(Lecture by Ally Standing)
Definition: "the practice of gaining sexual pleasure from watching others when they are naked or engaged in sexual activity" — Oxford dictionary
Some researchers find a more appropriate contemporary definition of 'a voyeur' as: "one who seeks stimulation by visual means" — Blazer 2006
‘Scopophilia’ — “pleasure drawn from looking at an object or a person (...) describes the sexual pleasure that a person derives from looking at prurient objects of eroticism, such as pornography, the nude body, and fetishes, as a substitute for actual participation in a sexual relationship.” — Wikipedia [Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language (Unabridged)(1976), p. 2036]
According to the sexual offences act 2003:
"a person who commits an offence if —
for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification, he observers [or records] another person doing a private act, and
he knows that the other person does not consent being observed [or recorded] for his sexual gratification."
Voyeurism and photography are linked intrinsically.
"I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do - that was one of my favourite things about it, and when I first did it I felt very preserve"
— Diane Arbus, quoted by Susan Sontag in On Photography (1971)
Some images permit voyeurism, not only to the photographer but also to anyone who subsequently views the images.
In the early 20th century, photography started developing, and cameras became smaller and more comfortable to transport, and the film had many developments too. This evolution had benefits for every kind of photography, but in voyeurism, it made it easier for photographs to go completely unseen.
Voyeurism as Surveillance
'Photography has been used by governments in wartime and in peacetime for various things over time, such as: policing borders, gaining an advantage over enemies, gathering information.'
CCTV cameras are the most prevalent form of surveillance photography; they are intended to protect individuals and businesses. But until what point doesn't this become an invasion of privacy?
Many practitioners have used the theme of voyeurism within their work to add to the narrative.
You don't need to tell the viewer everything, sometimes that level of ambiguity makes up their minds as to what happened can be more consequential.
According to Clay Calvert, a communications scholar, reality TV is a kind of "mediated voyeurism" (2000) -though not a sexual kind -
"The consumption of revealing images and information about others' apparently real and unguarded lives."
Sometimes we have a little leak on other people social media, and sometimes we overshare there as well, we can consider this voyeurism.
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