Voyeurism

Introduction:
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”.