Once you view this, you can't unsee it

Privacy protects the viewer—some things are better left unseen.

This is the sequel to your favorite post, “Stop Looking at Each Other”.

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Sergei Pankejeff was 23 when Freud found that the cause of his obsessive neurosis and severe constipation was rooted in witnessing his parents have sex doggy-style when he was only two. The young Russian aristocrat was dubbed “The Wolfman” for his recurring nightmares about canines standing on trees. From this case, Freud coined the term “primal scene” to describe the trauma of witnessing one’s parents in the act before one could understand what was happening, misinterpreting it as ‘daddy is hurting mommy,’ and feeling scared and confused (yet unconsciously excited) by what looked like violence.

Maybe Freud was wrong, I don’t know. But what’s worth learning from this theory is that you pay dearly with your sanity when you see things you’re not supposed to see.

Sergei’s painting of his dream

Who does privacy protect?

Privacy protects you, but it also protects everyone who might be burdened by the onslaught of your oversharing. The overwhelming reaction to Bianca Censori’s dress (i.e., shock, disgust, comedy, shame) shows us this exactly. It’s the same when celebrities film themselves crying over political issues—we mock them, we pity their silliness, and in the end, we just feel uncomfortable.

Bianca’s dress personifies what’s been normalized online for a while now: trauma dumping, being “authentic”, “unfiltered”, “unapologetically yourself”, filming and posting everything (or it didn’t happen), and other forms of psychological nudity. It’s why the saying “living rent free in my head” is so popular. We’re not meant to see or know everything about everyone, not even our closest friends. Paradise is lost when we eat from the Tree of Knowledge.

“THE INVISIBLE DRESS” —Ye

We tend to think that the person being looked at is the one at loss, but there’s a mental tax on the voyeur as well:

When you watch others too closely, you become the information-trashcan for gossip and entirely irrelevant miscellaneous noise. Why do you care what your high school classmate had for breakfast? Why do you care where that person you’ve met once at a party is spending their holiday? Fact is, you don’t—so why are you giving these things your precious attention? Letting them disturb your peace and take up space in your head?

Origin of respect

Literally, respect means “to look back.” It stands for consideration and caution. Respectful interaction with others involves refraining from curious staring.

—Byung-Chul Han (In the Swarm)

Respect (Latin, respectare) implies distance; today, respect is being endangered by the compulsion for spectacle (spectare, meaning: invasive gawking). Spectare can only become respectare when distance is added. Without it, there is no respect. Instead, we have scandals, entertainment, PR-crafted apologies, publicity stunts, and miserable nudity at the Grammys.

In Greek mythology, the hunter Actaeon accidentally stumbled upon Artemis while she was bathing in a secluded spring. Enraged at being seen naked, Artemis transformed him into a stag, leaving him to be eaten by his own hounds.

Orpheus, when given a chance to rescue his deceased wife, Eurydice, from the underworld on the condition that he doesn’t look back at her until they’ve reached the land of the living, tragically turns to see if she is following him, causing her to vanish back into the underworld, losing her forever.

Actaeon, Orpheus, Lady Godiva’s Peeping Tom, Lot’s wife glancing back at Sodom, and Medusa’s gaze all tell us this: Looking is linked to power, but also to punishment. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

In the Bible, the origin of pain and suffering begins with the realization of one’s own nakedness, almost as if saying that our most primordial fear is being seen vulnerable and ashamed. When we barge into a public bathroom carelessly left unlocked, unintentionally read someone’s bank statement or dark messages on their phone, or see the wrong tabs left open on someone’s shared screen, both parties—the viewer and the looked at—panic and scurry for a fig leaf. Even if you are not caught looking, the burden of that forbidden knowledge becomes a punishment in itself.

Protect yourself

Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

—Edward Snowden

A naked man fears no pickpocket…but, alas, he is naked. Looking at each other too much makes one side feel embarrassment and shame, and the other feel, in equal parts, envy, hatred, disgust, second-hand embarrassment, and pity. A lack of privacy hurts one person’s dignity and another’s peace.

The ancient Romans celebrated Terminalia, an annual festival that honored Terminus, the god who presided over boundaries. Interior walls were once a status symbol that provided wealthy families with separated rooms—privacy has always been a luxury. Yet, we let social media return us to living in caves, tents, yurts, and medieval stone houses where the toilet was sandwiched between the kitchen and the bed where the entire family crammed together at night.

Protecting your privacy is for both sides of the eyes. Protect yourself online, because no one else will.

Thanks for reading,

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