ABSTRACT
“[T]he woman as icon, displayed for the gaze and enjoyment of men…always threatens to evoke the anxiety it originally signified. The male unconscious has two avenues of escape…investigating the woman, demystifying her mystery counterbalanced by…devaluation, punishment, or saving…or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish…hence over-valuation, the cult of the female star. This second avenue, fetishistic scopophilia, builds up the physical beauty of the object…. The first avenue, voyeurism, on the contrary, has associations with sadism: pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt…. This sadistic side fits well with narrative. Sadism demands a story, depends on making something happen…in a linear time with a beginning and an end. Fetishistic scopophilia, on the other hand, can exist outside linear time as the erotic instinct is focussed on the look alone.” 1
