Staring

In staring, one subject or person is the continual focus of visual interest, for a long amount of time.

Staring behavior can be considered as a form of aggression like when it is an invasion of an individual's privacy in certain contexts, or as a nonverbal cue to convey feelings of attraction in a social setting.

For example, in the movie Superbad, the character Fogell is caught staring at a classmate’s exposed thong underwear, or a whale tail.

Jean-Paul Sartre discusses "The look" in Being and Nothingness, in which the appearance of someone else creates a situation in which a person's subjectivity is transformed without their consent.

This has been the subject of psychoanalytical studies on the nature of scopophilia, with a subsequent development in some aspects of feminist thought (see film, photography and voyeurism).

Another, granted uncommon, and is considered by some unsportsman like, is called the 'ambush' ruleset, where one participant begins the contest without the opponent initially being aware of it.

Staring contests ('Stare-out') were featured as an animation in the first series of surreal BBC television comedy sketch show Big Train (aired in 1998).