tonight i saw this thing on hbo-- women who love killers. i know what you're thinking: only a pathetic dumbass girl with no life and no grip on reality would hook up with a convicted murderer! well, um... you're right.
all the women on this show kept saying stuff like, "there's a whole other side to him that nobody sees!", "there was just something about his eyes!" and (my personal favorite) "he's a gentleman! he's polite!" which is important. because, really, you can overlook brutal murders. but bad manners? never!
one of the women had married a coke-snorting (as he indignantly put it, "i'm a drug addict, i am not an alcoholic!") murderer who broke her finger while he was out on parole. they interviewed her daughter (who, i swear to god, looked so much like a chimpanzee it was scary), and the first thing she said was, "well, you know, he's black, and that was sort of wierd for me because i'd never been around black people before." i was just like, honey! he is a drugged-out wifebeating convicted killer!!! and you're freaked out because he's BLACK!?!?! um, yeah, that's exactly what you need to be worried about in this situation.
then there was a mole-riddled ex-prison-psychologist (she quit her job and became a stripper so she could date one of the inmates) who told this story about how her killer could ejaculate without any physical stimulation, just by thinking about it. apparently, displaying this talent is how he won her over. i mean, what girl could resist that? she's telling this story while her poor, aged mother sits by her side, looking like she just wants to die.
but the best by far was the woman who married richard ramirez. she's like 50, and she's a virgin, which she's proud of because richard "wants an innocent, pure woman". wow, a serial killer with a hangup about women's sexuality? oh my god! of course, i don't think i'd let someone who sexually assaulted and then killed people pass judgement one way or another on my sex life. but i'm uppity like that. mrs. ramirez was mortally offended that people think of her husband as "the night stalker" instead of the dear sweet man that she's convinced he is. oh, right, i'm sure he's a real sweetheart. when he's not kicking people to death, i mean.
what really bothered me was that none of these women seemed to care that their husbands had taken human lives. obviously, they are sacrificing any kind of functional lives of their own in order to carry on these relationships, but that's their choice. however, they all showed a real attitude of, "oh, so what, it doesn't matter to me that he brutally murdered innocent people!" awww, how forgiving of you! but you know what? i'll bet it mattered to the people whose lives they so casually took. i'll bet it matters to the people whose loved ones these men killed in the most horrible ways. these women are having these tragical melodramatique romances, but for a lot of people out there, tragedy is not melodramatic or romantic. they lost someone they loved, and tragedy is their real life. and it's like these women don't even care.
[okay, so i got a little pissy at the end there. but come on, people!]