As can be seen from the case of Martin, the voyeur and sadist suffer from the basic pre-oedipal nuclear fear found in all perversion: the fear of merging and fusing with the mother. This is accompanied by a predominance of archaic and primitive psychical mechanisms, especially projective and incorporative anxieties. The failure to separate from the mother causes a faulty gender identity and the patient develops an intense primary feminine identification which is unacceptable to him.

The function of voyeurism is to reinforce masculinity through visual reassurance, to view the female body and/or heterosexual intercourse. By viewing intercourse which takes place outside himself, he can be sure that it is not perpetrated upon his body or within his body. The entire event is taking place external to himself. He wishes also to reassure himself that he is not being swallowed up or enveloped through the woman's orifices.