Stockholm Syndrome

With the news this week of Jaycee Dugard's abduction and 18 years of captivity I thought I would write something on Stockholm Syndrome. This syndrome was coined by criminologist and psychiatrist Nils Bejerot in relation to the robbery of Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm, Sweden in August of 1973. During this robbery bank employees were held hostage for six days and began to experience a number of positive emotions, including loyalty, empathy, and love towards the robbers, even defending their actions after they were freed.

Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological response by people (usually, but not always female) who have been abducted and held for some period of time. When Stockholm Syndrome develops, hostages begin to have positive feelings of loyalty, empathy, sympathy, and even love towards their abductors. This occurs in spite of immediate danger, loss of freedom, sexual abuse, and in extreme cases torture. Stockholm Syndrome has been seen in various degrees in many different types of hostage-taking situations including bank robbery, rape, domestic violence, and child abuse.

Over the years there have been a number of cases of abduction where Stockholm Syndrome has been confirmed or suspected. The following cases are by no means an exhaustive list:

As recounted in I Know My First Name Is Steven, seven year old Steven Stayner was kidnapped in Merced California by Kenneth Parnell in 1972. He was a held captive for over seven years until early 1980. After Parnell abducted a five year old boy, Stayner decided to escape in order to return the boy to his parents. While Stayner was at work he left with the boy, eventually going to the police. Parnell was arrested and sentenced to only seven years, and was paroled after five. However in 2004 at the age of 72 Parnell attempted to get his nurse to procure a boy for him, He was reported to the police and returned to prison where he died in 2008. Steven was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1989.

One of the most famous cases involving Stockholm Syndrome is that of Patty Hearst. An heiress of the Hearst family fortune, Patty was kidnapped on February 4, 1974, by the radical left Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). After her abduction Patty was kept in a closet and systematically brainwashed, physically, as well as sexually abused, chiefly by Donald DeFreeze (Aka "Cinque"), the leader of the SLA, and later by Willie Wolfe (Aka "Cujo"). Although it has been asserted that Patty willingly had romantic relationships with SLA members, she has steadfastly maintained that this was not true. After a failed attempt to ransom Patty (this involved the distribution of food to poor people - something those of us raised in the San Francisco Bay Area will never forget), she soon issued a communique calling herself Tania (in honor of Che Guevara's partner) and saying she was now part of the SLA. Shortly thereafter Tania showed up on surveillance cameras during a bank robbery in the Sunset District of San Francisco holding an M1 rifle. After the ringleaders of the SLA were killed in a massive shootout in Los Angeles, other SLA members robbed a bank in Carmichel California and killed a bank customer. Tania was supposedly in one of the getaway cars. She was arrested soon after. Famous (or infamous) attorney F. Lee Baily was hired as her attorney, but he did not make a great case for Patty having been brainwashed or having suffered from Stockholm Syndrome. It didn't help matters that Patty refused to testify against the other SLA members. She was convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Patty served almost two years of her sentence before it was commuted by President Jimmy Carter. After her release from prison she married her former bodyguard and had two children.Patty has had a minor but interesting career in the entertainment industry, appearing in films by John Watersas well as other films and tv shows. She wrote an autobiography titled Patty Hearst Her Story. There have been numerous other books written about Patty as well (see Bizarre Store for titles). In 1999 she was given a pardon by President Bill Clinton as one of last acts in office.

The story of Colleen Stan has been told in a number of places, including the excellent TruTV website as well as in the book Perfect Victim: The True Story of the Girl in a Box By the DA that Prosecuted her Captor and more recently in her own words in the book Colleen Stan: The Simple Gifts of Life: Dubbed by the Media the Girl in the Box and the Sex Slave. I have made a brief summary of this complicated case here. Colleen Stan was hitchhiking in Northern California in May 1977 when a car pulled over and offered her a ride. In the car was a man Cameron Hooker, his wife Janice, and their baby. To Colleen this seemed like a safe ride. However, once in the car, Hooker turned off into a wilderness area, stopped the car, and at knife point fastened a specially-made a wooden box over Colleen's head. She was bound, gagged, stuffed into a sleeping bag, and kept out of sight for the drive to Hooker's remote home. Once there Colleen was almost immediately tortured - hung by her arms and beaten. This aroused Hooker who called in his wife so they could have sex at Colleen's feet.

Colleen was then locked in another box and the head box was placed over her again. She could barely breath, but when she started to scream hooker placed a constricting band around her chest making even harder for her to breath. She felt as if she was going to die. When she didn't die and some of the restrictions were removed, she was relieved. Her brainwashing had begun.

