Would you let Someone Watch?

Voyeurism is a common sexual fantasy. Why, it’s even a sexual preference for some. But conventionally it’s regarded in a rather dim light. So which sexual conventions are you comfortable with – if any?

Anne Sexton, 28 Oct 2011

There are unspoken rules about what you can try, do and enjoy sexually, but only as long as you do them in a certain way or not too often. If you visit lap-dancing clubs frequently to entertain clients, that can be seen as the cost of doing business; visit the same clubs for your own enjoyment on a regular basis and many people will decide you have a problem.

A similar attitude exists with regard to buying sex. According to numerous reports, buying sex is all part and parcel of a stag weekend. Most of the men who do so would never dream of buying sex at home, but away in a foreign country, surrounded by mates, and drunk, paying for sex is seen just part of the fun. Exactly the same behaviour is seen as a laddish lark in some circumstances, but as an admission that you are a loser, a creep or a sex addict in others.

As a society we are quick to judge those whose sexual behaviour flouts convention. We pore over salacious details of celebrities whose infidelities become public knowledge; we argue over whether or not someone’s sexual past makes them fit to hold public office; we shame women who seem too free with their sexual favours or wear too few clothes.

I’m not suggesting that I am above all this. There have been plenty of newspaper scandals that caused me to snort in derision at the protagonists who thought that fame and money would protect them from being caught. However, by far the majority of these scandals did not involve anything illegal or violent. Rather they were people stepping outside the bounds of what is conventionally regarded as proper sexual behaviour, such as sleeping with grandmothers or forgetting their knickers.

Nor I am trying to say that conventions about sexual behaviour are necessarily a bad thing. I have a load of them myself. Hundreds of years of precedent be damned – if I ever have children I am not going to have sex in front of them! This is nothing to do with Freud but simply because the whole idea seems wrong. But I am also pretty sure that my feelings are based on the fact that this is 2011 and not 1511.

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