Some of the dust has settled a bit in the Jessie Davis murder case. The national media has found a couple of other missing, attractive, white women to talk about. I suspect only those of us in Ohio will hear anything more about the case until trial.I haven't followed the case all that closely. I've read a couple of articles and heard some of the cable news media reports. While not intending to diminish the life of Jessie Davis, I'm just weary of these stories. It seems like the media, particularly television, has decided they've struck gold in the missing-cute-girl-of-the-month story. I think these are the only types of stories Greta Van Susteren has on her show anymore. They're probably right. Ratings are high for these stories but they just don't mean much to me anymore. What about all the men who go missing every year? Or the elderly? Or the unattractive? Or the non-Caucasian?
My interest in the story, like many people I've talked to, is more in trying to understand the apparently hypnotic effect that Bobby Cutts Jr. (aka Rasputin) had on women. I'm pretty highly educated, work hard, make a good salary, have never cheated on someone I've dated, don't abuse alcohol, don't smoke, and come home from work every night. Yet for some reason, I appear headed to my second divorce (fortunately no kids). Bobby Cutts Jr., by all accounts, is an egotistical, violent, serial philanderer and the number of women lining up to bear him children seems endless. I'm perplexed.
From everything I've read, Jessie Davis seems like she was a nice woman. She's had her stumbles like most people but she seemed like a decent person. Today she's dead because Bobby Cutts Jr. is a reprehensible human being. But, unpopular as this may be, she's also dead because she made a really bad choice. She knew that Cutts was married. She knew he had children with at least two other women. She knew he could be violent. She knew all these things and yet she pursued a relationship with him. I say pursued because you don't have two children with a married man as a result of a mistaken night of drunken passion. To be sure, he pursued her as well and is equally to blame but she was more than a willing participant.
Now, much as I'd like to, I can't completely take race out of this relationship. Some people will say it's because I'm white but the fact is that there are white women out there who are attracted to black men. I'm not talking about white women who date black guys because the women are color blind and just want to date a nice guy no matter what his race. I'm talking about women who are attracted to men because they're black. Parsing this out further, some of those women may simply find black men attractive, like some guys like blondes. That being said, there's some subset of these women who date black men because they think it's dangerous. Since American society still isn't completely accepting of mixed-race relationships, there's a bad girl element to dating a black man if you're white. Some people undeniably enjoy the feeling of doing something they think is taboo. I don't know if Jessie was in that camp or not. Her family would say no, I'm sure, but I wouldn't expect them to say otherwise. Ultimately no one really knows what someone else is thinking.
I mention the race issue only to dispense with it. Bobby Cutts Jr. could have been white, hispanic, or purple. There are plenty of nice black men to date. What we do know is that he is a violent guy who liked hurting women, probably enjoyed being a cop because it also made him feel like a big man, and spread more seed than Iowa corn farmers. I doubt Jessie Davis wanted to date a guy who would hurt her, or cheat on her, or inevitably be unsupportive of their children. But this is the guy she chose. Knowingly.
In my time as a therapist, I saw this a lot. Women would repeatedly engage in relationships with destructive men while having no interest in decent, caring co-workers, friends, or acquaintances who might be available for dating. I've heard all the reasons for this: low self-esteem, the bad-boy mystique, the desire to have a man as a "project," etc. But you don't hear any of these reasons from friends and family members when someone like Jessie Davis is murdered. What you hear is that she was a great person who truly loved this guy and he committed the ultimate betrayal. I'm not so sure. If that's the truth, then we need to throw out all those other excuses I listed and admit that some women just love horrible, dangerous men. If so, that's a potentially fatal flaw in their makeup. If those other rationales are valid, then we need to admit that these victims are not perfect people and that they had emotional needs/problems that made them vulnerable to making terrible relationship decisions.
I'm not sure of all the variables involved in Jessie Davis' death. As I said, she seemed like she was probably a nice person and it is awful that she and her child have been killed. But I think to fully understand why these things continue to happen, we need to take the halos off of both the perpetrators and the victims and see them for the flawed humans they really are/were. Only then can we hope to grasp to true nature of these crimes and all their contributing factors.
5 comments:
Oh, Mr. Don. Having known you since fourth grade, I'd say you went out of your way in this post to be gracious toward women! Hah. I know that you could have said much more but were trying to be fair.
Why bother?
I know men are screwy, but women are seriously f'd up. Having dated for a while now and having gotten to know many women, I can definitely say that - while not all of them, thank God - most women are extremely needy to the point of ruining what ever good thing they may have going. It's not that their men grow tired of them, it's that they grow tired of the non-stop "needs marathon." It starts right about the time they know they have hooked you and their real side starts showing; somewhere around 3 months in or so.
