The Vampires Among Us

(Originally published in my Fetlife.com group circa December, 2008)

Hi all,

I'm going to do something here that I don't normally do (or so I'd like to think) -- which is to open my yap about something before I've fully come, through study and contemplation, to a sense of completeness about the subject in question. So, with the full disclosure that this is quite admittedly a "work in progress" here goes:

As some of you have heard me say before, the saddest surprise I've had since I started down the legal pathway (although, in retrospect, I should have seen it coming like the sun in the sky) is that I am learning more about psychopaths than I ever, ever wanted to know.

I say this because psychopaths (and others, which I'll mention later), leave a trail of victims behind them, and those victims seek out people like me to see what can be done regarding the harm that was done to them -- with such harm often including being sexually abused, physically abused, swindled, given an incurable STD, and so forth.

(Note: nowadays, professionals have largely replace the terms "psychopath" and "sociopath" with the term "antisocial personality disorder.")

The stories are chillingly similar. I can be five minutes into an initial conversation with such a victim and inside my head I'm thinking: "this is another I was a victim of a psychopath" story -- oh, and it's a true story, btw.

A variant of this is a story I hear in my travels around this country and others (Hello, my Canadian friends!), talking with people from various BDSM clubs in various cities about a certain person -- inevitably a male dom -- who is known for his extreme and ostentatious play, short relationships, extremely high opinion of himself, string of unhappy former submissives, kicked out of the local "mainstream" club (or on shaky ground there), history of legal action or threatened legal action against him, and who has often either started his own club and/or opened his own playspace for the "real" players in town. Oh, and one word almost invariably used to describe him, at least on first meeting, is the word "charming."

As I travel from city to city, the stories about "this charming male dom" are often word-for-word identical. In fact, the stories are so freakin' similar that at times I've had to shake my head to clear it. I've had to forcibly remind myself that the story I'm hearing now, although it is, again, almost word-for-word identical to what I heard before, cannot possibly be about the same guy because that last conversation took place five weeks ago in a city 1500 miles away from this one -- and yet the stories are so damn word-for-word similar that it's outright spooky!

There are other problematic people: the dom (again, almost always male) who is a veritable poster child for narcissistic personality disorder and who has a way of regarding the sub's hard limits as casual suggestions, the sub (often but not always female) with borderline personality disorder who delights in how much community uproar and splitting they can create. The list goes on.

This matters to an exceptional degree regarding wiittd ("what it is that we do") because wiittd involves trust to a unique degree. Anything that compromises a person's ability to be trustworthy is especially important here.

So I've been thinking about a program that I might develop that would be called something like "the vampires among us" to help educate people as to what to look for.

(Note: my use of the term "vampire" is in no way intended to convey any disrespect to the "legitimate persons of fang" amongst us -- some of whom I count among my friends.)

My first major clue in this regard came some years ago when a woman who was my slave at the time recommended that I read Gavin DeBecker's book "The Gift of Fear." I did read it, was very impressed, and recommend it to you all.

DeBecker currently runs of one of the major firms in Hollywood that protect celebrities from stalkers. He has compiled a huge database of behaviors, and this database allows him to separate out the merely obnoxious from the truly dangerous with a remarkably high level of proficiency. (I have since learned that "The Gift of Fear" is on the core reading list for a number of submissive women support groups -- along with "a certain other" book [grin] -- and this seems like a very good idea to me.) For more information about Gavin DeBecker, please see his page on Wikipedia as a "start here" point.

Anyway, in developing this "vampires" program I was thinking in terms of developing a list of problematic "red-flag" behaviors to watch out for. From various authorities I hear the same message: that "these people" almost cannot help but engage in certain describable (and thus red-flag-able) behaviors.

Such a list of "red-flag" behaviors would, IMO, work much better than creating a "predator's list" because such a list of names would be a) difficult to create, especially with any reasonable fairness of due process (plus, new "vampires" come along with some frequency), and b) a defamation lawsuit looking for a place to happen. OTOH, teaching to watch out for certain red-flag behaviors would likely be much more effective -- and help facilitate the detection of the "newer" predators.

(The teaching of red-flag behaviors also allows for the possibility that a "vampire" could learn from their experiences and start behaving in more workable ways. Stop looking at me that way! Hey, it could happen. [world-weary sigh])

So anyway, I've been slowly gathering material for this new program, and I've recently come across two useful books that I thought I'd share with you here.

The first is called "Say Goodbye to your PDI (Personality Disordered Individual)" by Stan Kapuchinski, M.D. (His website is stopthemisery.com.) In his book, this author addresses the detection and dealing with of the people who have the following personality disorders: passive-aggressive, histrionic, antisocial, borderline, and narcissistic. I read it and found it very insightful. (His description of the motivations and the specific red-flag behaviors unique to antisocials is especially useful.)

The second is called "Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry" by Albert Bernstein, PhD (His website is www.albernstein.com.www.albernstein.com). In his book, he deals with the detection and dealing with people who have the following personality disorders: antisocial, histrionic, passive-aggressive, narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive, and paranoid. Again, it's a damn useful read. (His description of the various sub-types of antisocials is particularly useful.)

As I read through both books, I found myself thinking back to certain encounters I had had, and certain people I had known (and some people I currently know) with a definite "aha!" feeling.

What I feel the need to say about all three of the books listed above is that they should definitely be considered as starting points, not ending points. Among other things, the latter two books are written for a "civilian" audience and therefore simplified more than a bit. Obviously, a lot more information would need to be gathered.

Further, we should ALL be really careful about throwing around "diagnostic" terms regarding a given individual until there is very substantial reason to believe that we know what we're talking about. The "rush to juicy judgment" potential in this area concerns me more than a bit -- particularly given that once such a "juicy judgment" is plastered on a given person's reputation it can be very difficult to remove.

Please act with due prudence regarding these terms, people. We have essentially nothing in terms of procedural due process regarding people's reputations "around here" and that bothers me much more than a little bit. The potential, and the reality, for both false negatives and false positives is way, way too high.

(Let me also observe that I've often found it...revelatory...to note how eagerly someone rushes to warn about another person "for the benefit of the community." I'll talk about this particular matter in more depth in a subsequent post.)

I'm going to be studying this whole subject in far more depth and detail before I "officially" open my mouth about it, but in the interim I thought I'd advise you guys about the books listed above. Again, while they should be regarded as starting points rather than ending points, they are certainly "useful enough" to be worth your attention.

Best regards to all,

Jay

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