Abusive Men

[crash9]

Narwhal just mentioned something on another thread that brings this to mind, and I’ve never seen a thread on this here. That is “Abusive Men”. Almost every day I read or hear something about what some monster has done to his family or some child, and it’s harder and harder to feel proud to be a man. I’m totally against capital punishment, but for this class of man a slow and painful death seems to easy. I’m close to this issue because of my wife. She’s done some work with women – mostly showgirls, models, and dancer types that come from her background. I’m kind of a man-hating female trapped in a man’s body myself I guess. You wouldn’t believe the group we’ve had sitting around in our living room over the years – and you really wouldn’t believe some of the discussions. She’s been my greatest teacher in life. Had I not met her I’d probably be still playing volleyball on the beach and strolling in the backdoor after the lawyer drove off in his Porsche for work. Without realizing it, I’ve known and taken advantage of a lot of girls that had abused pasts that they hid from people. Now that I understand and am sensitive to them I’ve almost developed radar to the type.
I’ve heard Ann say that 1/3 of men have a potential to be abusers, but she can’t say where she gets a number like that. I’ve heard her talk about physical characteristics and how the pituitary gland determines how testosterone is distributed as a sign. We’ve thought that “Crack” smokers go quickly to those darker places.
Any thoughts or data sources to spot the monsters? They destroy the innocence of the women we love.

[KirkVining]

I interned at and worked for a NP company in New England for a few years that was kind of a heartbreak conglomerate. They ran homeless shelters, soup kitchens, women's shelters, alcohol rehabs,prison outreach programs and detox centers in prisons and the big cites of New England. In order to get funding from the states and the feds, they are required to collect mountains of statistics and perform continual studies of the populations they serve. From such places liberal computer programmers are born.

The women's shelters were pretty sad. Children were involved, and there was always a possibilty of violence, and the women were either in total terror or had been driven stark raving nuts by their spouse. I can give you a quick gist of the general results of studies in this area. Violent men come from three catagories:

1) Those who were badly abused themselves when they were children.

2) Those who have been addicted to a chemical, the two worst of being alcohol and methamphetamine

3) Those who are socio-pathic, a term that means that someone for some unknown reason has been born with out a conscience, the same class of people who make up rapists, serial killers, con men and child molesters.

1 & 2 will respond to treatment appropriate to the problem. They are the vast majority of people who are involved in what is called "domestic violence", many times by people who are not really prone to this behavior but under the influence of drugs or in a stressful situation they resort to violence, however when the situation is over or they sober up, they are genuinely remorseful for what has happened. These people need help and should be treated with compassion if they genuinely want help. If they don't, the smart person needs to understand that they are asking for a life of hell if they continue to live with a person in one of these catagories. 1 is usually treated with anti-depressants, 2 with rehab and a lifetime in AA, NA or the like. If so, they have an execellant chance at a happy, normal life, that is if they can manage to stay out of prison.

#3 is a great area of controversy, but after years of studies, the vast preponderance of evidence is that these people can never be cured, and I myself strongly believe it. Even being the liberal that I am, I can see where a strong case can be made for putting these people to death, as they simply carry on their work in prison, and even prison inmates have a right to be protected from these men who are essentially predators, in fact the current thinking on why US prisons are so bad is because we let these guys loose in the general population, hence the new trend towards "supermax" prisons. If we aren't going to kill them, we need to at least put them in a plexiglass box by themselves.

The general theory on it goes something like this: our brain is like an onion that evolution is constantly adding layers to. On the most recent outer most layers are our capacities of higher feelings, love compassion etc, and as a group they make a functional part of ourselves we call the conscience. Some people are born without it. As a result, they are what nature intended people to be at the time in our evolutionary histroy -scheming clever predators who kill, rape and rob to survive. Their cleverness also allows them to mimic the aspects of love and compassion they need to carry out whatever predatorial scheme consumes them. If you are involved with a person who is even suspected of a crime of this nature, or uses beatings or any other type of abuse as a means to control another human being, or acts in ways that show a lack of higher facilities by tortuing animals, purposefully running down pets, any behavior like that, you yourself are in great danger. A lack of a social circle coupled with prolonged periods of unexplained absence during the course of a day is another real clue - these men seem to either subject their immediate families to this behavior, or the public at large, sometimes not simultaneously.

