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:
Super Kid,
I don’t know anything about dissociation causing the spaths or normal people to cheat. I really don’t understand that.
What i do understand is that many of us need to label things in order to understand them. I’ve heard that the eskimos have over a hundred different words for snow. Different types of snow and weather conditions require a more specific word. This is critical to them because the harsh weather conditions can be life threatening and it describing the snow accurately is an important concept to their livelihoods.
With something as dangerous, destructive and insidious as a spath, you would think we would have 100 different and accurate words for our experience with these vampires. But we don’t. Instead, we are forced to borrow terms from disparate sources to try to make sense of this life altering experience.
We say sociopath, psychopath, malignant narcissist, vampire, soul sucker, parasite, predator, mirror, infantile, emotionally repressed, hater, womanizer, pervert… ad infinitum. It’s a failing in our culture caused, I believe, by fear.
The spath is such a horrific concept (once experienced) that it renders us mute, unable to verbalize what we experienced. It’s almost like we become them: beings who act out emotions instead of verbalizing them.
Even though we don’t have all the right words to express the spath experience and how it affected us, I guess we have to keep talking about it, until hopefully it congeals into some kind of concept that finally gives us our power back when we can name it.
Skylar Your comment to SuperKid deserves a standing ovation..Our attempts at putting a name or word to what happened is so huge it becomes overwhelming, especially when trying to tell someone who has not been where we have been…and yes we almost become them or them us, that is the mirror they hold up to us.
In mirroring, a person adapts their behavior and presentation to “mirror back” to us the qualities which they perceive that we desire to see. Most disordered abusers are extremely good at mirroring, and have an extraordinary ability to perceive what we desire. By showing us all the qualities they believe we wish to see in them, ‘they’ can make themselves extremely acceptable to us. We really think they are a wonderful person. This is a ‘safe situation’ for them… Mirroring itself may not cause great harm to us. It can however, lead us to make wrong judgements about them, something that serves their purpose but generally not our own…Mirroring in the early stages of a romantic relationship can prove devastating, by drawing us into a strong romantic attraction to a facade of personality…..
Skylar,
Yes, I agree with Hens; a standing O! Once something is experienced it is no longer a concept. It’s an experience, do you understand that? A concept is out there somewhere, an experience is what action took place (or is taking place). I think we are ahead of the curve on that one : ). Since so many people have had the experience with the spath here, why is it so hard to pin them down? They all basically act the same be a romantic relationship or a friendship. I think we should come up with a word that defines that; once having said the word, we immediatley understand!! What says you, oh spathinator???LOL
skylar, I agree with Hens, really a great post!
I feel like I have almost become mute in a way with myself. Unable to verbalize
within myself as to what happened, or what has happened to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La2qkUTTwWw
IMAGINE how HE felt??
John Lennon? oh my,,
Hey trouble maker…….still waiting for my bling!!!
Superlicous – Your not alone in feeling that way – find comfort in that – I do….
bling? it’s in the mail EB.
Well, EB Oxy is still waitin’ for the check (not the three dollar bills he’s been sendin’) for the duckies…lol and you got BLING comin’ uh oh…