Aren’t you getting sick of hearing about all these politicians and other powerful people who can’t control themselves? Are you wondering if they are all just sociopaths? Are all sex addicts also sociopaths?
In the wake of my own dismay at the sheer number of sex crazed politicians, I wanted to share some thoughts with you.
First of all, one of the psychopathy researchers I respect the most is Dr. Grant Harris. He has written a seminal paper COERCIVE AND PRECOCIOUS SEXUALITY AS A FUNDAMENTAL ASPECT OF PSYCHOPATHY He says that promiscuous, coercive and precocious sex is central to the psychopathy syndrome. However, if you look at the statistics on the PCL-R the most studied method of assessing psychopathy, the two items related to sex have the lowest item correlations with the total score and do not even seem to be related strongly to Factor 2 of that test which is a measure of impulsivity. So there doesn’t seem to be a particularly strong relationship between psychopathy and sex addiction. By that I mean not every sociopath/psychopath is obviously a sex addict.
In his book The Mask of Sanity, Hervey Cleckley commented that “impersonal sex” is part of the syndrome. He also noted though that psychopaths didn’t seem to like sex all that much. Many victims I have interviewed have mentioned that. Sociopaths seem to view sex as a weapon to be used on another person or withheld from another person to hurt them.
As Donna pointed out earlier in the week, there is a strong link between sex motivation and the perception of power; there is also a link between a person’s drive for power and their drive for sex that may be related to testosterone.
When I think about Arnold, Anthony, Elliott and Bill, what I find most striking is their ability to do what I would call dissociate because I can’t think of another word for it. In the moment they are conceiving, tweeting, meeting in the hotel or messing on a dress, thoughts about their families and all of us seem to be completely gone from their minds.
Another great thinker about psychopathy is Robert Reiber, Ph.D. who I had the good fortune to chat with about this very topic in person several years ago. He thinks that this ability to dissociate is what makes a psychopath. When I asked him what he thought about the idea that psychopaths are “without conscience.” He replied, “Of course they have a conscience.” He thinks though they have an uncanny ability to dissociate from their conscience and their memories.
Neither the ideas of Harris nor Reiber bode well for our politicians. But I have learned a lesson from my dogs that might be useful here.
My daughter and I have three Ibizan Hounds, they are sight hounds who also have this uncanny ability to dissociate. When they are hunting small prey they become so focused on the moment they forget we are there and run off. We have been able to prevent this from happening through the use of training collars. We very much wanted them to be able to run free in the woods, so we had to figure out a safe way to get them to come back. They easily learned to come to us to avoid a mild shock that the collars deliver via a remote that has a one mile range. There is also a vibrate button, so after the dogs were trained, the warning vibration is all that is needed. But I have noticed that when they wear the collars they do not become as engrossed in the hunt and they readily come back to my voice. Without the collars, I can be shouting right next to them and they don’t hear me.
So the answer is simple, politicians should wear the collar, and their spouses can keep the remote!
For more discussion about sociopaths and sex see:
Blue Eyes
Can I ask you a question? You mentioned you do cyberstalk on occasion, I’m sure many of us do.
Do you think it would make YOU feel worse to see his picture and find things about him on line, or, does it make you feel better?
SK
Go Elizabeth……that was the ultimate BACKSPATH!!!!!
RIP girl!
SK….
If I was the wifey…..I’d ‘support’ to….
(for now).
Think about it…..an unemployed husband isnt worth much in alimony or Child support huh?
I’d be a cheerleader for keeping his job.
We don’t always know peoples reasons or motives for doing what they are doing.
I’m sure she’s no dumb bunny.
Superkid;
The first time I found his profile only was like a bombshell. I never expected him to be on this particular dating sight. My first thought when I saw his picture was this guy looks like a young “Jamie.” I continued paging thru other profiles when something went off in my head, so I went back to that profile.
It was in fact the x-spath, but he used a picture in which he appears much young than in reality. In fact, I laughed and said to myself “nice picture but you don’t look anything close to that any more. I look more like you than you do…”
That little comment to myself has caused me more problems. Even though I am a couple years older than him, I look pretty young and when I met him, the x-spath thought I was younger than him. Even today, when I was getting ready to go out I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror literally shook my head about how much I look like him in that picture.