For the next seven years Colleen would lead the life of a sex slave. For the first three years she would only be allowed out of the box an hour a day. She would be placed in a coffin-like box every night which was under the Hooker's bed and tortured on a regular basis. Colleen was told that if she escaped a sex slave ring named "The Company" would kill her family. Hooker had done his homework on brainwashing and used isolation, starvation, severe beatings, torture, bathroom privileges, and sexual abuse to bring her to a state of complete subservience. As she became more and more brainwashed she was given more and more freedom and was allowed to do chores around the house. While Hooker molested Colleen he had never had intercourse with her. One day after he tried to have a menage a troi with Colleen and his wife, Hooker raped Collen for the first time. He then raped her on a regular basis thereafter. Colleen was eventually allowed to work in the yard and even go jogging. In 1980 Hooker allowed his wife Janice to take Colleen to a bar where they picked up some men. He even allowed Janice to carry on an affair with one of them. Eventually Colleen was allowed to write letters to her family, call them by phone, and finally visit them. During the visit she introduced Hooker to her family as her computer programmer boyfriend. After this visit Hooker confined Colleen to her box for the next three years, though he did allow her out to work as a maid at a local hotel. Janice, who had been reading the Bible began to have misgivings about the situation (including the sexual activities her husband commanded her to perform with Colleen). One day Janice picked up Colleen from work and encouraged her to escape. The next day Colleen quit her job and fled, returning to her parents' home. Once home Colleen did not tell her story to anyone and stayed in touch with Janice. She assured Hooker she would not go to the police. Hooker, however, obviously expected to be arrested and started to get rid of any evidence that could link him to Colleen's captivity. When Colleen began to tell her family some of what she had been through. they urged her to call the authorities. In the meantime Janice left Hooker and confessed to her Pastor, who then called the police. The police agreed to give Janice immunity for her testifying against Hooker. She told the about another woman who Hooker had abducted and shot, as well as about Colleen. Hooker was finally arrested on charges of sodomy, kidnap, rape and various other crimes. Unlike Patty Hearst's lawyers, the prosecutor in this case called in experts on brainwashing and Stockholm Syndrome to the courtroom. In the courtroom the fact that Colleen had written 29 love letters to Hooker came out. Yet there was no doubt that Colleen had developed Stockholm Syndrome and this was competently shown to be the result of the treatment at the hands of her kidnapper. Hooker was found guilty of ten charges, including kidnapping, and rape. He was sentenced to 104 years total in prison where he remains to this day. Colleen has tried to have a normal life. She went into therapy, got married and divorced and had a daughter. She volunteers for a sex abuse hotline and warns young people about the dangers of hitchhiking.

In 1990 Fusako Sano, age 10, was kidnapped in Sanjo, Niigata Prefecture in Japan. She was held captive for 9 years until the year 2000 by a mentally disturbed man, Nobuyuki Sato, who lived in a room above his mother's house. Sano said she gave up the idea of escape because she was fearful. Nobuyuki eventually caused trouble for his mother who called the police. Sano revealed herself to the police when they can to the room where she lived with her captor.

As told in her book I Choose to Live, Sabine Dardenne, was kidnapped in 1996 while biking to school in Belgium when she was 12 years old. Her abductor, Marc Dutroux, was a psychopath and serial murderer. Sabine was held captive for 80 days in Dutroux' basement. Dutroux had murdered a number of previous victims and an accomplice. He owned seven houses in which he housed his victims and used pharmacuetical drugs to subdue them. Sabine would also likely have been murdered if Dutroux had not been apprehended by police. Dutroux was sentenced to life imprisonment and his former wife and other accomplices also received long sentences.

The book, Girl in the Cellar: The Natascha Kampusch Story, tells the ordeal of ten year old Natascha who was abducted in March 1998 while walking to school in Vienna. Her abductor, Wolfgang Priklopil, kept her in captivity for eight years in a cellar she was told was rigged with explosives. Priklopil, who insisted his victim address him as 'Master', was the only other person Natascha was allowed to interact with during this time. Not surprisingly, Natascha became dependent on Priklopil who, though he beat and likely sexually abused her, provided her with the basic necessities of life. Over the years Natacha was allowed more and more freedom, though Priklopil threatened to kill her if she tried to escape. At age 18, Natascha finally summoned the will to escape when her captor took a phone call and left her alone while she was cleaning his car. Natascha was found by by an elderly neighbor who then called the police. Priklopil committed suicide by jumping in front of a train a few hours after Natascha made her escape. Natascha was soon reunited with her parents, but her life has not returned to normal. She does not get along with her parents and has at times excoriated by the public who seemingly didn't understand why she didn't escape earlier and still seems attached to her captor. Nevertheless, Natascha is still suffering from her ordeal. She lives alone and rarely leaves her home due to intense phobia of the outside world. For all intense purposes she still remains a prisoner.

