Paul Begg's Point to Ponder

[rjpalmer]

The current idea of Ripperology is to be reverential to what is, after all, a failed effort. In the meantime, laissez-faire doesn’t work. As much as I enjoy Cap'n Jack's romantic notion that the historian Gibbon will inevitably rise to the top, it’s just as likely that the historian Goebbels will rise to the forefront. Eventually all conscientious historians give up, knowing the hordes have breached the wall; they then retreat to Tibet and become Buddhists.

[Supe]

What I have found most interesting (albeit predictable) about the discussion to date is how some people have managed to insinuate into their posts the same old petty grievances and personal enmities that have disrupted many a thread and which we all profess to deplore. Way to go gang..

Don.

[Cap'n Jack]

Ally, you seem to have never forgiven me for speculating a long time ago that the Whitechapel Murders were inherently homosexual in their nature and purpose.
You'll remember that post.
The one you had cancelled and banned.
I would guess that your vim here is based on your long term guilt and shame for banning and cancelling such a perfect and beautiful insight into these remarkable crimes.

[Ally]

Uhm AP, I could care less if you speculate that the Whitechapel murders were homosexual in nature. I'll start a thread right now for you and you can pontificate on that all you want. As far as I know, I have never had a post or a thread of yours cancelled or banned because the only posts I have ever reported were spam, teenage "help me with my homework threads" and troll posts. And while you are often an irritating little sht, who is prone to hysterical over-exaggeration, don quioxte complexes and persecution dramas of exhausting banality, I don't think any of your posts have ever fallen into one of those categories that I single out for reporting. So if one of your posts or threads was banned, it wasn't instigated by me, and I sincerely doubt it was based solely on your speculation that the killings were homosexually motivated.

[Cap'n Jack]

Then your memory is short, Ally.
You'll remember my 'Colony' model.
Just press search, old archive.
I put together a very radical argument for the Whitechapel Murderer being a 'soldier' working at the behest of signals from the Colony, confused in his role as an individual that did not recognise another gender, he then regarded the other gender as a danger to the community, and killed them.
That is when you killed me, and probably set back suitable and sensible discussion about this case for about twenty years.
Hope you proud.

[Doctor X]

Uh . . . what?

"Signals from the Colony?"

". . . confused in his role as an individual that did not recognise another gender, he then regarded the other gender as a danger to the community, and killed them."

What?

Seriously.

What?

Yours confusedly,

--J.D.

[Ally]

AP,

If I can press search and find the post in the old archives, then I hardly had it deleted and banned now did I? Do you actually think before you speak? If it's there, I didn't complain and have it deleted. That seems, oh I don't know, fairly blindingly obvious to me.

Here's what I know. Speculation about JtR's homosexuality is absolutely no different than speculating whether he was a man or a woman, a mason or a king, a mad abortionist or a social reformer or a portuguese or norwegian sailor. And I could care less if it's debated so I would not have reported a post for merely discussing whether Jack was a homosexual or not. And frankly, if you say I did, you are a liar. Or as I suspect, viewing a situation through wine colored glasses.

[Ally]

So just because I had to know what crap AP wolf was blathering on about this time, I decided to do some research. Here's the thread:

http://www.casebook.org/forum/messages/9175/7497.html

Some points.

1. Now you will note that STEPHEN RYDER posted two posts saying that people's personal and political views of homosexuality were not topical on the casebook and that unless it related to Jack or Poetry, to keep it off the site. So it was not the idea of homosexuality that was the problem, it was whatever personal opinions people were attaching to the concept of homosexuality that were the problem. Rather I suspect like it wouldn't be against the rules to talk about Jack being a black guy, but if people started putting in negative connotations about black guys.

2. One can also note that while I realize AP is deep into gender confusion, Stephen is a man, I am a woman, and we are not the same person.

3. I wasn't even posting on the stupid thread! At the time, I didn't bother to even read the thread because a bunch of amateur whacks posting crap poetry doesn't appeal to me. I posted on the poetry thread ONCE when I had been told to quit arguing a point and needed a "creative" outlet to get my point across...I put two poems on the poetry thread and that's the only time I posted there.

4. So AP, I imagine if you said homos are twisted, your crap got deleted and rightfully so. Tough nuts. Fact is, I didn't read it, I don't really care. But considerng what I have now read of that long drawn out crap, it's hardly right that it set the Ripperology world back 20 years. It wasn't that interesting.

5. And once again AP, you are full of crap. I didn't have your stupid post deleted and frankly if I did report it, it had nothing to do with the concept of Jack being a homosexual, which is discussed EVERY time someone discusses Tumblety, but rather I imagine in the way you presented homosexuals. I'll take that apology...oh now would be great.

