Apparently, Saturday Night Live did too, as they led off this weekend’s episode with a sketch in which this very question is asked.

Now, I am not claiming that George Zimmerman is a psychopath or has any other specific conscience-reducing disorder. I really have no ability to make a judgment on that. However, the conversation about his romantic situation did lead me to explain to my conversation partner that those that are psychopaths or do have certain related disorders are notorious for their ability to attract many romantic and sexual relationships. I mentioned some of the fascinating research, which I cover in my foundational page about psychopathy, about just how successful some of history’s most ruthless killers have been in spreading their genes.

Well, as so often happens after a deep discussion about an intriguing topic, it wasn’t more than a couple of days before a new, highly relevant story emerged in the news.

A 25-year-old woman named Star told Rolling Stone magazine that she plans to marry the now 79-year-old infamous mastermind of numerous murders, Charles Manson, who remains locked up in prison. Apparently, Star moved near the prison 6 years ago, when she was 19, so she could spend more time with Manson.

CNN also covered this story, interviewing the woman (who says her attraction to Manson was initially sparked by his environmentalism, not his crimes, which she only really became aware of later, but which did not dissuade her from her attraction.)

Now, Manson himself denies that they will be getting married. But the interesting thing is that, whether or not the marriage actually happens, a young woman would actually want people to believe it will.

What makes this story meaningful is that it is far from an isolated case. In his heyday, Manson was often surrounded by young women drawn to his charisma and aura. And he isn’t the only person associated with mass murder or serial killing to elicit such admiration. To offer just one more example among many, Ted Bundy was viewed as extremely charming and employed his skill for attracting young women in the course of carrying out his crimes.

This is an important topic. The ability of psychopaths and others with reduced conscience to attract mates has a number of implications and consequences:

1. It reinforces a sense of glamor about such individuals and their value systems.
2. It may increase their social standing.
3. It practically assists them in the commission of some of their crimes.
4. It leads to an increase in the proportion of their genes in the population’s overall gene pool.
5. It causes havoc for the partners and especially the children that must live with the consequences of these relationships.

I realize that there are men who are drawn to ruthless women and that is also an important topic to consider. But the Manson and Bundy examples – and, perhaps, to a lesser extent, the Zimmerman example – raise the question of why women are attracted to men of this kind.

Well, another coincidence that occurred in the wake of my conversation about this topic relates to that question. A few days after the discussion, through a completely different avenue, I ended up on the Wikipedia page for the topic hybristophilia.

Hybristophilia is described as:

“a paraphilia of the predatory type in which sexual arousal, facilitation, and attainment of orgasm are responsive to and contingent upon being with a partner known to have committed an outrage, cheating, lying, known infidelities or crime, such as rape, murder, or armed robbery.”

Apparently the term stems from the Greek word hybrizein, which means “to commit an outrage against someone” (and which, itself, stems from the word hubris) and philo meaning “having a strong affinity/preference for.”

The page even mentions the many female admirers that Bundy and Manson attracted as examples.

After reading that page, I was reminded of yet another relevant example.

As a result of running this website, I was recently sent a copy of the book Survived by One: The Life and Mind of a Family Mass Murderer, which is written, along with Robert Hanlon, a clinical neuropsychologist specialized in working with violent criminals, by a man named Tom Odle, who remains in an Illinois prison (after initially being placed on death row, before Illinois commuted all death sentences) for killing his entire immediate family – his parents and three siblings – in 1985. Odle has been diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder by one forensic psychiatrist and with Borderline Personality Disorder with Anti-social features by another.

At several points in the book, he describes how women have contacted him on death row and in prison, impressed and attracted by what he has done.

“People write me letters, especially girls and women wanting to be my friend and congratulating me on doing something that they had only thought about doing because they were mistreated and abused, also. There was also some kind of fan club for me…I liked the attention I was getting, and I even reconnected with an old friend I had a crush on for years. She wrote to me, so I wrote back, and we found each other in a new light.”