In 2000 seventeen year old Lena Simakhina, and fourteen year old Katya Martynova were abducted by ex-army officer and factory worker Viktor Mokhov. The girls were kept as sex slaves in a basement for for three and a half years. Lena was impregnated twice and gave birth only with the assistance of her young friend. The babies were taken from her by Mokhov and abandoned. Both girls unsuccessfully tried to resist Mokhov during the ordeal. Eventually they were able to smuggle out a note which led to the downfall of their tormentor. Lena was eight months pregnant when she was finally freed. Mokhov was sentenced to 17 years in a labor camp and two years in prison. Lena has since married.

As recounted in the book Held Captive: The Kidnapping and Rescue of Elizabeth Smart, fourteen year old Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped and repeatedly raped by psychotic religious fanatic Brian David Mitchell with the help of his wife Wanda Ileen Barzee in June 2002. Initially Smart was kept in close confinement but was allowed more and more freedom as time went on. She was found with the couple in March of 2003. Elizabeth may not have suffered from Stockholm Syndrome and may have not escaped for so long out of fear - Mitchell had threatened to kill her family. She kept a journal during her captivity written in French where she wrote how much she hated her captors. After her escape she has become an advocate for those who have suffered from abduction. Bright and capable, Elizabeth has also been able to hold her own with obnoxious media pundits.

As Detailed in Invisible Chains: Shawn Hornbeck and the Kidnapping Case that Shook the Nation, Shawn Hornbeck was kidnapped at age 11 in 2003 and held for four years by Michael Devlin in Missouri. Devlin repeatedly molested the boy. Shawn began using Devlin's last name and even though he spoke to police on two separate occasions on unrelated matters, he did not reveal his true identity. He was finally discovered when police received a tip as they were searching for another recently missing boy Ben Ownby, who had also been abducted by Devlin. Incredibly some in the media, such as commentator Bill O'Reilly, have blamed Shawn for his captivity, questioning why did not speak up earlier or try to escape. To my mind this demonstrates a monumental level of ignorance or callousness as the nature and effects of Stockholm Syndrome.

What is the reason for Stockholm Syndrome? Why would captured humans behave in this way? For me, the most cogent answer comes from the field of Evolutionary Psychology. A recent article by Chris Cantor and John Price (Cantor & Price, 2007) looks at the evolutionary basis of Stockholm Syndrome and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), or as they put it the "...evolutionary theory of complex PTSD specific to those trapped in traumatic subordinate relationships" (p.378). Traumatic entrapment includes people who are abducted and kept against their will as well as children abused (sexually or physically) by adults including their parents over a period of time. It is well known that these victims experience post-traumatic stress resulting from their ordeals and that this stress can lead to personality changes, an inability to regulate emotional states, and a decrease in cognitive function. In both complex PTSD and Stockholm Syndrome victims may idealize and have positive feelings towards their abusers. The authors make the case the this is a form of appeasement which confers a survival advantage in some mammals and primates who undergo traumatic subordination to a captor. Prisoners who appease their captors will be less likely to be killed and are more likely to reproduce than captives that do not demonstrate appeasement behavior. Appeasement is seen as one of six mamalian defenses which are exaggerated by PTSD. These defenses are:

1. Avoidance of threats,
2. Attentive immobility (freezing and carefure watching as a prelude to more definitive action),
3. Withdrawal (flight response)
4. Aggressive defense (fight response),
5. Appeasement
6. Tonic immobility (playing dead - this confuses the predator by inhibiting attack reflexes or fooling them into thinking the victim is 'contaminated' food) (p.380)

In a situation of traumatic entrapment, appeasement may be the only defensive option. In apes, research that has shown that victims will at times turn towards their attackers for comfort and safety (this is termed 'reverted escape'). In chimps the victim of an attack will have heightened anxiety and will engage in soothing behaviors such as hugging and kissing with former combatants. These soothing behaviors show the dominant animal that the victim is subordinate. and may be the prelude to Stockholm syndrome in humans, and especially female victims. As Cantor and Price note,

"Hunter-gatherer women have been remarkably frequently kidnapped by opposing tribes, with little likelihood of rescue. From an evolutionary perspective defiance in such circumstances carries the prospect of death and the non-transmission of related genes. Submission and defection may promote genetic survival. This has been described as ‘capture-bonding’" (p.380).

