Fatal Addiction: Ted Bundy's Final Interview

Pure Intimacy ^ | 1/24/89 | Dr James Dobson

[Linda Frances]

Ted: I’m no social scientist, and I don’t pretend to believe what John Q. Citizen thinks about this, but I’ve lived in prison for a long time now, and I’ve met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence. Without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography - deeply consumed by the addiction. The F.B.I.’s own study on serial homicide shows that the most common interest among serial killers is pornographers. It’s true.

[DaveyB]

Also common among serial killers:

• Eating potato chips
• Sleeping in the fetal position when young
• Watching at least one episode of Gilligan
• Blowing nose with Kleenex brand tissue
• Telling knock knock jokes
• and killing lots of people

[Georgia Girl 2]

Looking at some dirty magazines, reading Detective Magazine and watching slasher movies are not going to turn you into a serial killer. If that was true half of America would be crazed psychopaths. When I was a teenager we used to read Detective Magazine once in awhile. It was pretty tame. My sister and I have probably seen every slasher movie ever made. So far no murders unless she’s holding out on me.

The guy was a psychopath. Wasn’t it the pop star Blondie that said she got in the car with Bundy once? He pulled up to her on the street and offered to give her a ride. After she got in the car she realized the the door handle on the inside was missing. He was acting weird and she got scared and finally somehow got the door open and jumped out while the car was moving. Later she saw him on TV and realized he was the same guy who picked her up.

[Boogieman]

Well, correlation doesn’t equal causation. It’s true that for the majority of ordinary, well adjusted men, domination is a part of sexual arousal. It’s a part of the normal human sexual dynamic, that men naturally get aroused by a sense of power or virility, and women get aroused by men who express those qualities as well. So to say that it is a causal factor in murderous behavior would require a whole lot of evidence, and not just the kind of correlation you are pointing out.

The more likely scenario, is that men who happen to have tendencies towards deviant violent behavior, whatever the root cause, are more drawn to fantasy materials that reflect these themes than ordinary men. That doesn’t equate to the materials causing the behavior or the tendencies, but it could be an aggravating factor in them going from fantasizing to acting out on their fantasies.

[Boogieman]

“If that was true half of America would be crazed psychopaths”

Yes, this is what a lot of these crusaders seem to completely fail to grasp. If being exposed to materials that Bundy talks about turns you into a psycho, then millions and millions of men would be psychos. Conversely, if only psychos derived enjoyment from these materials, given the rarity of their conditions, there wouldn’t be a profitable mass market for the purveyors. All one has to do to see that there is such a market is to poke your head into the seedier side of the internet nowadays.

[catnipman]

“Ted’s final con job, trying to portray himself as a “victim.”

Yep. Bundy was a sociopathic sexual thrill killer. And a sociopathic liar to boot. He never did confess to several girls he almost certainly killed.

The porn con job was his final “FuchU” to society. This “news” about the Bundy “porn made me do it” scam is only about 23 years old.

We’re so lucky his final killings occurred in Florida, a state that knows how to deal with people like that.

[Secret Agent Man]

Regular porn is nothing like porn that has violence in it. And there is no “natural”progression from one to the other, someone has to have been damaged by a woman or had terrible relationships with women, plus a lot of other things wrong with them to even consider that to be what they would want to do to someone else.

[boop]

That's the point. Men who read Playboy or even Hustler DON'T kill women. However Men who kill women have a tendency to read porn. Often of the violent kind.

A sicko happens to enjoy porn, too.

Even if porn never existed these guys would still kill women. Bundy was being an ass$ole "blaming" his rampage on viewing naked ladies in a magazine.

[berdie]

Con man. Nothing more..nothing less.

They all have some kind of excuse to exonerate themselves.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Ted: I’m no social scientist

Nope, he wasn't. What he was, was a manipulative, calculating serial killer. Ted Bundy's endorsement does not help any viewpoint.

[donna]

Doesn’t look like “conservative” men on FR understand even yet.

---

Billy Graham:

Pornography treats people as mere objects to be used for our own selfish gratification. Pornography also destroys the meaning of true love. The Bible is clear: “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality,
or of any kind of impurity” (Ephesians 5:3).

Never forget that what goes on in our minds eventually influences the way we act. Jesus warned, “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).

Make it your goal to keep your mind pure, as well as your
body.

[MacMattico]

I agree with you Vigilanteman. I'm female and I've viewed porn before, slasher horror films, etc

But what Ted Bundy was interested in wasn't your typical Playboy as you say. And you can't just find it on the Internet. It's extremely violent pornography that most men would turn off and be disgusted by. I'm not saying that sort of thing caused Bundy’s murderous rages, but it certainly didn't help and was more like pouring gasoline on an already burning fire.

