Markus, Sextus and Flavia joined an executive conference call re the Gauguin experiment, also Julia who you won’t recognize as she was not present when we started planning Rome and didn’t get to choose a name (aren’t these codenames fun?). She will be providing a venue for one of the events and so becomes a member of the executive per the association rules. After some playing with the phone system I got the bridge running and we did a teleconference. In the future we will use that to do the planning for Rome and just post the results of the discussions here for others to comment (wasn’t that the original idea of this blog?).
After some discussion we decided to go ahead with the experiment with three (male) photographers, four (female) models and an extra male. While it was agreed it would be good to do a parallel run with female photographers we decided to put this off to a future date. As a practical matter we have several serious male photographers we have only got one female photographer who regularly attends photo sessions. This is going to be enough of a distraction from Rome as it is.
One caveat, we need to get this approved for human subjects research which may require changes to be made.
To keep this straight lets number the photographers P1, P2, P3, the models M0, M1, M2, M3 and the extra male Y. There is also an observer. Each photographer is assisted by two assistants, to help control variables these should be either all male, all female or each photographer should have one male and one female. Experience of previous photo sessions suggests all female is most likely to be practical.
At the beginning of the process the three photographers and four models are randomly assigned a number by the organizer; neither the models nor the photographers are told any of the number assignments. The only exception to this is M0 who is told she will not be required to model.
None of the models or photographers should have met any of the models before the experiment and none of the photographers and models should meet each other during the experiment except as specified by the protocol.
Each photographer has their own separate studio; these and the equipment and props provided should be as identical as possible. It might be an idea to use only artificial light to keep the conditions as constant as possible. The photographers are told about the equipment, room etc. in advance. At the start of the day the photographers have 1 hour to set up their equipment.
The day is divided up into 3 sessions of 2 hours each with an interval of an hour between each session. During the intervals the models meet the photographer they are going to be shooting with next.
Each photo shoot consists of two 45 minute takes with a break of 30 minutes.
Each photographer is allowed to use whatever props, shots etc. they choose but during the shoot they must take at least four shots of each model in essentially the same pose, two before the break and two after. It is the responsibility of one of the assistants to ensure that these are taken.
Each photographer shoots each model once. During the break the photographer and model will do one of three things:
C Chase (just rest)
F Fuck each other
X Fuck with the substitute (i.e. P? with M0, M? with Y)
The break actions are chosen by the organizer. The actions will be scheduled such that the following are true:
- Each photographer will have at exactly one chaste (C) session.
- The probability that the photographer fucked the model should be as near to 50% as possible.
- There will be at least one pair of photographers and models such that each photographer had a fuck session with one model and a chaste one with the other
- There will be at least one pair of photographers and models such that one photographer had a fuck session with one model and a chaste one with the other while the other photographer was chaste with the first and had a substitute for the second.
- The photographers and models should not be able to predict their break activity in future sessions except to the extent that this is made inevitable by the fact that each has at least one C and one F session.
For example:
Session A: P1/M1-F P2/M2-F P3/M3-C
Session B: P1/M2-C P2/M3-F/X P3/M1-F
Session C: P1/M3-X P2/M1-C P3/M2-F
At the beginning of the experiment the observer randomly selects the order in which to hold the sessions and assigns P2/M3 to be either F or X with equal probability.
There are 9 combinations with 4 F’s, 3 C’s and 1X and 1 that is randomly chosen as either F or X making 4.5 Fs in total. The probability the photographer fucked the model is thus exactly 50%.
P1 is chaste with M2 and fucks M1; P2 is chaste with M1 and fucks with M2
P3 is chaste with M3 and fucks M2; P1 is chaste with M2 and substitutes with M3
Afterwards the reviewers are asked to view the portfolios of each photographer and indicate whether they believe that the photographer fucked the model or not on a five point scale Very sure he did – neutral – Very sure he didn’t. They are told that there is exactly 50% probability that this is the case.
The reviewers may be divided up into two groups, one of which is shown only the identical reference photographs from each session, the other of which is shown a portfolio consisting of shots chosen by the photographer.
Another way of dividing up the reviewers is to show one group only photographs taken after the break and to show the other group equal numbers of photographs taken both before and after the break and ask the reviewers to guess whether the photograph was taken before the break or not.
Some remaining concerns:
One issue that came up was that Y would attempt to persuade the organizer to choose P2/M3 to be X. In order to overcome this Y may fuck M0 for 30 minutes in the case that the random selection is F.
One question is whether the photographers and models are told the session type at the beginning of each session or only at the break time. One problem here is that it is impossible to prevent people predicting the session type based on their past sessions. Another issue is that if the groups are only told what the action is at the break there might be an expectation of sex at the C session thus making it less chaste.
Another issue is whether the models should be members or working girls recruited through the normal process. While it would be considerably cheaper to use members I don’t think it is a practical approach since it would be difficult to know whether the photographer had met a member at an event without asking and there would still be considerable room for error. The other disadvantage is that experiment requires the model pool to be as homogenous as possible which certainly does not describe our members.
Another concern here is that the photographers and/or models might try to signal the answer to the viewers by their reaction, either helping them get the answer right or trying to fool them. So to make sure that the effort is consistent in one direction and following the Gauguin spirit we want everyone to be trying their hardest to make the reviewers think they did fuck. So there should be a prize for the photographer and the model who get the most reviews that say they fucked whether or not the reviewer was right. There could also be a prize for the reviewers who get most right answers to help along the party spirit.
Budget
Costs are likely to be in the range £1,500-2,500, one way to spread the cost would be to do the photo review at a party and raise the contribution. The party would also have costs of its own of course but 20 people paying £75 extra into the pot covers £1,500 of the cost. The association can chip in £500 from the research budget and the photographers can chip in say £300 a piece which is a bargain for three photo sessions with three sexy models even without the fringe benefits. That gives us up to £2,900 and a profit of £400 to £1,400 which if it materializes can be distributed as a rebate to the party goers, bonuses to the models and a payment to the float fund.
We can play with the numbers a bit to see what we can do, remember though that even though we try to avoid unnecessary costs the association concept is economical, not cheap.
Of course if all the photographers and assistants etc. come to the party we have 12 people at the party before we have any reviewers. If we can get 20 reviewers we have 32 partygoers and we could make the party premium £50 which would be a total of £150 per ticket for the men, £100 for women. We have a venue in mind that will take up to 50 people without a problem.
First 30 members to sign up by email and pay their deposit within 3 days get a guaranteed place. Everyone else will go on the waiting list. The order in which the emails appear in the secretary’s party inbox will be the priority order, no excuses. The subject line for the party must be “GAUGUIN EVENT”. Applicants to be either a photographer should submit a proposal to the secretary. If there are more than three applicants they will be each asked to submit a portfolio of five photographs and a minimum of three different models. Photographers must organize their own assistants, a maximum of two per photographer. We are also looking for an event organizer, a party organizer and people to help out on both days.
Fourth Model
One other point that was raised is that M0 is going to expect to be fully paid even though she is only needed for two parties which seems somewhat wasteful. One possibility is that Y can have an all day recreational fucking and modeling session with M0. Another possibility is that if we have more photographers applying than we can handle there could be a group photography session going on that is not part of the experiment. If we charge for this as well the costs are spread even further.
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