Finally the authors point out that appeasement is associated with fear and shame. Fear provides motivation for defense. Shame on the part of the victim, however, gives the signal that he or she is of no threat to the captor. In this way, shame may be the pre-cursor to appeasement. However, shame is an extremely uncomfortable emotion and victims may dissociate to avoid experiencing it. This dissociation may also help the victim to continue to appease the aggressor. When the ordeal is over, the shame returns along with the other aspects of PTSD. The victims of traumatic entrapment have a long road to recovery.

References:

Boulton, D. (1975). The making of Tania Hearst. London, UK: New English Library.

Cantor c, & Prive, J. (2007). Traumatic entrapment, appeasement and complex post-traumatic stress disorder: evolutionary perspectives of hostage reactions, domestic abuse and the Stockholm syndrome. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2007 May;41(5):377-84.

Cosmides L., & Tooby J. (downloaded Sept. 1, 2009). Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer. University of California Santa Barbara: Center For Evolutionary Psychology.

Echols, M. (1999). I Know My First Name Is Steven. New York: Pinnacle.

Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping Wikipedia Entry

Fusako Sano Wikipedia Entry

Green, Jim (2009). Colleen Stan: The Simple Gifts of Life: Dubbed by the Media the Girl in the Box and the Sex Slave. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse.

Haberman, M., & Macintosh, J. (2003). Held Captive: The Kidnapping and Rescue of Elizabeth Smart. New York: Avon.

Hall, A. & Leidig, M. (2007). Girl in the Cellar: The Natascha Kampusch Story. New York: HarperCollins.

Hearst, PC &Moscow, A. (1988). Patty Hearst Her Story. New York: Avon.

Hindell, J. (2000). Japanese woman's captive childhood. BBC News

McGuire, Christine & Carla Norton. (1989). Perfect Victim: The True Story of the Girl in a Box By the DA that Prosecuted her Captor. New York: Dell.

Michael Devlin Wikipedia Entry

Natascha Kampusch Official Website (in German)

Natascha Kampusch Wikipedia Entry

Ramsland, K. (Downloaded August 29, 2009). The Case of the Seven-Year Sex Slave. TruTV

Rubenstein, S. (2008). Kenneth Parnell, kidnapper of Steven Stayner dies at 76. San Francisco Chronicle

Sabrine Dardenne Wikipedia Entry

Sauerwein, K. (2008). Invisible Chains: Shawn Hornbeck and the Kidnapping Case that Shook the Nation. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press.

Shawn Hornbeck Official Website

Smith, C. (2004). Belgian gets life for raping and murdering little girls. New York Times.

Steven Stayner Wikipedia Entry

Stockholm Syndrome Wikipedia Entry

Stuart, W., & Hoyle, A. (May 1, 2006). Sex slave's marriage a year after rescue. Mirror UK.

Symbionese Liberation Army Wikipedia Entry

Stomp & Crush

Recently I stumbled on an article about about a Maltese immigrant in New York that likes to be stepped on. A recent New York Times article describes the lifestyle of 'Georgio T." who frequents barroom floors, where wrapped up in a carpet, he experiences the delight of being trod upon. The 'Human Carpet' as he calls himself, spends a few hours during each bar session being walked on and is especially happy when women step on him. Many bar patrons are unaware they are even walking on Georgio (this is New York after all). After a night of being stepped on, Giorgio packs up his carpet and drives back to Connecticut and his normal life as a massage therapist.

Interesting, but not too strange. To me this seems like a simple variant of masochism. It is likely that as a very young child Giorgio somehow paired pleasurable feelings with the pressure of someone on top of him. Later on this became elaborated into his fetish of being stepped on. Pretty harmless, perhaps even relatively common, and the subject of a Frank Zappa song on the Bongo Fury album; Carolina Hardcore Ecstasy. Nevertheless, there are more extreme versions of being stepped on and crushed and this behavior can result in severe damage or even death.

While researching this behavior, I came across a somewhat stranger, though similar paraphilia, the so-called 'crush fetish'. While it is common for people to fear insects, even to the point of phobias, it is less common for people to be sexually aroused in their presence. G.A. Pearson, writing in the online journal Cultural Entomology, describes people whose fetish consists of watching insects being squashed. That's right, these people get turned on by watching people (mostly women) squashing bugs. The more frightened the woman, and the larger the feet doing the squashing, the better. According to Pearson, who is an entomologist, there is even an entire publication devoted to promoting this fetish, The American Journal of The Crush Freaks, which has 500 or so subscribers. This 'journal' is the brainchild of filmmaker Jeff Vilencia, who makes films (like Smush) in the 'crush' genre. According to Vilencia the crush fetishist fantasizes that they are the bug getting squashed and so in this way this fetish is similar to being a human carpet.

