I searched the scientific literature for the best description of a female sociopath. None rivaled this one that is more than 4,000 years old:
For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil,
but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death;
her steps follow the path to Sheol;
she does not ponder the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it.
And now, O sons, listen to me,
and do not depart from the words of my mouth.
Keep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house,
lest you give your honor to others
and your years to the merciless,
lest strangers take their fill of your strength,
and your labors go to the house of a foreigner (Proverbs 5:4-10)
Notice that the writer identifies the slick speech of a sociopath as well as the results of being fooled by her. He also identifies the profound lack of insight found in this disorder. Sociopathic women 4,000 years ago were also apparently using their sex appeal to con men out of money and possessions. This is indeed nothing new!
There is something inherently more repulsive and unbelievable about a female sociopath. Women by nature are preprogrammed to learn empathy and care-taking, the antithesis of sociopathic behavior. Indeed, one of the best indicators of sociopathy in a women is seen when the woman fails to care for her own child. It would seem then, that we would all be revolted by a female sociopath, so why do men become victims?
My own theory, which has been corroborated by many men who have written to Lovefraud, is that men accidentally fall victim to sociopathic women when they have sex with them. You see, normal men experience bonding just like normal women-especially when the sex is good. The sex with a female sociopath (I’m told) isn’t just good, it’s better than most mortal men have ever hoped for. Once hooked on the female sociopath, men become victims just as much as the women who become hooked on the male sociopath. Many male victims feel ashamed and emasculated. But, take heart guys, she actually preyed on the more masculine side of your nature, your enjoyment of sex!
Why are successful female sociopaths so sexual and so sexually appealing? Science does have some answers for us here. Testosterone which is elevated in many male sociopaths is also elevated in female sociopaths. Studies of non-disordered women indicate that higher testosterone levels are associated with increased sex drive, increased sexual activity and YES sexual attractiveness to men! High testosterone makes both male and female sociopaths sexually appealing. Testosterone may also be related to the lack of parenting behavior seen in sociopathic women. Women with higher testosterone have been found to be less interested in motherhood.
Men who have married and fathered children with sociopathic women face special challenges. They deserve all our love and support. The courts often do not recognize that a sociopathic woman is incapable of functioning as a mother. Fathers are left to helplessly watch as precious children suffer at the hands of their mother.
The courts would be wise to get smart and take heed because studies of adopted children reveal a terrible truth about female sociopaths. Female sociopaths carry stronger genes for the disorder than do males. A mother is more likely to pass this trait to children she has never met than is a father.
Even with a biologic mother who is a sociopath, children can do well if they receive exceptionally good parenting. If you are a man facing this situation, I invite you to visit Tips for Single Fathers, and to write Lovefraud with your story. We hope to one day be in the position to lobby for the rights of children of both male and female sociopaths.
I agree with your theory. My P, although was extremley beautiful, always claimed that she “emotions” were more like a man. and yes… the sex was very good, in fact it is the only thing I do miss about her.
Here is more from the bible.
21 So she seduced him with her pretty speech
and enticed him with her flattery.
22 He followed her at once,
like an ox going to the slaughter.
He was like a stag caught in a trap,
23 awaiting the arrow that would pierce its heart.
He was like a bird flying into a snare,
little knowing it would cost him his life.
24 So listen to me, my sons,
and pay attention to my words.
25 Don’t let your hearts stray away toward her.
Don’t wander down her wayward path.
26 For she has been the ruin of many;
many men have been her victims.
27 Her house is the road to the grave.*
Her bedroom is the den of death.
Prv 7:21-27
It’s not theory. We got the labs tests to prove it! Serum is much thicker than water.
From my experience I can tell you that the female sociopath I was conned by was tested and she had more testosterone than I! She complained to me that her level of 300 was, like everything else, MY fault!
For a time I required adjuctive testosterone therapy because my body was making none! And Maria claimed that my topical gel was responsible for her elevated levels of testosterone. [I took all necessary precautions and should her levels have gotten even higher, there’s no telling how aggressive she may have become! She never came in contact with the gel per the instructions on the packets.] Never mind that she was addicted to uppers & downers and she lied to our physician about taking drugs!
My T levels are now normal and my body makes it own. Still, it is nowhere as high as M’s were back then.
It is going on 2 years now and I am finally coming out it. BTW, the sex wasn’t so good. At least not for me, but I am certain that it was for her.
Come to think of it, she complained about it lasting too long and being unnatural to go that long. No woman had ever previously complained to me about that!
But, seeing how she worked as a prostitute for a decade in the in the “ritzy area” of St. Louis as Her Own Mother put it, I guess anything over 5 minutes and/or beyond premature ejaculation was “abnormal” to Maria.
