Voyeurism is an act of gaining some sexual pleasure by looking at some private affairs that the person engaged thinks that is not monitored by someone. It is derived from a French word “voir” which means “to see”. When a person gains sexual pleasure and gratification from looking at sexual acts of others or when they are naked. Voyeurism is considered to be an offence under Indian law and as well as under many other countries too. But basically before considering it as an offence, Voyeurism is considered to be a psychosexual disorder and a form of Paraphilia. Normally this offence is done by male and a male voyeur is called as “Peeping Tom” or a “Jags” which originated from the Lady Godiva legend. And the offence is mostly done by male comparatively then females as the reported cases stands as a witness for it.
Voyeurism as psychological disorder, is proved through many studies and many psychologist have proved it as sexual disorder too. John Money in the year 1996 defined Voyeurism as “a paraphilia of the solicitationalallurative type in which sexualerotic arousal and facilitation or attainment of orgasm are responsive to, and dependent upon, the risk of being discovered while covertly watching a stranger disrobing or engaging in sexual activity”. And also the Psychoanalytic theory gives rises to some of the few historical theories that brings out voyeurism. Psychoanalytic theory which was proposed in later 19th century is a theory that relates
to personality organization gave a view that voyeurism arises from the failure of accepting “castration anxiety”.
As voyeurism primarily considered to be a psychological disorder the first question that arises out is whether the act is an offence or not.
Many countries have enacted statues regarding it as a crime but there are still some countries that have not yet recognized it. Even Indian law did not consider voyeurism as a crime till 20133. Though some countries haven’t considered it, most states prohibit taking photographs or videotaping of another person without their consent by observing that persons privacy. And the countries that consider voyeurism as crime and offence punishes the offender with imprisonment as the minimum penalty.
2017-18-Vol3-Issue2-_23
