Sunday, March 20, 2011

How justified is voyeurism?

It's been really long since I've sat down late at night and read anything to my heart's content. Since I've done it today, let me try breaking the jinx and hope I write a nice, good, long post. I know I keep on saying this all the time but there's really a lot to write about. Life's exciting as hell man, despite the dysfunctional servlets I write.

This has been in my head for a really long time now. Is it okay for you to do something wrong when nobody else is seeing you do it? For one, let's face it, everybody loves to voyeur around. Doesn't have to be anything that has got anything to do with masturbation; here I'm not just talking about the sexual interest but also can be gossiping about somebody else's life, about listening to conversations you are not supposed to, you know pretty much peeping through the keyhole. We love doing it. The prospect of crossing the line, entering forbidden territory excites us. And if you have the added advantage of doing this in mist, why wouldn't somebody want to do it. And two, voyeurism makes us hypocrites, which is but a sad consequence of the act. It gives us two faces, one the visible one and the other one shrouded in darkness. Fatefully, it was just today that I read Oscar Wilde's "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth" in Suelette Dreyfus' Underground.

But that also gives us another edge to parry with. You cannot claim having seen or heard anything because in the first place you're not supposed to be doing it. So, there's mighty well no chance that even if somebody spies at you all the time, he cannot claim to have seen you do something. Now, that makes voyeurs 1. cowardly, because they know they're doing something wrong and so they hide and 2. mute spectators. So, I can safely claim now that voyeurism is an harmless act.

So, what is wrong with it? With somebody peeping into somebody else's room as long as they don't realize it and feel uncomfortable and are not disturbed by it. I'm there to see everything but I can't be seen. Fair. Does that mean voyeurism can be justified? I get the pleasure I seek for, the other person is ignorant about it and nobody else knows about this, how fair is that.

I don't know if it's Okay or not but what I know is that then we'll be breeding cowards in the society. Kids doing that is fine but grown-ups doing it is scared men who neither have the courage to admit what they're doing nor have the will to stop themselves. Cowards are not happy people, they're mere ghosts who are scared with the prospect of living. And imagine what a whole world of cowards would be like.

2 comments:

Deekshith Vemuganti said...

what were you trying to say?

Dhruti said...

Your opinion is missing. Probably that's your point. And, voyeurism, well.. I have no say. The reason why this issue is in itself a hypocrisy, because, at some point in life, the person will have to deal with the images that he has been peeping. And, he has to deal with the world then.