Voyeurism - where on the mentally "okay" scale? How to understand?

In My Humble Opinion
21

[QUOTE=Omniscient]
How about if it’s a person with a involved BDSM and/or humiliation fetish? They might get off on parading outside wearing a leash in some fetish garb. Might get off on going to the porno store and buying all sorts of demeaning toys. They might like to parade around at the grocery store and have people gawk at them at the behest of some real or imagined “Master”. It goes on and on.
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I would definitely have a quite negative reaction to a person who behaved in this way, though not quite to the same degree as Viridiana’s hypothetical person.

22

I met a voyer a couple of decades back. He’d lived across the road and used to watch my flatmate with binoculars while masturbating (even now, I don’t like to aknowledge that he would have been watching me too).
I was at a party and the guy came up and introduced himself, explained how he’d recognised me and spent as long as he could justifying the act. Basically, it was her fault for not having installed wooden shutters on all the windows. If he could find a way of seeing inside our home, then we were responsible for his behaviour.
He said he’d never take it further, but of course, he had - by approaching me at a party he’d just escaltated from watching to contact and it was incredibly creepy. He asked for my new address (I’d moved out of that flat- soon after finding out about the pervert across the road, as it happens) and could not understand why I woudn’t tell him.
He was a sick little pervert, and damned proud of himself.
Voyerism doesn’t just bypass consent, it deliberately ignores the need for consent. The subject of the upskirt becomes an object with no rights - and as others have noted, the fact that her right to privacy has been ignored, is a large part of the thrill.

23

I have a picture of a group of friends all sitting on a couch at a New Years eve party I took once.

It wasn’t until after I developed the picture that I realized the girl sitting on the end of the couch didn’t have any panties on!

I have to say, it’s hard for me to feel sorry for this girl as the skirt she was wearing was barely long enough to cover her ass cheeks.

I wonder iof the moral thing to do would have been to give her the picture back. Which I didn’t.

24

[QUOTE=Viridiana]
…And yeah, Atrael, this is assuming that the collection or a large part of it was actually taken by the person. Perhaps there are relatives or mutual friends in there (eek), perhaps it’s obvious localities like the person’s job…there’s some way you know for sure.
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If there were photographs of relatives in the mix, that would be a big deal for me. Maybe I come off as uptight, but I would have a problem with someone close to me with a sexual compulsion acting on his incest fantasies. I think that level of poor impulse control warrants some pretty heavy duty psychiatric intervention.

25

[QUOTE=Omniscient]
How about if it’s a person with a involved BDSM and/or humiliation fetish? They might get off on parading outside wearing a leash in some fetish garb. Might get off on going to the porno store and buying all sorts of demeaning toys. They might like to parade around at the grocery store and have people gawk at them at the behest of some real or imagined “Master”. It goes on and on.

That fits the definitions you quote. It’s selfish in that they display themselves to others unknowingly for their own pleasure. It definitely disregards popular moral principles and accepted rules of behavior (two very dubious concepts in and of themselves in many places) and absolutely blurs the line between public and private.
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A big difference is the issue of consent to having one’s private(s) made public. In the BDSM example, the person whose private side is being put on public display is doing so with full knowledge and consent. The people who have not given consent aren’t having any of their private life made public. They may not like to see it, but as long as the exhibitionist is minding his own business then they’re not really being accosted in any way.

In the voyeurism example, the situation is reversed: the blurring of private and public is being done without the consent of the one being put on display, and the person getting a camera shoved under her skirt is being accosted.

26

[QUOTE=Viridiana]
In the case of someone really close like your father or brother or husband or best friend, where up until that point you had a huge emotional investment and sense of security, I couldn’t wrap myself around one’s own emotional “next step”. Is everything built up to that point trumped by knowing this was going on for a long time? It doesn’t seem like something that could be “weighed” against the person’s other positive achievements and relations to me, but perhaps someone disagrees. Could a person whose mind you can’t read ever really show you they’re past it? Could you ever really feel safe taking them around your female friends again? Is it none of your business? If cutting them off were out of the question, I’d personally feel a need to take some kind of responsibility for support, that’s certain, but can’t think whether constant stern support would be better than comforting support. And mixing in the new-found shock element…whoo, it baffles me.

And yeah, Atrael, this is assuming that the collection or a large part of it was actually taken by the person. Perhaps there are relatives or mutual friends in there (eek), perhaps it’s obvious localities like the person’s job…there’s some way you know for sure.
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Bolding mine

The thing is, people like that, peopel close to you who are not your spouse, well, we don’t like think of them as sexual beings. It’s like hearing your parents have sex, and they are enjoying themselves too. :eek:

Your brother likes sex. Your dad likes sex. Your best male friend likes sex. They all have kinks. They all have a private side.
And yes, you like sex too. (at least I hope you do)

To me, if he is taking the photos himself, it really show a level of immaturity. He should grow up. Unless he is paying a model to do it.

Of course you can search flicker for upskirt photos and find 500 of them in 1.6 seconds. So his huge collection could have be aquired in 10 mins. It may be his kink of the moment and next month he wouldn’t care for it all.

Or he could be a member of a site that specializes in this. Where the models know they are having the photos taken and are being paid for it.

It kind of depends on what is his fetish. Is it the image? Is it the hunt? The idea that he ‘got’ it from someone who doesn’t know he did? Some combination?

If I was in this situation.

Found images, taken by the person, of people we know, (possibly you?) I would have a conversation with him about it. Starting with

I’m sorry but I found these images on you PC. Please explain. Did you take them? Why? Are you sharing or selling them? I don’t think you should take photos of cousin Mary or Aunt Ellen or my friends when they come over. Maybe hearing the point of view of a woman will shock him into understanding how it is wrong to do this to unsuspecting women. He may have never considered it.

You will have to come to terms that he is a sexual being and what he likes maybe different from you like. But hey, anything you want can be obtained with willing partners these days. He should know that. And if everyone is adult and willing, then it’s none of your business.

27

It is in my opinion that there’s nothing wrong with looking, and if you feel that there is, then you have the right to avert your eyes. I’ve seen my share of panties and bras (and occasionally the lack od them) just in my daily subway commutes. I don’t know them, they don’t know me, they’ll probably never see me again, and they’re either unaware of what I’m seeing, or are purposely showing it off. Occasionally I might even snap a picture on my cell phone, but only of something I already saw, and i’ll at least try to be discrete about it, in order to not freak anyone out.

However, it falls into a different category with shoe/toilet/lockerroom cams, in which someone is making an active effort to voyeur outside of normal day to day activity. I’m the last person who should be going around calling other people creepy, but I do see a big distinction here.

Also, I’ve seen some voyeur sites, and I’d say 9 times out of 10, everything is staged. Why would someone NOT close the shower curtain unless they know they’re being filmed by a ‘hidden’ camera?