Gossiping is known to win friends fast and lose them faster. Talking about other peoples’ problems or embarrassments is a device used to render your own problems invisible to the outside world by peering in on the personal lives of others. Despite this proven sociological and psychological data, my boss and I usually find time during my three-hour work shift to talk about some pretty juicy stuff.
I usually give him the scoop on roommate relations in my Village B apartment and sometimes the behind-closed-doors happenings in my excitingly dysfunctional hometown neighborhood. The latest incident concerns inter-marital affairs and dildos.
Lately he has one-upped me with few local celebrity sightings. After seeing Colin Powell’s picture in the Washington Post on Monday, he remembered to tell me that on Saturday he spotted said Secretary of State deliberating over condom brands in a drugstore in McLean, Va. Powell purchased the condoms at the pharmacy counter at the back and made his exit in a shiny convertible.
Several weeks ago, my boss attended an art exhibit at the Addison/Ripley Gallery where actor Viggo Mortenson was showing some of his American Indian-themed photography. The collection is, according to knowledgeable sources, of upsettingly poor quality. But who is the gallery kidding? There were more crying, panting Lord of the Rings fans in plunging necklines and short skirts crowded outside the gallery doors than there were photography aficionados.
What does this say about the voyeurism inherent in our society? In Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window one of the characters says, “We have become a race of peeping toms. What people ought to do is step outside and look into their own lives.” So what if Colin Powell is buying condoms? He has sex too (scary as that may be)! Why go see Viggo Mortenson’s photography when everyone in town says that most of the prints have been damaged by an unintentional light leakage?
We have created a culture of exhibitionists (an even more depressing state of affairs than voyeurism, I’m afraid). Last year, all anyone could talk about for a week was a girl in Village C who evidently put on a raunchy sex show for some boys passing by her window. I have walked down Prospect Street on several occasions this fall and seen the same girl in the same house, naked, standing at her computer in her living room in plain view of any passer by. There was the strange man in a green turtleneck, touching himself outside of Martin’s several weeks ago while my friends and I were eating dinner. And don’t forget the recent streaking incident in the library.
I am not sure why being seen unclothed is so attractive to people these days. Gossip, the natural spawn of voyeurism, only legitimizes such activity. Everything appears to be out in the open now; but to what consequence? The more we look, the more people show, and the better our own dysfunctions and insecurities look to our subjective eyes.
