Comments on: Young women, sensitivity, sociopaths, and remote controls: a pop psychology reflection

By: Burton

Burton — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 13:11:30 +0000

I’m convinced that young women like Michelle become fascinated with sociopaths for the simple reason that these men represent the opposite end of the emotional spectrum from where these women find themselves.

I’m convinced that she’s fascinated with sociopaths because she is into “bad boys.” She’s out there chasing those alpha males!

By: Stacey

Stacey — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 06:24:28 +0000

The young women you describe sound like “gifted” adults. I have done a little bit of reading on this topic, and I think part of the fascination is that these women feel the need to understand the world around them. Their heightened sense of empathy (which I also believe they have) wants to include all humans in the answers they find. That is very difficult to do with these extremes.

By: marge Johnson

marge Johnson — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 23:20:35 +0000

Thank you JoieB. There’s a twisted obsession w/ serial killers, rapists, etc…in our culture. Just flip channels–it’s on documentaries, TV shows–Law & order has made a whole industry out of murdered and mutilated women. Interest in this subject is a mantifestation of internalized oppression and perhaps neurotic/obsessive response to our twisted, frightening culture.

By: Anna Phor

Anna Phor — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 12:20:56 +0000

What Karen said. I don’t think it has anything to do with being envious of a lack of empathy at all. I think it’s insurance. I think it’s directly tied to the cultural myths that violence done against women is done by psychopathic strangers, not by intimates. And I think the popularity of crime fiction among women, particularly crime fiction with female protagonists, is a manifestation of the same phenomenon. Notice that what you don’t see is women devouring fiction where the aspirational protagonist lacks empathy.

By: JoieB

JoieB — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 22:14:43 +0000

I think you may have a semi-working theory. My sister, the first born child is extremely empathetic with a borderline obsession with true crime stories and sociopaths. I’ve often wondered myself when I do encounter others who seem to fall into those same categories whether there was a correlation.

By: Jeremy Henty

Jeremy Henty — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 21:42:32 +0000

To clarify, I posted the link to “Life and Death” above to highlight the article itself, not the discussion beneath it. I’m saying that because that discussion is tainted by a lot of ugly pro-verses-anti-Christian trolling and I’d rather everyone ignored that part of it. Y’all are free to talk about it if you really want, just don’t imagine that that was my intention when I posted the link.

Aak, 1.40am, time for bed.

By: Arwen

Arwen — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 21:36:47 +0000

( In fact, I’d say interest in sociopaths almost always grew out of addiction to this genre in my younger friends, whereas my older female family members liked the puzzle part. Wouldn’t surprise me that there’s not a high commitment rate to that path, but also wouldn’t surprise me that the interest is there, since those I knew evidenced it. Obv., interest in sociopathology may come from many sources, but I’d still hazard the guess.)

By: Arwen

Arwen — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 21:31:21 +0000

Theory…

I was a genre fiction addict for many years, inhaling the “Lone-female-wolf investigator who is grudgingly respected by the peers who berate her constantly while she uses non-traditional methods to hunt down murderers” genre.

It’s a subset of hard-boiled mystery novels, and I think all of them satisfy a pretty primal self-defense archetype; there are rarely deep romantic attachments, only flirtations or affairs in which the woman is often the one uncomfortable with commitment; there’s repeated smack-downs of patronizing “little-lady” talk; there’s the need to overcome danger, and the attempt to understand it; and I think most importantly, the women tend to admit when they’re scared, hurt, annoyed, angry, or obsessed. I know a lot of women who snacked on those books, and interest in sociopaths can certainly grow out of that.

I would actually put the female hard-boiled detective novel on a required reading list for a cultural women’s studies course. The formula undeniably confronts the issues of womanhood post second wave: what it means to be in a world that might kill you without the protection of a husband. And the sales figures were astounding: this was a pretty big genre, for a subset.

Of course, nowadays, there’s a backlash; or at least something else coming out in the stories. (Janet Evanovich’s characters are dependent and foolish, but it may be fair to characterize them as satire. Or at least where the hard-boiled female genre mated with “Bridget Jones”.)

By: Jeremy Henty

Jeremy Henty — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 21:12:51 +0000

While we’re at it, why don’t we all read this account of someone who actually *knew* a serial killer?

Life and Death

Jeremy Henty

By: mythago

mythago — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 21:11:05 +0000

The oddity of this interest is that sociopaths and serial killers aren’t very interesting, despite the portrayal in movies and books. They’ve usually had horrible, unreal, abusive upbringing that ground all the empathy out of them; they’re not especially bright or successful for the most part. There’s nothing that “makes them tick”; it’s more that they lack something that makes everyone else tick.