1/ One day a person from the country enters a big city and goes to a store to buy some under-garments. The salesperson -- realizing that the guy is not from the city -- decides to have a little fun and shows him a dainty looking woman’s underwear. When the man implores that he wants the "men’s" one, the salesperson smirks and says: “Buddy! You’re way behind. These days everything is sports-casual, and there is no difference between men’s and women’s…”. The man answers: “There is no difference? Want me to show you the difference? Ha?”

Therefore, there is a difference. There is a difference between “man” and “woman” (it was mentioned above that these are the axioms of the discussion and as you know the foundations of a discussion can not be challenged).

2/ A “man” is writing this piece -- any objections to that?

Descriptions

1/ “Masculine” means muscular, “I’ll have the last word”, “I am capable of differentiating between good and bad”, “I know the difference between right and wrong”, “I handle situations”, “I can sense a situation”, “I can separate my instincts from my feelings” and… “Feminine” means a lot more things, and since it doesn’t fit into my discussion here, I’ll leave it be.

2/ It’s not always the case that “manly actions” are carried out by men and “womanly actions” by women. Throughout their lives, all men do womanly things and vice versa. To put it more clearly, “masculinity” and “femininity” referred to in this article, are not necessarily related to "men" and "women".

3/ In different cultures, objects and occurrences are gendered; for example the sun is masculine and the moon is feminine (Yes! I am well aware that in some cases it’s the opposite). Even God has a gender in some places. And finally the camera; if it hasn’t already been noted somewhere, I’m happy to be the first person who announces that the camera is a completely masculine element (I should have mentioned this in the axiomatic so that there would be no objection to it, but since I didn’t, I’m forced to explain it further).

4/ "Camera" in this article does not refer to the tool that has been in the hands of the likes of {Margaret Bourke White} or {Sebastião Salgado}. The functions of a camera here is any-‘thing’ which can be in the hands of anybody and is able to place any image in any frame -- without attaching specific idea or thought -- in a viewable manner.

5/ "Voyeurism" according to DEHKHODA dictionary is defined as: “Staring and stealing glances. Casting relishing looks at the beautiful. Playing with glances. Engaging in the act of looking at beautiful faces in public places. To look into something with envy and desire.” The writer agrees with this definition but would also like to add that the pleasures of voyeurism multiply when it’s done discretely. Meaning, when the subject of the stare does not realize he/she is being stared at.

An Applied Explanation: The old saying that “a single look is halal” is entirely false (unless there is some sort of dispute over the definition of halal, which means religiously sanctioned). Otherwise, those who maintain the “stream of consciousness” theory can prove that with just one “look” many things can take place. Psychologists can also show statistically that husbands and wives who take a good look at each other every day, in the best case scenario get tired of one another after seven years and have to add diversity to their "looks" so that the basis of their lives will remain intact (In most cases they don’t pay the necessary amount of attention to this and reach the very conclusion that they don’t want to). Conversely, the professionals of voyeurism know that with the help of the abilities of stream of consciousness, with just "one look", one can -- for a prolonged period of time, without any difficulty -- be happy and taste the pleasures of life.

6/ Voyeurism is a male process (voyeur females -- before letting out a scream pay attention to the description of Number 2). In stories as well, majority of oglers are men (the image in classical literature of the voyeur being a balding, beer-bellied, short, vest wearing and walking with a stick male is outdated -- the writer can cite himself as a counter example)!

Experiments and Experiences

1/ The late {Alfred Hitchcock}, in his infamous interview with the late {Francois Truffaut} has said: Cinema is the art of voyeurism. If you read this sentence in reverse, you’ll reach the conclusion that voyeurism is also a cinematic process. The ogler, much like the director, chooses his subject and edits it according to his mental narrative; a long-shot, then zoom and then close-ups of him. The work of the ogler, like that of the director, is invasive and masculine. The director attacks the subject and then conquers -- zooms in and out and then zooms in very close. He throws away the extras and only keeps what pleases him, and in all these stages it is the hands-on nature of the experience that is pleasurable. The inner mental space of an ogler is also only filled with pleasurable things. There is no way of entrance in his mind for the immemorial fight between man and woman. In much the same way as a movie set, the actors and other crewmembers are forced to perform the orders of a director who only instructs for his own pleasure. The ogler can also be in love with whomever he pleases and therefore free to look at his subject and make love to it as he pleases.

2/ The most appealing fantasy of my childhood was placing the camera in places where no one would suspect -- to ogle. This preference existed much before the development of any sexual instincts, and I presume that I share this experience with many others. In the elevator, parking lot, street, bedroom of a girl whom I liked, my father’s car, and sometimes it would take on such a massacistic dimension that I would want to place a camera in the grave along with a corpse so as to see what went on in there. All of these presented themselves as pleasurable with the absence of the object -- myself. That interest later turned into one for movies and their production. Today, close to being forty years old, I don’t hide that still sometimes I press the camera button on the buzzer and for a couple of minutes watch whatever is going on outside behind the door. To me one of the most appealing occupations is working in the traffic control room of the municipality. All of these things, without a doubt, are erotic, invasive and masculine. In Time Code ({Mike Figgis}, 2000), this feeling is overwhelmingly present. Four simultaneous images of four people who are in some way related to one another -- in four different circumstances -- without either one knowing about the other. It is only the audience who derives pleasure from voyeurism at them in their condition, and sometimes derives pain like any other erotic-masculine-invasive phenomenon.