[rjpalmer]

I love A.P.W. I really do. Jack swings in Soho as long as he's Tommy Cutbush, but once Uncle Francis or Cousin Monty comes to town, he's as straight as Jerry Falwell in an ice bath.

I have to stick up for AP, however. He doesn't even know it, but he's saying precisely what the Patron Saint of Profiling, Robert Ressler, once said. The difference is that APW has the guts to say it publicly at least once, whereas you'll never hear any of the profiling gurus that have invaded Ripperology even acknowledge that their Patron Saint ever voiced such a heresy. Most probably don't even know that he did.

My belief? I think the whole sexual bit is a superficial explanation invented by a not very insightful Austrian psychiatrist 120 years ago, and, unbelievably, few Ripperologists and profiing advocates have ever had the gumption to even question it. If you took a sample of the public at random, you'd find, say, 3% of the population was exclusively gay. (It might be higher or lower, I have no idea of the precise figure). If you then took a sample of identified 'lady killers,' you'd find that 3% were exclusively gay. Why? Because lust is not the driving motivation. Krafft-Ebing was descriptive, rather than analytic. His science was bad. Very bad. There is no correlation either for, nor against homosexuality, because the question of victimology is more personal than sexuality; that's why any number of murderers aren't sexually attracted to their victims(and the Ripper falls into that catagory). So I have to give APW some credit, for at least he has the gumption to start questioning the dogma. 2 1/2 marks.

[Cap'n Jack]

Careful, RJP, you'll be French-kissing me next.

Ally, I'm glad you went back and searched for that one particular post - which isn't there, on account of you having it deleted.
At the time I thought it was a very narrow-minded and selfish act.
I still do.
RJP sums it up perfectly.
For my thrust and direction in that post was to show that our concept of homosexuality is inherently flawed, particularly in regard to the question of 'gay' serial killers.
And yes, in regard to Tumblety, Druitt and even Cutbush as valid suspects in this game, I stand by the notion that your narrow-minded and selfish act set back suitable discussion on this topic by twenty years.
So the only thing I owe you is a good lesson in humility.

[Doctor X]

I am still missing something here.

What is this "colony" or "Colony?" What evidence is there that Jack was homosexual, bisexual, transexual, or even metrosexual?

Methinks one should demonstrate the existence of unicorns before lodging claims regarding the number of twists a unicorn's horn.

--J. "There were Green Alligators and Long-Necked Beasts" D.

[Ally]

Boy, someone thinks highly of themselves don't they. Go ahead AP, post the post again. If there is nothing offensive about gays in it, prove me wrong. Show everyone what a narrowminded person I am by posting this post that I had deleted. Go ahead. I think Ripperology deserves to know what a keen and insightful man you are and see this fantastic post that has such far reaching implications into every aspect of Ripperology. So post it.

And your continued insistence that I had it deleted is a bunch of crap. And you know it. Which makes you a liar.

[The Good Michael]

What is this "colony" or "Colony?" What evidence is there that Jack was homosexual, bisexual, transexual, or even metrosexual?

Professor Xavier,

There is nothing to go on. There isn't even a hint as to his sexuality, bi, metro, trans, or interspecies. Any speculation to the contrary is... well... speculation to the contrary.

Mike

[perrymason]

Its refreshing to see how many people who usually espouse that Jack the Ripper was certainly a Sexual Predator, or Sexually driven Serial Killer, suggest here that there is nothing overtly sexual in these acts that might be used to categorize this killer,... although only as a platform to dismiss AP's suggestion regarding Homosexuality.

Im sure you can see the hypocrisy of suggesting a sexual killer,.. just not a homosexual one.

Personally, I dont think any of the Canon encountered a sexual predator, but nor do I think those that do feel there were some kind of sexual underpinnings in these crimes should casually dismiss a homosexual killer as a premise.

Best regards all.

[Dan Norder]

I stand by the notion that your narrow-minded and selfish act set back suitable discussion on this topic by twenty years.

AP, when Victorian era doctors are more enlightened on the topic of sex, sexuality and paraphilias than you are, that doesn't mean that your opinions are going to put things forward twenty years, it means you're trying to set them back 200. Frankly, for anyone to try to claim there was no sexual element to these types murders would have to be either: a) completely ignorant of all the work over the past couple of centuries (including the last 20 years, which has come to completely different conclusions than the bizarre ideas AP came up with and tries to present as "modern" thinking); or b) such a raving egomaniac that he thinks he knows more than all the professionals in that field put together. Of course, we know from previous discussions here that it's actually both.