God, THANK YOU for taking her out of my life. The cost has been tremendous. At times, almost unbearable. But I am starting to see my way out of it. YEAH!
Perhaps the stress of living with a female sociopath actually reduced your testosterone level. I am very glad to hear you are seeing your way clear. That can often take a long time. I also thank God every day that I lived through this with the strength to recover. Those of us who have had this experience share a comon bond.
Interesting. I came across this site while doing some googling on whether sociopaths were “better at sex” than most people.
I’m 2 1/2 years out of what became a baffling and horrendous 6 year relationship with a male physician who I came to understand is a true sociopath. He has sucked the energy (and money) from his exes, his elderly mother, even his children. I came to see him as truly evil.
However, sex. Was simply incredible from day one and a strong binding force in the relationship. This sounds shallow of me I know; but the man was as manipulative and charming and attractive as can be. When people ask “what attracted you and why did you get into this despite the red flags” my glib answer is “the sex” and there’s some truth to that!
I mentioned this to my therapist today and he commented that in his experience this was a common theme in those who got involved with sociopaths. We mused whether sex, being an elemental “life force” and in the act containing a sort of essential, immediate honesty, was one place where a sociopath COULD be honest at least for the moment and thus an important “skill” for them to acquire?
Well this is a half baked notion perhaps and I know this is a late comment and this entry is about women but…you could put male pronouns in that Bible passage and retain the main idea.
Mind you that passage could also be merely speaking to the Biblical fear or sex and powerful women who don’t bow to the whole head of the household and chastity notion..
PS What I failed to convey was this: At least in my case, the female sociopath was not a particularly good lover. She was far more concerend about her satisfaction than mine. In fact, I never met such a selfish lover.
Like many other signs, I ignored it and focused on the false hope that she might love me. As I write this, I realize the absurdity in that statment!
Nonetheless, the fact is The False Promise(s) which kept me motivated [that we would love deeply and have children] were just that. A carrot on a stick. An illusion taken from my own values and ideals [That’s how sociopaths hook us so well. They examine our values, dreams, hopes and wishes and then pretend to fulfill them!] is what she always held over my head to keep me interested, motivated and hooked.
Even after I discovered what she was and revealed it, MK kept on playing me with the old false promises and I could hear it in her tone of voice as she attempted to foist those off on me and pressed on with her manipulation:
Maria tried the ultimate in black mail and guilt manipulation claiming, ‘You know that child we talked about having, that was real.’ Right! As if anything she said was ever real/true.
Maria tried to use sex to attract and hold me and bind me to her, but she did that with EVERYBODY. All she had to offer was her body but she was a shell of a person. She lacked the ability to connect in anything other than a predatory manner. She could, as her deceased mother told me, love no one. Her mother could not understand shy she was a Registered Nurse because Maria couldn’t care for anyone!
Hey, she is a nurse and works Post-Op for a reason: It pays relatively well and she has ample access to hard drugs.
Be careful if you’re hosptialized at Baptist Hospital in Phoenix off HWY 51 and Bethany Home Road because she still works there!
I thought that readers may be interested from an un-proofed excerpt from my book (names changed for now). As the dust settles 3 years out of the marriage to my female sociopath I am still having difficulties re-engaging with old friends who think I am a kook. I would be interested to know if anyone else struggles with the same thing and if they sent an all encompassing apology letter to all and sundry once they were able to breathe again?
Note: “T-Rex” is the pseudonym for my ex-sociopath
At this point I must warn that this book contains page after page of abuse and disrespect ranging from minor insults like that above to heinous crimes that would receive a death penalty in some places. I am not the only victim, but with the exception of T-Rex’s first Husband I am the only one that allowed the abuse to continue for as long as I did when it would appear that I could have walked away. This certainly would have been the case before my children were born but with the advent of children the options were very limited for an Australian father in the USA without any family or close friends for support. Abandoning my children was not an option; the only choice that seemed feasible was to actively love T-Rex until she loved me back. Unfortunately I had never experienced a narcissist or sociopath before, and therefore did not have the foresight to know that she could never be satisfied. Many have described my commitment to our marriage for seven years noble, and others who saw through T-Rex called me foolish; but not to my face until after the separation. Despite my genuine attempt to justify contending with T-Rex’s abuses, many cannot understand the complexities of the web in which those who marry, live and stay with a narcissist are entangled. I fear that readers with little or no understanding of this issue will despise me or others like me for what they perceive as weakness or stupidity. To briefly acquaint the reader with narcissism, I have quoted an edited version of “Other People’s Pain” by world renowned expert on narcissistic disorder, Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
The narcissist inflicts pain and abuse on others. She devalues sources of attention and/or admiration, callously and off-handedly abandons them, and discards people, places, partnerships, and friendships unhesitatingly. Some narcissists – though by no means the majority – actually ENJOY abusing, taunting, tormenting, and freakishly controlling others. But most of them do these things absentmindedly, automatically, and, often, even without good reason.