Vilencia had to close his production company after a federal anti-animal cruelty law criminalized his film making in 1999. This law was in response to the depiction of live small animals being crushed or stomped on (and was sponsored by our local Southern California congressman Elton Gallegly). At this point I think we have to start wondering if this is a fetish per se or anti-social (psychopathic) behavior, especially since one of the warning signs in children destined to become psychopaths is cruelty to animals. One of the leading proponents of the crushing of live animals, Bryan Loudermilk, was himself crushed to death in a scenario where he had himself penned under a vehicle that had driven on to his abdomen - "karma neh?"

While the crush fetish is strange, it is perhaps more acceptable to the general population than the fetish formicophilia, which Nancy Butler describes in her book The Strange Case of the Walking Corpse: A Chronicle of Medical Mysteries, Curious Remedies,and Bizarre but True Healing Folklore. This fetish involves the direct use of insects for sexual pleasure and may involve letting insects walk all over you, or smearing yourself with honey and having insects feed on you. It might even include the placement of insects in various bodily orifices - the sensation of their attempts to escape giving sexual pleasure. Ratnin Dewaraja has shown that counseling and behavior therapy can reduce this fetishistic behavior, at least in one instance.

References:

Butler N. (2004). The Strange Case of the Walking Corpse: A Chronicle of Medical Mysteries, Curious Remedies, and Bizarre But True Healing Folklore. New York: Avery

Dewaraja, R (1987). Formicophilia, an unusual paraphilia, treated with counseling and behavior therapy. American Journal of Psychotherapy 41: 593-597.

Dewaraja R, Money J. (1986). Transcultural sexology: Formicophilia, a newly named paraphilia in a young Buddhist male. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 12: 139-145.

G.A. Pearson. (1997). Digest Cultural Entomology, 4. Insects as sexual fetish objects. North Carolina State University.

Weinstein, P. (1994). Insects in psychiatry. Digest Cultural Entomology, 2.

Extreme Running

Like many folks, I consider myself to be a serious amateur athlete. I train in the martial arts around 7 to 10 hours a week and my training includes aerobic and resistance training in addition to learning technique. Having officially reached middle-age last year the limitations to my training regime (other than time and money) are largely related to the increased time it takes my body to recover from injury. An injury, say to my knee, that would have needed a couple of recovery days in my 20s, now may require 2-3 weeks. I have accepted this limitation with equanimity along with accepting the fact that I am growing older. Yet in the back of my mind I want to train more and reach a higher level.

This wish to train harder is reflected in the example of some of my teachers. Sensei Ben Otake, my Karate teacher has reached a pinnacle of perfection in his technique. He has unbelievable economy of movement allowing him to generate incredible strength and speed far beyond karateka half his age. When he was my age he sparred with tigers and bears (I am not making this up!).

My Thai Boxing teacher, and ex-NFL player, Kru Ken Rose is in his late 40s, and looks like he could walk on to a pro-football field tomorrow and play at full tilt. His strength is only matched by the intensity of his workout schedule.

But there is another level of training. Lately, I have been reflecting on two different groups of extreme atheletes, hoping to derive some inspiration for training harder. The first group is the subject of Born to Run, a new book by Christopher McDougall on the Tarahumara of Copper Canyon Mexico. The Tarahumara are desceded from an indigiouness people of Mexico who fled from the Spainsh invasion in the 16th century taking up residence in the extremely remote Copper Canyon region of the Sierra Madre. While related to the Huichol and Yaqui, the Tarahumara have a unique lifestyle centered around extreme long-distance running. It is not unusually for Tarahumara to run 80 or more miles in a day, or to engage in foot races for days at a time, or to run 200-300 miles over the period of a few days. How the Tarahumara accomplish this without suffering the typical sports injuries seen in the developed world has attracted the attention of scientists and extreme athletes from around the world. It seems they have a specific way of running that helps keep them from injury. This technique works in part because the Tarahumara use only the most basic of footwear, essentially running barefoot! This running style is now being adopted by ultra-marathon runners in the west with success. The Tarahumara also seem not to suffer from the typical degenerative diseases of the developed world including, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc., while living a party-filled existence fueled by beer, cigarettes, and a high carb diet. The Tarahumara are also peaceful, non-violent, and unfortunately in danger of getting in the way of drug traffickers who covet their remote isolation.

