The term sadism (as a synonym for cruelty) arose with the case of Donatien Alphonse François, better known as the “Marquis de Sade” , a Parisian born in 1740. The Marquis de Sade was imprisoned due to his scandalous life, which was full of incidents with prostitutes in which many violent acts and sodomy were reported. After many imprisonments and successive releases, finally He was transferred to the famous Bastille prison Internalized and with little chance of being released, he wrote all of his controversial works. Finally, the Marquis de Sade managed to escape from prison due to the revolution, but his last years were spent in a psychiatric hospital in Charenton.
Among his most famous works we find “The 120 Days of Sodom” (1784), “Justine” (1791), “Philosophy in the Dresser” (1795) and “Juliette” (1797), writings that were censored for many years due to to its high and explicit content of extreme violence and rape. Here we leave you the link to the film adaptation of one of them.
Thus, the case of the Marquis de Sade was one of the most paradigmatic in the study of sadism and the psychology of the serial killer, and was useful in establishing the foundations of what we would know in the future as Criminal Psychology.
The sadistic profile of the serial killer
Regarding the different psychological profiles of the serial killer, We can find all kinds of personalities and reasons why they carry out their crimes
There are some serial killers who commit crimes because they want to feel powerful, others who perceive themselves as a kind of “vigilante.” In other cases, the psychological causes may be due to serious mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, psychotic outbreaks, manic episodes… but predominantly we find those who perpetrate these crimes. for the mere pleasure of seeing their victim suffer, that is, the sadists
Individuals who enjoy other people’s pain
He sadistic serial killer is the one who feels sexual arousal by inflicting pain on another person It can be physical pain: seeing his blood, hitting, torturing, watching him die; or psychological: that is, humiliating the victim, lowering his self-esteem to zero, feeling like he loves him, etc.
Sexual rape is considered a form of sexual sadism, although the sexual act is not usually the main satisfaction of sadistic serial killers and, in most cases, this type of sexual assault is not reported.
Sexual sadism in the DSM IV
Although it is not a very generalized sadistic behavior, It is advisable to know some important aspects around sexual sadism
This pattern of sadistic behavior is included under the name “Sexual Sadism” in the DSM IV (302.84) in the section on paraphilias, defined as: “During a minimum period of 6 months, recurrent and highly arousing sexual fantasies, sexual impulses or “behaviors that involve acts (real, not simulated) in which the psychological or physical suffering (including humiliation) of the victim is sexually arousing to the individual.”
Some relevant cases of sadistic serial killers
Gilles de Rais
Gilles de Rais He was a French marshal who participated in the 100 Years’ War alongside Joan of Arc. It is said that Gilles de Rais was deeply in love with her, and when her idolized Joan of Her was captured and burned at the stake, He felt deeply angry with God and he desperately claimed that he would never again be faithful to Christian moral commands.
Since then, he locked himself in his castle and began to kidnap children, to whom he carried out the worst atrocities. He tortured, raped and murdered them , and then continue committing acts of necrophilia with their lifeless bodies. We find quotes from Gilles de Rais himself in the trial that took place when he was convicted of these terrible acts in the book “The Marshal of Darkness”. We quote:
‹‹I confess that I killed those boys and girls in different ways and using different methods of torture: some of them I separated their heads from their bodies, using daggers and knives; With others I used sticks and other whipping instruments, giving them violent blows on the head; Others I tied with ropes and ropes and hung them from doors and beams until they drowned. I confess that I experienced pleasure in hurting them and killing them like that. He enjoyed destroying innocence and desecrating virginity. He took great delight in strangling young children even as those children discovered the first pleasures and pains of his innocent flesh. (…)
I liked to see the blood flow, it gave me great pleasure. I contemplated those who had beautiful heads and proportioned limbs and then opened their bodies and delighted in the sight of their internal organs and very often, when the boys were already dying, I sat on their stomachs, and I was pleased to see their agony…
I am one of those people for whom everything related to death and suffering has a sweet and mysterious attraction, a terrible force that pushes down. (…) If I could describe or express it, I probably would never have sinned. I did what other men dream. I am your nightmare.››
Elizabeth Báthory, the Bloody Countess
Belonging to one of the most powerful families in Hungary at the time, Elizabeth holds the Guinness record as the woman who has committed the most murders in the history of humanity with around 650 tortures and deaths, all of them young girls between 9 and 26 years old.
In addition to a sadistic and sexual perversion, Countess Elizabeth Báthory felt a special attraction for blood, and was not only content with drinking it (as is usual in the so-called vampire slayers) but bathed in it in order to prevent his skin from aging over the years.
The figure of Elizabeth Báthory is world famous, especially thanks to different stories about her history and for being one of the main characters in horror games, for example the board game “Atmosfear”. Popular culture has given Báthory a prominent role, as the most bloodthirsty and ruthless woman on record.
There have also been films made about this woman such as The Countess (2009) and Báthory, the countess of blood (2008).
Andrei Chikatilo, the butcher of Rostov
This case is about the protagonist of the macabre photograph at the head of this article. Andrei Chikatilo born in Ukraine in 1936, He had sexual impotence problems since he was a teenager, which he only overcame in an extremely pathological way as he discovered when he had his first strong erection at the moment he cut a naked girl (whom he was going to abuse) with a knife, feeling great excitement when he saw the blood.
Andrey murdered 53 women between 1982 and 1990 , most of them being minors. His crimes were perpetrated with inhuman cruelty: he amputated their nipples and ripped out their uterus and then ate it, among other things.
These words were spoken by Andrei himself: “In perverse sexual acts I experienced a kind of fury, a feeling of debauchery. Especially after watching all kinds of sexual movies. “What I did, I did after watching the videos of perverse sexual acts, cruelties and horrors.”
The psychiatrists at the Serbsky Institute alleged that Chikatilo was a prudent sadist who did not suffer from any disorder that could make him retreat due to the immorality of his actions, since his actions were premeditated. For that reason, he was sentenced to death. At the same trial, sheltered in a metal cubicle to protect him from the angry crowd, he took off his clothes and shook his penis, shouting: “Look at the uselessness. What do you think he was going to do with this?”
The film “Citizen X” is about the investigation into the murders of Andrei Chikatilo. Highly recommended.
On the other hand, a documentary was made about him, we provide the link here:
Ted Bundy
Born in 1946, raped and murdered dozens of women between 1974 and 1978 in United States.
Bundy took advantage of the kindness of his victims to commit his crimes. He He prowled around universities pretending to be badly injured, with crutches or some similar trick He pretended to drop the books, so the girls picked them up and accompanied him to his car. Ted Bundy seemed too cute and helpless to be dangerous or threatening to the girls who came to help him.
As the students approached his car, Bundy hit them with a crowbar and began his macabre plan. In addition to torture, mutilation and rape, practiced necrophilia He would repeatedly return to the Seattle woods where he had buried the bodies, often taking pieces of them home. In total, he confessed to thirty murders, although the actual number is unknown, probably much higher.
Bundy said:
“It happened in stages, little by little, my experience with pornography in general, but with pornography that features a high level of sexual violence, once you become addicted to it, — and I see this as a kind of addiction equal to than other types of addiction—you start looking for all kinds of material with things that are more powerful, more explicit, more graphic. Until you reach a point where pornography goes so far that you start to wonder what it would be like to actually do it (… )
I’ve met people who radiate vulnerability… Their facial expressions say: I’m afraid of you. These people invite abuse… Expecting to be hurt, do they subtly encourage it? (…)
I am the most cold-blooded bastard you have ever met.
Serial killers are their children, their husbands…and we are everywhere”
