Friday, October 15, 2010

Sociopaths and sex

A reader wrote asking about sex with sociopaths:
I have a question about sociopaths and sex? Do sociopaths feel emotions when you have sex? I mean obviously you feel the physical part but to what extent if any, do you feel emotionally? My ex, who I am certain is a sociopath, didn't ever make love. I mean it was what it was and I didn't realize it until right before I dumped him. We had that one last romp and I realized it. He acted like he was making love and the sex was great but when I asked him the next day out of curiosty if he left anything, he said it was great. I chuckled and said, "Sex for you is a function like using the toilet, eating, showering or sleeping." He looked at me like "why was I bringing up the obvious" and it hit me. I think for him sex was a way to conquer and exude power and that the chase of luring a hot chick in was more exciting than the act itself. He tried to use sex for manipulation. I have heard of women doing that but never a man.
For someone like me, a normal (whatever the fuck normal is) I can just fuck, but when in love sex is emotional for me and I can't just go fuck all of the time. I am very passionate and I'll leave it at that but I noticed that they were really good at one thing but not so much all of it -- they were either good at oral or good at fucking but not really both. And I am not saying all sociopaths are like this. I hate putting even sociopaths into one category. One thing that sticks out that he was NEVER vocal, not even during climax. Not all men are, but both socios I've been with were that way. They were also VERY concerned about pleasing me which sometimes got to be old. I thought it was insecurity at the time but maybe it was trying to learn how fake emotions. He would say, "does that feel good?" too often. Uh yeah shut up, can't you tell???
He loved the way I can orgasm and that's probably the attraction between socios and others; the energy.
I guess, hell I don't know. I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out.In no way am I bashing sociopaths but I really wonder if most of you feel emotions during sex or about sex. I'd love some feedback on the subject if possible. Your site is great and I learned a lot. Thanks.
It's an interesting question, and I imagine that although there are commonalities, a lot of the sexual experience will depend on the individual sociopath. For instance, here is how a socio reader described sex:
Pain is integral to my sexual experience. When with my ex, there was never any violent sexual encounters. She wouldn't have fought me, and that's part of my pleasure, so with her it would have been pointless. I need unwanted pain or domination in any sexual encounter I have. With men, and women, there has to be some sort of pain or humiliation in order for me to be interested, or to get off. Sex with men can be boring. I control it more than half the time, and they get emotional and lovey dovey somewhere in it. If I am with a freak, the challenge to dominate him is what gets me off, not the actual act. I have gone after freaks, but in the end they get boring. With women, to dominate them is easy, they seem to want it. Even the head strung females I go after turn into droids of mushy nothingness.
When I state I am never there, that means mentally, and emotionally, and sometimes physically, figuratively speaking. I can do what I need to to seem like I am interested, but when the act happens, if normal sex, I am a programmed robot doing the same routine with different people. I would touch human skin, but feel no warmth, I would kiss lips, but feel no softness, I would smell them, but only pick up the scent of air and dirt. My experience with people in regular sex is as if I am alone. I don't connect at all. I see them either above or below me, and think about what they could possibly be feeling, and why. I get nothing from connecting with a human, so what does everyone else get?

I often have this reoccurring fantasy that I have met my sexually violent match, and that we were roughing it to the point where I "lost" the control. I was the one being dominated, and it gets out of hand. I turn the violent sex into a fight for my life, testing my lover to anger and fury to where they would want to hurt me. I would then use this imagined victimization as an excuse to get unorthodox-ed, and do anything in my power to protect myself, including kill. In this fantasy I never use guns, or anything quick. It's always blunt force, where I have to use almost all of my strength to destroy them. Never a knife, always something blunt. In the end I kill my lover, and use the violent sex as an excuse to get away with a planned murder, play Lizzy Borden, and hope my femininity gets me out free. Never went through with this because I doubt the escape would be that easy, heh, hence fantasy. That's one serious impulse I always fight to keep under control, to set up my victimization to kill. Though I would love to experience that high, it isn't worth taking the chance at losing my freedom.
To answer the original question, emotions aren't a strong part of it for me. When I am being intimate with someone, I have a running monologue in my mind of what's going on and my reactions to it, as if I am merely observing the festivities rather than being a very active participant. I rarely get "lost" in the experience, except at the actual point of climax. But again, I've never had normal sex, so I wouldn't know how and to what extent it differs. Does this seem to comport with everyone else's experiences?

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Keeping/getting out of the system

From time to time we get readers who have gotten caught up in the "system," institutionalized for one reason or another by government agencies trying to "help" them. Sociopaths need to prepare for such a contingency. Here's how one reader got off the psychological hook after being raped:
To get out of counselling, I convinced everyone I had PTSD. After they put a label on me, they felt okay to "release" me. After I got out, life went back to "normal". I never pressed charges or filed a formal report because it felt unnecessary to do so, so I didn't have to act like I had PTSD at school (the event occurred during secondary school). The only glitch in the whole plan was my parents; they were concerned with my lack of... reaction, I guess. Everyone in my family is quite aware of my APD and sociopathy. (We have kind of a Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy when it comes to what I do with my, what I like to call, skills.) I guess they thought we were more vulnerable, haha, that a rape would break me or something. What a riot.