It was that picture that also got me thinking something was not right with. In it, he looks late 20s, but in person he very much looks his age, mid-30s. I would describe him as attractive, but a bit “rough around the edges.”
In fact, one of the questions in my mind is how could he meet people knowing he looks so different in person?
What then happened is that I realized the name he used “XYZboy” sounded very, very familiar, so I Googled it. Turns out I knew “XYZboy” from online. I “met” him in the virtual sense about 9 months before meeting him in person.
While this is embarrassing, I have mention before that my x-spath posted several pictures of himself masturbating on X-tube. I saw them and made one of them a “favorite.” Not because he has a great body or any other endowment that made him very popular on X-tube. It was because he seemed so “normal.” The guy next door. So much so that each time I saw him post a video (about 10 in all), I kept telling myself I I need to meet a guy like him.
So, at this point, I am thinking WTF? Nothing could be more bizarre. Then I became angry at his vile selection of porn favorites, many of them being sadomasochistic and depicting unsafe sex.
Then it hit, so I went back to his dating profile and began reading through his nearly 1000 “matching questions.” One was “would you date somebody who confided to you they had a sexually transmitted disease.”
I had a couple of pictures of his from Facebook and he looks very drawn in them. Sad, very sad. Side by side with the dating profile picture and these current pictures are unrecognizable. I knew then and there why he dumped me the day after I told him the doctor thought I might be HIV+ and should be tested.
Am I better off find this and a couple others? Yes, because I know the truth but the truth has its own burden too. As I said, had I not found the profiles online, I probably would have contacted him last year. But finding them raised more questions than were answered.
BBE:
That makes sense that the more emotional we feel about something, the harder it is going to be to forget it. I was absolutely addicted; I have no doubt about that. The only thing or person I was ever addicted to in my entire life and I really don’t expect it to happen again.
I would call you Blue Eyes, but that’s what I called my X spath 🙁
Louise;
So does my x-spath. One of his complements to me was that my eyes were real blue, like the sky and his were grey-blue.
Hence the name, inspired by the song too.
PS This was also a hint by my x-spath I think. Several other times his choice of wording to describe either himself or his apartment included terms like grey, cold, dark…
ERIN,
Right about that!
Blue eyes,
What a very interesting story. Isn’t it interesting how they tell us so much, leaving little trails or dots to connect? Wow.
I am so glad you’re not HIV positive.
I know CANDY on this site is worried too about HIV, and is awaiting her test results. I keep waiting for her to post.
I just read this month’s STYLE magazine, and one of the women from the HOUSEWIVES show is on the cover. She divorced her husband, Tony, for cheating on her. She has this simple philosophy, “if you want to be wtih somebody, then be with them. If you don’t, then don’t”.
It’s great for it’s simplicity.
It IS that simple, and yet, it isn’t.
SK
Hope To Heal
Thank you for that comment. It was a point well taken, when you asked me “I don’t know why you wanted to read his (SPATHS) email”.
You have a great point. I have no idea why I read it and why I did that to myself. It just keeps the pain flowing.
Thanks for that well meaning jab. You’re totally right.
SK
It is interesting that the oldest daughter Cate seems to be backing John….even if he goes to prison (which if he is guilty of what they are accusing him of) I can’t see how it will help those kids to be without both parents. The FALL OUT that comes from psychopath’s bad behavior doesn’t just fall on their deserving heads but on the heads of anyone close to them.
I feel sorry for Elizabeth, and I feel sorry for those kids. I wish John the FLEAS OF 1,000 camels under his arm pits and the crabs of 100 ho’s in his groin! Head lice and scabies…jock itch and fungus under his toe nails…but I pray the peace of God and mercy on those children whose fault this is NOT.
Superkid;
“Isn’t it interesting how they tell us so much, leaving little trails or dots to connect? Wow.”
Its one of those “questions.” Did he intentionally use the same profile name for a porn site and a dating site so that he could indirectly address topics he was not comfortable with? The first thing that popped into my mind seeing that he was into bareback porn was that he is HIV+.