For Your Viewing Pleasure: Multi-Media Voyeurism and Exhibitionism Exposed
Another essay from the past. How little things have changed. Though before it was all about everyday people being exposed (exploited?). Now the focus is also on celebrities who have lost their place in the spotlight trying to gain it back again by documenting their (often train-wreck) lives. And don’t even get me started on the Kardashians. I actually I have never seen their TV shows, but I do see them on the covers of magazines everywhere and I am at a loss for what it all means. But lets go back a few years and see what I, as an Amateur porn performers, thought about reality as entertainment .
Scene 1:
They sit side by side, she strokes his leg and he caresses her. Even though she whispers and it is dark outside, the camera and the microphone capture her confession that she is enjoying the intense intimacy of their encounter even while she knows her partner may be doing the same somewhere else.
Scene 2:
The screen is small and the images are slightly choppy, nevertheless, her wetness is evident as he enters her. The camera pans to her face and she sticks her tongue out and waves before throwing her head back in ecstasy.
These two anecdotes represent two versions of what has become a phenomena: reality as entertainment. One is a description of some scenes from the recent television hit Temptation Island [Seska circa 2012 editorial note: It was a hit? I would have never thought of it again if I had not found this essay.] and the other is an example of a snippet from a webcam show on just about any hardcore amateur adult sex site. One is PG, the other for mature audiences only, both are for the voyeur who seems to have endless offerings laid before him/her. None of this would exist though if it weren’t for the exhibitionists among us.
Background
Voyeurs are people who find sexual pleasure in looking at people engaging in sexual acts, undressing or simply being nude. As time has passed this definition has been expanded to include people who receive satisfaction from viewing others in most any kind of situation you can think of; be it of pleasure, pain or of anything in between. In this sense a voyeur’s credo might be to live vicariously though the experiences of others is to live expansively.
According to present psychological thinking, exhibitionists are people who receive pleasure in exposing their genitals to an unsuspecting stranger. In terms of everyday language, as well as among fetishists, the S/M community, swingers, club kids, and most anyone who enjoys dressing for pleasure, exhibitionism has come to mean revealing or displaying oneself for one’s enjoyment, as well as for the enjoyment of the spectator(s), but it need not be sexual. In the case of people engaging in alternative lifestyle activities, the exhibitionism is consensual. While for club kids and those dressing for pleasure, the activities do not cross the line into complete nudity or explicit sexuality, so the point is to make people look twice or to turn back and stare in shock. They tease and provoke by wearing extreme forms of fashion and dress. Their behaviour may offend or delight and that is the hope of an exhibitionist. Without a reaction does an exhibitionist truly expose him/herself? I think not.
From Social Studies Class to the Discovery Channel: We Never Mind Our Own Business
Much of the media has always offered something to satisfy both voyeurs and exhibitionists. Traditional documentaries have chronicled people’s experiences of events, both common place and unusual. They have been watched as a form of education, seen in classrooms and on public television for decades. However, they also serve a more veiled purpose. They offer the viewer a way of experiencing something unknown to them, something they can not, for limitations of their own, experience themselves. By watching a documentary, one can visit different countries, take part in distinct cultures and subcultures, see the world through other eyes. It is safe to do so because the experience remains external, not real. Viewers of documentaries are voyeurs of the private, secret, often taboo parts of the human experience. Observed from a distance, the forbidden is accessible in such a way that it can be sampled and then discarded easily and without sacrifice.
Its All About the Freaks
When it comes to today’s voyeuristic offerings reality shows have become the vogue. We can watch a real life couple plan their wedding at 8 PM, serious surgeries at 9 PM and then at 10 PM, the arrests of stupid criminals. For some it is strictly T.M.I. (too much information), but for others it is an escape from their lives, as well as a means to satisfy their curiosity, their gossip hungry side. They get to see how others live, compare it to their own experience, and likely make judgements about it all.
Before there was TV, to know what was going on in other people’s lives we had to peek through the blinds or put a glass up to a door and eavesdrop. Why do you think front porches where designed? To sit on them and admire the view of course, the view of your neighbours!
In an extreme manner, TV talk shows hosted by the likes of Sally Jesse Raphael, Jenny Jones and Jerry Springer, Â amplified this curiosity about the diversity of the human experience. They took the unusual and unmentionable into the public forum in a big way. With the excuse that it is educational or entertaining, producers of talk TV have pushed the envelope of what is for public consumption. Guests of these shows air their dirty laundry, confront their loved ones over intimate transgressions, and offer themselves up for public humiliation, all in one short hour. Just as you want to look at car wreck you pass on the highway, people slow down when channel surfing to catch a glimpse of “My Mother Is Having My Boyfriend’s Love Child”.
Knowing a bit about psychology and the human interest in the bizarre and extreme, one can understand why such programs are so popular. However, why do people go on these programs? If I got a call from the producers of one of these shows, why in the world would I actually go? I’d be signing up for an afternoon of heckling, confrontation, exposure of something from my past, confession of something hurtful, and maybe all of these gruelling things would be experienced at the same time. No thank you. Regardless, many people do go on these shows. I am thinking that they do so for reasons of their own. It might have to do with them being offered a free trip to another city and a stay in a hotel. They might go on the show hoping to get some publicity for their business, but the main one is likely that they have an exhibitionistic side to their personality.
