Defining Voyeur

Hi. I’m a lawyer. I’m in a transition period of sorts (currently not working), so I finally thought it was time to start blogging again. I graduated from xanga circa 2005 and I find myself here. When I first came up for the idea for Voyeur Lawyer, I was a law student. The lofty concept back then was a subscription service. You pay $5 a month and you can watch me do whatever it is that law students do all day long. I didn’t want to get naked necessarily, but if it would raise the revenue and help pay off the ol’ student loans, I would have considered it. Maybe. I didn’t get the concept off of the ground back then because I didn’t have a webcam and I like to think there was some dignity involved too. Anyhow, I met this guy I really liked and I had to change the concept a bit.

Since I already had the name, I wanted to find a good definition for voyeur. I knew it was bad to admit publicly that you are a voyeur, like admitting that you are a peeping tom, but I didn’t think the word voyeur was all bad. I came across a secondary definition some time back that said a voyeur is a person who derives unseemly enjoyment from being an observer. I loved this definition because it doesn’t just describe me; it describes most of our country. Our unseemly enjoyment for observing is the reason why we have People magazine, why the Real Housewives of anywhere and the Bachelor get renewed season after season, and why anyone who isn’t related to Prince William and his fiancée cares about what will be served for dinner at the royal wedding. We love to watch others, to a creepy kind of degree.

Back to the definitions – I wanted to retrace my steps and find that definition so I could cite the source. It took some digging. There are tons of definitions for voyeur, and most of them are bad.

• Dictionary.com: “A person who engages in voyeurism” – not really helpful.
  
• The World English Dictionary: “a person who obtains sexual pleasure or excitement from the observation of someone undressing, having intercourse, etc.” – not really the angle I’m going for. There is an interesting footnote that explains origins: “French, literally: one who sees, from voir to see, from Latin vidēre” – insightful, but I need better than that.
• Online Etymology Dictionary: [after the etymology part] literally “one who views or inspects” – pretty general.
• Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary: “one who habitually seeks sexual stimulation by visual means”
• Merriam-Webster's regular Dictionary: sexual definition again and then “a prying observer who is usually seeking the sordid or the scandalous” – this is getting better
• Google English Dictionary: “A person who enjoys seeing the pain or distress of others” – interesting, I wasn’t sure where to place this one exactly.

The secondary definitions are really where it’s at though:

• Macmillian Dictionary secondary definition: “someone who enjoys learning about the private details of other people’s lives, especially unpleasant or shocking details”
• Cambridge Dictionary Online (more generally): “a person who watches other people's private lives”
• MSN Encarta secondary definition: “[a] persistent observer of misery or scandal; a fascinated observer of distressing, sordid, or scandalous events”

And then finally

• Definitions.net secondary definition: “a person who derives exaggerated or unseemly enjoyment from being an observer”

There it is. Perfect. This is us. This is our country. Our exaggerated enjoyment has created an entire industry. We made Antoine Dodson famous. We have incredible power and I don’t want us to stop. When we stop noticing and appreciating the absurdity around us, we will become the absurd ones. So be a voyeur with me and I promise to add some unseemly enjoyment to your week.

It sure beats being a peeping tom. :-D