TRENDS AND fads frequently found their way into the rooms of the Manor House Motel. Thanks to Polaroid’s portable, folding SX-70 model—considered so revolutionary it appeared with its creator, Dr. Edwin Land, on the covers of both Time and Life magazines in 1972—instant photography was one such trend. “The advent of the Polaroid camera has had a dramatic effect on the lives of certain individuals,” the Voyeur wrote in his journal, noting that he had “observed subjects from all walks of life utilizing the Polaroid camera to record sexual activity,” though it was “extensively the sexual desire of the male rather than the female.”
But in one memorable instance, the Voyeur watched a very attractive young woman, a college student waiting at the motel for the start of the quarter, who took pleasure in the act of watching herself.
She is white, 21-years-old, 5’6”, about 115 lbs, with green eyes, red hair, and creamy complexion. The Voyeur has been observing her for three days and during this time she has called no one on the telephone, and no one has visited her. She apparently knows no one in the area because she is a new student at the Colorado Women’s College in Denver, and other than leaving the room to get something to eat, she usually spends all her time in the room reading books, watching TV, and, unfortunately, smoking.
Lonely as she seems to be, she is not shy about her body because she often walks around in the nude. She actually takes great interest in looking at all parts of her body in the mirror. While watching her yesterday, she removed the mirror from over the dresser and placed it next to the wall by her bed so she could watch herself masturbate.
She does so in the following manner. First she stimulated her clitoris with the third finger of her right hand and then appeared to become excited. She then used a long ruler to stimulate both nipples at once (with one hand), passing the ruler back and forth over her erect nipples. She had her legs wide apart—her knees bent out and her back arched. She did not move much when she masturbated other than to observe herself in the mirror, almost like it represented someone else.
When she reached orgasm, her hips raised and her toes clenched downward. Within ten minutes she repeated this, and had another orgasm. When orgasm approached, she would lick her lips, and the appearance of a sucking grimace would be on her face.
Observing her this evening, I notice a more depressed individual than before. Her hair is messed up and she has been releasing gas at random and without shame. I assume she would never do this if anyone else was in the room.
Finally, on the third night, she places a long distance phone call to someone in Wisconsin. It may be parents or other family relatives. She tells them that she is fine, is looking forward to school, and is on her way out to a party. There is no party, of course, but she sounds sincere. As she is talking she is also picking her nose and wiping it on my bedspread. After she hangs up, I see her pacing back and forth, and there are tears in her eyes.
Then she returned to the bed, watched TV, and lit up a cigarette.
Conclusion: She is having a difficult time, obviously, adjusting to the new environment in Denver, and depression and loneliness appear to have overwhelmed her. But masturbation seems to fulfill some of this void, at least temporarily. After observing many subjects, my survey concludes that women have a tendency to masturbate more out of depression than anything else. Men masturbate purely for physical release. This particular female subject, masturbating in front of a mirror, is getting a second perspective—and I, in the attic, a third.
TWENTY-THREE
THROUGHOUT HIS time as resident voyeur at the Manor House Motel, Gerald Foos frequently had occasion to reflect on the Vietnam War. From the tender, careful lovemaking of the wheelchair-bound serviceman’s wife, to the lonely older war widow buying the services of a prostitute, his guests led him to offer a consistently critical take on the effect of the war.
It was not just their bodies or their families that were affected, however; the mercilessness of two pilots, their callous reveling in destruction, disturbed him, even while their sexual activity reinforced his thinking on voyeurism.
I assigned Room 6 to a good-looking couple from the town of Rangley, in northwestern Colorado. The man was blond and handsome and stood about 6 feet, and the female was at least 5’8” with long brown hair and large oval eyes. In conversation he told me he was attending a reserve meeting in Denver—he had been a pilot in Vietnam—and his lady friend was employed somehow at the community college in Rangley.