Like it or not, Americans are voyeuristic

Published: Monday, August 31, 1998

Monday, August 31, 1998

CURIOSITY: From car crashes to the Internet to mass media, people just cannot stop looking

The people of America have become voyeurs of everyday life, as they find themselves compelled to observe things around them.

The term "voyeur" tends to give people an image of a dirty old man with binoculars peering into the bedroom window of an unsuspecting girl who is finishing with a shower or changing her clothes. Furthermore, people begin to develop a profile for this man. He's a pervert, a stalker probably, because he's figured out this girl's schedule and has a lot of free time to sit around in bushes waiting to spy.

A voyeur, however, is just someone who likes to watch. It doesn't have to be a strange guy peeking into a window, but can be anybody who just watches something. Thus, all people are voyeurs. Moreover, many people tend to be more voyeuristic as they do less and observe more. There are numerous instances of this.

Video camera footage has become a hallmark of voyeurism during the last few years. As reported on local television station KTTV, an explosion of footage looking up women's dresses in public places (such as outdoor malls and sidewalks) has grown into a popular item on the Internet. It is a legal act as long as it's done on public property such as sidewalks, and the perverted enjoyment from the purveyors is paying the providers of this cottage industry. As long as people enjoy looking at this, there will be other people using their small, concealed cameras to spy up dresses.

Voyeurism can also be offered to the public for a price. Another Internet oddity would be the JenniCam, which is a camera mounted in a young woman's apartment. Jenni, a girl doing everyday things in her apartment (including nudity of sorts), charges people to get a video feed from her mounted camera. Once again, people get pleasure from watching her every time she gets in front of the camera and does whatever she feels like at the given moment.

The entire American mentality to watch was exposed recently by two actors who pretended to be virgins about to have sex for the first time on a web site called "Our First Time." The two alleged virgins, Mike and Diane, drew in enormous amounts of people to their web page in anticipation of their supposed date of Aug. 4 when they would have sex live on the Internet via a digital camera.

Before the deadline, however, the two actors and their producer held a press conference where they revealed that it was a hoax. They said that they had meant to send out a message that people truly like to watch, and that maybe people should examine their moral values and character for wanting to view such material on the Internet. In fact, a parody web site on two virgin ducks about to have sex for the first time has shown itself as "Our First Crime."

On top of that, it struck a blow to IEG, a leading adult entertainment provider on the Internet, since the company signed a contract with them and then failed to deliver two people losing their virginity online. It hurt IEG's reputation for providing such adult entertainment.

Los Angeles drivers can also be accused of voyeurism. Immediately following a car accident, drivers can be found "rubbernecking" at slow speeds as they pass the scene. Whether it is the 405 Freeway or Interstate 5, drivers filled with curiosity and intrigue slow down to see the injuries or deaths inflicted by the collision. People also rubberneck at other motorists who have been pulled over by the highway patrol for speeding or some other infraction. The drama and trauma of something that isn't a routine occurrence (although some would debate that accidents are routine) provides excitement with something that is real and has an unknown outcome, forcing people to watch.

Voyeurism can be experienced at home all by yourself as well. The television is the main contributor to single voyeurism. After all, you are watching television. People enjoy it because when a new episode comes out, they have no idea what is going to happen and how it is going to affect the actors. Although the folks on television are merely actors, the people watching are still peering into the lives of other people, whether or not they are real.

Aside from the usual planned programming on television, there is the (now everyday) high speed pursuit shown by the local news as a special report - they even force this into children's programming sometimes. Once more, the allure of the car chase is the reality of it and the fact that the outcome is uncertain. Lives could be lost, vehicles could be smashed and the unusual nature of the chase draws viewers to the tube as a person runs from the law.

Television has also brought about a change in the American psyche. It used to be that everyone wanted to see things for themselves and make their own judgments. Now, parents and concerned citizens don't want everyone to see everything. For example, on Apr. 30, a man upset with his HMO for bad treatment stepped onto a Los Angeles freeway and shot himself in the head with a shotgun. It was on live television thanks to aggressive local news stations. Since it aired during children's programming, parents found themselves upset at the irresponsibility of the television stations for showing viewers that scene, but also found that they were unable to pry themselves away from such images. The ratings were high that day.

Indeed, voyeurism of such atrocities is popular despite some conflicting moral feelings about protecting children from such images - some adults find these images fascinating.

Similar to watching television shows, movies can be a source of voyeuristic indulgence. A person sits in a theater, in the dark, staring into other peoples' lives for two hours. Identical to previous examples of voyeurism, the lure of watching is the enjoyment from not knowing what will happen next in the portrayed lives of the people on the big screen. Also, let's not forget the men and women who watch some movies to see the naked body of a favorite actor or actress.

Everybody really is a voyeur. We all have rubbernecked at an accident on the freeway or looked at a penalized motorist watched a television show or a good movie or checked out another human being sometime in our lives. In fact, we may be doing it more than ever since watching or looking is much safer than doing.

There's nothing wrong with letting human nature take its course. You can't help liking to look whenever and wherever you are because you enjoy it. That's the whole point. You're intrigued, it's dramatic, it oftentimes is a real-life event, it's thrilling, it's usually not routine and most of the time you aren't sure what the outcome will be for the subject being watched.

So be a voyeur, watch because you like it. Just make sure you know what you're looking at is what you really want to see.

Referenced websites:

Jennicam

Denizine

Michael Yan