What always scared me about Ted Bundy was that he could seem so rational and normal. I picture myself at 18 helping someone with a broken arm, although I thought of myself as always super cautious. I have two daughters and I fear how many people like him are out there. It scares me to even think about it.

[quickquiver]

My postulation is a stretch to say the least. I’m not an analyst, but I do think my argument could be proven by thinking outside the box. Bad Karma could be a close description. How is bad Karms unleashed such that innocent people are laid waste to? Perfect posession is another term. Unbalanced. Might have been able to be cured with MRI treatment.
I base my guess on these excerpts from the article:

“no way to describe the brutal urge to do that, and once it has been satisfied, or spent, and that energy level recedes, I became myself again.”

“Then, at a certain time, it is instrumental in crystallizing it, making it into something that is almost a separate entity inside.”

“a compulsion, a building up of this destructive energy
It was like coming out of some horrible trance or dream”

“liken it to being possessed by something so awful and alien”
“brutal urge to do that, and once it has been satisfied, or spent, and that energy level recedes”

He was a living breathing Twilight Zone episode, with part of his phyche inhabited from an alternate reality or dimesion. He had lost touch with reality, which fed off of itself. In other words he became a devil worshipper in his own mind. There are characters in the Fringe series something akin to what I describe, however I am having a mental block right now on what they call them though.

My guess is, the voices in his head never ceased for him, but he fed off them instead. He never could just come out and say he listened to the voices in his head and acted on them. If most people hearing evil voices in there heads got treatment instead and just said no to them, based on their knowledge of right and wrong, then the rest of us wouldn’t have to be in a constant state of situational awareness and could sleep better at night.

His dying by electrocution could have screwed up the FABRIC OF TIME for his whole life, making him suseptible to listening to the voices in his head, for which he was completely unable to deal with, because he lost his moral compass. He probably never really accepted Christ for one thing, and was never capable of uttering “get thee behind me in the name of Jesus Christ,” to the satan that confronted him.

[nathanbedford]

Conservatives in general will agree with you and everything you quoted Billy Graham as saying. But here is one conservative who will not agree with any suggestion that the "solution" to psychopathic murder is to ban pornography.

It is to be noted that Ted Bundy credits alcohol abuse as well as hard-core pornography with stimulating his madness. Yet I would not believe that you or any other conservative on this forum would realistically advocate the return of prohibition in order to control psychopathic murderers.

Billy Graham speaks to the individual and his relationship with God but conservatism speaks to the individual and his relationship with government which is an entirely different matter. That which is good and meet for the individual in his relationship with God is not necessarily a reason to legislate.

I believe that social conservatives, of whom I count myself one on many issues, do a great disservice to our cause and to their own cause when they seek to legislate in areas best left to the grace of God.

I would agree with the posters who have suggested that a psychopath might be interested in pornography and the causation might run the other way, in other words, the pathology precedes and creates interest in pornography rather than pornography generating the pathology. I also agree with the posters who suggest that anecdotal evidence is not persuasive because, even if true that most of the serial murderers and rapists indulge in pornography, that does not show causation because coincidence does not prove causation.

One might say that who cares which came first, the chicken or the egg, pornography or the pathology, because there is nothing uplifting about pornography even if it does no harm. So there is absolutely no reason not to ban it. But one might apply that logic to bringing back prohibition and banning alcohol. The unintended consequences of legislating in these areas cannot be fully understood much less anticipated.

[jmacusa]

I read a statistic in The New York Post about four or five years ago that said 22% of the people who view porn on the internet are women. I wonder if that explains female public school teachers raping young boys.

[MacMattico]

I know wikipedia isn't all that great, but there was a lot more going on in his household then it being a “good Christian home”, with signs of insanity from an early age. Take a look at the wiki page.

[donna]

As always, your posts are too long to read and if one does, they are boring. Don’t waste you time.

[dadfly]

i think you did fine linda. thank you for this post. this is probably one of the few instances where statistics are showing a real effect on those men and boys prone to criminal behavior.

i have no doubt of the spiritual corruption porn inflicts young boys and men. as a young man, i never realized just how much it weakened my character and interfered with my relationships with women until i decided to just stop looking at any of it. i stopped going to hollywood movies. i stopped watching crappy tv shows. i immediately noticed an improvement in my life and spiritual condition.

i wish i had never been exposed to any of it as a young man and i’m glad God has given me the strength and wisdom now to keep it away from my young children. this article strengthens that conviction further.

[Ken H]

Since the late 1980s when Bundy was active, rape and murder have plunged in the US.* There is actually a pretty strong negative correlation between the availability of porn and these crimes. To put it another way, if porn were causal, wouldn't you expect an increase in rape and murder?

* http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

[nathanbedford]

Perhaps reading Twitter would tax your attention span less.

[quickquiver]

Decrease in electrocutions.