Exposé
No secrets in the digital age...
One day when I was living in Brussels, this was around 2007, I saw an email arrive from someone I corresponded with often. Sapir lived in another part of Europe, an Israeli expat working in Spain or Portugal — I forget which. Expats are all over Europe, which is like a 40-country exchange program.
There were two remarkable things about this email: first, it was open copied to about 275 people, which included the headmaster of her children’s school, and several teachers, and apparently everyone else in her life. Second, it contained about 18 photos of her fucking someone and one especially beautiful photo of her masturbating (top right). I’ve converted the photo to sketch format in Photoshop (the sheets have wide bright pink stripes and their clothes are heaped on the bed).
The two of them were blissed out in all of the pictures, you could see from their faces, and the theme of the series seemed to be every which way he could fuck her. I guess they had the camera on automatic and let it click away for a while. In a group of four or so, she is being taken from behind. In another she’s on her back, her legs splayed, showing her face while being fucked (lower middle). The two of them are quite adorable. This is the kind of scene I love to photograph.
Upon opening the email, my first thought was — no kidding — wow, Sapir is really opening up, sharing this with everyone. That’s how naïve I am!…it did not immediately occur to me what had happened. I think most people would have figured it out without needing to be told. But not me.
I wrote to her and asked how this email came to be. She said her husband had discovered them — that is, photos of her with her lover — on her computer and sent them to her entire address book in revenge. One button, “send to all.” (Today he could and in many places would face criminal prosecution for such an act.)
I wrote back and offered her my full support. I have tried many times to consider how she felt, being involuntarily exposed like this (including to her parents, in laws, nieces and nephews, friends, etc.). I really cannot. Then I imagined how the wide dieversity of recipients must have responded. I don’t know anyone who stays in touch with EVERYone like Israelis do.
It was a long email list and everyone could see who else was on it. I’m sure the people who loved here were embarrassed for her. I am sure some were curious and looked at the pictures carefully. Maybe I’m just Italian; the two of them look good. They are happy. That probably really pissed off her husband. It makes me want to kiss her.
(And I have such a crush on her sweet face kneeling up and masturbating. Her smile is just so pretty. I’m looking at it now.)
What I’ve come up with is, fucking someone besides your husband is known as cheating, but everyone understands that and most people have done it at least once. But sending out the whole camera roll to everyone? He did not make any friends doing that. Nobody would want that happening to them.
I wondered whether she felt any sense of liberation with everyone in her life having visual evidence of her being fucked and gleefully masturbating.
The essential truth is she would henceforth be known by everyone in her life for exactly who she was. Everyone had seen her sweet face melt as a man filled her up with his penis. So daunting and so beautiful and so unconscienable.
However, this event demonstrated to me how thin the notion of privacy is, and how it does not exist in digital times. Everything is way too easy to document and to share. They created the photos; they did not have to. They could have thought it through. A few years earlier these would have been crufty snapshots and negatives in a little envelope. They could have been tossed in the nearest public trash bin, disappearing for all eternity. Now, everything exists for everyone to see. Send all.
What if we turn this around and start from the place of not hiding? From the place of “there are no private thoughts”? Sex, sexual feelings, the drive to connect and the need to be seen are all integral to our human experience.
What if we lived in a world where all of our sexual experiences, desires, thoughts, needs and regrets were available to everyone to know? What if there were no sexual secrets? After the initial shock, would the world be a more peaceful place? What if we all chose to coexist peacefully with the truth of who we are?