Anyway, it was probably the most frustrating and best learning experience I've ever had. I have since built a mental repertoire of how to react in certain (mostly traumatic) situations, should they ever arise. I'm prepared now. (;
I think for most situations it's easiest to actually concentrate on feeling an emotion that is in the ballpark of "appropriate" rather than faking it. For instance, another socio reader recently suffered a miscarriage. I advised her to respond to people's inquiries by just repeating that she "feels loss." That's my go to response when something bad has happened to me, because I really can feel loss, and if I just keep focusing on the loss I feel, if any, I think I give sufficiently legitimate emotional responses approximating grief.

If you don't have a good "reaction," it can mean trouble. One small example is when I went 10 days with a ruptured appendix. I didn't have any satisfactory answer for why I hadn't come in sooner. People kept asking me questions about my pain threshold, tolerance for pain, etc., but I didn't have answers that jived with my medical history for that either. I think the truth was that I was just very good at compartmentalizing the pain -- mind over matter stuff like walking over coals? I don't know. I obviously still don't have a good enough explanation for it. Once they have you in some sort of "care," though, it's all about playing the game to get out before they have time to observe you for too long. The last day I was in the hospital, I was flushing food down the toilet because they said I couldn't leave until I had eaten. Luckily I wasn't in there with something suspicious like a knife wound, otherwise I might never have been able to leave.

Figure out the "right answer" they are looking for if you can and give it to them -- I know that's the goal, but it's easier said than done. How do you know what the right answer is for having been assaulted? Or having lost a child? The cops and doctors have seen it a hundred times before, so they know how you should act. That's the worst part about it! They sit there all smug, staring at you and comparing it to their wealth of experience while you try to verbally tap dance your way out of custody, sometimes tap dancing your way into even more trouble. It's enough to make you want to run whenever the cops or other authorities get involved, but of course that looks quite suspicious if you do and they later catch you.

As I'm writing this, I realize that maybe I'm a bad person to give advice on this subject. I tend to give people a confused look that makes them want to detain me. My internal dialogue goes something like this: "Is this a situation where less is more? Or where more is less? Do those phrases even make sense? Why are they whispering into that two-way radio while staring at me?"

I've been held on suspicion of all sorts of things, like drug use, cheating, concussions, and smuggling. Once I have triggered more than one red flag, I better hope I am innocent because I can't talk my way out of a paper bag at that point. Cops are the worst. I can't ever give them the reaction they're looking for. I guess that's why I think having a contingency plan is so important, because I have had so many problems with it in the past. It's certainly not because I have any talent for it.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Another (female) sociopath story

