Friday, May 29, 2009

Voyeurism as a Breach of Trust


It has always been around but these days, voyeurism is just one hot topic that arouses the interest of every Filipino. Many are reacting. Gabriela steps in. And even the Senate takes the case on its hand.

Setting aside the fact that the hype on Hayden Kho is creating a tabloid out of the Philippine politics, we have to grasp the issue in bite sizes to be able to come up with real solutions. Judgment is necessary. Solutions, however, are preventive.

Good ol' Wikipedia defines voyeurism as:
"the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other activity usually considered to be of a private nature"

If we will be human enough to look at this definition as some stark reality, we have to ask ourselves whether this is normal or not. If not, what do childhood and early imagoes have to do with one's compulsive effort to videotape acts that occur in private places? And in which cases do we classify the voyeur as an offender?

(Since the first question is far too complex for a blogger to discuss, allow me to delve on the latter instead.)

Sad to say, existing Philippine laws do not have any sanctions on the recording of sexual activities; on the other hand, some countries have laws that explicitly declare the act as deviant and even criminal in cases when there is no consent from the other party involved.

Given the said limitation, we can only think about the Hayden Kho scandal as an ethical offense--particularly because it is a breach of trust.

Sex and everything else leading to it are basically like relationship contracts. Such contracts are made and entered into with the binding force of trust. Without the other's knowledge and consent, videotaping obviously violates this trust. An act that is done in the bedroom should not find itself replayed on public media.

Moreover, the act should not be passed on from the hands of men and women for reasons due to entertainment, money-making, and even just sheer curiosity. At the end of the day, circulating the videos can be just as damaging as the real offense.

The worst part of all these scandals lie on the fact that most, if not all, of the victims are women.



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