The premier school in the country in this area of study is the University of New Hampshire's Family Reasearch Labatory. They have huge resources you can access and if you are trying to acquire a degree in this area, studying here is like studying at MIT for an engineering degree, they are tops in the field:

http://www.unh.edu/frl/

1/3 is too high an estimate. 8-10% is more like it.

Also beware women who have been victimized who attempt to work in this field. They are usually going to have a bias that effects clinical judgement, and some have a pretty big ax to grind. I am not trying to put them down, thats just a reality that has to be accepted and dealt with. You should find a neutral source to check against when evaluating theory in this area. I'll look into the pituitary gland thing for you, I still do a lot of work in that field. I've never heard of it, but it could be something new.

[KirkVining]

Ok, I looked it up. Your friend has esentially stepped into the middle of a controversy on how to treat #1 and #2. You have the Cortisol school, which is the pituartary school your friend is referring to, and the Serotin school, which is the brain chemistry anti-depression meds theory I was referring to. Goolge either Cortisol or Serotin with the word "violence" and you will get back tons of work on the subject. Serotin-inhibitor drugs are the current practice, Cortisol manipulation is the up and coming, still very experimental school. The drugs involved in the Cortisol studies are highly, highly controlled, while they are passing out S-I like candy to everybody. Is your wife invloved with work in this field?

[crash9]

Originally posted by KirkVining
Is your wife invloved with work in this field?

I’m a little confused by your post. My wife is in no way a professional. She was molested by her father from 7-13 yrs. and has essentially been able to outwardly overcome the fear and guilt feelings. She was a pageant contestant, a Miss Thisinthat, and a working model. Latter she became involved in model training and did some lectures on how to overcome the “Curse of Beauty” dress figure faults, but got into abuse issues as so many from this pretty girl world have abuse issues. The pituitary thing is her own idea I think, resulting in appearance indicators of who may be dangerous.
The silver haired fox type A guy – bad
Stays in shape easy – cut body – bad
No hair suit – bad
Early thinning hair, but not complete balding – good
In shape, but not cut – good
Late puberty – good
Goes on and on, but by her clues the guy who just murdered his wife in Utah would look safe. Just those schoolyard bullies with little guy complexes seem obvious to me. Anybody can be capable of anything given the wrong background or circumstance, but she was trying to have a visual way of spotting a genetic predispositions.

[KirkVining]

Originally posted by crash9
I’m a little confused by your post. My wife is in no way a professional. She was molested by her father from 7-13 yrs. and has essentially been able to outwardly overcome the fear and guilt feelings. She was a pageant contestant, a Miss Thisinthat, and a working model. Latter she became involved in model training and did some lectures on how to overcome the “Curse of Beauty” dress figure faults, but got into abuse issues as so many from this pretty girl world have abuse issues. The pituitary thing is her own idea I think, resulting in appearance indicators of who may be dangerous.
The silver haired fox type A guy – bad
Stays in shape easy – cut body – bad
No hair suit – bad
Early thinning hair, but not complete balding – good
In shape, but not cut – good
Late puberty – good
Goes on and on, but by her clues the guy who just murdered his wife in Utah would look safe. Just those schoolyard bullies with little guy complexes seem obvious to me. Anybody can be capable of anything given the wrong background or circumstance, but she was trying to have a visual way of spotting a genetic predispositions.

Oh, I am sorry. I got the impression she was someone who was working with x-strippers and other people in that area - there are a number of psychologists who specialize in that area. If she came upon it herself, she is a pretty good amatuer scientist, as I stated there is a great deal of work going on that has that same thrust, but more of the blood test rather than the appearance variety. I doubt if there is any visual way. People with high levels of cortisol tend to be more buff - it is a steriod. One reason weight rooms are so popluar in the joint, while the library is where the non-predators hide. In the joint, they congregate the way wolves do. In fact, wolves and sociopaths are surprisingly identical. They want to cull the weak victims from the herd. These guys show higher levels of Cortisol as well, but they also seem to be missing some things entirely, like a conscience as noted - so its incurable until we can figure out hos to transplant one.

