a disturbed mind.

    Setting up a hotel to spy on people having sex? Predatory.

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      BusPassTrollop curls up and diespedanticpossum
      4/11/16 3:51pm

      How is it any different though? It may *feel* different to you, you may convince yourself that it is different...but how is it different? I’m just curious. I loved the original article, my partner and I discussed it at length and my feelings changed every few minutes. It was fascinating to me.

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      Cherith CutestoryBusPassTrollop curls up and dies
      4/11/16 3:56pm

      Intentional, systematic transgressions over the course of decades is different from a momentary loss of judgment.

      You don’t set up the situation in the woods. You don’t direct the most attractive people to those woods. You don’t build an observation deck. You don’t wait for them to have sex. You don’t write about them.

      In any crime degree of intent matters. Manslaughter (killing someone in a passion without intent) is treated differently from premeditated murder, for instance.

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    weebleswobbleJoanna Rothkopf
    4/11/16 3:48pm

    One of the most disturbing things in the original article was that Foos AND Talese clearly felt (and explicitly stated) that because the guests didn’t know this was happening it wasn’t a real crime - a no harm-no foul approach to consent that is truly terrifying.

    The fact that Talese allowed this to go on for DECADES without turning Foos in just further exposes the fact that he too viewed it as a victimless crime.

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      pedanticpossumweebleswobble
      4/11/16 3:51pm

      And they are both going to profit from it.

      Unfortunately, while it was a crime when he was doing it, I think it’s outside the statute of limitations now.

      So he’s going to get away with it and profit from it.

      This is sick, sick, sick.

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      Sqarrweebleswobble
      4/11/16 3:54pm

      “I’m not raping you because you’re unconscious! You won’t even know what happened! It’s all good! I’m just researching the effects of the drug I gave you and making detailed mental notes about your physical aspects. It’s all good. It’s all good. It’s cool. Nothing wrong happening here. I’m not hiding my behaviour from you by drugging you beforehand because I know what I’m doing is wrong! This is just perfectly innocent research.”

      GIF
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    randilynisFINDILYNJoanna Rothkopf
    4/11/16 3:50pm

    Finished reading and immediately felt a strong urge to take a shower. After I had checked for a camera.

    Thank you for covering this simultaneously fascinating and repulsive story. Weird that Gay Talese is probably trending...

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      deerlady83randilynisFINDILYN
      4/11/16 3:54pm

      I feel like taking a shower. Between this and Erin Andrews, I’m going to be worried taking my trip to Florida in June. I'll be looking for cameras in my hotel room.

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      randilynisFINDILYNdeerlady83
      4/11/16 3:59pm

      It’s never really a bad idea, as a general practice.

      (I’m married to a former security consultant and he checks everything)

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    deerlady83Joanna Rothkopf
    4/11/16 3:49pm

    This man violated so many people with his “observation,” it’s unreal. Not just by watching but going into their rooms and touching their things. Even if he did see drugs, call the police. I’m not sure how true the story about the murder woman is but it shows how callously he treated the people he observed. I can’t believe that Talese is defending him and saying that this man’s “research” has value. It's untrustworthy and full of bias.

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      Cherith Cutestorydeerlady83
      4/11/16 4:00pm

      He also followed a woman home at least once.

      I don’t know about the murder story. It’s entirely possible he made it up to spice things up. It’s possible he doesn’t know what’s true anymore. But I also think Talese doesn’t want it to be true. So, I wonder if Talese is an unreliable narrator hoping a narrator is unreliable.

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      MarkKenaleizdurgdeerlady83
      4/11/16 4:00pm

      Did you really read the article? I did, and I missed where Talese defends Foos.

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    WillTheyorWon'tThey?Joanna Rothkopf
    4/11/16 3:38pm

    Glad to see this being covered. It’s been surprisingly overlooked by the press.

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      pedanticpossumWillTheyorWon'tThey?
      4/11/16 3:49pm

      Lest we forget: This is morally wrong and was illegal when he did it.

      Of course, most of this is probably outside the statute of limitations. Which is why this is being published now.

      F*cker is going to get away with a vile act and profit from it.

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      Eve WhiteWillTheyorWon'tThey?
      4/11/16 3:53pm

      I was totally shocked that it didn’t get more coverage. An old white male author (one already getting heat in the media cycle for another issue) admits to willfully violating the privacy of others in an article that borderline glorifies the criminal and completely ignores the impact on the victims being spied on.

      And it wasn’t even in the name of a story! He says up front that he went to meet him out of curiosity, never intending to write an article about it.

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    septembergrrlJoanna Rothkopf
    4/11/16 4:11pm

    This article made me crazy, and I’m so glad people are talking about it.

    As a journalist, I think the only ethical reason to protect a source who is committing a crime is if their cooperation is key to uncovering a larger one. (E.g., if you’re working on a story about a gang leader, you don’t need to turn in every low-level drug dealer you talk to.) But there’s no public good here. Nobody needs 30 years worth of some perv’s notes on the way people have sex in his motel. So there was absolutely no reason Talese shouldn’t have gone straight from the motel to the local police department as soon as he was certain the voyeurism was a real thing. He didn’t because he was intrigued and didn’t see the invasion of privacy as a serious issue, and that’s just grotesque.

