Voyeurism

Voyeurism is deriving sexual pleasure by secretly peering into the private affairs of another individual, often while the other individual is disrobing or engaging in a sexual act. Clinically, voyeurism is considered a type of paraphilia, a disorder in which an individual has difficulty controlling certain sexual impulses that are considered antisocial.
A central trait of voyeurism is that the observer or “voyeur” achieves sexual gratification by seeking out opportunities secretly and furtively to observe another person. In essence, a voyeur spies on an unsuspecting victim to fulfill a sexual fantasy, which often may be accompanied by autoeroticism. The more severe and compulsive these impulses are, the more likely they are to lead to difficulty functioning normally within society.
Typically, the victim of voyeurism has not consented to being observed and often is unaware that his or her privacy is being surreptitiously invaded. For this reason, voyeurism is considered to be inappropriate, even deviant, conduct and is often illegal. Voyeurism may also involve trespassing and/or creating video or audio recordings of the spied-on individual. Typically, voyeurism is most often associated with males in their 20s and 30s. Examples of paraphilias other than voyeurism include fetishism, exhibitionism, sadomasochism, bestiality, and pedophilia.
Although there is no uniform definition of privacy, it is generally accepted that it includes the desire to shield one’s body, including genitalia or private parts, as well as certain activities—ranging from engaging in sexual conduct, to bathing, to trying on clothing in a retail dressing room—from the plain view of others. For example, people ordinarily seek and expect privacy when entering their own home, when closing a bathroom or bedroom door, or when taking any other, similar measures to limit the access of other people to their body and personal space. Notions of sexual conduct, nakedness, and certain bodily functions innately invoke a sense of privacy; in fact, their public display is often considered taboo.
Voyeurism is considered to be antisocial because it violates this expectation of privacy. The classic term for a voyeur is “peeping tom.” A peeping tom is an individual who hides and spies on another person with the intent to invade the victim’s privacy, typically by watching that person while he or she is naked, undressing, or exposing his or her genitalia.
The phrase “peeping tom” has its origins in English mythology. During the eleventh century, a beautiful noblewoman, Lady Godiva, lived in the city of Coventry. According to legend, she became engaged in a dispute with her husband, Leofric, the Earl of Mercia, over an oppressive tax he levied on the people of Coventry. According to the story, Lady Godiva rode naked on horseback through the city streets in protest of this tax. Although the townspeople were ordered to stay indoors and not to look upon Lady Godiva, one man, named Tom, disobeyed this proclamation. Apparently, Tom peered at the naked Lady Godiva through a hole he carved in his window shutters. As the legend has it, the tax was lifted, but Tom, forever branded as Peeping Tom, was blinded as punishment.
While a voyeur, or peeping tom, typically does not come into direct physical contact with his victim, the act of peeping, without consent to do so, into another person’s private affairs is generally considered to be invasive. It often causes feelings of shame, humiliation, distrust, and violation in the victim. For this reason, voyeurism has long been prohibited by laws regarding secret peeping, window peeking, indecent viewing, or eavesdropping. These statutes seek to protect an individual’s right to privacy from unauthorized infringement by a voyeur, and often they give rise to both criminal and civil liability.
As a general matter, criminal law seeks to protect the greater public by prohibiting certain antisocial behaviors, such as voyeurism, and by establishing a system of punishment for breaking the law. As a companion measure, civil law seeks to provide a tort remedy through which a victim of voyeurism may seek compensation and redress against an infringing voyeur. Both criminal and civil law generally hold that the right to privacy is compromised when a voyeur intentionally and noncon-sensually peers upon another person’s body or intimate bodily acts.
Unlike Lady Godiva, most victims of voyeurism never anticipate that their body, their genitals, or their sexual acts will be viewed by an interloper. Voyeurism, by its very nature, is a form of spying and is designed to pierce the veil of protection that a victim has implemented to protect his or her body from disclosure to the outside world, whether that barrier is clothing, a closed bedroom door, a drawn shower curtain, or a privacy fence. Voyeurism is considered offensive because a voyeur seeks to circumvent these privacy barriers. For example, a voyeur often may trespass to peer inside a window, may use binoculars to view a victim from a distance, or may employ a cellular telephone camera to capture images under or through a victim’s clothing as he or she walks along a public street.
In fact, with the proliferation of video surveillance and micro-camera technology, the impact and the incidence of voyeurism have magnified. Video voyeurism is voyeurism involving the filming or recording of another person by use of a camera or other image-recording device. With the aid of modern technology, the video voyeur has the means to create a permanent record of the voyeuristic invasion, one that is capable of repeated viewing and is easily disseminated to others across the Internet.
Video voyeurs frequently use compact, hidden video surveillance equipment to record surreptitious images of unsuspecting victims, typically women. For example, the Internet is well populated with “up-skirt” and “down blouse” images, video images taken up a woman’s skirt to view her underwear or down a woman’s blouse to view her unclothed upper body. Unlike the traditionally solitary act of voyeurism, the video voyeur can broadcast these privacy intrusions to a potentially wide audience.
The term “voyeurism” has also been used more generally within popular culture to describe the act of deriving pleasure, but not necessarily sexual pleasure, from peering into the affairs of others. The affairs may or may not be private, and the peering may or may not be secretive. This derivative understanding of voyeurism is commonly used to describe such societal behaviors as watching reality television, reading gossip news stories, observing 24-hour Internet webcams, and being fascinated with the lives of the rich and famous. Voyeurism in this context is generally used to describe an interest in sensational, but not necessarily sordid, topics. Because of the proliferation of video surveillance technology and the acceptance of its legitimate uses in the mainstream of society, particularly in the news media, this alternative usage of the term “voyeurism” has increased.