Beyond My Control: Forbidden Fantasies in an Uncensored Age (20 page)

Whether in fantasy or reality, voyeurs/exhibitionists capture and hold the people they are watching or demand that others look at them. Either way, the theme is one of substantiality, solidity, reality, and domination.

e x h i B i T i o N i s m , o r ,

“Don’t Turn That Dial!”

Today, the competition for the eye is intense. Never in mod- ern times has there been so much public display of body parts. What makes the competition more intense is that both men and women want to be seen.

With more single parents and both parents working, it fol- lows that fewer infants receive as much of mother’s gaze that fi critical year. Being seen by mother, gazed at, is necessary for us to let go, secure in mother’s love. Without mother’s gaze, we will always search for it, never totally separated into our own individual person. Should we really be surprised when the super-wealthy, raised by nannies and au pairs, end up on YouTube sex videos?

It is hard to prove that more children are receiving less of mother’s gaze, but from the increase I’ve seen in men’s and women’s fantasies of exhibitionism, I believe it’s probable. Are Paris Hilton and Britney Spears so scantily attired because they can’t afford more clothes? Is Justin Timberlake really bringing sexy back or saying, “Please look at me!”? Would any young man today be embarrassed to discover that his pants are hanging be- low his underwear? As The Bachelor parades nearly naked for the twenty-five expectant, revealingly dressed young women competing for him, the standard of dress becomes increasingly eroticized, the competition heating up.

We were, in fact, raised not to stare. It doesn’t matter whether our reaction to the exhibitionist is a smile of pleasure or shock. It’s almost as though they aren’t really sure until we see them that they matter.

In the past, certainly, women dressed up to be seen, admired, and chosen. But there was a dance to it: women weren’t sup- posed to be aware of the exhibition, and men weren’t supposed to stare in an obvious way, as in, “Why, his eyes practically un- dressed me!”

It was quite a charade: women would spend hours and all their money on “looking good,” but when a compliment came their way, a typical response was, “Oh, this old thing?”

Young children feed on getting attention by running naked through the house. It’s a game but not “just” a game. Every time we look and exclaim, the child feels more substantial. And it’s not just the act of getting oneself seen that excites. Th e is a sense of power in “grabbing” someone’s gaze, taking their attention away from whatever else it was on.Th trick is to hold the eye, capture it, and, in essence, dominate with one’s exhibitionism or voyeurism.

With less “domination” within the home, wherein par- ents ensured their children’s corporeality by making them feel “watched,” as in taken care of, children feel more invisible. The small child doesn’t say, “No, don’t look at me!” to his mother. The youngster looks over his shoulder to be sure mother’s eye is, in- deed, on him. It is only with time and a sense of identity that the child begins to seek privacy and venture farther away from home so as to exercise this growing sense of corporeal self.

With both men and women more into exhibitionism— looking good, being seen, drawing attention to themselves be it ever so discreet or not, the competition for the passing gaze has heated up. Spending on plastic surgery, cosmetics, fashion are at all-time highs. Beauty, owning it, using it in this age of equality, continues at a faster rate. As my attractive thirty-four- year-old gay friend, Saul, proudly says, referring to his wealthy fifty-two-year-old partner of six years: “I’m his trophy wife, thanks to the gifts God has bestowed on me: the nose job, da Vinci veneers, hair plugs, and the gym pass. I’m told they bring out my natural beauty.”

m a l e F a N T a s i e s o F e x h i B i T i o N i s m , o r ,

“Thanks for Noticing My Zipper’s Undone”
Before the sexual revolution, we were told in innumerable ways, from psychoanalysts and psychiatrists to books, movies, friends, and family, that men were the voyeurs, women the exhibitionists. Imagine, all those years we were boxed into these narrow defini- tions of what it was to be male or female.

One of the healthiest offshoots of feminism is that today men have returned to the mirror, to looking good, wanting to be

seen and admired. Not only can men enjoy getting themselves looked at and admired, but women can now “feast their eyes.” I am thinking of the great explosion of color alone in men’s clothing—pink and powder blue ties, fuchsia shirts, bright yel- low, the rainbow.

When I think about the old days, I wonder how my male friends, who love to dress and be admired, stood it. It was scan- dalous when Elvis gyrated his hips, but one could say he did it for fortune and fame. The average man on the street fed his exhibitionistic needs by being king of the home, adored by wife and children. He could not dress to be seen without eliciting question to his sanity and, even worse, his heterosexuality.

A psychoanalyst recently mentioned treating former monks who had left the church.“After hiding themselves for years, these men had the most violent, burning fantasies of exhibitionism, even after they married.” Should the church be better equipped to handle these men’s needs? I’m not suggesting allowing the monks to occasionally streak, but for some, it seems unhealthy to ignore the great natural desire/need to be seen. Perhaps that is why, on occasions, it is known that some monks have resorted to Peter’s method below.