Now, some women like the one who liked this cop are attracted only to men that they know they cannot have. Every single female friend I have that is in their mid-thirties has this problem. They only date men that will ultimately drop them or treat them with utter disrespect. It's a disease they cannot cure. In the end, they find themselves accepting that they will just be alone. They'd rather that - and continue to believe they might tame a great guy - than do the hard work of looking at what they are looking for; and in turn, finding that they need to make a radical adjustment toward reality.
Like children, they continue on in a sad, stubborn refusal to not have a guy they feel "chemistry" with. What a load of crap.
And so, when one of these women hooks the bad boy for a while, they start to go through that little girl fantasy of taming him down, making him theirs for the long term. "Nobody else could, but I just might have a shot." Fuck that. It's delusion.
If a woman is single into her thirties or forties, and has never been married previously, you can bet she is one of these women; holding out for that magic one guy that will meet all of her specifications and be something that other women would love to have. They're waiting to tame a guy that will never allow himself to be tamed, but will permit that illusion long enough to get laid a bunch of times. Then, his real side will come out.
And this is what men will always do, and what women will never understand; men are driven by getting laid. Period. Yes, they can fall in love and have happy families, but the need to have a new woman to bed will always be there. Every man fights this his whole life. However, a man can decide to give that up in honor of having a happy home. Many do.
And so, when a woman starts blathering on about her "needs" and such, a man starts fantasizing about his. Of course, his needs are the kind you don't discuss, so he quietly starts going "toward the dark side." It beats listening to why things could be better if he only tried harder, etc.
And that's what women really do. They live their lives in stubborn refusal that they will not attain exactly the relationship they have wanted since they were a child; that fairy tale swill of taming that certain guy that meets every specification, and yet nobody else could tame.
And when a woman as dumb as this one - getting pregnant by the married bad boy cop that's fucking a bunch of women - gets killed by a son of a bitch, cold-hearted killer like this cop, everybody acts surprised. Why?
This woman made a stupid decision. She made many of them. That's not to say this cop is innocent here. He's not. He should be killed for what he did and there's simply no reason to give him any benefit of the doubt. None the less, this woman followed that immature impulse these women have of trying to tame a bad boy that all the other women want. (And by the way, any woman reading this will deny to me and to herself that that is how she and other women are, but if they are in their 30's and have never been married, they are just that. Hopefully, they are not as oblivious to the signs of danger as this woman.)
This woman is responsible for choosing a guy that will never want her. She's guilty of buying into that stupid, little girl fantasy at the expense of reason. She's guilty of passing up 1,000 great guys that would love to be married and would honor her for the rest of their lives, because they don't fit the bad boy mold. (That bad boy mold is different for each woman; for some it's motorcycle guys, for some it's guys with money and power, for some it's hip DJ's in a club. The point is, these women go for guys that have a certain "thing." It's not about the guy's personality first and his integrity. It's about that "thing" first. Then, they try to tame him to get the rest of their needs filled.)
So, I don't feel bad for this woman. I don't feel bad for any woman that chooses a life of chasing little girl fantasies over a life of love with a great guy. And those great guys are out there. Unfortunately, those guys become bitter old single men like myself; having spent 20 years watching most attractive women pass me by for the guys that treat them like shit, the guys that have that "thing."
How do I know this is true? Well, I've tested the theory. My success with really beautiful women is inversely proportional to how much I can make them feel like I truly just don't need them. You've gotta hook their interest first, then back way off. They run after you and "need" you. They "love" you. I used to be the kinda guy that wouldn't push sex. Fool. I learned a while ago that respecting a woman leads to lot's of women "friends." Push the sex, act like a bad boy moron and the women will see you as "date-worthy." They won't view you as a "friend" because you are not acting like one. You are acting like a stereotypical jerk guy; which is all that many attractive women will ever want.
...as long as they can be the one to change him, and get him to settle down.
Fantasy B.S.
I'm reminded of the Van Halen song where Sammy Hagar says, "You've got a point there" and then Eddie says, "You've actually got three points there."
That comment was enough for a couple of posts! I don't disagree with it and I was trying to be gracious. I didn't put as fine a point on it as you but nonetheless I'm tired of this culture where victims have no blame.
This woman is dead for the simple reason that she made a stupid choice in her relationships. And you're right. I'll bet she passed by a lot of much nicer, less dangerous guys on her way to her appointment with the Reaper. That's exactly my point. Until we start admitting that these people are victims of their own poor decision making, this kind of thing will just keep happening.
excellent post and comments! based on my own experience & poor decisions with an unnamed exhusband, i agree completely. msny people don't sit down with themselves and figure out what it is they really want... so they just drift & let themselves be tossed about until they decide they want better for themselves. for some, they never do. feelings are cheap. they lie & then they leave. logic/respect holds the course!