Getting Your 15 Minutes Anyway You Can
Western society has become obsessed with celebrity. Not only are people interested in other people’s fame, many are searching for their way to have their own 15 minutes of it. Even the shyest of my friends have confessed to daydreams of accepting their Oscar and the speech they’d give. Of course, not all people have the desire or the opportunity to get those 15 minutes, but it seems that a good bunch of us do seek it out. Hence, the trash TV guests and their exposure of their personal issues. They must get some rush when they sit on stage and have cameras filming their every move. They speak and people listen and watch; a very empowering experience. Knowing that millions of people are watching you, no matter what the reason, can be thrilling. You are a star for at least a blink of an eye.
Wanna Be In Pictures?
This desire for exposure and notoriety, as well as the ease of videotaping one’s self, has led to a boom in the Amateur porn video market. With the increase in the accessibility to video cameras, people have been filming their sexual escapades and some brazen souls have produced them for the viewing pleasure of others. In these cases, people are not exposing their emotional intimacy to others (like those who do on trash TV), but rather their physical intimate moments. The thought that others are seeing them have sex adds to their enjoyment.
People seem to also enjoy seeing “real people” have “real sex”. Acting has never been a requisite for porn movies, though for some genres it can add to its quality. In most productions the acting gets in the way of the sex. Amateur porn movies present the essence of it all without the bullshit. Viewers get to see what they believe to be unchoreographed sexual acts, real orgasms and natural looking bodies. The rawness adds to their stimulation and voyeuristic excitement.
Exhibitionism Online
A relatively new, but booming addition on the scene is amateur porn on the Internet. What started off as housewives posting fuzzy personal pictures on Bulletin Board Service (BBS) has become a multimillion dollar industry. Small sites offering those blurry pictures still exist, but they have been overtaken by slick sites with purchased content, including those run by big Internet porn companies, that pass themselves of as “girl-next-door sites or “true amateurs”. In the middle you find amateur porn sites run by the couples they feature, mine being one of them. The quality has improved from the BBS days, but the intent is the same: to get off on showing off.
A very prominent feature of many sites are voyeurcams, where a stationary camera is placed in some location and an unsuspecting person or group of persons is filmed or viewed live. The fact that the people on screen do not know that they are being filmed is an extra bonus for many viewers. A true sense of voyeurism is suggested even though in all likelihood, due to privacy laws, it is being simulated. For the most part the voyeur cams are set up in homes or rented suites and people knowingly live and “perform” before them. That certainly is the case with the amateur adult sites which offer voyeur or 24 hour cams.
Scheduled Exhibitionism
Either due to the intensity of having your life viewed 24 hours a day or the high cost of bandwidth, most amateur sites tend to schedule their exhibitionism to special webcams shows they do after they come home from work or when the kids are put to bed. The Rosecam Network of which I am a part of operates in this way. Each amateur gal or couple has specific time slots so that members of our sites know when we are on. They are spread out through out the day with the majority occurring in the evening hours (EST). I suppose some exhibitionists would feel constrained by the timing of the webcams, but it works quite well for others. I find it extremely exciting to think about upcoming shows, how I will be having sex with my husband or some friends and that a good bunch of people will getting off on watching me do so.
The joy from having my site has all to do with sex. My exhibitionism, like those of other sexual performers, has to do with being viewed from that stand point. I am celebrated for my sexuality and the exuberance I show when having sex. I would not get the same thrill if I was exposing other aspects of my life. My day to life is for me and my family. I am not interested in showing people pictures or live streaming video feed of me cleaning the house, working out or reading book. Nor do I want people to see me living though the private, painful moments I have. Those are too precious and can be too easily misunderstood by others. They are complex and don’t belong to everyone. For some reason I do not perceive my sex life in the same manner. I am thoroughly comfortable sharing a great deal of it.
Skin Versus Soul
The couples and singles who went on the television reality series Temptation Island do not have the same set of limits regarding personal privacy as I do. While I have no qualms exposing my sexual activities to the public, I am not the least bit interested in sharing my raw emotional relationships with strangers [Seska circa 2012 editorial note: This did change for me. I became more and more comfortable writing about my emotions, my ups and downs, and my day to day experiences. You can thank technology, trends and just a general comfort level with regards to privacy for that. I still like being in control of what I share and how I share it.]. Those who went on the show not only signed up for an experience to test their boundaries with their significant others, but also to let the television viewing public into this experience. Some of the participants seemed to find the cameras invasive and exploitive. When they were upset by things they had seen or heard, they wanted to have some privacy, but one of the purposes of the show was to show those moments and so the participants in question were reminded that was the deal. Others seemed to come alive before the cameras. They were very comfortable expressing their painful moments before them and even seemed to enjoy the heighten intensity of having a camera in their face. Like the guests on the TV talk shows, something about living their life on camera was satisfying. Could an island vacation be sufficient compensation for exposing your personal dramas to millions of people? Then why would the cameras affect some and not others? Some element of exhibitionism must play a role.
In our world we are bombarded by multimedia images of humanity, from the earliest documentary, to TV talk shows, to the porn videos, to the webcam sites on the Internet. We have always been observers. We used to do it by peering over a fence to see what our neighbor was up to or opening a window to hear their conversations, cries and moans in the apartment across the way. Some of people want to know more, see more. They find excitement in the sexual, in the private, in the taboo. Now they can do so with ease by turning on a television or going online. In the past, to satiate them people used to exhibit during festivals and cultural or religious events. Some lived on the margins of society, being watched but rarely touched. Now we offer up our private worlds in the form of images and sounds. We do it willingly for our own innate desire to be seen, recognized, and even received. Voyeur and exhibitionist, we are two people who rarely ever meet, but we can not exist without the other.
Originally published at Seska for Lovers 2000.