The other group of extreme runners is one that I known about for some time. These are the so-called Marathon Monks of Mt. Hiei, which is near Kyoto, Japan. These monks of the Tendai sect of Buddhism have evolved a religious meditation practice centered on long distance running. Like all other Buddhist meditation practices the purpose of running is to reach a state of enlightenment and to benefit all sentient beings through gaining spiritual merit which is then given away. The marathon monks prepare for years to take on a 1000 day challenge which involves running the equivalent of a marathon every day for months at a time. For about the 1st year the monks run 24 miles a day for 100 consecutive days. In later years the monks running 24 miles a day for 200 consecutive days. In the final years of the challenge the monks increase their daily distance to 37 miles a day for 100 days, and finally to 52 miles a day for 100 days. Only 46 men have completed the 1000 day challenge since 1885. In a quite un-Buddhist fashion, the running monks carry a knife and section of rope while running to remind them of their vow to either commit sepukku (ritual self-disembowelment) or hang themselves if they fail the challenge. The running trails used by the monks are strewn with the graves of past monks who could not finish and supposedly committed suicide on the trail. (Luckily, no monks in recent history have done this). The monks also carry food, candles, Buddhist texts, etc, to make offerings and pray at small forest temples along the way. The Marathon Monks also have a unique style of running that is very relaxed with the eyes focused about 100 feet in front of the runner. Similarly to the Tarahumara, the Marathon Monks use the most primitive of footwear - woven straw sandals. The Marathon Monks also eat a strict vegan diet, even during the challenge.


References:

Barefoot Ted's Adventures

Davis, J. (downloaded 8-22-09). Tendai Marathon Monks - The Run of A Lifetime. The London Observer.

Hayden, C.J. (2002). Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei (film) color, 57 min. Watertown, MA: Documentary Educational Resources.

McDougall, C. (2008). The Men Who Live Forever", Men's Health Magazine April.

McDougall, C. (2009). Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. NewYork, Knopf.

Minimalist Runners Google Group

Schmid, H.A., (1996). The Spiritual Athlete's Path to Enlightenment: Ultra Marathon Running. December 11.

Stevens, J. (1988). The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei. Boston: Shambala.

wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Hiei

wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara





For more products related to Extreme Running Check out the Bizarre Behavior Store!

Bowlingual Dog Translator

I have owned a variety of dogs since I was five years old, and some seemed to be talking to me. My standard poodle, Lady, was the smartest, but she understood what I told her, but was not very expressively communicative. Buster, my most recent pet, a Shih Tsu, who sadly left me almost two years ago at 17 years of age, seemed to have the most to say, but I didn't understand him.

Gayle Ehlman has described how to interpret your pets growls and body language but Takara Tomy, a Japanese toymaker, has made a device that can translate what a dog "says" into human language and emotions in real time. Go to their website and read "how they developed with an acoustics research laboratory and a veterinarian, the Bowlingual" which works wirelessly (your dog must wear a wireless mic around the neck). Let the device catch noises made by your dog (transmission range: 10m) and it will analyze the "animal language" with a special algorithm before telling you on the LCD screen what was being "said. (Cat lovers should know that Takara Tomy has also released the Meowlingual Cat Translator.)

Since Buster was always with us, whether in the bath room or bedroom, I might insist that he sign a non disclosure agreement before fitting him with the Bowlingual. However, the Bowlingual device is probably more of a novelty than an accurate translator and reviews of the device showed that it didn't work too well....at least with non-Japanese speaking dogs. It does seems to work OK with dogs and British men in Japan. The Bowlingual device is difficult to find in retail stores int he U.S., but there seem to be a lot of units for sale on Ebay.

Baba Challenge, Sex Dolls, and Sarah Palin

It will never be an Olympic Sport, and Michael Phelps would certainly never participate for fear of losing his endorsements, but the Baba Challenge is a popular event which consists of traversing white water rapids while atop female blow-up dolls. The participants in this event, which takes place outside of St. Petersburg, Russia, are almost exclusively male, though both men and women are enthusiastic spectators.

