The Psychology of Lust Murder Quotes

“For example, in the state of California, it is illegal to have sexual intercourse with someone under the age of 18; yet, in the same state, having sex with a dead body (i.e., necrophilia), does not have a specific criminal code within the penal system (Hickey, 2005).”
― Catherine Purcell, The Psychology of Lust Murder: Paraphilia, Sexual Killing, and Serial Homicide

“The present legislative trend is to marginalize the status of sex offenders and, in the process, to regard them as less than fully human. While this strategy may make for good politics, it is a far cry from establishing sound policy. Framing the debate much like a “war” in which innocent victims are subject to devastating assault by evil, predatory, and callous offenders does nothing but inflame emotions at the expense of promoting reasoned judgment.”
― Catherine Purcell, The Psychology of Lust Murder: Paraphilia, Sexual Killing, and Serial Homicide

“Memory is subjected to a psychological process consisting of the recall of an event. When recalling an event from memory, distortion and selection of certain cues take place. When emphasis is placed on a cue, the cue becomes more and more dominant because of the positive feedback involved in the conditioning. The more sexually stimulating the fantasy becomes, the greater the likelihood that the progression to a masturbatory fantasy will occur. Consequently, through conditioning, it is the fantasy itself that becomes more and more erotically arousing.

McGuire et al. (1965) offered a paraphilic case example to illuminate this fantasy progression. A 17-year-old male had witnessed a young girl changing clothes through an open window. He was initially stimulated by this encounter and subsequently took to masturbating while remembering the incident. With the passage of time, the memory of the actual event became vague. However, advertisements and shop window displays of women’s lingerie continually reminded him of the initial image. These visual cues were used as part of his fantasy and, through the course of 3 years, his sexual interests in women gradually and consistently changed to include an erotic fascination with female undergarments. To sustain his paraphilic fantasy, the man either bought or stole these items.”
― Catherine Purcell, The Psychology of Lust Murder: Paraphilia, Sexual Killing, and Serial Homicide

“Much like all other paraphilias, fetishes can be situated on the mild-to-severe continuum. An example of this range is depicted in the following scenario of four men, all having a fetish for women with long hair. The first man might have a mild fetish for women with long hair simply because he has always perceived the longer length to be more sexually appealing. The second man, functioning in the mild-to-moderate range, might whistle at and call out to an otherwise unattractive female with long hair yet remain silent when an extremely attractive woman with short hair walks past him. The third man, operating in the moderate-to-severe end of the continuum, might be unable to achieve an erection during intercourse unless he wears a long-haired wig or his partner has long hair. The fourth man might be able to attain an orgasm simply by looking at or touching the desired object. This behavior demonstrates that the individual functions at the severe pathological end of the paraphilic spectrum. The absence of deploying such fetishes in the extremely paraphilic-prone individual can cause erectile dysfunction (APA, 2000).”
― Catherine Purcell, The Psychology of Lust Murder: Paraphilia, Sexual Killing, and Serial Homicide