those boots

"A close Friend"
Eng 261
Paper 2
Women and Their Bloody Valentines: Beauty and the Beast

Fascination with serial killers, murderers and criminals is neither unique nor strange, but when the average women falls in love with one it takes a turn for the bizarre. Because of the peculiarity of these situations these women should be studied and Sheila Isenberg’s article Women Who Love Men Who Kill” investigates this truly unique ordeal. The question begs to be answered and these women are extraordinary in that they can seemingly see past their betrothed’s bloody past and see the human being behind the cold, steel barred walls. The women in Isenberg’s article clearly seek fantasy and avoid the normal and ordinary. They believe in romantic love, passion, and find it in these incarcerated murderers. Is it noble of them to have the ability to see the human within the killer or are they just insane, deluded by these criminal masterminds, and in turn taken advantage of? This paper will examine the remarkably strange reasons behind why ostensibly everyday women fall in love with brutal killers.
Passion seems to be paramount in sustaining these types of relationships. As Ethel Spector Person as noted in Isenberg’s article, “Passions are the great moving forces in people’s lives.” She goes on to say the bonding of two human beings gives the feeling of “enlargement” and metaphorically she is correct, when one finds that special, exceptional person it is often described as a larger than life feeling, making that particular person (ideally both) feel on top of the world. Isenberg explains that this excitement that typically is felt through the “new” beginning stages of a relationship is what women who fall in love with murderers seek all the time, constant excitement, which they find through their devoted, committed killers, who are tucked safely behind bars. Women who love these killers seek constant excitement and they use love as their means to attain this thrill, “These women also have an idealized and romanticized perception that love between man and woman is based on constant passion, unsatisfied yearnings, and ungratified desires” (125-126). If something is constantly missing, not because of anything directly the man or woman can be blamed for in their daily lives, but based on some outside force (the law) the woman continuously wants more and more because she is being denied (and it is out of her hands). This kind of self-imposed frustration serves as an aphrodisiac for the woman and her jailed, untraditional prince charming. This irrational, fantasized notion of true love behind bars is fit for a soap opera and it’s just that that makes this relationship never burn out and grow tiresome, but it is unrealistic love. These women are seduced by danger,” and they accept passion by means of suffering” (134). They feel all the time what a person may feel about an action movie where the “bad guy” is charismatic, we hope that just maybe he’ll get away with it and that’s ok because he’s just so charming and possibly a “good guy” underneath it all, and at least he’s not dull.
Isenberg categorizes some of these women as being seekers of courtly, old-fashioned romances. These sub-categories include, no sex, no marriage, only passion, companionship, drama and illusion. She makes a comparison to the “medieval concept of courtly love, which downplayed marriage and sexual encounters between knights and their ladies in favor of endless courtship” (126). It is an insightful observation and theory in relation to bored women longing for something more, something different. So they are escapists and mange to “soar above the earth and its mundanity, escaping from the trivia and pain—and the reality—of daily life” (126). They will never experience the routine and sometimes monotony that a modern, pragmatic relationship presents. They’ll never experience awkward silences, because there is so much to say, as visiting hours are brief and few in-between. It’s a desperate, raw moment of intensity through the window that separates the doomed beast and the hopeless, unconventional idealistic romantic. They’ll also never have the experience of finding out some secret or flaw their significant other is hiding from them, with their criminal lover everything is known from the beginning and their dark secret may still be dark, but is no secret and so there are no shocking surprises, the cats out of the bag, so to speak.
In returning to Isenberg’s point about medieval courtly love and its following sub-categories, there is no sexual intercourse between women and their imprisoned boyfriends and in old-fashioned courtships sex was not priority. In her article and the women she interviews on the matter, “expressed revulsion at sex in public visiting rooms” (127), solidifying this comparison between courtly love and women and their incarcerated spiritual lovers. Another seducing factor in this type of love is the responsibility the woman takes for softening their aggressive counterpart. They feel responsible for “transforming” their men into loving, sweethearts even with all the damage they have tolerated. They’ve beaten the odds. This notion of damaged, or abandonment that the women feel these men have suffered weakens their (women) sensibilities and they want to be the one to take credit for the great change,” being responsible for the transformation of another human being who loves her enough to flower, is made to feel special” (127). In a way, all the pain and suffering these men have endured transfers onto the women, who release it from their consciousness and frees them (at least symbolically). The women perhaps feel a sense of pleasurable sacrifice in their strong capabilities of loving such “beasts.” The women who love these men, in turn, feel stronger for being so understanding as to love such a vicious, hard man. They live somewhat vicariously through these dangerous offenders, gaining strength through them because of the uneasy and bizarre circumstances surrounding it. Also if these men ever do wrong by their faithful women visitors, they can simply attribute and blame it on his criminal record and he won’t be a bother because he will either be executed or stay locked in prison. Seems like the easiest way to get over an ex-boyfriend. The steel bars that contain their convicts protect the women emotionally and literally.
Marriage is another infrequent occurrence when studying the history of courtly love, and it is no different with the modern love affairs between murderer and woman. They have the option to marry and of course many do, but as Isenberg states “their relationships are hardly intimate; they can’t relate as normal husband and wives” (129). Isenberg talks about “separation and loss” the couple must understand will take place, making their time very short and intensified because it is under such strenuous, yet romantic circumstances, as there is a limit and time put on their interactions; they savor every moment of the pointless, yet exciting affair. They are “choosing to have a relationship that exists in an artificial, repressive, and threatening environment” (129). Companionship is something Isenberg discusses as foreign to murderer and the woman who loves him. Companionship is reached in a relationship when it is at its healthiest, relaxed and nurturing. The intensity of this unhealthy relationship never has a dull moment, which allows it to remain at a standstill state of love. It is one-dimensional, existing only on passion and that does not fulfill or make a long relationship, but these women must understand their romance can only be a brief one. “These women urgently seek a love that causes discomfort and pain because they want to ride the crests of the waves, lingering over the highs and lows, suffering intensely, denying themselves the normalcy of an average, everyday kind of relationship” (134). Even if they do have hope that their partner will be released, there must be another side that hopes that they never be free because then they would find out they are just normal people and their idealized perception of them was only an illusion. That person never existed, which would end the romantic fantasy.
Murderers perpetuate this fantasy these women yearn for and are able to bridge that gap between reality and fantasy for them, Isenberg describes them as mirroring heroes in romance novels, “these heroes are long, lean, and mean—but also loving, caring, and giving to the women who win their hearts” (138). Isenberg interviews many women and their attitudes toward their loved ones and they describe them in very positive light. They portray them as intelligent, misunderstood, philosophizing men.
There is also this sense of mysteriousness that shrouds their love affair; it causes people to wonder, PhD’s, professors and the public in general. Imagine how special these women feel to be the focus of so many people. And no matter how much they are studied and theories are established to try and pin down these somewhat enigmatic women and the capacity of their love, only they (beauty and her misunderstood beast) will know what goes on between them. What they have is unquestionably unique and questionably special and will remain atypical and an extraordinary topic of study.


























"I once had a friend named aly harris
but last year she moved to paris
over there she met a lamb
she ate it for dinner and called it ham
One day she was walking with a curve
and an old drunk gentlemen could not swerve

She walked into the drunkards back
and give him a good old fashioned wack
the drunkard cried with pain and glee
ripping off his pauper clothes for all to see

Aly cried, "you are so gross I want to cry"
And the hold man said ,"would you like some pie?"
Aly wanted pie a lot
for she had smoked a fanny pack of pot

popsicles and pick up sticks
and lots of bisquick mix"


-J.K.S. april 29 2006