Late in the noughties I took post graduate papers in Feminist Studies and Sex in Film at The University of Auckland. During this time I wrote some slight pieces about the works I was reading and from time to time I’ll publish them here. This is one of them.
A standard view of voyeurism assumes it is a component of genital pleasure satisfying the role of ‘foreplay’, assuming consumers of pornography will feel cheated when they don’t get what they expect.
Koch considers the success of pornographic movies belies this belief, pornographic movies otherwise failing to achieve the standards of other genre.
Koch insists 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’. Pornographic comedy legitimises our laughter at the exposure of others.
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’.
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