This is one of the best posts you've ever written. It comes from both your head and your heart. And you use a now-wildly famous case close to home to make many excellent points about why otherwise decent loving people make such erroneous choices.
I got a note from a friend earlier today who was telling the tale of having gotten involved with a man who clearly had some tricky spots. She quipped something along the lines of "he's been hurt somewhere along the lines and I'm not a healer so, I'm outta here."
I thought, damn, if more of us would say that, if Jesse Davis had said that to herself, she and her full-frickin-term unborn daughter would not be wherever they are today, and her little boy wouldn't be wandering lost looking for his mother.
The underpinning of a lasting human relationship is real human love. I don't know many couples who have achieved this; the two I always come back to are BB's parents and the couple i work for. It is extraordinary. When two people who fall in love can survive that part of the relationship and enjoy the normal everyday stuff that turns into a partnership of years and years, that's it.
I would say that accounts for maybe 10 percent of the population. Meanwhile there is this crazy hook-up game going on that totally looks past all the important stuff you all mention here. We have all played it. I agree that I cannot imagine what would compel a woman like Jesse Davis to look at all the data in front of her and still make the choices she did. Clearly there was something in her emotional history that accounted for those decisions.
My own peculiarity, which is shared by millions of women, is falling for men who are nearly completely emotionally unavailable. I'm at the point where I really don't trust myself to enter into a relationship because all of the men I've enjoyed a real connection with have fallen into that category. These were not married men, these were otherwise funny, bright, attractive single men. Now, while most have been in long-term relationships, none of them had children. I don't know the degree to which their fantasy of me was broken up by the fact that I have two young charges and that I would never be able to devote all of my attention entirely on my partner. And I suspect that there are a fair number of men who really don't want a "precooked family." I'm proud of my children and they are smart, wonderful and very loveable people but I can understand if at some point it's just too scary for an unattached single guy to imagine himself part of a reorganized family unit that includes an involved ex-spouse.
And to be sure, I'd rather a guy bail on me than take my life! But aside of my kids, who are part of every bargain, I certainly have plenty of my own quirks and realities, any one of which could have been the dealbreaker.
The point is, as Don says, we rarely enter into a relationship with all the cards on the table, with our realities facing up. We get all excited and spend all our time with a person's best parts. When we start meeting the other parts of the person -- when the halos come off -- that's where the rubber meets the road. Sometimes it gets tougher to love the whole person because those other parts we don't like don't fit in with our fantasy. And so we give up.
For your part Don, and you too Jim, I hope you eventually find the kind of woman who can capture your hearts and minds and who will be equally taken with yours well beyond the three-month mark.
Mando,
Thanks for the long comment. For what it is worth, I thought I had found my woman and had 6 good years. In the end, there was just stuff one or both of us couldn't get past. I think that's a post for another day and kind of an extension of Boring Best's take on the "Prince Charming" syndrome.
The thing with Jesse Davis is that, unlike your friend, I don't think she could have "recognized" something with Bobby Cutts and walk away. I think she was a flawed human being who was actually attracted to all the things about him that most of us would run from and I have to agree with Boring. I think a lot of women are like this. They want a guy to be a challenge.
Jenny, who also commented on this, and I recently talked about this. How women just aren't interested in guys they know they could have. How twisted is that? In a weird way, it might be partly responsible for what you have seen in men. You comment on them being emotionally unavailable but I think sometimes, as we men get more experienced, this is a posture we adopt because it is more successful than being all friendly and interested and eager.
Like Boring says, and women may not like it, for us it all comes down to getting laid. If someone has enough other qualities, we'll even settle down and marry them and be faithful. But the initial attraction is always to getting some new action. And the more guys learn about women, the more we learn that the best way to do that is to act like you don't give a shit. Twisted, but true.
It would be a lot easier if we could just go up to women and say, "I think you're cute. Wanna go back to my place and f**k?" I mean, what the heck? We both have needs. If the girl's not interested, she just says no. End of deal. No games. No BS.
I think the problem is that women's arousal cycle is so much slower than men's. We can see a picture of a naked woman and be ready to go. Women need all sorts of build-up so I think these cat and mouse games they play are just part of the whole arousal fanstasy for them. You have to make the bad boy want you because somehow that gets the juices going. If you already know a guy wants you, there's no thrill of the chase. From the point of view of the male brain, that's just messed up.
Of course, from a paleobiological point of view, we're just trying to mate with as many females as possible. We don't have time to waste playing a mating dance!
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