When I first read Vaknin’s explanation I was brought to tears, the experience was nothing less than chilling. Word for word I could expound on his scenarios with real-life copybook examples of my experiences with T-Rex. As for where this left me after seven years, Vaknin’s last sentence epitomizes my inability to disengage, I was partly a fool, but moreover I was emotionally paralyzed. I was like a grasshopper caught in a tangled spider’s web, I was paralyzed by her venomous neurotoxins and then had the life sucked out of me.www.narcissiticabuse.com states that:
“If you have ever lived in quiet desperation fearing the release of rage from the Pandora’s Box of the narcissist, then decided to stop the abuse, you have been the victim of a campaign designed to destroy you. It is as systematic, calculated and well thought out as that of any battle plan in any war.”
The above quote was particularly chilling in that the statement is absolute, it does not suggest that “you may have been a victim”, it presumes that “you have been a victim”. Although my battle still rages, I have survived and am surviving relatively intact to tell the tale by God’s grace alone; without Him I am certain that I would be dead, insane or in jail.
Dr. Leedom
I was married to a female sociopath. It has been a living nightmare with insanity that my active imagination could never have conceived. We had a child. We were divorced 14 years ago. It is like I am still married to her because she uses our child to keep my enmeshed so completely it is impossible to maintain a relationship with another woman.
My child was molested 6 months before my ex filed for divorce. My ex protected the molester who was convicted of molesting our child and 3 others. My ex divorced me because I stood up to her over the issue of her continuing to put my child around the molester, my ex’s teenage nephew. My ex testified her own mother was the molester and abuser of my ex and her siblings. My ex continues to place our child, now nearly 16 around both child molesters. This is just one of ways our child is used as a tool to get at me and keep me involved as I try to protect my daughter from greater abuses.
The nightmare (and litigation) has been continuous as I have tried to maintain a relationship with my child and protect her from those additional abuses (many well documented in public record).
The court ignores recommendations, reports, and video recorded sessions concerning my ex’s psychological state, open alienation, and clearly stated goals of destroying me (without concern for our child). The last two psychologists have stated that they believe my child is still being sexually abused by my ex or her family (the one sex abuse outcry by our child is against her mother, multiple spontaneous outcries caught on video tape on one occasion and third parties, hearing these outcries at other times, providing affidavits.)
In a State, where family law is dominated by a blind dogma in support of the extreme feminist views of men always bad, women always right, my ex is allowed to admit to felonies on the stand and nothing is done, while the courts have spent weeks trying to find a time I may have even been rude to my ex.
I could spend days writing of the twists and turns of this situation and of the duped third parties she gets to fight her battles to destroy me and chase me off from seeing my daughter. And in all of those days of writing I would only be able to cover only 5%, at best, of the issues and documentable events.
The file in the court is over three feet thick. I have survived 19 false allegations of sex abuse of my child. I have survived hundreds of false reports to the police of abuse, stalking, harassment, etc… For 14 years, I have carried a tape recorder on my person full time. I had set up video cameras in my car to document everytime I went to my ex’s home for an exchange of our daughter. These kept me from jail but nothing would be done to my ex for all of these confirmed false reports (nearly all felonies)
When I tell my story to a judge and support it with third party documentation (police reports and the court’s own records) the judges, in the beginning, always treat me as the abuser and make such bizarre statements to me as to say that I could calm all this down just by “compliment your wife on her pretty red hair.” (only one of the many bizarre instructions of the courts)
My ex, while still married was cheating and then violently accusing me of the same. She went into a rage at one time where she foamed at the mouth. I guess when she saw the look on my face and me staring at her mouth she realized something was happening and wiped her mouth. Then the most terrifying portion of that even happened, she looked at the foam in her hand and knew what it was. She immediatly became calm, without saying a word, went into the house from the garage, and came back a few minutes later as calm as could be and gave me a glass of ice tea as if nothing had happened. I still see this as clearly as if it just happened.
I have been diagnosed as suffering from severe Traumatic Stress Disorder by the multiples of professionals appointed by the courts. When these professionals make reports favoring me and disfavoring my ex, the courts ignore their own appointees.