What is the explanation for the seemingly exclusive interest in female blow-up dolls by men? The obvious is that sexual relationships with other people take effort - especially the relationship part. Dolls provide a way to skip this and get straight to the sex. Less satisfying? Perhaps. But for some men this may a trade-off that is worthwhile. Sex dolls don't require conversation, do not need to be impressed, don't care if you have a job, or if you live in your parent's basement. And they are readily available online (BTW, none of the actual dolls look anything like the pictures shown). The company Topco even came out with a This Is Not Sarah Palin love doll in case there was any interest in fulfilling those erotic fantasies so many men were sharing on the internet. Perhaps not too many men were lusting after Sarah since Topco no longer sells the doll (you may still be able to find some in stock if you search online sex toy sites).

Of course, as mentioned in our post on 2-D Love, some men have given up on relating to real women altogether. Yet for some of these men, a pillow with a likeness of a female character is not enough, and they prefer a 3-D inanimate lover....or many of them.

And for the more well-heeled, a Real Doll can be had for somewhere north of $5000. Boy Toy is producing a line of dolls inspired by anime and comic book women. This company obviously understands its market.....

Of course the ladies should not feel left out. The Real Doll company makes male dolls to your specifications.

I Overheard

This is a pretty interesting site for run-of-the-mill bizarreness!

Bizarre Love

Over lunch with a colleague at California Pizza Kitchen (showcased in the show The Janice Dickenson Modeling Agency, where Janice found one of her best models), we marveled over how the passion of love can influence adult decision making. I shared with him that Billy Bob Thornton was so in love with Angelina Jolie, and she with him, that he had a nurse extract his blood which he sent to Angelina when she was on location filming, and she wore it in an ampule around her neck. Billy Bob described that he and Angelina spent Christmas cutting their fingers and dabbing messages in blood on walls above their bed. He was quoted as saying, “…I had to restrain myself from literally squeezing her to death …Sex for us is almost too much.” Too much? Must have been because all of us know who Angelina is married to now.

Article on Angelina and Billy Bob and Harry Crosby (who I will write about in detail later)

My colleague then shared that the English Romantic poet, Percy Blysshe Shelley, after being expelled form Oxford at 19 years old, travelled with his friend, 16 year old Harriet Westbrook, whom he eventually married, but deserted while she was pregnant with his second child for Mary Godwin, who eventually became Mary Shelley, of Frankenstein fame. He traveled with Mary and her stepsister, Jane Clairmont (ménage a trois?). Harriet drowned herself in despair in Hyde Park, and then Shelley and Mary married. Shelley drowned at 30 years old in a storm while sailing his schooner, the Don Juan. During Shelley’s cremation, Edward Trelawny reached into the pyre and snatched his heart and gave it to Mary, who kept it wrapped in silk until her death, when it was interned next to her grave at St. Peter’s Church. Bizarre love? You decide.

Online editions of Mary Shelly's works


Another example of bizarre love is/was Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme’s relationship with Charles Manson, recalled upon her parole today (August 5, 2009) at the age of 60. She tried to kill Gerald Ford with a gun that had an empty clip, despite her thorough familiarity with fire arms. In 1978 she described her feelings towards Mansion. She described him "a once-in-a-lifetime soul.... He's got more heart and spirit than anyone I've ever met." She said she still corresponded with him. "He's got everything he wants coming from me, 'cause he gave me everything."

Interesting article on Lynette Fromme

Sex with a Horse....Again

Stories like this one pop up every once in a while. Bestiality seems to remain popular with a small number of people.

Research has shown that there may be some relationship between bestiality in childhood and adolescence and interpersonal violence (Hensley, Tallichet, & Singer, 2006) and there seems to be a higher rate of bestiality in mental patients when compared to the normal population (Alvarez & Freinhar, 1991). Haverlock Ellis, writing in 1906, elucidated three pre-conditions for bestiality: 1. Seeing animal procreation as similar in mechanism to human procreation; 2. living closely with animals; 3. Belief that sex with animals would confer power or cure venereal disease.

Even in modern times some White Supremacists believe that Jews and other non-white people are descended from Eve's congress with the snake in the garden of Eden. In the middle ages women in parts of Europe thought to be witches were charged with having sex with the devil in animal form (usually a goat or ram). Psychologists usually see bestiality as a paraphilia, or in common parlance, a fetish. Paraphilias can be learned, usually through seeing someone else perform the behavor, or by associating some aspect of an animal (like the fuzziness of its fur) with pleasure at a young age. People who have trouble establishing and maintaining human relationships may be more likely to engage in bestiality and other paraphilias.

