Is the role of deviant sexual fantasy related to the types of sexual offence committed by Ted Bundy? (8)

 Is the role of deviant sexual fantasy related to the types of sexual offence committed by Ted Bundy? Draw upon underlying theory in your answer. (8)

QUOTATION BY UNKNOWN OWNER

 

8 However, sexual sadism is not only interrelated with psychopathy, but it is also part of Krafft-Ebing (1886) model of serial homicide. The model highlights the role of intense sexual fantasies and sexual sadism together with the compulsion to kill (Schesinger, 2000). The process that leads offenders to act out their fantasies can be explained in terms of the escalation of those fantasies not only in intensity, but also infrequency, which drives these individuals to violent sexual criminal episodes (Howitt, 2004). Although deviant sexual fantasies are found to motivate serial homicide in Burgess (1989) theoretical model (Burgess et al, 1986), Krafft-Ebing (1886) suggested that those individuals who act out their sadistic fantasies do so because of a compulsion to act out. The need to commit the act is powerful. In some cases, the urges are so strong that an attempt to resist it will bring on anxiety with somatic manifestations. Importantly, those individuals who report a sense of tension produced by the fantasies are only those who then go onto act them out (Schesinger, 2000). Indeed, Bundy felt that compulsion that he described as “a destructive energy” (Desert News, 1989, pp. 2). Although he found it difficult to explain, he reported to have reached a point where it is difficult to control that energy and not even what he has learned as a child could hold him back (Deseret News, 1989). It is worth of notice that the compulsion is strong and powerful, but it is not irresistible. Many offenders report to have been taken over by another personality, but they know exactly what they are doing: they decide not to resist the compulsion to be relieved from the state of tension they were in (Schesinger, 2000). Bundy was not different. However, he discouraged people from inferring that he wanted to appear as a helpless victim taking full responsibility for what he has done (Desert News, 1989)

The penultimate factor that influenced his actions was the victims’ availability. Bundy reported that his fantasies could have been somehow acted out because of “peculiar circumstances of society and of the twentieth century in America” (Vronsky, 2004, pp. 140). In fact, Bundy’s crimes were made possible because, as he said, “living in large centers of population it is easy to get used to deal with strangers” (Vronsky, 2004, pp.140). In fact, this condition makes people less likely to be remembered or cared of and more likely to deal with strangers (Vronsky, 2004). On the same wave, “peculiar circumstances” made Jack the Ripper free to act out his fantasies of power and control in the nineteenth century. At that time, in fact, prostitution was not as organized as it is today, where we have pimps controlling, monitoring and protecting their stables. Prostitutes worked independently and a drunk prostitute was likely to look for trouble. This allowed Jack the Ripper to freely commit his crimes (Douglas, 1988). Therefore, college students and prostitutes were easy targets with respect to the surrounding circumstances.