Voyeurism
Occasional observations about the representation of sex, sexuality and gender in film.
Gertrud Koch on voyeurism
A standard view of voyeurism assumes it is a component of genital pleasure satisfying the role of ‘foreplay’, on an understanding that consumers of pornography will feel cheated when they don’t get what they expect.
Gertrud Koch considers that the success of pornographic movies belies this belief, pornographic movies otherwise failing to achieve the standards of other film genre.
Koch, alternatively, insists that film-related voyeurism is an end in itself.
It promises what it advertises with no anticipated contact with another person. What is new is the ‘existence of pornographic cinema as a voyeuristic amusement park’, a phenomenon anchored in shyness, shame and the ‘secrecy of the peeping tom’. What makes this a potentially dysfunctional view is the need of some consumers to be in the company of strangers while engaging in this cinematic voyeurism, the experience of the home-viewer being substantially different to that of a consumer sitting in a theatre full of others.
Pornographic comedy legitimises our laughter at the exposure of others, whether alone or in a group (or alone within a group).
Koch suggests sexual orientation defines the way the product is consumed. This relates less to the film’s form and content than to the social environment of the presentation. This in turn relates to the development of a priority of the senses, the eye being the sense that interprets reality.
Koch interprets cultural/historical development rather than ‘primal passion’ as allowing voyeuristic cinema to advance.
Before pornography became a norm in society the inclusion of curiosity, cognitive activity and voyeurism in individual developmental history was recognised by psychoanalytical theory. ‘Looking, as a form of sexual curiosity that probes an undiscovered sexuality, requires distance in order to mitigate the fear of the unknown’ and is ‘the ultimate triumph of the eye over the body’.
The 21st century has, so far, legitimised social voyeurism in ways that would have horrified 1970’s feminists who may well have thought that the battle for ownership of the gaze as it relates to the female body was won ~ and that merely talking about it was enough to remove it as a sexism concern.
Led Zeppelin, if in rewriting mode in 2008, may well have retitled their seminal song ‘The Gaze Remains the Same’ and reaffirmed the first lines of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ which., of course, are ‘You been coolin’ and baby, I’ve been droolin’ …
dykiegirl 