Voyeurism is the habit of clandestine watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature, commonly for sexual stimulation. It may be a form of paraphilia. The term comes from the French voyeur which means "watcher," derived from the verb voir, “to see.” A male voyeur is commonly labelled as "Peeping Tom" or a "Jags", a term which originates from the Lady Godiva legend. The American Psychiatric Association has classified certain voyeuristic fantasies, urges and behaviour patterns as a paraphilia in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) if the person has acted on these urges, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty. It is described as a disorder of sexual preference in the ICD-10. The DSM-IV defines voyeurism as the act of observing "individuals, usually strangers, engaging in sexual activity, exhibitionism, or disrobing". The diagnosis as a disorder would not be given to people who experience typical sexual arousal or amusement, simply by inadvertently seeing nudity or sexual activity. In a number of legislations voyeurism is criminalized in cases when it is non-consensual or violates the expectation of privacy.
Historical perspectives There is relatively little academic research regarding voyeurism. When a review was published in 1976 there were only 15 available resources. Voyeurs were well-paying hole-lookers in especially Parisian brothels, a commercial innovation described as far back as 1857 but not gaining much notoriety until the 1880s, and not attracting formal medical-forensic recognition until the early 1890s. Society has accepted the use of the term voyeur as a description of anyone who views the intimate lives of others, even outside of a sexual context. This term is specifically used regarding reality television and other media which allow people to view the personal lives of others. This is a reversal from the historical perspective, moving from a term which describes a specific population in detail, to one which describes the general population vaguely. One of the few historical theories on the causes of voyeurism comes from psychoanalytic theory. Psychoanalytic theory proposes that voyeurism results from a failure to accept castration anxiety and as a result of failure to identify with the father.
Prevalence Voyeurism has high prevalence rates in most studied populations. Voyeurism was once believed to only be present in a small portion of the population. This perception changed when Alfred Kinsey discovered that 30% of men prefer coitus with the lights on. This behaviour is not considered voyeurism by modern diagnostic standards, and much of Kinsey's methodology has come under criticism in later years and his research is now recognized as not representative of the general population, but there was little differentiation between normal and pathological behavior during Kinsey's era. Subsequent research showed that 65% of men had engaged in peeping, which suggests that this behavior is widely spread throughout the population. Congruent with this, research found voyeurism of some type to be the most common sexual law-breaking behavior in both clinical and general populations. An earlier study, based on 60 college men from a rural area, indicates that 54% had voyeuristic fantasies, and that 42% had tried voyeurism, concluding that young men are more easily aroused by the idea. In a national study of Sweden it was found that 7.7% of the population (16% of men and 4% of women) had engaged in voyeurism at some point. It is also believed that voyeurism occurs up to 150 times more frequently than police reports indicate. This same study also indicates that there are high levels of co-occurrence between voyeurism and exhibitionism, finding that 63% of voyeurs also report exhibitionist behavior.
Characteristics People engage in voyeuristic behaviours for diverse reasons, but statistics can indicate which groups are likelier to engage in the act. Early research indicated that voyeurs were more mentally healthy than other groups with paraphilias. Compared to the other groups studied, it was found that voyeurs were unlikely to be alcoholics or drug users. More recent research shows that, compared to the general population, voyeurs were moderately more likely to have psychological problems, use alcohol and drugs, and have higher sexual interest generally. This study also shows that voyeurs have a greater number of sexual partners per year, and are more likely to have had a same-sex partner than most of the populations. Both older and newer research found that voyeurs typically have a later age of first sexual intercourse. However, other research found no difference in sexual history between voyeurs and non-voyeurs. Voyeurs who are not also exhibitionists tend to be from a higher socioeconomic status than those who do show exhibitionist behaviour.
Gender differences
Research shows that, like almost all paraphilias, voyeurism is more common in men than in women. However, research has found that men and women both report roughly the same likelihood that they would hypothetically engage in voyeurism. There appears to be a greater gender difference when actually presented with the opportunity to perform voyeurism. There is very little research done on voyeurism in women, so very little is known on the subject which limits the degree to which it can generalize to normal female populations. A 2021 study found that 36.4% of men and 63.8% of women were strongly repulsed by the idea of voyeurism. Men were more likely to be mildly or moderately aroused than women, but there was little gender difference among those who reported strong arousal. Men reported slightly higher willingness to commit voyeurism but, when risk is introduced, willingness diminishes in both sexes proportionally to the risk involved. Individual differences in sociosexuality and sexual compulsivity were found to contribute to the sex differences in voyeurism.
Contemporary perspectives
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