Scenes From Your Pandemic

We recently asked New York readers to share scenes from their daily lives during the coronavirus pandemic for a new series we hope will help all of us see beyond our limited perspectives amid this unprecedented and often isolating experience. The hundreds of submissions you’ve sent in have included everything from socially distanced encounters with neighbors to essential-worker tributes to bedroom fencing to countless views observed from walks, rooftops, and improvised home offices.

- The New Yorker

Ask An Expert: Why Is Self-Isolation Making Me So Horny?

Investigating a very common side effect of the coronavirus crisis.

There's a lot to feel anxious abut right now. You’re struggling to adapt to working from home, video conferencing with your boss as your half-dressed housemates wander in and out of shot. Or maybe you've been let go from your job, with no idea how you’re going to pay rent this month. Or you could just be on your sofa, trying to remember how to read a book because your other hobby – feeling the sun on your skin as you down pints of wine in a beer garden – is no longer allowed.

- Vice

When the Phallus Was Fashion

A day in the life of Ancient Rome wasn’t a cake walk. If you were going to make a decent life for yourself, you had to be tough. You didn’t wear your heart on your sleeve – you wore a penis fascinus ’round your neck, prayed to the gods, and hoped for the best. A curious little historical relic, the phallic amulet paid homage to the eponymous god of vitality and power, and was treasured by its wearers not as a romantic instrument, but as a necessary precaution against evil. (In fact, it was often bestowed upon young girls and boys for protection). In that sense, these little weiners were rather remarkable in the holistic, unstigmatised bridges they built between ones sexual, physical, and spiritual identity.

- Messy Nessy Chic

Made in California

There is an image that comes to mind for most when we talk about California. Scenes of golden sunshine washing pastel-hued homes and colorful Cadillacs, loud neon nights blinking on at sunset for restaurants, theaters, motels, and an overall sense that things were simple then. It is a place where nostalgia runs king, forever immortalized in both the cinema from years past but also in its architecture that attests to distinctive periods. 

I wanted to capture this memory of California in a visual essay, from the regal 1920s era San Franciscan fire escapes to the playful 1950s theaters dotting the coastline. Because of the place's strong cinematic history, it doesn't take much to recall how it may have felt living in these time periods in the golden state. One can imagine riding a bike down to the boardwalk from the Rio theater in Santa Cruz, listening to the Beach Boys. Or the Summer of Love in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco against a backwash of painted ladies, the noble Victorian homes delicately painted and meticulously cared for as their name would suggest.

- behance

The Complicated New World of Voyeurism

The saying is we’re ‘living in strange times’, right? But just how “strange” are we willing to admit we’re becoming too? The nature of the worldwide lockdowns has us all looking out of our windows significantly more, searching for something or someone to uplift, inform or entertain us. As we applaud front liners with our neighbours in the city every night, or watch them serenade a block of apartments with a violin aria, we’re being invited into their lives through those warmly-lit windows, just as long as we don’t outstay our welcome. Watching other people’s lives is an inherently human fascination. Some may call it people-watching or human curiosity. Others might call it an invasion of privacy, snooping, spying or stalking. Voyeurism as a general term, will always carry a social taboo overall, but when there’s something interesting to be seen, people tend to cast aside their reservations.

- Messy Nessy Chic

Confessions Of A Cuckold’s Wife

My husband opened up the idea of cuckolding, he’s had the fantasy for a long while and although I was happy to role play the idea in bed I really did not want to see it through in reality. It just seemed like such a bad idea for so many reasons. I was also totally disinterested in any idea of humiliating or belittling him.

But…the sexy seed was sown and we talked and talked and talked about it and I sort of said that I wouldn’t rule it out, if the perfect situation came around… I said this really because I felt that if I just said “I’m happy to mess around in fantasy land but will NEVER do this in real life.” It would just have the effect of killing the fantasy.

- Caveman Circus

Down These Mean Streets

Down These Mean Streets examines fear and the abandonment of America’s inner cities. Photographing only at night with a large format view camera, I work in a set routine by walking between the airport and central business district of each city I photograph. America has turned its back on cities as years of neglect have left our cities with limited resources to repair themselves and neighborhoods to crumble with no local economy, a public education system that barely meets requirements, a low income housing nightmare, as violence and drugs reign making survival a number one priority.

- Will Steacy