Peter

I’m a thirty-six-year-old married man, and my fantasies and facts have merged in my life. My fantasies are, in fact, just a short extension of reality because I am a confirmed exhibitionist, unbeknownst to my wife. I have spent years since my teens manufacturing situations in which I expose myself to women but not in the “classic” sense of

wrenching open a grubby raincoat to flash my prick at some innocent passing victim. I dress up in ways that allow me to give the
impression
that I am unwittingly giving an unexpected view of my genitals. I once wore a pair of jogging shorts adapted to my exhibitionism. I cut out the crotch so that when I sat down, I could flop out my genitals. Also, I have cut a circle of cloth from the backside of the trousers, which leaves my bum exposed.

Today, sometimes I think, if there is a voyeur out there who is happy with his or her lot and not wishing he were an exhibitionist instead, he or she must be in paradise. Underwear is no longer required. How else can Peter get away with this for so long without his wife knowing? He would have created a scandal in the ’50s had it been discovered that a hole in his crotch was cut out.

As more and more women, female doctors, lawyers fantasize of being strippers, men are jumping into the act. Claudia, who writes eloquently of a lover who was endowed with an enormous penis, says, “A favorite fantasy of his was to work as a stripper at a women’s club. He just loved me worshipping his dick. He couldn’t get enough. It’s probably why the relationship didn’t work. As tal- ented as I am, I can’t imitate a thousand cheering women.”

alex

I’m a forty-two-year-old with an MBA, and I have to say, it’s a beautiful day for voyeurs. I can’t see a tight pair of jeans from the front or the back or the graceful shape of a breast (small, medium, or large)

without fantasizing myself fondling or licking their owner’s pussy. But nothing’s hotter than when I look at a beautiful woman, and she looks back the same way.

When I was five, my sister, who’s two years older, asked me to pull down my shorts so that I could show my penis to her girlfriends. There must’ve been about seven or eight girls who seemed to make a circle around me. I happily obliged. They immediately laughed and screamed with disgust, like it was the most horrible thing they’d ever seen. I think in some part, this led to my belief that the penis is ugly to women.

Maybe to deal with this, I’ve had a fantasy since high school that women organize a “penis beauty pageant.” I imagine the women admiring my penis and those of my fellow contestants, with some joking and catcalls but also with gasps of appreciation and acknowledgments of sexual desire based only on this exposure. (By the way, the women can only see our cocks, but we men are on the other side of the curtain.)

I imagine my cock ends up winning, and the women grab my cock, pulling me through the curtain so that they can see who I really am.

Tad

I’m a thirty-one-year-old professor, in good shape. In my classes, I see many beautiful young women every day, and from the way they dress, it’s easy to imagine what they look like nude. I admit, I sometimes fantasize what they may have done sexually. How they make love. What they would look like spread-eagle with a cock thrusting into them. I have to dress for the job, but I’ve been told I have a nice butt, so I always take my jacket off at the beginning of class. When I’m writing on

the board, I think about them checking out my buns. It makes the job more interesting.

One of my earliest memories is of me and my male cousins taking a bath. Suddenly, my sister and several female cousins opened the door, waited for us to scream, and ran away. I don’t know why this has stayed with me, but I can’t forget the excitement they got from seeing us naked.

We know that men love to watch. They get hard looking at sex in all its variations. I used to think the erect penis had everything to do with men’s staring, like an arrow pointing the way. But as women’s fashions have gotten skimpier by the season, men seem to have become more reluctant to give women their eyes. Per- haps it’s just not politically correct, or is it also that men today compete with women in the workplace and often lose? Some, like Jamie, may be damned if they will be like men of the previ- ous generations and give women their eyes. No more, “You look good enough to eat.” Now it’s, “You take my job and now you want me to look at you, give you the satisfaction of having won my attention, too? Fat chance!”

Jamie

Jamie is a fifty-three-year-old married man with an advanced degree in engineer- ing. For the last twenty years, he has worked for a successful company run primar- ily by women. at first, he thought this would be fun, as he found some of the women very attractive. Nowhesayshewould feel “disdain” to look at any of his bosses in a sexual way. He also says that he has had little success in sharing fantasies with any of the women he has ever slept with.

It is not original to say that mothers can inflict as much damage on their sons as their daughters by their own repressed ideas about sexuality. At a given moment when I was eleven, my mother walked into my room unannounced and caught me with cock in hand and delivered a stern warning in a very disapproving manner. Several years later, I began to realize the inhibiting effect of her reaction to my sexual development. I then developed an alternative fantasy of her walking in, telling me there was nothing wrong with it, watching me do it, and offering a few suggestions for greater pleasure, including placing my hand back on my cock, with hers on top to help me continue. I noticed she was licking her fingers as she left the room.