    (When my husband was telling me about this story, he said it was a victimless crime. I told him only a man could possibly consider voyeurism a victimless crime. He couldn’t argue back.)

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      SummerOf2015septembergrrl
      4/11/16 8:21pm

      I’m a male journalist, and I take the standard of “public good” very seriously. I feel certain I would not have done what Talese did, and I think less of him for doing it.

      But I also recognize that others have a different outlook on things.

      For some, Talese will be not just an unethical writer chasing a juicy story at all costs, but more akin to the Catholic Church as far as aiding and abetting an offender continue with their crimes. These people may seek to hold Talese liable in civil court for criminal actions, and would likely seek criminal charges against Talese if the law would allow it.

      At the other end, some will see tremendous value in Talese bringing to light a.) the existence and persistence of a voyeurism operation that affected hundreds unwittingly who otherwise would have no idea about it b.) insight into one man in particular who may actually help all of us understand at least a tiny bit better how compulsion and sex can become intertwined.

      All of us should condemn those who seek sexual gratification by violating the rights of others. But what Talese has done in writing this story is not as easy to judge, imo, or at least not as easy to categorize with any degree of certitude.

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      septembergrrlSummerOf2015
      4/12/16 12:58pm

      I’m not arguing that Foos or Talese should be tried for what they did, mainly because in practical terms it’d be hard to prove damages. Most people aren’t going to remember the name of a motel they stayed in 30-odd years ago, let alone be able to establish that they were among the couples Foos watched, let alone show that they were harmed by his actions. (This may change if his full journals are ever published and some of the couples discussed are identifiable.)

      But I disagree that there’s any discernible value in Talese bringing the voyeurism to light at this late date. If he’d gone straight to the police and written an article bringing Foos’ activities to light in 1980, that would have done all the things you mention. In 2016, when the hotel is long closed, I would say his journals are roughly as valuable as something like My Secret Life or the blog that Secret Diary of a Call Girl was based on — arguably interesting, but not exactly groundbreaking research into human sexuality.

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    mscoffeeJoanna Rothkopf
    4/11/16 3:59pm

    I was waiting for coverage of this piece. The entire time I was reading it last week I did this:

    ????? O_o ?????!?!?!?!

    What Foos did was unethical, but I'm deeply fascinated by his sense of his own self-image and sort of... what makes a person be like that, if that makes sense.

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      HubcapJennymscoffee
      4/11/16 4:13pm

      I know sociopathy gets trotted out a lot these days, but I have to wonder if it’s applicable here. Viewing others as mere objects for his amusement, inflated sense of self, believing that he’s doing important research when he’s just violating people.

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      Cherith CutestoryHubcapJenny
      4/11/16 4:31pm

      Maybe. But I think the reason he had to convince himself it was research was to placate any guilt he was feeling over it. And pretend it wasn’t really any different from Kinsey. Would a sociopath care enough about the violation to have to justify it to themselves? I have no idea.

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    Murry ChangJoanna Rothkopf
    4/11/16 4:21pm

    How does one even go about getting an article about events that happened nearly 40 years ago published? Or am I reading something wrong here?

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      weebleswobbleMurry Chang
      4/11/16 4:24pm

      One is Guy Talese.

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      Murry Changweebleswobble
      4/11/16 4:32pm

      Yeah I saw that. I hadn’t heard of him before the recent kerfuffle involving his old white guy views, but now that I read the actual article in the New Yorker, I’ve come to find out that he’s one of those writers who isn’t actually very good at writing but for some reason is given loads of lineage.

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    I'm Fart and I'm SmunnyJoanna Rothkopf
    4/11/16 3:55pm

    “Then I stretched my neck in order to see as much as I could through the vent, nearly butting heads with Foos as I did so. Finally, I saw a naked couple spread out on the bed below, engaged in oral sex. Foos and I watched for several moments, and then Foos lifted his head and gave me a thumbs-up sign.”

    I do think there is an ethical grey area when it comes to the people you write about, but there is no ethical grey area when it comes to actually committing a sex crime yourself.

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      MurphysMeowJoanna Rothkopf
      4/11/16 4:05pm

      Wonderful, well-researched article here, Joanna. I agree with others here who are glad that this story is being covered. I was fairly shocked that the New Yorker would publish it, but I suppose Talese has his weight to throw around. The magazine isn’t what it used to be; for every insightful piece by, say, Lawrence Wright, we have to put up with the amateur ramblings of Jesse Eisenberg. This is a new low, though, because this isn’t simply bad writing - it is unethical and wrong.

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        PoodletimeMurphysMeow
        4/11/16 5:03pm

        Now, that is a succinct and dispassionate analysis of all the wrongness here! Maybe the New Yorker should have given you, Murphy, all of the column inches they gave to the dinosaur. Damn. You said it better than I did, girl.

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        MurphysMeowPoodletime
        4/11/16 7:41pm

        Thanks, Poodle!

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