The Voyeur !LINK!
Initially, voyeur referred to someone who derived sexual pleasure from watching others undress or engage in intimate acts; it was synonymous with Peeping Tom. By the middle of the 20th century, its meaning had broadened to "an unduly prying observer," particularly one interested in squalid or shocking details:
The Voyeur
"Often regarded as a weapon," he writes, it "is also a burden, the male curse. It has made some men restless roués, voyeurs, flashers, rapists." The penis is but "prey" to the omnipotent temptation of women, "the bevy of buttocks in tight jeans."
But the Voice of Free America didn't do his research. In another disclaimer, Talese announces, "I cannot vouch for every detail that [Foos] recounts in his manuscript." And indeed, the Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi found that Foos lied to Talese about a number of important facts, errors that a thorough investigator would have uncovered. And if Talese has consulted victims, lawyers, or the vast academic literature on voyeurism, there is no hint of that research in this book. He never even performs the basic exercise of imagining what it would feel like to be the victim of voyeurism.
You could say voyeurism hits twice: There is the original violation of privacy and then the second punch of revelation. Foos (and occasionally Talese) was the author of the first, and Talese the author, in every sense, of the second. So much of the damage comes in the discovery, the horror of finding out that your private moments were not private. But Talese never attempts to contact the victims, although Foos gave him their names and addresses. Are they still alive? Will they recognize themselves?
"What charges, if any, might be levied against Gerald Foos?" Talese asks. "He openly admitted to being a voyeur, although he added that nearly all men are voyeurs. Foos insisted that he never harmed any of his guests, since none were aware of his watching them, and so the worst that might be said was that he was guilty of trying to see too much."
In his 1996 essay "Origins of a Nonfiction Writer," Talese says that he writes about those "who have earned society's disapproval and contempt," in order to "illuminate a larger area in which a part of us all live." Gerald Foos suggests that men are all voyeurs in some sense, and Talese seems to agree with him, that a part of us (or, rather, men) live up in the attic with Gerald Foos. As Talese puts it in Thy Neighbor's Wife, "Men were natural voyeurs, women were exhibitors."
He said he never mentioned any of these property transactions to Talese while he was researching the book because, "I didn't think it would be interesting to people to see two voyeurs fighting over the same turf."
While reviewing the tape supposedly sent to Riverdale High by the voyeur/auteur, Betty and Charles catch a glimpse of Mr. Honey in the reflection of a window. Betty, Jughead, and Charles confront Mr. Honey with a screenshot of him making the aforementioned video that he claims was sent by the Voyeur, but in actuality, was sent by himself in order to have a reason to cancel prom. Mr. Honey denies having any type of feud or vendetta against them, claiming that he was only trying to prepare them for a life outside of Riverdale. However, Betty and Jughead are unconvinced and they have already reported Honey to the school board.
Risk factors as cataloged by the DSM-5 include childhood sexual abuse, substance use, and sexual preoccupation, and hypersexuality, although the relationship to voyeurism is uncertain and the specificity unclear.
Voyeuristic disorder requires one or more contributing factors that may change over time with or without treatment: subjective distress (guilt, shame, intense sexual frustration, loneliness), psychiatric morbidity, hypersexuality, and sexual impulsivity; mental health impairment; and or the propensity to act out sexually by spying on unsuspecting naked or sexually active persons. Therefore, the course of voyeuristic disorder is likely to vary with age.
Adult males with voyeuristic disorder often first become aware of their sexual interest in secretly watching unsuspecting persons during adolescence. However, the minimum age for a diagnosis of voyeuristic disorder is 18 years because there is substantial difficulty in differentiating it from age-appropriate puberty-related sexual curiosity and activity.
Over the past six years, the provinces and territories have expressed interest in creating a new offence to deal with voyeurism. At the Uniform Law Conference in August 2000, a motion presented by Saskatchewan at the Criminal Law Section with respect to criminal voyeurism was carried. The motion proposed:
Over the past year and a half the federal Department of Justice has been working with senior officials in the provinces and territories to identify relevant issues regarding voyeurism and to discuss options for public consultation on a voyeurism scheme. On February 12, 2002, Provincial and Territorial Ministers Responsible for Justice passed a resolution urging the Minister of Justice to amend the Criminal Code to criminalize voyeurism and the distribution of visual representations obtained through voyeurism.