Dr. Stephen Baskerville has verified and quoted some of these issues in my case in his book, “Taken into Custody”. The courts have gagged me from reporting on the death threats to my elderly mother. The courts have ignored my ex and the convicted molester both admitting that my child was left alone with the convicted molester. My child’s outcries are ignored. And the nightmare continues. To defend herself from her own actions, all my ex has to do is accuse me of some new abuse and no matter what she has done and even admitted is brushed aside.
I still see my child some of the time I am supposed to have her. My daughter knows that I am always there but that her mother just doesn’t let her come see me. Some of the alienation is beginning to have an affect. But, whenever my child and I spend time together, most of it is dispelled.
You can not publish enough on this topic of female sociopaths. The court system in the U.S. can not comprehend the very existence of this pathology of women. It can only see all men as stereotypical abusers of women no matter the open admissions of the women in the court’s presence.
God bless you Patriotdad—
Flyingman,
The same thing happened to my father many years ago but he actually married the sociopath. The way she acted in the beginning of their relationship is exactly what is described in this bible passage. It makes me sick to read it.
Don’t beat yourself up over it, these people can fool 99% of the population.This is simply because before people experience it, they can’t believe that anyone would be so heartless.
My father is still married to my stepmother because of his incredible capacity for denial. He is a kind, intelligent man, but even after acknowledging her condition, he is still with her. He always seems so sad and reserved at home because he tries to ignore her craziness, but sometimes it is too much to handle. They have children together, which makes it even more difficult. I really hope not, but I think my half brother will end up to be a sociopath too. He is starting to show the signs and ever since he was small, he seemed to be hollow inside just like his mother.
You are smart for getting out of the relationship so soon. You recognized her for what she was and left before she could do more damage. That is not a small accomplishment. My father has been in the relationship for twenty years and suffers constantly.
It is very difficult when friends don’t understand the extent of the sociopath’s deception and evil. But that is why posting on this blog is so therapuetic. Everyone here understands what you’re going through.
I don’t know what to say about the healing time, except to say it really is a process more than a destination. As much as I wouldn’t wish a sociopath on anyone, we come out of the experience with an awareness that very few people have, so that counts for something. Take care and God bless.
To FlyingMan,
It is not atypical for people to give you advice that is unfitting in your situation. I would say, don’t take any advice from anyone regarding this woman unless they have had an experience like yours.
Since Sociopaths always blame you for everything, and you KNOW in your gut that something is askew, it would be disturbing having a well meaning friend trying to help you to look at yourself to figure out your part in it all. You may have had a part but it is not what your uninformed friends will tell you.
Being with a Sociopath is incomprehensible to anyone whom hasn’t experienced it first hand. Sociopath’s do not seem to follow the rules of the road when it comes to being human. They lack the very things that make us Human… I mean even some animals have empathy but Sociopaths? They lack the ability to put themselves into other people’s shoes, to feel the pain of others.. blah blah… or is that Narcissists? It doesn’t matter.. there is so much commonality and crossover.
How long does it take to regain your self confidence, you ask? It takes as long as it takes for you to fully comprehend the nature of a Sociopath and what they do and how they do it. In time, you will separate what sey said about you from what you knew about yourself before you met her. Look at your Diplomas. You did that work. The Sociopath can call you stupid, uneducated, a fraud… but how can it be true? A large institution and your Professors have acknowledged that you have done the work so how can a Sociopath undo this sense of accomplishment?! Don’t answer that… I know how… the point is, it is false. There will come a day… not too far from this day.. that you will laugh at yourself… because you let her talk you out of YOU! Weird isn’t it? It’s okay. I’ve been there… WE have been there… and I can feel a silent nodding coming from around the world of all the lovely readers that have been through the same thing. Being here, by the way, means you ARE on your way back to you!
Once, I was way too willing to “look at myself” based on what people say to me, about me. That could be an okay thing to do but not in the context of a Sociopath.
Another LoveFraud reader referred me to a series of articles that were very helpful to me. They are written in the perspective of woman being the victim but the author was a man that has his MFT cert. I think you would benefit from reading that series. Do a Google Search for “Romeo’s Bleeding Part 1.” There are 6 parts. Part 5 was the most powerful for me.
You had a relatively short time with this person but she did throw you off your track, didn’t she? I think you can get yourself back quickly but you must abandon all of her “observations” of you because these unfavorable observations, are really a description of who she is… I knew this but this was well put in those Romeo’s Bleeding articles.
Thanks to Peggy Pseu for sending those to me.
And goodluck to you FlyingMan. Please excuse my “Bad Man” expression I use here at LoveFraud. I know not all men are bad. :o)
Anyway, welcome.
Aloha……E.R.