I like these stories from readers because I think they round out the picture of what a successful sociopath looks like. Plus they suggest, as some have alleged, that if m.e. and everyone else here like me aren't sociopaths, we do at least seem to be part of a discrete and identifiable subclass of something that is unusual enough amongst the general population to cause consternation in some and hatred in others. From a reader:
I happened along your blog by chance, I was actually searching for something completely mundane when I found it. (I can't remember what now) I didn't send you this email to confirm weather or not I am a sociopath. In fact, these labels mean nothing to me. I know what I am capable of. I know this is who I am and is an integral facet of my personality. However, this is only a single facet of my personality; it does not equal the whole of me.
Early in your blog you expressed a want to reach out to others like you; so this is me saying hi. Well I suppose I should start off by saying this; I'm a female and I can't say if I am a sociopath or not since I have never officially been diagnosed by a psychologist and I don't think my college psy1 professor counts even if she was a doctor. (she was always giving me the look) If I'm not then perhaps I'm simply an extremely cold bitch with a little bit of evil thrown in for a little extra spice.
Are sociopaths made? My childhood was spent in a middle to upper class neighborhood and my parents divorced when I was very young. I was a delinquent child but was rarely caught. My mother has socio/psychopathic tendencies. You see I never had to go out of my way to kill or torture the neighborhood animals because my mother would have me help her kill them. Her most casual method was by antifreeze; but generally she would put them in a plastic bag and shove them in the freezer while they were still alive. I was always the assistant in these small murders. Usually this is where people go, "Oh my god!" and blame her for my behavior. Looking back, I don't blame her. I think blaming her would be like blaming the parent for a gay child. Shit just happens.
In my early teens I was the odd girl out. It wasn't until I realized that certain behavior was unacceptable that I massed friends. When I 'came out of my shell', I was quite popular. This period is when I discovered I was a compulsive liar. Usually I lied for more attention or to get free stuff. I learned to manipulate everyone around me to my advantage. I even orchestrated the break up of a couple of relationships.
As a young adult I've come to a greater understanding of my powers of manipulation. College was easy because I could write most of my quirks off as 'too much partying'. During this time I also found myself to be completely lacking in grief. I don't know how to feel morose but have learned to mimic well enough. I only feel remorse if I fail at something, but not because I did something wrong. I usually know the difference between right and wrong and simply disregard the concept of wrong if it suits my purposes. This doesn't mean that I don't have bout's of altruism or go out of my way to completely ruin someones life. I only exert the effort to ruin if it will benefit me, as I am the only one that matters.
As an adult, I still find occasionally find myself on a learning curve. There are still new behaviors to learn. It doesn't happen often but I still get the 'your not right' look sometimes. This usually means that I missed something that should have been easily picked up on. In generally I keep a lose set of friends around that I have been known to drop on a whim. I don't usually keep them around if I don't need them. That said, I do have a couple of fellow socio/psychopath friends thatI remain close with. We seem to understand each other I suppose.
Murder is a topic that is broached on your blog a bit; the very thought puts a nasty taste in my mouth. Don't miss understand me here. I feel nothing for the death of another. I have my own hangups about cleanliness though. People are gross (blood borne diseases), yuk. That said, unless there is a legitimate life-or-death reason it seems pretty pointless to me. Unless you truly aspire to go to jail and marry Bubba/Bertha. Seriously, I have my 'violent' urges. They happen more frequently than I would like; but I have also learned how to constructively channel those negative energies. Anyone who is stupid enough to give into those baser instincts deserves what they get. Like curling up with Bubba/Bertha on a single cot in lock down.
Once my ex-girlfriend, with a scared look in her eye asked me, "Are you a sociopath?". I looked at her honestly for the first time and told her, "Probably." She at least attempted to understand what it was to be a void. I told her that I do experience joy, anger, lust, disappointment but they are extremely fleeting and only experienced in direct correlation to 'me'. As in MY joy, MY anger etc. I can not actually recall these emotions although I know I have had them. I can't remember what it felt like to feel that joy or sadness, only that it happened. I do know that certain activities or achievements will bring these feelings back to me. However, I do not feel at a loss without them. In fact, I truly do believe I am a 'happy' person.
I am bisexual, however I prefer women. I have been in my longest relationship for about a year and eight months now with a woman who is also 'feelings-deficient'. I don't know if I feel love so much as obsession and devotion. When I am in a relationship I adapt to what they want and expect, while at the same time manipulating and lying to suit my needs. However, much like your business analogy if I'm not getting a return on my investment I leave.
Anyway, thanks for the blog. It's been fun to go back and read the old posts. And it's always interesting to interact with others like myself. It's nice to take off the masks every once in a while and breathe.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Doppelgängers and favorites

A reader asked me about my sense of sometimes having a doppelgänger . I think at least some of these points apply equally to people that a sociopath chooses as a "favorite," i.e. someone that they play with and protect rather than play with and destroy.

Doppelgängers are a weird sensation. They can feel good or they can feel bad, I can want to absorb them into the rest of my identity, or I can want to kill them. They always feel like a part of me, though. I think the best way to describe how I feel around them is that I "recognize" them. I see something of me in them. And not just the me that most people know, but the hidden me that very few know.

I think that this is the thing about doppelgängers that provokes the strongest reaction in me, that I see my hidden self in them. It makes me a little nervous, like I have been found out. I wonder -- if I can see the real them, can they see the real me? And if their identify is so obvious to me, I wonder if my identity is obvious to others as well:
They say that you can never truly see yourself; not in mirrors, or photos, or windows, or water. All you see is a flat reflection. You go through life with only an idea of how other people see you in the three dimensions, always one step removed from every true angle. Unless you’re (un)-lucky enough to have a twin.
Typically there is just one thing I have in common with these people. Perhaps a similar reaction to a certain stimulus. Maybe they also data-mine incessantly to make predictions about other's behavior. Maybe they also are completely ambivalent about some outrageous political issue. Whatever it is, it is something that I consider unique enough to me that I am pleasantly surprised to discover it in someone else.

The raging narcissist in me is very charmed by our similarities, but the wary recluse in me thinks they are a dangerous liability. The result is that all of our interactions have a ticking time bomb urgency and intensity about them.

Although it is true that these people are objectively interesting in some ways, usually I discover to my disappointment that they are still largely unoriginal. Once I realize that they're not who I hoped they would be, I get over my obsession immediately. But it's all very exciting at first.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Emotional contagion

This is an interesting, but old, audio news piece about how fear spreads among crowds and leads to stampedes, etc. "Human beings are hardwired to respond to fear of others." "Fearful body language primes humans to flee."

Interestingly, another article suggested that bad decisions may also be contagious.

As a side note, being in a crowded nightclub when a fire breaks out (story from the audio link), or any similar mob type situation is the reason why I experience anxiety in crowded spaces.

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