Only this last summer, for instance, a video circulated on the Internet showing Erin Andrews, a 31-year-old ESPN-TV sideline reporter, curling her long blond hair and putting on makeup while standing nude in front of a hotel mirror.

(Thank goodness!) But it can lead to legal action. Usually voyeurism doesn’t result in one losing his or her eyesight. The story has it that Godiva’s husband made good on his promise, while the reckless voyeur-thereafter known as Peeping Tom-was struck blind for his transgression. Everyone obeyed, it’s said, except for a tailor who couldn’t resist a glimpse of the noblewoman’s beauty as she trotted by concealed only in her cascading tresses. Godiva took him up on the dare, but first ordered that the townspeople remain inside and shutter their windows. Finally wearying of her repeated entreaties, he agreed to do so-but only if she would ride a horse naked through the Coventry streets. Sympathizing with the locals, she asked her hubby to roll back the levies. According to the tale, Godiva was the wife of an 11th-century Anglo-Saxon nobleman who had recently imposed onerous taxes on the residents of Coventry, in England’s West Midlands region. It was from that incident that I learned the meaning of “Peeping Tom.” However, the term goes back much farther in history, to the legend of Lady Godiva.

At the least, it saved me from having to endure the ugly looks-and I do mean cut-off-your-balls ugly-that those embarrassed misses shot at the offenders each time they passed in the echoing hallways. I don’t remember what disciplinary actions followed, but I do recall thanking my lucky stars that I had not been invited to take part in this pubescent prank. Even before the young ladies caught bare-assed and red-faced could formally complain (along with their mothers) about such indignities, our very proper female principal had identified the guilty parties and called them on the carpet. I don’t know how long they remained unseen, but once discovered, their presence set off shrieks that threatened to shatter glass throughout that level of the school. While others were busy in class, they scampered to the top of that vehicle and slowly lifted their wide eyes above the windowsill. During the spring of my seventh-grade year (or maybe it was eighth grade), a group of boys from my class decided to take advantage of a maintenance truck that had been parked idly beneath the high windows of the girl’s gymnasium locker. It’s one of the stories I remember best from my early education.

Keyhole Peeper by Jay de Bekker