And later…

“I also responded to letters from girls who managed to find my address and wrote to tell me how cool they thought I was because I had murdered my parents. That was one thing I ate up at that time because it diminished my responsibility and guilt.”

Odle had women come visit him in person and begin relationships with him while he was on death row, as well. One of those relationships even led to a short-lived marriage.

So it was fascinating to learn that there is actually a term to describe this behavior – hybristophilia. And the Wikipedia page on that topic was also fascinating because it offers some theories about why such attractions occur.

Then, just this weekend, in the wake of the Manson girlfriend story, Yahoo featured a video by Discovery News about this very topic entitled “Why Psychopaths Turn Women On.” It even mentions the term hybristophilia and Bundy’s admirers, as well as those of other serial killers. It then speculates on some of the reasons behind this attraction or fetish.

Mate selection is a crucial driver of evolution. When a person selects another person as a mate, they are, in essence, voting for that person’s traits to become more prominent in humanity’s future. And they help make sure those traits do become more prominent in more than one way simultaneously.

Biologically, they help the person pass on their genes to their children. Developmentally, they ensure the existence of children shaped by parenting based in that person’s values – or by parental abuse or neglect as a consequence of those values. Socially, they may send a message that such traits are attractive, possibly influencing others to see an incentive in exhibiting them.

This is why, even though such relationships might seem like personal situations separate from our own lives, all of us should care when we see people with reduced empathy and conscience attracting mates. This phenomenon has, historically, had a surprisingly significant impact on the state of our world today. We must live in neighborhoods and communities with people deeply influenced by such relationships. And it may well be one of the mechanisms by which the health and sustainability of humanity continues to be threatened.

Still, I don’t know what it says about the media that the source providing the most frequent and insightful coverage about psychopathy and sociopathy may be a satirical newspaper, The Onion.

Recently, I’ve seen several examples of The Onion’s use of humor to shine a light on this still too-often-overlooked topic.

Back in October, during the United States’ presidential debate season, The Onion featured a story entitled “Nation Tunes In To See Which Sociopath More Likable This Time.” It based its satire on the premise that voters take it as a given that both of the major party presidential candidates – and, indeed, all successful politicians – are sociopaths and simply use the debates to try to decide which candidate is better at pretending to have a conscience. I shared this story and put it into the context of ponerology in a piece of my own called “Ponerology Hits the Onion.”

Then, I came across another Onion piece – this one actually published in 2009 – called “New Study Reveals Most Children Unrepentant Sociopaths.” The story surveys many actually normal characteristics and behaviors of children and, by comparing them to those on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, manages to portray healthy kids as antisocial monsters. I found the article brilliant on several levels.

Almost all children who exhibit the traits and actions mentioned are simply reflecting appropriate developmental milestones. But, there are those in our culture who really do think of children, either consciously or unconsciously, for various reasons, the way the article portrays them. Such a view of children may both stem from and underlie some of the unhealthy parenting styles that, in our society, are accepted as worthwhile or even necessary to bring children into line. The article uses satire to bring this perspective to light more effectively than a child psychologist giving a lecture could probably ever do.

The article also, by focusing humorously on children rather than seriously on adults, lowers people’s defenses enough to make them aware that sociopathy and the Hare Psychopathy Checklist really do exist.

At the same time, there may be a small percentage of children who are psychopaths or sociopaths. This is a very controversial and deeply important topic and debate rages over whether such children really do exist and whether we should be screening children for such conditions. This is discussed at some length in this post from a couple months ago and in books like Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children. The Onion article may provoke people to think about child psychopathy and its implications.

The relevance of this particular Onion article was brought home to me recently when I came across a piece by blogger Lyz Lenz entitled “Toddlers Are the Real Psychos,” in which she wonders whether her two-year-old daughter might be a psychopath. She even answered the questions on the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, Hare Psychopathy Checklist and Lynam’s Childhood Psychopathy Scale using her daughter’s traits and behaviors as a guide, almost exactly as was facetiously done in the Onion article with the PCL. I later showed Lenz the Onion article, which she had not seen before.

