The Encyclopedia Of Smut: V Is For Voyeurism

Hey hey, all you Peeping Toms and Tammys, today we're going to be talking about one of the cornerstones of pornography: voyeurism. It's much more than the other half of exhibitionism, it's a way of pushing desire through your eyeballs and splashing it against a screen; it's vicarious living and secret thrills! It can be pretty negative at times, but as far as porn is concerned, we think of it as a neutral-to-positive force.

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Inspector and Gadget

You probably know that "voyeur" is essentially the same word as "viewer," but we'd like to emphasize the fact that the etymology goes back to a word meaning "one who inspects." There's a bit of authority embedded in that definition, and so when you think of the archetypal voyeur--looking through keyholes, peeking up skirts, seeing the forbidden--remember that the pleasure they gain isn't solely from attaining secret intimacy with the subject, but also comes from the security and distance from that subject. Some voyeurs fetishize and obsess over their surveillance equipment (hidden cameras, binoculars, etc.) as much as what they can view through it.

By the way, we're sorry about calling you Peeping Toms and Tammys (we don't even think Peeping Tammy is a term), but we'd like to take a moment to remind you where the name comes from. Remember the Lady Godiva story? The legend says that Lady Godiva was tired of the suffering caused by her husband's oppressive taxation of their people, and he, growing tired of her complaints, said that he would abolish the harsh taxes if she rode through the streets of Coventry naked. Godiva was down, and she told her people to stay indoors and close their windows while she did so. Only one person disobeyed: a man named Tom cut a small hole in his shutters and watched his Lady pass, at which point he was suddenly struck blind.

[Above: Jessie Andrews just happened to start masturbating on a couch near the window, via "Stalker"]

Voyeurism is Everything

Voyeurs want to see the secret, the forbidden, and even the unseeable, and to a large extent, that's what porn consumers want to see as well. If we say that all sexual activity is private, or at least all traditionally takes place behind closed doors, then all porn is inherently voyeuristic because it shows you something you're not supposed to see. But wait, there are more ways that voyeurism and porn go hand-in-hand!

Guess who has brilliant stuff to say about this? Linda Williams does (we reference almost every week). In "Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the 'Frenzy of the Visible,'" she points out the bits and pieces of voyeurism present in the first motion pictures made by Eadweard Muybridge. He settled the debate about whether or not trotting horses ever got all four feet off the ground by setting up a series of cameras along a racetrack--he gave the world visual evidence of what the naked eye can't see. Later, he started making and showing films of naked humans in motion: real life bodies were reduced to mechanical processes, captured frame by frame with technology that sees more than human eyes ever can, and then played for an audience who gets to see the awkward, clumsy, and even inhuman moments that appear in the invisible middle of the most mundane actions. As Williams puts it, "the specific and unprecedented cinematic pleasure of the illusion of bodily motion emerged partly as a by-product of the quest for the initially unseeable 'truths' of this motion."

What is porn if not "cinematic pleasure of the illusion of bodily motion"? Pornography, as a cinematic genre, is dedicated to capturing every sense of sexual activity (mostly the tactile) and disseminating it through a visually-consumable medium. Think about this: no matter what noise a male or female performer makes when they're climaxing, the viewer only believes an orgasm is genuine if they can see the ejaculate. Physical pleasure remains in doubt until it's confirmed by the eyes.

[Above: we're confirming all kinds of things (in our pants) when we watch "Real Hidden Sex 56"]

Traditional Images of Voyeurism in Porn

Let's not forget that porn is voyeuristic in ways that don't involve discussions of cinematic history. There exists, for example:

· "Hidden Camera" porn - Sometimes it's amateur, sometimes it's professional, and sometimes it's one pretending to be the other, but the general idea is that one person leaves a camera in the room where they're getting busy with their partner, and the partner doesn't know they're being filmed. Sometimes a third, unconnected party places a camera where two people are having sex, or where one person is masturbating. Since at least one person doesn't know they're being recorded, the sex seems more authentic (of course, you can often tell it's all a ruse).
· Peeping Tom - It's the same as the hidden camera stuff, but specifically being filmed by someone outside of the room where the action is happening. Tom Byron Pictures put out a couple of movies ("Stalker" and "Stalker 2") that are all about girls being watched through windows as they touch themselves and shower and whatnot.
· Speculum porn - Some people really enjoy looking deep inside human orifices before and after sex, and some of these people use dildos that have cameras on the ends to get a deep, deep look in there. Actually, we've even seen amateur porn in which a woman stuck a very small camera with a light inside her vagina and captured the sight of her husband's penis thrusting inside her. It was pretty trippy.
· P.O.V. - That's "Point of View" for those not hip to the acronym; it's porn in which the camera literally takes the place of the eyes of one of the performers. This doesn't give you the voyeuristic joy of watching someone secretly, but it does provide you with "Being John Malkovich"-esque thrill of pleasuring a pornstar through a stunt cock's actions. We think of it as another form of Peeping Tom porn: eyes are the window to the soul, and you get to be on the other side of those windows.

[Above: "Rocco's POV 7." Some videos courtesy of AEBN Porn Pay Per View Network and Adult Video On Demand (theater.aebn.net)]

[At top: binocular babe via I Fucked His Mom (fhg.ifuckedhismom.com)]