PEEPER: THE MORNING AFTER
The morning after our peeping tom spied us shooting nudie pics in our Manhattan hotel room, Tucker noticed the guy at his window again. With a candle LIT on his window sill.

Why the fuck are you lighting candles in one-hundred-degree heat? You *have* to be trying to signal someone. Perhaps the kinky couple in the hotel room who like taking pictures of one another? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Not too long after that, we heard loud classic rock coming from somewhere outside. Surprise! Our peeper was trying to get our attention via his stereo speaker which he'd placed in his window. It clearly wasn't meant to hold up a loose window, nor was it just the ideal spot for him to place it for his own listening enjoyment as the fellow had it aimed OUT, towards US (and everyone else who might not want to listen to Aerosmith in their early years).

This stranger's behavior made me very happy that we were leaving and didn't have to live next to him for the duration of a year-long lease or something like that. This stranger's behavior gave me an opportunity to clarify my last post about the difference between fantasy and reality when it comes to voyeurism, and why the IDEA of it is hot, but the REALITY is creepy and intrusive; I liked showing off for him knowing that we wouldn't have to deal with him again - that interacting from a short distance was not-very-risky considering it wouldn't become a long-term affair or something anyone would try to take to the next level given our short stay in the hotel. But even during that short time the fellow DID become annoying. And creepy (though it could have been much worse -- he could have decided to try to find our room).

I adore really truly kinky voyeurism fantasies: a perverted boarding school teacher spying on the girls changing in the bathroom and humping each other in the dormitory, teenagers in a circle jerk spying on the neighborhood slut sucking off the town preacher, me spying on my sexy neighbor getting fucked against the window by her bald boyfriend, blah blah blah. I totally get off on those fantasies. But I get off on them in the same way I get off on incXst fantasies and many women get off on rXpe fantasies - THEY ARE TWISTED FANTASIES, and hot *because* they are totally taboo, criminal, and something we would never ever in a million years want to experience in reality. They are NOT dreams to be realized and the fantasies are completely different things than they would be in real life.

On the other hand, with voyeurism I can accept that it can sometimes happen in real life without horrifying consequences, and that under the right circumstances fantasy and reality could possibly meet and a good time could be had by all. But our experience with the guy in the next building illustrates how much risk is associated with even the most banal exchange between even consenting exhibitionists and voyeurs; you run the risk of enduring uninvited harrassment and opening the door to interactions you totally don't want at times when you're in no mood to participate. Leaving the blinds open could be interpreted as consent being given for all sorts of things you didn't intend to consent to.

This is what I love about pornography: it's a way to stage and get off on taboos without actually violating them in real life. Unfortunately, WE DO NOT REALLY ENJOY FREE SPEECH so depicting any of those taboos (or even something as natural as a woman's PERIOD) in porn opens you up to prosecution and possibly prison time and forfeiture of any money you made off of said "obsenities" (which is why I'm trying to mask certain Bad Words in this entry by Xing out letters so that search engines and my payment processor's spiders don't find them). Of course, you can depict rXpe, incXst, and all forms of sick crimes on television as long as there's no GRAPHIC sex and big advertisers fund them (example: Law & Order Special Victims Unit). Also unfortunate is that many people who do make (or advertise) edgy porn featuring taboos insist on framing it as "REAL!" This happens a lot with voyeur sites claiming that the women really didn't know or consent to being photographed, and some that clearly do have illegal content violating people's privacy. That kind of shit makes me angry as hell. First of all, it's unnecessary unless, of course, you're trying to capture a market of the truly criminally-minded who can only get off if someone is being victimized in real life. That shit is disturbing and dangerous.

The existence of that shit is also the reason why it's impossible to enjoy a carefree little fantasy about the guy in the next building jacking off against his window while he watches my boyfriend jacking off. Because some people can only get off when they're VIOLATING boundaries rather than simply fantasizing about dancing on them.
posted by Trixie at 8/05/2006 10:58:00 AM -