And the murderers aren’t just the NSA and snooping corporations. We too have played a part in privacy’s demise, through our embrace of mass exhibitionism. When hands are raised at a concert, they’re holding cameras, ready to shoot and post to an ever-expanding array of social networks. When we cook a delicious meal, the thumbs type a tweet before the mouth gets a bite. “OK, Glass” summons a machine worn on the face to capture video, audio, and geographic location and then broadcast it to the world. With so many private moments now public, the reasoning goes, we must no longer value privacy.

But a human life is not a database, nor is privacy the mere act of keeping data about ourselves hidden. In reality, privacy operates not like a door that’s kept either open or closed but like a fan dance, a seductive game of reveal and conceal.