On suicide

[lynn cates]

Fish; but not Christer

Hello Greeneyes. Welcome to the boards.

Was it Albert Fish who made a similar comment about getting a thrill from the electric chair?

Cheers.
LC

[greeneyes]

Thank you Lynn, appreciate the welcome.

Yes, Albert Fish did seem to share the sentiment of excitement at his own death:

What a thrill that will be if I have to die in the electric chair. It will be the supreme thrill. The only one I haven't tried.

I wonder if it is a more common theme than normally acknowledged. It doesn't take much supposing to think that a person who immerses themselves in the deaths of others would likely have more focus and fascination with his own death. Possibly this plays a part in the (often acknowledged) carelessness that causes serial killers to be caught. Or, in the case of suicide, a factor that leads killers to end their lives with their own hand.

[lynn cates]

food for thought

Hello Greeneyes. Thanks. Food for thought.

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

But if we're talking about Druitt, isn't there some disconnect between a sexual sadist who thrills on pain blood death and suffering stuffing his pockets with rocks and jumping in the Thames? It's a relatively quiet death for such a ostentatious killer.

[Robert]

Surely the Ripper wasn't a sadist in the ordinary sense of the term. He killed his victims and only then did he mutilate them.

[Scorpio]

A manic depressive might show this sort of inconsistency perhaps.

[greeneyes]

Sexual sadism usually requires two elements - deliberate intent and actual suffering. Postmortem "sadism" only involves two of these elements as in the strictest sense, a corpse cannot be said to suffer.

However, it could be argued that a sadist who is sexually repressed may find relief in postmortum torture as he/she can be confident that he is beyond the moral censure of the victim. The repressed sexual sadist could well be liberated by the death and feel free to commit the acts that he wants that cause suffering but in a situation where they do not actually cause suffering. It may not be the literal definition of sadism, but its a pretty closely related disorder.

[Scorpio]

The term sadism does gets bandied about a lot. It is safe to say it covers the suffering and degradation of victims,including disfiguration,for sexual,emotional,spiritual, and intellectual gratification.

[Errata]

A manic depressive might show this sort of inconsistency perhaps.

No, we're actually pretty predictable that way. We don't kill ourselves when manic (on purpose), and when depressed it's really a slow boil. And we almost never do the "go somewhere to kill ourselves" thing. Quite frankly, depressed people don't have the energy to wend our way towards the Thames when we have knives and ropelike material at home that will do the job. What Druitt did is not a Bipolar thing. That's an acute stress thing. Which makes sense since he was under acute stress.