3/ To fight corruption in a government office, cameras are installed everywhere, even "outdoors". Despite this, bribery is still prevalent. The meaning of "under the table" has changed to "in between newspaper pages", and from the auspices of cheap pay-as-you-go phones making anonymous appointments, a street away from this specific office is a quick and easy solution. But the person who is in charge of observing these cameras, experiences one of the most enjoyable positions during his working years, without even being aware of it. Most probably a similar condition prevails over all those operating at the receiving end for both government and private security cameras. From security cameras in restaurants to banks, from the subway to even city traffic cameras, the operators may believe that they are performing a very important task, but that which drives them to do their job is a masculine-invasive-erotic appeal, and it’s pleasurable. Even in the corner of TV stores, closed circuit cameras have been set up (as a gimmick to prove the quality of the equipment), which only show the outside of the store. Yet you see people who have stopped and are gazing into the screen staring at the person who is passing right by them. But the viewer is reluctant to turn around and directly look at the subject of his gaze, and would rather stare at him through the camera’s vision. Voyeurism, without the presence or realization of the object, has a pleasant taste, sour and tangy, filled with surrender.

4/ According to {Roland Barthes}, pornography is the purest form of an image in which the actual act, without the least bit of interference and change, is documented, and a freedom is given to the viewer to see that image with his own mind in whatever way he wants to enjoy it. The experience of watching images from close circuit cameras is similar to this: pleasurable and pure, and completely in compliance with the mechanisms of voyeurism. Always in movies, images from these cameras have had a beautifying effect. The empty and cold tunnel of a subway system from the view of the camera operator is a groggy image he is transfixed on. That is until the passage of a beautiful woman suddenly changing everything to a sensual, pleasurable and voyeurism process, even if the woman turns out to be a robber, or a member of a political opposition group who plans on staging something in that space -- any reaction will occur in the next stage after the initial pleasurable experience. Even in re-viewing recorded images from actual events such as parties or weddings, or election meetings, whoever the viewer is, whatever the motivation, even if he is a secret service agent who is looking to identify people from a political demonstration, he will never be able to deny himself the pleasures of ogling. If this pleasure is not present in the job, the whole thing will become void. Nobody will ever record anything. An entire generation of cameras will become useless.

5/ The crash between voyeurism and reality becomes problematic. In A Short Film about Love ({Krzysztof Kieslowski}, 1988) the meeting of the voyeur boy with the subject of his gaze ends in tragedy. When a man secretively is enjoying ogling a beautiful woman, it is possible that when the woman finds out that she is the subject, it will make for an unpleasant moment -- obviously not in all cases. A soldier who is responsible for controlling the crowd at a political demonstration and is with "envy and desire" ogling the "beauties" of the crowd and the men who are next to the "beauties", through their accessibility to them emphasize the soldier’s lack of. He feels hatred. When he receives orders to face reality and suddenly the path of his ogling becomes blocked, this obstruction turns into brute strength and unruliness which can be witnessed in the sheer force with which he uses his baton. The one who extends this order to the soldier is himself not too far off from this process; he has ogled in another location, and then become angry and obstructed.

***

Not here, but maybe somewhere else it’ll be possible to continue this introduction and say that voyeurism is a cycle that eventually -- with the presence of the object or a replacement-look-alike and with the love making process or something resembling it -- will achieve self-fulfillment and after a time of stagnation the next cycle will begins. A disturbance at any stage of this path impedes on a naturally occurring order. In the above example, if the space between the voyeur soldier and his subject (in an institutional and public setting) does not decrease, intersection with reality may occur. The camera has to be satiated. A filmmaker has to finish the movie and showcase it. Have you seen a filmmakers whose movies stay unfinished or unviewed?

Assumption

The camera does and will exist, and so does voyeurism (for example we are yet to achieve Reality TV in Iran). To the history of pleasure every day a new page will be added. Media networks have completely focused on creating pleasure. Nothing can be done about this.

As for the intersections: the camera is masculine. Voyeurism is masculine. He who ogles says: “I have the last word”, “I’m capable of differentiating between good and bad”, “I know the difference between right and wrong”, “I handle situations”. All these have to be present and he has to say them. There is nothing new here as they have all been mentioned in the introduction. What will prevent these "crashes" or intersections is mixing and being with the subject. Here we get whiffs of "feminine", the very thing which I did not describe. Someone who feels the need to make movies cannot just watch them, if he doesn’t make them he will become ill, maybe even a dangerous schizophrenic. In the same way that a man, who ogles, alone, far from any femininity, can turn into a serial killer, ogling governments (all governments are) also can. All management is voyeuristic by nature and it has to be wedded to femininity so as to not become tyrannical like that soldier. This assumption searches for a solution here: femininity.

Translation: {Shirin Haghgou}