The Fall2013/I

Mary McCurdy:
If he has children, do you think he loves them? Do you think he *can* love?

Stella Gibson:
Most human emotions exist on a kind of continuum. People talk about lack of empathy, but we all have limits to our empathy. Some people are profoundly moved by children starving on the other side of the world, and some people it barely touches. For them, things need to literally be closer to home. I'm sure he is way out there on the sex continuum, but we all know men who have fantasized about having a woman completely under their control, or initiating a young girl into sex.

Mary McCurdy:
Yes, but most don't act on those fantasies. But he does. Why?

Stella Gibson:
Well, maybe, maybe it's not that he's devoid of emotion at all. Maybe it's the reverse. Isn't it emotion that the sexual sadist feeds off - blind panic, abject terror? I think he feels their pain acutely. It's just that he gets pleasure from it.