Funny, Ted really has no normal. And to me, this question is low on the totem pole. Some answers have no relevance to my life.
I think it's kind of an interesting phenomenon. Not specifically Ted, he had plenty going for him, but maniacs in general. Richard Ramirez was a sick fuck, ugly as sin, and neither bright nor interesting. Insofar as serial killers go this guy was the absolute bottom of the barrel. Yet he had plenty of female admirers, including one that went on to marry him. He was certainly far more popular after he left the reservation than he was before. That's a curious phenomenon in my book.
It is an interesting phenomenon if one thinks on it objectively... and if one realizes that we are all (mankind) capable of the deeds these men and women serial killers perpetrate.
Even more to Bart's point regarding removing Bundy from the objective thought and replacing him with Ramirez (or Gacy, or Mansion, etc less attractive perps)... did these killers realize, on some base instinctual level, that they might garner the attention/"love" that they seek from others (be it sexual or non-sexual) by being viewed as depraved by society in general?
I don't know if it's a choice in search of something. Having read a fair amount about this, I gather that in many/most cases, it's an obsession that they cannot control, and in some cases even know, objectively that what they are doing is wrong, they just can't help the compulsion. I'm sure like anything else there are examples all across the spectrum, but I do get the "compulsion" thing.
There's also the possibility of some, er, peculiar rationalizing. Ramirez married one of his admirers and they remained married for [I think] nine years. I'm pretty sure he fathered a child with her, as well. Ramirez raped and murdered octogenarians, and she seemed to have no problem with it. What fascinates me is that she cut off all contact when she learned that a little girl was one of his victims, citing disgust with his actions. Raping and murdering the elderly is acceptable to her, but only a sick fuck would do the same to children? This is a value judgement that intrigues me. It suggests that her values may well be closer to his than that of what we typically consider normal society's.
The bold above somewhat circles-back to the premise that everyone is capable of these types of acts I think. Perhaps more people in society have embraced that opinion and are more in-touch with that dark-self than we "normies" tend to believe.
I remember watching a YT documentary on Ed Gein a few years ago and being stunned a bit by how nonchalant Ed was... he just took what happened in stride as far as I could see from the photos.
I'm not saying you're saying this, but I know that I won't go that far that we're all capable of that. We're not. I hear that a lot in the identity politics realm; "oh we're ALL a little homosexual". Well, no, we're not. I'm a lot of things, I'm attracted to certain things - some I'll share, some I won't - but for whatever reason, my sexual continuum doesn't include men. It just doesn't. I didn't choose that, I didn't train for that, it just is. I think to a significant degree, that's a way of normalizing what some - rightly or wrongly - might think is "not normal" (in quotes not because I think homosexuality is not normal - it is - but that we're talking about a paradigm). I think the continuum of our tolerance for abuse of another human is similar to that, but it doesn't mean we can ALL do that. I know for me, I have a hard time with death; I like to talk a big game about being ready willing and able to defend myself and my family if need be, but if I'm being honest I don't know that I COULD do that.
I'm not sure that I'd agree with the comparison to the sexual in this instance... though sexuality is a presence in almost all of this types of cases I would think. I would argue that the sexual component of most of these cases is a means-to-an-end leading to the murder/death/chaos aspect of these types of actions. Perhaps it's not the sexual appetites in the end that drives the acts, but the taste for the acts themselves. I think that we're all capable of developing these tastes/dispositions over time... perhaps lead into them by other tastes that we can develop (see Bundy's last interview) or by the influence of the immediate environment.
When I say "we" I mean humanity in general,
I read an interesting book a few years ago titled Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland; the book is in some ways a study of the conditions necessary to lead a person down the path of atrocity. "The architypes are in us and eternal" as Charles Lamb said... though he was speaking specifically about a different type of evil.
Perhaps a more clear way to state my thought is that the potential for this is in all of us... but the conditions must be "right" to draw-out the action.
Topic: Many women liked Ted Bundy (Read 2898 times)