Well, yesterday, The Onion did it yet again. And, this time, they’ve returned to the political aspect of ponerology. Picking up where they left off when considering sociopathy in the presidential debates, they now consider its presence in the legislative branch.

The video is called “Authorities On Alert As Hundreds Of Crazed Sociopaths Enter Congressional Chambers.” As you might guess, the “crazed sociopaths” in question are the Members of Congress themselves, who are also described as “manipulative,” “extremely dangerous,” and “lunatics, many of whom are believed to suffer from severe personality disorders.”

I hope the folks at The Onion have indeed come to such an understanding. I eagerly want to see more public education about these topics occur. And the ingenious people at that satirical newspaper are great ones to have contributing to that cause.

Well, it just came to my attention over the weekend that now there is a way that you can!

“What is it?” you ask.

Well, it’s Narcissist cologne.

That’s right, Narcissist cologne.

The January 2013 Mensa Bulletin features a profile, on page 18, of Kim Taylor, its creator. In the article, Kim describes how, while living in Paris and traveling the French countryside, she was inspired to create a cologne.

Narcissist for Men Cologne Admiring Itself
(Used with permission of Kim Taylor)

As for the cologne’s name, she says:

“The image for the brand comes from the classical character Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. A men’s cologne just seemed like a good vehicle for a comical depiction of the classic narcissist, who just happens to be male. It’s tongue-in-cheek, but it comes from years of experience dealing with people, learning languages, and trying to make sense of it all. Sometimes the simple answer is: Narcissist.”

Even more comical: there is now a Narcissist fragrance for dogs.

The full fancy French name of the cologne for men is Narcissist: Eau de Toilette pour Homme.

The full name of the cologne for dogs is Narcissist: Eau de Toilette pour Chien.

For those concerned about sexism, Taylor says that she is considering a women’s fragrance, as well.

The description on the About page of the cologne’s website says:

“Narcissist pour homme is developed especially for the man whose ego is unsurpassed…in other words…homme vainglorious, half-awake in his limited awareness, self-absorbed victim of flattery, ruled by pleasure, drenched in scent, basking in hedonism.

Give the gift of self-love.”

Taylor also sells a Narcissist t-shirt through the main site.

The cologne has a Facebook page, as well, which blends promotion of the product with humor and education about narcissism.

I think this is, overall, a brilliant idea. Ponerologic topics are intense so sometimes you just need some comic relief. They can also put people on the defensive and humor can help relax those barriers to learning and understanding.

With just under 1000 likes on Narcissist’s Facebook page as of this writing, it appears that, even as she helps make the world smell a little better, Taylor is making people laugh and, at the same time, actually spreading some knowledge and encouraging people to learn more about this quite serious character trait.

Perhaps the best part is that Taylor seems to truly care about the ethics involved in this issue and to be a strong advocate for compassionate and just interactions. An article in the Savannah Morning News quotes Taylor as saying:

“My themes seem to return to the message of fair play. I’d like to be remembered for that message and for never letting anyone off the hook who doesn’t play fair.”

And, about that, she isn’t just kidding. She is the author of Play Fair! The Art of Relationship and Friendship and the company through which she runs her cologne business is called Fair Play Products.

I must say that when I started this site to help educate people about the science of “evil” and the role of pathological conditions in our systems, I never dreamed I’d be writing about men’s cologne, much less cologne for dogs. But count this as yet another of those fun, unforeseeable twists in the road that you encounter whenever you boldly journey into a subject as vast and complex as ponerology. And kudos to Kim Taylor for using a creative and fun approach to try to contribute to improving the world at what is actually quite a key leverage point.

It was all I could do to refrain from titling this article “Woman Makes Scents of Narcissism”