The voyeur is the person who satisfies oneself sexually by watching others performing the sex act. He arouses himself in knowing that the watched over are not aware that their intimacies are being violated. He stalks, in hiding, other bodies and sex-acts. For instance, a married voyeur would feel ultimately pepped up by peeping, through the key hole, his wife taking her clothes off, rather than being with her in the bedroom.

The child's natural curiosity, with respect to what takes place when the relatives close the bedroom door, seems as though being one of the causes of such erotic impulse. If down the line, in adolescence, the youngster's sexual impulses happen to get repressed, he might get back on the infantile practice of voyeurism as source of relief for his tensions.

Another possible cause for voyeurism resides in the type of sexual initiation that the individual received. It is normal that masturbation gets stimulated from appreciation of pornographic magazines and erotic movies, to name a few. It is bound to happen that the individual becomes ultimately focus on the visualization of sex games, without a clue that he might as well do as the emulated characters do.

The opposite of voyeur is the exhibitionist, in other words, an individual that derives pleasure in exposing his genitals to others. He manages to obtain sexual satisfaction in face of so-provoked fright reactions.

At large, exhibitionists are individuals unadapted. To them, exposing themselves in obscene manner is the only mode to draw attention. Normally they would get by unnoticeably by others. Such erotic impulse might as well be compulsive and of disastrous consequences in our lives.

Certain researchers in the field sustain that the exhibitionism has its roots in the castration complex. The child's fear of being castrated may result, thereof, in the compulsive need in exposing the genital organs so convincing oneself that were they not cut off. The exhibitionist, who flashes his penis to unknown women, feels as though, hadn't he been able to inspire love in a woman, might as well shock her. Thereby he demonstrates his virility.

Within certain limits, it is absolutely normal that the person shows off hence attract the sexual partner. The vast majority of men, for instance, relish on strutting their physical attributes, their intellectual knack, or even their top of the range sport car. Though few are those likely to flash their genitals.

A fact may explain the occurrence of voyeurs and exhibitionists; the preeminence of imagery. Out of the five human senses the sight is the most developed. Living in a society in which imagery is extremely stimulated. It comes as no surprise that a sex scene may bear so much excitement.

Individuals are taught, since childhood, that imagery related to sex should be interpreted as exciting. There should not be forgotten that the sexual stimuli, among human beings, is built and spread culturally. Anyhow, each and every individual posses a certain "degree of voyeurism and exhibitionism".

As it so happens, what renders us different from the other animals is, amongst others, our capacity to see and attribute sense to the scenes of everyday life. In our society, a dress cleavage gets interpreted as somewhat exciting. In an indigenous tribe in which the women have their breast showed, arousal gets provoked by other instances.

By Jonatas Dornelles
Antropologyst