Voyeurism is Not a Gender Issue

Tatiana Von Tauber

By Tatiana von Tauber

Voyeurism can be a good thing – between couples in fantasy play no doubt but when taken into reality it is hideous. And while it’s surely women who fall victim, such as sportscaster Erin Andrews, it annoys me when it’s a crime marked with a feminist twist, as in this article.

Clearly men on average get off on female nudity more often than women get off on male nudity and I can’t think of one situation where a female was caught sneaking lesbian sex in a public bathroom or peeping through a hotel room at a naked guy – oh, but wait I do remember something.

When I was a kid my neighbor was a 6th grader and she taught me this cool trick of turning out the lights at night when her mom was working late and peeping at the apartment window across from her living room. In that apartment lived a young guy, probably in college and she’d get a kick out of the fact that he wore his tight jeans without underwear.

Yes, this example is of a kid’s curiosity but you know, the peephole thing lasted for years for her and habits form early. Voyeurism never did it for me. Not then, not now and that’s primarily because I felt awful for invading another’s privacy. Now, in fantasy play – well, that’s a different story.

Unfortunately it is primarily men who get caught in the act but for me the point isn’t that a man knowingly watched a woman. It’s that one human being invaded the privacy of another human being. Basically, the crime is in the privacy matter, not the gender. And while I also know there is a lot of sexism in America, much less the world, I have to wonder if men sometimes roll their eyes and think, “Oh brother, here we go again”.

I’ve known a few men in my time who were abused and harassed by a woman and it’s an uncomfortable position to be in. Besides being a pussy in front of other guys, there’s a sense of personal shame from the standpoint of having little possibility of being taken seriously for such honesty simply because it is thought of as such weakness. Just as women have pressure of fighting off the stereotype for their feminine “inferiority”, men have pressure ridding their masculine “superiority”. Not all women are weak and not all men are strong. There are women who take advantage of the sexist card and those women make it harder for everyone – specifically those men who never inflicted any harassment or abuse but were accused anyway.

It’s very unfortunate and upsetting that Andrews’ privacy was invaded but the gender issue shouldn’t be the focus. It further stamps attention on a crime from a default inferior position (the female is the victim again); meaning, if we focus on the negative, that’s all we see and it spews greater anger. Focusing on the crux of the matter – the loss privacy, thus personal freedom – is a more balanced and equal position.