Peeping Toms, Punished

Kids these days (by which sardonic phrase I intend to reference everybody who has grown up with the internet in their life) might reasonably wonder: why are there so many references to peeping Toms in vintage pop culture? They are everywhere, especially in cartoonery as a risible figure. What the heck was up with that?

I’m not saying we don’t have voyeurs in 2021; we manifestly do, and every so often some sad dude gets arrested for hiding a camera in a locker room. But it’s in the nature of a rare perversion these days, whereas (if we trust the magazine gags and comic postcards) it was common behavior, with a heavy degree of “boys will be boys” social resignation about the phenomenon.

Go back 120 years, and porn was mostly underground, rare, expensive, a privilege of the rich. Even after porn magazines became more common, they often weren’t casually available outside urban centers. If you weren’t married or paying a sex worker, the sight of naked flesh “in the flesh” was usually unobtainable. Is it any wonder that horny dudes were alert for opportunities to peep through keyholes, binoculars, undraped bedroom windows, unguarded doorways, and cracks in privacy fences?

It’s different these days. There’s a lot more skin to be seen on a warm summer street or a busy beach than there used to be. And porn is ubiquitous on a screen that fits in your pocket. For a few bucks, you can go to cam girls websites where you will find naked girls to view on your screen who will be wondrously cooperative, if you are still mystified by anything and desire a closer look. Honestly speaking, there’s no need to risk retaliatory violence, social censure, or criminal sanctions by lurking in the azaleas under some woman’s windowpane.

But oh! How it used to be different. I can’t say whether unwelcome horndogs snooping around beachside changing tents were a genuine social reality or just a social obsession of the times, but either way, we have endless examples of them recorded in comic artwork. Sometimes, we see them just chilling and enjoying the view. But much more often, they being kicked around by their enraged victims, thumped with a parasol by an angry spouse, hauled away by the beach police, or even booted off a rock into the sea by a random passer-by.

At least in the popular imagination of the day, public punishment of peeping Toms was necessary, appropriate, expected, and above all, funny! And yet voyeurism apparently persisted, which is perhaps a sign of the general level of sexual frustration and desperation in the pre-porn era.