Pieter Hintjens - The Psychopath Code - Cracking the Predators That Stalk Us

❂ Shock - the emotion of preparing for sudden death. Your body switches off its response to pain. You feel cold and limp. Your sense of touch, hearing, and vision all dim. Your face pales and shows a characteristic flushing pattern on the cheeks. Your mind may put itself in the third person, and give you an "out of body" experience. The effects of shock change over time, assuming one survives.

❂ Triumph - the emotion of asserting dominance. You breathe in and fill your lungs. Blood flows to your upper body and arms. Your heartbeat is faster than normal. Your body remains ready for physical confrontation. You stand with your head high, arms out. You stand with feet apart. You walk with larger strides. You look straight at bystanders, yet not at submissive people, whom you ignore. You raise your voice and gesticulate more than usual.

❂ Defeat - the emotion of submitting to dominance. Defeat displays that you will not fight. You adopt weak body language to look smaller and harmless. You bow your head, squash your shoulders in and hunch your back. You bring your knees together. Your steps get smaller. Your eyes look at the ground. You expose your neck. You make the characteristic high-pitched mmh sounds of defeat . Your voice, if any, is quiet. Your metabolism slows. You make no facial expression.

A successful predator must avoid its prey feeling suspense until it is too late. There is thus an old arms race between predator and prey. The predator disguises itself, to move in closer. The prey becomes better at identifying its predator. The two strategies balance each other. If a predator is too successful it destroys its own host species. If the prey is too nervous, it dies from exhaustion.

Anger and rage are the first display emotions. All others so far are for orchestration only. These two emotions cross species boundaries. They need no explanation: when an animal looks ready to attack us, we read that as "anger."

Mallory does not, as far as I can tell, feel the defense emotions. She perhaps has no natural predators. She shows no startle response. Unexpected events may cause her to pause and calculate. If you leap out of a dark corner at her, she is likely to just punch you. When she gets angry, she is showing fury , not anger or rage .

Mallory enjoys violent confrontation. It gives her real pleasure. This brings us to our next group: the sexual emotions.

The sexual emotions are, like the predator emotions, old and deep. They predate language. There is debate about whether these are even emotions. Yet the orchestration and display functions are undeniable:

❂ Ennui - the emotion of looking for sexual opportunities. Ennui drives you out of our comfort zone. Your sexual responses slow down. Your vision and hearing gets sharper and you focus on potential sexual partners. You feel the need to move, yet you are careful to stay discreet. Your walk with quiet calm, and keep your posture relaxed. Your breathing is regular, slow.

❂ Interest - the emotion of focusing on a specific person. Your sexual responses speed up. Your hearing and vision focus on your target, and exclude everything else. You may move towards your target, trying to appear as innocent as possible until the last minute. Your pupils widen. Blood flows to your cheeks. Your adrenalin starts to rise. Your memory starts recording in high resolution.

❂ Desire - the emotion of chasing a sexual target. Your hearing switches off and your vision tunnels in on your target. Your breathing and heartbeat speed up. Blood flows to your lower body and skin, and glucose feeds into your blood. Your eyes widen, your mouth opens, and you smile a lot. Desire says, "I want you."

❂ Lust - the emotion of getting consent for sex. You feel the kick of pleasure and adrenalin. Your breathing accelerates. Your body prepares for sex. Your blood pressure rises, and blood flows to your genitals, breasts, skin, and face. You laugh and smile a lot more than usual. Lust says, "I want you more than ever."

❂ Arousal - the emotion of engaging in sex. Your sense of pain shifts. Your vision narrows to a tunnel, and your eyes narrow or close. You may be silent, or make groans of effort. You focus on your partner, and the physical act. As you engage, you feel intense bursts of pleasure that push you on.

❂ Climax - the emotion of concluding sex. You feel an orgasmic climax of pleasure, your DNA rewarding you for the effort and risk of sex. Your lungs and heart are still working hard to purge your system of carbon dioxide. Your arms and hands and jaws clench. Your skin flushes in specific and recognizable patterns. You may make a low groan, or louder shouts.

❂ Replete - the emotion of having finished sex. Your sexual responses switch off, and you reject any further physical stimulation. You may want to talk, or sleep. You adopt open body language, and relax. Your blood pressure goes back to normal. Your arms and legs are limp.

❂ Rejected - the emotion of a failed seduction. Your body relaxes and all systems go to neutral. You withdraw to a safe place and replay your memory. You look for what went wrong. You imagine different "what if" scenarios, and rehearse them mentally.

I had to search for names for many of these. You will notice that this group is almost an exact copy of the predator emotions. The one missing emotion is gluttony , which is now part of arousal . If there is any symbolic consumption, it happens before, not after climax .

The similarity of these two groups of emotions is striking. They have evolved in parallel. I assume they share much of the same DNA, and in some people the boundaries are blurred.

Do men and women experience these same emotions? It is a difficult area for research. Sexual experiences are never neutral. Culture distorts and warps them. We tolerate sexual activity, approve of it, expect it, or forbid it. The cultural regulation of sexual activity is constant and global and corrupts our responses. No two experiments will show the same results.

I’ll claim that both men and women tend to experience the same cycle of emotions during sex. At least in the case of consensual sex between adults. If male sexuality is predatory, then so is female sexuality. There is no "passive" gender, though individuals can be more passive or active.

Both men and women have sexual empathy. When your partner shows lust, this tends to provoke lust in return. Both seek an "emotional connection" with their sexual partners.

How does Mallory feel the sexual emotions? It is certain that he has the physical responses needed for successful intercourse. He shows sexual empathy. Yet there are some striking differences that demand explanation:

❂ Mallory is casually bisexual. To be more precise, he will adopt whatever gender identity fits the situation best. [81] http://psychopathsandlove.com/a-hidden-fact-of-psychopaths-they-have-no-gender/ He can be gay, dominant, submissive, heterosexual, confused.

❂ Mallory does consume his sexual partners, in a manner. You may see him as a sexual predator, yet that is to misread his behavior. For him, sex is not the goal, it is the means. His goal is to consume his target’s power and resources.

❂ Mallory is dominant and insensitive to his sexual partners. To quote one woman of her psychopathic partner: "During sex he was harsh and rough. His eyes cold and distant, focused… like an animal eating his prey."

I believe Mallory mixes the two groups of emotions into a single one. Psychologists describe psychopaths as "thrill seeking," yet a more accurate description might be "over-sexed and uninhibited." Apart from the physical responses during arousal and climax , Mallory experiences exactly the same emotions inside, and outside the bedroom.