Minisode: The Watcher

Missing Magnolias

Our minisodes are a break from true crime where we discuss Michelle's internet search history, which is teeming with all things weird and wonderful. We are joined by special guest Paige to explore the topic of voyeurism in connection with The Voyeur's Motel, a nonfiction book written by the journalistic icon, Gay Talese, which was only just released in 2016 but was decades in the making. Naturally, our gang on the pod is highly skeptical of this wannabe 'Kinsey-like' sexologist and has some thoughts... Tune in to find out why!

The actual book is compilation of Talese’s reportage of a Colorado man by name of Gerald Foos, a father of two, who with the help of his wife Donna a nurse, created a motel in the late 1960s engineered to spy on his guests and to satisfy his voyeuristic tendencies. The book is also largely written from Gerald Foos personal manuscripts, which he referred to as “The Voyeur’s Journal”, which Talese described as handwritten entries on yellow legal pad notepaper with ‘near perfect penmanship’ whereby Foos catalogued and studied his guests noting his approximation of their heights, weights, education, and backgrounds and above all their sex lives and sexual proclivities all in the name of what he Foos noted as the good for 'sexual research.' But while setting out to learn more about sex styles, positions, pillow talk, and forms of foreplay, he learned that the people and couples are largely unhappy and that their private lives rarely match who they pretend to be in public.

Books Referenced

The Voyeur's Motel

The Monster of Florence: A True Story

Documentaries/Shows Voyeur

The Watcher