Posted: 5/15/2005 9:16:30 AM EDT
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I may be off base here and it may be just the one's "I've met" but I come across it a lot lately. And I'm not talking about the freakazoids who are fucking nuts and send love letters and marriage proposals to guys like Richard Ramirez or Ted Bundy. I'm talking about exceptionally well educated, seemingly normal women who are fascinated by them and read books about them. My wife had a friend over last night (early 20s, pre med student) who was interested in serial killers to the extent many of us are interested in military matters. And that is when it dawned on me that a lot (maybe 70%) of the very educated women I know have a specific interest in serial killers. And while my wife doesn't, she watches CSI and Cold Case Files and similarly topics documentaries as much as she watches anything. I personally can't get into the forensic shit too much (especially the real stuff) but my wife can watch it while eating. And while not the same as serial killers it is distantly related. And I contrast this with the men I know, who are knowledgable of but have no real interest in serial killers. So is it just me and the women I know? |
+1. They also figure that he will kill people for her honor/protection. |
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I dunno, but my mom has read every Agatha Christi mystery ever written (and a few hundred others) and watches CSI, NCIS, JAG, Cold Case, etc. religiously. Also watched Rescue 911 and Unsolved Mysteries when they were on. And of the female family members, at least three seem inclined to become worthless street trash and whore themselves out to the first thug that comes along with numerous drug and drive-by issues. |
She watches all that shit on tv too.
Kinda like how France sided with Saddam too. |
I think the French ladies just got tired of the local men and guys who called them "mein Fraulen". 
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| Part of the whole fascination with being a victim thing and those raped/murdered by serial killers are the ultimate victim. Women seem to love working up those negative emotional pathways which is a large part of the reason so many of them are on antidepressants. |
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I think that women do have a very strong interest in serial killers. I think that women are very interested in murder and specifically, crimes of passion perpetrated against women in general. I think it's important to keep in mind that most serial killers are males and many of their victims are women. Serial killers are also strongly motivated by psycho-sexual mental/emotional illness + specific mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. These things are an irresistably interesting combination of deviant behaviours that women find fascinating because they can all identify with the victims. Many women have actually dated men who have various personality disorders (not necessarily violently deviant). So no great leap of imagination is required for them to "extrapolate beyond their personal experiences" to envision what might have happened. It all amounts to a combination of vicarious titillation, self-amusement, etc. I think it is somewhat similar to the mental entertainment guys get out of imagining themselves as Rambo or Congressional Medal of Honor winners, etc. |
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If it's on TV, they desire it - it's not too horribly complicated. Used to have a girlfriend that thought the bad boys being led into court on TV wearing the orange jumpsuits looked "cute". From there it could have grown into full blown infatuation - but she was never really a "book" person. She also thought Jeffrey Dahmer was "very handsome".  This guy would've been right up her alley: 
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Many of them DID find Ted Bundy to be "cute". That's how he was able to kill some of them. Many women are absolutely clueless when it comes to men. Of course, the same thing holds true of men being able to see through women and their ulterior motives. |
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A guy friend of mine was reading Bob Keppel's book, The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer, and said he really liked it because of the investigational techniques used. It sounded interesting to me, although I wasn't sure I'd be able to stomach the violence (I had nightmares after watching Silence of the Lambs...). Well, I started reading Bob Keppel's book and didn't put it down until I was done. My fascination was NOT with Ted Bundy (the book really isn't about Gary Ridgway - they hadn't found out he was the GRK when this book was published), but with how he tricked women into trusting him. I've always been a really optimistic, trusting person, and it scared me that I could see myself getting suckered the same way those women had. I understand that there are women out there who are intrigued by these killers and write to them in prison, etc. I'm not one of those. For me it's a matter of educating myself for my own (and my family's) protection. If anything, it has helped me to steer AWAY from "bad boys" and be much more aware of subtleties in behavior. |
| I don't think so. I have more of a fascination than my wife does. I just don't know what it takes for someone to just start killing innocent people in cold blood. And some of the stuff they do with the victims makes "Silence of the Lambs" look like a children's book. |
I don't think it's just women; I think society in general has a bizarre fascination with what sends certain people over the edge like that. How else to explain how back in the day there were serial killers houses whose homes became tourist attractions, etc? it wasn't just women snapping up the books and papers, or standing in line to tromp through the houses. |
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I think it is more of a fascination with women though. Look at their TV programming. Networks that cater to women like lifetime seem full of stories about rapists, serial killers, child abductors, etc. Myself, personally, I could give a shit about watching that kind of crap. I don't here about too many guys trying to marry and have offspring with female serial killers either. |
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What? No. I do. I've studied serial killers extensively, as has Ann Rule, a great crime author. I'm confused, but what else is new? EDITED TO ADD: READ THIS BOOK The Last Victim : A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer by Jason MossIf women think serial killers suffer from "Bad Boy Syndrome" they should do some research. At any one time in a America, it's estimated that 150 serial killers are doing their deeds. A true serial killer is a cyclical killer with a defined pattern of choosing, stalking, setting up the death, killing.....then going through the cylce again. They are sick fuckers who pick certain types of victims. Many socalled serial killers are not true serial killers at all , but "spree" killers that are dubbed serial by the media or uninformed Law Enforcement. They end up killing several people and it's usually related to fleeing or robbing or other circumstances. Serial killers dewll long on their actions and set up of the act...they don't have a "bad Boy" let's rob a store attitude...they are often neat orderly cleancut types.... Ok, enough....go read up on them. |
OK, cool. You are EXACTLY what I'm talking about. You're not one of those morons who are in love but yet completely drawn to the subject. I know more than I want to know about them, they repulse me and the more I learn about them the more sickened I am by them. I know enough to be wary and recognize the few warning signs and such but don't really care to know the details. So what is it that makes you explore them in depth? |
Well, I live where the Zodiac killer claimed his first three victims. A couple of my friends asked if I wanted to go to "the Zodiac Shack" one night when we were bored. It's a house and barn in a field that's located between two of the murder sites off Lake Herman Road. It was given the nickname simply because of its location, and some kids thought the guys actually lived there since there was a refrigerator and a sink left over and other crap like that. Creepy house. Most of it had been torn to shreds by high schoolers who came up there to get drunk when they were bored. Anyway, after scaring myself shitless by going out there that night, I looked up the Zodiac killer to learn about him. I ended up reading about a dozen websites on the guy, and I guess what fascinated me the most was that he never got caught. Most webistes had links to sites about other serial killers, and from then on my fascination was born. Now it's just kinda become a hobby of mine. I've been to that house about a dozen times. It eventually got burned down by some kids from the next town over. I was pissed, since it was such a good place to bring people to scare them. |
+1 Yup...chicks always want to fuck the "outlaw biker" type... |
All men are "outlaw biker" types, they carry guns and knives, some of them hide it though, by the clothes they wear, or the day jobs they keep. So many beasts to tame, so many souls to save. 
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