Sexual Murder - Justicia Forense

However, Meloy (2000) offers two cogent criticisms of Ressler et al.’s(1988) discussion of the social antecedents of sexual homicide, particularlythe authors’ emphasis on the offenders’ troubled family backgrounds, includingthe high prevalence of alcoholism, psychiatric illness, and abuse. First,no comparison group was used; therefore, these background characteristicsdo not necessarily predict sexual murder. For instance, it is highly likely thatthe backgrounds of most nonsexual murderers would also include many ofthese negative social experiences. Second, and perhaps more important,Meloy notes that most of Ressler et al.’s sample did not experience suchnegative social problems. And socially deviant backgrounds were also conspicuouslyabsent in the sexual sadists studied by Dietz, Hazelwood, andWarren (1990), a finding supported by Gratzer and Bradford (1995).Thus, a strictly social theory of the compulsive murderer leaves morequestions unanswered than answered. Often cited sociogenic causes ofcrime — poverty, overcrowding, and broken homes — do not differentiatesexual murderers from other types of criminals. Because social factorsplay a role in just about all behavior, they probably play some rolein compulsive murder, too, but a specific etiological contribution has notyet been demonstrated.9.9.2 Psychological TheoriesThe most widely held view of the etiology of compulsive murder involvessome type of psychological or psychodynamic explanation. One of the earliestof these theories was the notion expounded by Revitch (1957, 1965) and laterby Revitch and Schlesinger (1978, 1981, 1989) that the compulsive murdereris committing a displaced matricide. According to this theory, the compulsiveoffender kills women as a result of an unhealthy emotional involvement withhis own mother: “repressed incestuous feelings seem to be the main stimulusto gynocide” (Revitch and Schlesinger, 1981, p. 174); by killing other women,the sex murderer is symbolically killing his own mother.Support is fairly widespread for the general notion that some menemotionally split women into sexual objects they view as bad, and nonsexualobjects they view as good or pure. For example, Freud (1910)described a need in some men to degrade women in order to experiencesexual arousal: “pure” women, whom they do not degrade, reflect theimage of a mother, and create in these men sexual inhibitions and anxietyassociated with incest. Mathis (1971) reported some extreme cases of thisphenomenon, which he referred to as the “Madonna-prostitute” syndrome.Here, a man who loses potency after marriage — or after his wifegives birth to a child — frequently insists that his spouse utter profanitiesduring intercourse or admit to or describe details of other sexual encountersand indiscretions. If she does, the man is able to become aroused. The