This article gives an excellant discussion on the subject of Cortisol vs serotomin therapies:
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/forensic_psychology/19719

The guy in Utah is a sociopath. Who knows what he has been up to when he claims he is off to med school.

Your SO's Dad is a monster. He is a member of the class of criminals that should either be killed or put away forever. We need to get away of the idea of a "prison sentence" for these people. It is so deep in them we must simply segregate them from society, permanently. In fact, I have read one study that finds a relationship to the rise in these type of crimes has occurred when we stopped executing violent rapists in the 60s. A rapist is a socio-path, period. They should not be getting a "sentence" once convicted of this or any child molestion crime, the perpetrator should be treated as one who has permenently lost their place in society, else we are sheep permitting wolves to live among us.

Amongst your friends, it would help them if they could classify who thier abuser was according to those three catagories, there is different treatment for the survivors of each kind. Your SO was victimized by a sociopath. My heart goes out to her.

[crash9]

Originally posted by KirkVining


Your SO's Dad is a monster. He is a member of the class of criminals that should either be killed or put away forever.

Her dad died from Prostrate Cancer. Since he was a Christian Scientist he got a just reward.
Models, strippers, showgirls, it’s all the same. Pretty women learn that all men that look at them have at least a fleeting thought about them sexually, and if they ever had any problems with a man they can get a little spooky. Hence the curse of beauty

[sfloriII]

Originally posted by crash9
... all men that look at them have at least a fleeting thought about them sexually...

This is a really interesting thread. I agree with your statement that men will look at attractive women with at least some sexual thoughts. And that some men lack the ability to control themselves in regards to their sex drive and women.

But I also think that predators are not necessarily born in every circumstance. I think that any man has the potential to become a sexual predator if he does not learn to control his urges. I have no doubt that the excess of porn and the philosophy of "if it feels good, do it" in our society have been factors here. By looking at women as objects rather than real people, of course there are rapes and molestors.

Thanks for this thread!

[mikemover]

Originally posted by sfloriII
I have no doubt that the excess of porn and the philosophy of "if it feels good, do it" in our society have been factors here.

Come on, bro...this is a REAL problem, with REAL victims, and a serious issue. Don't fall for that pseudo-moralistic, Pat Robertson/Billy Graham crap about porn being the downfall of society....

That's the same flawed logic that present-day gun control fanatics use, and that Prohibitionists used decades ago...

Porn is NOT the problem. PEOPLE are the problem.

Mike

[matt7531]

i agree with you mike. these guys are just born this way. i also agree with kirk, the only thng to decide is whether to lock them up or kill em

matt

[mikemover]

Originally posted by matt7531
i agree with you mike. these guys are just born this way. i also agree with kirk, the only thng to decide is whether to lock them up or kill em

matt

That's a no-brainer: Kill them. A lifetime of free room and board for murderers and rapists is not my idea of "punishment".

Mike

[sfloriII]

We're actually in agreement. People can definately be born that way. I was simply saying that they can also become that way and that the amount of porn one looks at can be a contributing factor.

[crash9]

Well it seems there is something we can all agree on. Thanks Kirk for the extensive posts – man I don’t know how you do it, must be a typin fool. Abuse is not just sexual, but it all seems in the same vein to me. The sensitivities of the abused also has to a big unknown. There’s a big difference between a drunk that can’t seem to find his way in the dark and a clumsy high school kid that watched to much porn and thinks he’s making love, but the head trip for the women can be the same. What also seems always true is that the mothers allow this to happen – they always know, but can be in denial.

[G-Benz]

Originally posted by sfloriII
...the amount of porn one looks at can be a contributing factor.

Oh crap!

[mikemover]

Originally posted by sfloriII
We're actually in agreement. People can definately be born that way. I was simply saying that they can also become that way and that the amount of porn one looks at can be a contributing factor.

I guess I'm about to become a raving sex addicted abuser any day now, because I've looked at WAY, WAY more than my quota!

:p

Mike

[sfloriII]

And since I qualify as the "stays in shape easy- cut body" under the qualifications for those who may become sex offenders, I guess I'd better be careful too!