Here are some examples of people who enage in bestiality:

Interview with a couple who engage in bestiality

Man who died having sex with a horse and the farm he frequented

Dolphins are known to be turned on by humans

Alleged dog rapist

At least some of these examples support the psychological view of bestiality. Beirne (2000) asserts that bestiality is a form of sexual assault which should be seen similarly to child sexual abuse. In his view animals are not able to consent to sex and are harmed by sexual activity with humans. Nevertheless, bestiality is not yet illegal throughout the United States. And judging by the number of websites devoted to bestiality there must be a sizable number of people interested in watching human-animal sexual interaction.

References:

Beirne, P. (2000). Rethinking bestiality: Towards a concept of interspecies sexual assault. In Podberscek, AL. (Ed.); Paul, ES. (Ed.); & Serpell, JA. (Ed.). Companion animals and us: Exploring the relationships between people and pets., 313-331. New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press.

Ellis, H. (1906). Animals as Sources of Erotic Symbolism. Erotic symbolism, the mechanism of detumescence, the psychic state in pregnancy., Studies in the psychology of sex, 71-88. London: F.A. Davis Co.

Alvarez, WA, & Freinha,r JP. (1991). A prevalence study of bestiality (zoophilia) in psychiatric in-patients, medical in-patients, and psychiatric staff. International Journal of Psychosomatics. 38(1-4):45-7.

Hensley, C., Tallichet, SE., & Singer, SD. (2006). Exploring the Possible Link Between Childhood and Adolescent Bestiality and Interpersonal Violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 21(7), 910-923.

Technosexuals

.Here is a very interesting article from Gizmodo. It sort of extends from the post of 2-D love and fembots. The guy interviewed in the article - Zoltan - has created an artificial girlfriend Alice. Zoltan works as a video game repairman and lives with his elderly parents. Although there are not any pictures of Alice, we are told that she is powered by artificial intelligence providing Zoltan what he feels to be a real interaction. Alice reminds me of Karen, the SpongeBob Squarepants character Plankton's computer wife. Like Karen, Alice readily gives her opinion on Zoltan's behavioral choices. Not everyone agrees that Alice has free choice. In fact, some think she is nothing but a sex slave, held against her will. There is even a sparse blog dedicated to freeing Alice, and Zoltan's website is supposedly shut down due to criticism about his treatment of Alice.

Check out this serious article in Scientific American about the possibility of marriage between humans and robots.

Interestingly enough the thought of having a robot lover is not new. The website paleofuture has posted excerpts from a 1928 article about robot gigolos!

Strange & Disgusting Food

When I was a psychologist in a mental hospital I had a colleague who was from China. Ming had come to the US for his PhD and had stayed after graduating. One day after doing our rounds and encountering some really strange and disgusting behavior among our patients we started talking about the most disgusting things we had ever seen. Ming became really quiet and in a low tone said he had experienced something in China he would never forget. He then described a banquet he had attended many years ago. It was a very special dinner in which guests sat around a table that curiously had a hole in the center. The table was constructed so that a monkey could be secured so that only its head came through the hole in the center. Ming then described how servants brought in a clean, live monkey and locked it tight under the table with a metal collar so that it head was exposed. The host then took a special hammer and cracked the monkey's skull, pulling away pieces of the skull while the monkey screamed. Diners then spooned out the living brain of the monkey and consumed it raw while the monkey writhed in its death throes. Ming said he was sickened by this dinner, but apparently being invited to the 'monkey feast' was a huge honor and he didn't want to offend his host who was some big shot official..so he pretended to eat the brain, or at least that is what he told us. Hardened as we were by working every day in the mental hospital we were pretty disgusted by Ming's story. How could people be so cruel? Yet if look closely at the factory system that transforms animals in our culture - from chickens, to cows, to pigs - to food it is every bit as bad. And this says a lot about us as a people...

I consider myself to be somewhat of a 'culinary anthropologist' in that I believe food tells a lot about people and their culture. When we examine the origins of different food and how they came to be used in specific cultures we quickly drop into an interesting study in sociology, psychology, politics, and history. For a glimpse into the world of strange food check out the following:

Weird Meat

Weird Food

Strange Food Art (scroll down it gets better)

More Weird Food

Weird Food Laws

Disgusting Delicacies (not for the faint of stomach)

Surstromming (Scandinavian fermented fish in a can)

Harkarl (putrified shark)

Unusual Foods from Indonesia (don't watch if you like pigs, bats, or cute puppies)

Tarantula Tempura

Here is an Italian delicacy one of my former students reminded me of...

Also check out one of my favorite artists and extreme foodie Thu Tran

Thu writes and stars in the independent Film Channel show Food Party which has to be the most bizarre thing on television - highly recommended! (And no monkeys are killed - only a 'Cave Duck')