While Singapore is generally a crime-free country, it has seen a rise in ‘outrage of modesty’ cases in recent years. But not all perverts are the usual suspects (ie. older ‘uncle’ types); for the past few years now, what caught the attention of the public was that many of the perpetrators were young, university-age guys.
Secret videos
A majority of cases of ‘outrage of modesty’ committed by these young men don’t involve physical contact. Their crimes mainly involved the filming of females in obscene videos – these include upskirt videos taken in public or videos of women showering filmed by hidden phone cameras.
In 2018, the first public exposure of a Peeping Tom was brought to light by NUS student Monica Baey after she realised she was being secretly filmed in her dorm shower by fellow student, Nicholas Lim. We all know how the saga went – the school only sentenced Nicholas to a suspension for a semester and he was made to write an apology letter to her. No police action was taken.
Since 2017, there’s been a rise of voyeurism cases involving mobile phones. In February, a Yale-NUS student was charged with 27 weeks in jail for filming shower videos of 4 female students. Other student-offenders include NUS student Joel Rasis Ismail who was a ‘budding architect’, and 17-year-old NTU student, Han Shiyu, who was expelled from school for his misdeeds. Even a 22-year-old Singaporean man from a ‘top university in Britain’ who came back for his holidays was caught recording unlawful videos of women showering.
Shower videos aren’t the only crimes – upskirt videos seems to be a very popular perversion. Perpetrators include SIM student Tham Heng Yew who was arrested multiple times for filming upskirt photos using a camera phone hidden in his shoe, NUS student Luah Chao Zhi who was jailed for 8 weeks for his crimes, and Republic Poly student Rayson Chee, who pled guilty to filming upskirt videos this year.
Women haven’t been the only victims, either. In 2017, 27-year-old Colin Teo was caught taking obscene videos of 33 men in public toilets without their knowledge. On the same weekend that Monica Baey’s incident went viral, a 19-year-old guy was caught allegedly taking photographs of another man showering in a male toilet at NTU’s dorms.
These cases are just the tip of the iceberg. Plenty more similar crimes go unpunished as perpetrators manage to evade capture.
Urge overkill
Part of the reason that we’re seeing a lot of university-age men committing these acts has to do with a few factors. The first is that they’re at their peak of sexual urge because their testosterone levels are at their highest. Secondly, men generally get aroused more easily than women when viewing sexually-stimulating images, according to researchers at Emory University.
Most importantly, the reason university guys committing Peeping Tom crimes is because their dorms present them with relatively easy access to female toilets: it’s a crime of opportunity.
The surge in upskirt videos points to two obvious reasons: the prevalence of such videos in porn, and the fact that it’s easy to take one with a camera phone.
Voyeurs aren’t a new phenomena – perverts have been perverts since forever (after all, the male brain area for sexual pursuit is 2.5 times larger than the female’s). The only thing that’s changed over the years is access to technology in the last 10 years when camera phones came into the picture.
Perversion disorder?
When asked why they did what they did, their only explanations usually revolve around the “I couldn’t help it” excuse, or the “I did it for stress relief.” However, both of these excuses could stem from a voyeuristic disorder (read: mental health issue).
According to forensic psychologist Dr. Julia Lam, the lifetime prevalence of voyeuristic disorder is estimated to be 12% in males (compared to 4% in females). She views extreme cases of voyeurism as a compulsion, obsession and/or an addiction.
Voyeurs are more likely to masturbate or have sexual fantasies while watching someone rather than having sex with them. Most of these voyeurs have a long history of engaging in excessive masturbation and pornography use. It seems their interest in peeping and upskirting stems from adolescence.
Clinical psychologist Joel Yang surmises that the habit often begins with a pornography addiction that becomes stale; some progress to taking the videos themselves to add the thrill of “getting away with something”.
“Stress relief” was also a reason for voyeurism by one of Dr. Lam’s patients. To relieve stress from major sporting events or exams, a male university student masturbated excessively as a “coping strategy”.
Crime and punishment
Peeping Toms who were caught have been taken to court and sentenced to some form of punishment.
On the flip side of the coin, punishments meted out for “insult to modesty” only apply if the victims are women. This was put under the spotlight in the case of Colin Teo, who was only punished for the crime of taking obscene videos, not for “outraging the modesty” of the men he filmed. This is reflective of how society regards the two sexes when it comes to the value of a man’s modesty.
Where do we go from here
Although victims of voyeurism aren’t physically assaulted, it doesn’t mean that emotional and psychological damage isn’t there.
Is there any hope of redemption for these perverts? Many offenders struggle with admitting they have a problem in the first place, according to Dr Cheow Enquan, a consultant at IMH. The reason is simple: admitting to voyeurism means admitting to a mental disorder, and in Singapore, it’s a social stigma.
Until we all accept that mental illness is not something to be joked about or treated lightly, we won’t be able to give these men the help they need, and vicariously, give women the peace of mind they deserve.
This is an excerpt from the article “Peeping Toms” in Campus magazine’s Issue 65, which you can read for free in full here.
