We live in a culture where it’s popular to take photos of your food before you eat it. To keep all of your friends, family, and followers up to date with exactly what you’re doing (at the hairdressers with Karen! #yolo)… It’s no wonder that voyeurism has seen a boost in popularity!
Voyeurists and their sexy partners in crime, exhibitionists, have been coming out of the sexual closet in record numbers recently. Many people tend to see this as a response to all of the glorious gift that the internet has given us – and we don’t tend to disagree.
A Brief History of Voyeurism
Voyeurs were originally, or as close to original as scholars can find, well-paying gentlemen. They would hand guards or madams a wad of cash to be able to go peep through holes in any one of the famous Parisian brothels. In fact, the term voyeur comes from the French word “voir” or “to see”.
Voyeurism has spanned countries, continents, and cultures throughout the times. Where there have been couples having sex, chances are, there has been someone nearby, watching and fapping away. Sometimes these voyeurs paid for their show and were able to satiate their sexual urges in relatively acceptable terms. And sometimes they were forced to seek out these experiences with unknowing and non-consenting individuals.
The latter had given a bad name and an uncomfortable situation to the former. Voyeurism, when conducted appropriately and among consenting parties, can be healthy, fun, and incredibly sexy. When deviant behavior turns this sexy pastime into harassment, everybody loses.
Thank You, Internet
Voyeurism and real life cam websites such as VoyeurHouse.com are now so popular. Their popularity is seemingly suddenly… thank-you internet gods! There is now an appropriate, healthy, and fun outlet for voyeurs to get their kicks. And it’s not only non-harmful, but also generally mutually beneficial to everyone involved. The Exhibitionist/Voyeur relationship is the peas and carrots of the internet pornography world.
The rise in the cultural acceptability to exhibit yourself, even in sexy ways, has also provided a rise in the acceptability to view these images. More and more people are becoming increasingly comfortable with sharing intimate details and situations in their lives with one another, and not just their closest friends and family. It’s not uncommon (or unacceptable) for people to want hundreds or thousands of followers on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and pretty much every other social media site. Our focus has shifted farther and farther outwards. We long to share our daily lives with others.
This rise in exhibitionism has also created a rise in voyeurism. We love to follow these people. We enjoy seeing what it is they spend their time doing. And we like to watch from our outside perspective, at exactly what it is that’s going on in their lives. Some couples have even started watching together. This is perfectly natural and acceptable.
Thanks to this increase in socially acceptable exhibitionism/voyeurism, these traits (as they always do – think of the rise in culturally accepted BDSM practices after 50 Shades came out) have also become more accepted within the sexual community as well.
We’re all just “Polymorphously Perverse”
According to Sigmund Freud, arguably the godfather of understanding sexuality, human beings are “polymorphously perverse”. This means that just about anything can turn us on, and on top of that, it’s natural to explore most of our base sexual predilections. Finding ways to engage our sexual curiosity with other consenting adults is something that we as humans have done throughout the ages. It’s also something we’ve subsequently have failed at! However, with the advent of the internet, it’s become more and more simple to find other consenting adults that share or complement our sexual proclivities and desires.
Voyeurism hasn’t suddenly appeared as a new trend from nowhere. It has been something that has ignited our sexual curiosities since we discovered we had them. The rise in recent popularity is down to one thing: Acceptance.
There is now an acceptable outlet for this curiosity. It harms no one and actually serves to benefit the voyeur/exhibitionist community. Strip off the chains of sexual shame and come join us for a little peek at why voyeurism is not only popular, but definitely here to stay.