There are two ways to define voyeurism: as a behaviour and as a sexual disorder. In general terms, a voyeur is "a person who derives sexual gratification from the covert observation of others as they undress or engage in sexual activities" (Canadian Oxford Dictionary). In this context, the behaviour is concerned with three things: the surreptitious nature of the observations; the private and intimate nature of what is observed; and sexual gratification. Voyeuristic behaviour may extend not only to the making of the voyeuristic images, but may include distribution of voyeuristic visual representations to others.
A second way to consider voyeurism is as symptomatic of a sexual disorder. A subgroup of the persons who engage in voyeuristic behaviour suffer from this sexual disorder. According to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders:
Voyeurism is viewing some form of nudity or sexual activity, accompanied by sexual arousal. To be classified as a sexual disorder, or a paraphilia, voyeurism must be characterized by observing unsuspecting individuals, usually strangers, who are naked or engaging in sexual activity, for the purpose of seeking sexual excitement.[1]
The voyeur usually does not seek any contact with the victim. The perpetrator may masturbate during the act of voyeurism or, more commonly, afterwards in response to the memory of what he or she observed.[2] It is only when this behavioural problem persists beyond a certain period that experts diagnose it as a paraphilia:
Most voyeurs engage in at least one other sexually deviant behaviour, usually exhibitionism or non-consensual sexual touching or rubbing.[4] There is also evidence that voyeurism occurs at an early stage along a continuum of sexual disorders that may become progressively more coercive and invasive.[5] Approximately 20% of voyeurs have committed sexual assault or rape.[6] In a number of Canadian cases, court have considered it relevant that persons convicted of crimes involving sexual and non-sexual violence have had a behavioural history which included voyeurism.[7] Moreover, studies have shown that men commit most sex crimes and women and children are almost always the victims.[8]
Another characteristic of voyeurism as a paraphilia is a high frequency of deviant acts per individual. For example, in one study of 411 men, 13% (62 men) admitted to being voyeurs and self-reported 29,090 voyeuristic acts against 26,648 victims.[9] Studies suggest that voyeurs justify their behavior with rationalizations or cognitive distortions,[10] convincing themselves, for example, that their actions do not cause any harm or that the victim actually wanted to be observed.[11] As with other sexual disorders, voyeurs characteristically have little empathy for the victim and have an impaired capacity for emotional or sexual intimacy.[12] The risk factors for recidivism are similar to those that pertain to other sex offenders.[13]
Recent interest in the creation of a voyeurism offence also has been generated, in part, by occurrences for which there are currently no appropriate responses in the Criminal Code. The limitations of the current law are evident in two contexts. The first is that while some other offences in the Criminal Code cover particular aspects of voyeurism, there is no comprehensive statutory response to voyeurism. For example, if recorded images that meet the definition of child pornography include voyeuristic activities involving children, they may be captured under section 163.1 of the Criminal Code. Similarly, if voyeurism generates records of obscene activities it might be captured by section 163 of the Code. Paragraph 173(1)(a) (indecent acts) would apply only to the voyeur who, while viewing or recording others, was also performing an indecent act in a public place, such as masturbating, at the same time. While voyeurism may be captured by section 177 (trespassing at night), the scope of the offence is quite narrow as it applies only to persons who loiter or prowl at night near a dwelling house on the property of another person. The mischief provisions of paragraphs 430(1)(c) and (d) apply to voyeurism to the extent that the activity interferes with the victim's "lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property." Unfortunately, courts have disagreed about the scope and meaning of "lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property" so section 430 is of limited use as a vehicle for prosecuting voyeurism.[15]
Justifying the creation of a voyeurism scheme in the Criminal Code involves a consideration of the harm that such a scheme is intended to address. The harm can be assessed as the breach of a right to privacy that citizens enjoy in a free and democratic society; alternatively, voyeurism can be conceptualized as a sexual offence. 041b061a72