Richard Speck: The Woman-Murderer Self-Womanized and Women’s Sexual Advantages
In 1966, a 24-year old sailor named Richard Speck committed one of the most shocking crimes in American history. Intruding into a dormitory of female student nurses, he tied up nine women, then systematically murdered eight of them, raping his last victim before killing her. The one survivor hid under a bed, and Speck missed her during his homicidal rampage. She described his appearance to police, including the eerily prescient tattoo on his arm that read Born To Raise Hell.
In the aftermath of the slayings, a widely publicized “fact” about Richard Speck appeared to many observers to explain, at least partially, his extraordinary aggressiveness. It was said that he was a “supermale,” that is, a man with an extra Y-chromosome.
A cursory look at Speck’s history seemed to support the conclusion that he was extremely masculine. He was a tall, lanky, heavily tattooed man given to drinking, fighting, and whoring. He had always worked at traditional men’s jobs like construction and seafaring — when he wasn’t getting his money through theft.
“Supermale’s” crimes were trumpeted as evidence for biological determinism. As Stephen Jay Gould writes of that position (which Gould does not hold) in Ever Since Darwin, “Males tend to be more aggressive than females; this may be genetic. If genetic, it must reside on the Y chromosome; anyone possessing two Y chromosomes has a double dose of aggressiveness and might incline to violence and criminality.”
Thus, Speck’s slayings of eight women seemed to be man’s “normal” or “natural” dominance over females carried to a destructive extreme.
As it turned out, the original finding of the murderer as a “supermale” was in error. Speck was a genetically normal XY male.
Richard Speck shocked the public yet again — three years after his own death in prison of a heart attack — when a videotape made by the imprisoned Speck and fellow inmates surfaced.
The video alternates between talk show and hard-core pornography (Speck being the receptive partner in anal intercourse). During the talk show segments, a cellmate plays interviewer to Speck’s celebrity guest. The general atmosphere is one of conviviality and camaraderie.
“Have you got the blue panties on?” his buddy asks.
Then, the ugly, pockmarked Speck unzips his paint-splattered uniform — his prison job had been painting walls — to display fully developed breasts along with the aforementioned women’s underpants.
The man who murdered women had turned himself into a fun-house mirror image of the sex he slaughtered. Speck’s appearance on film was so gender-ambiguous that TV stations seemed unsure of whether to treat his bare chest as they usually would that of a man or a woman. In part of the tape, his breasts are shown as the chest of a male normally would be on American television; in another, the camera distorts the chest area as it usually would for a topless female.
“Do you like getting f—- by men, Richard?” Speck is asked.
“Absolutely,” he replies.
“Have you always liked it?”
“Sure.”
When asked how many sexual partners he has had in prison, Speck replies, “I can’t count that high.â€
In my opinion, Speck’s feminization, together with a more nuanced examination of his life history, gives us a fresh insight into the motives behind his gender-biased atrocities. It may also give us an important insight more generally into the feelings of men who commit violence specifically against female victims.
Women’s sexual disadvantages are frequently dwelt upon in popular commentary. Only women risk getting pregnant and, while pregnancy may be experienced as the most sublime of blessings, it may also be one of the worst human traumas. People frequently talk about the problems incurred by women because of the Double Standard, sexual harassment, and sexual molestation and rape.
However, there is an important sexual advantage that women possess that is at least as obvious as their special problems but which often goes unmentioned. That is the female advantage of sexual opportunity. With the exceptions of women who have been rendered actively repulsive through deformities, scarring, and of many female senior citizens, women have sexual opportunities comparable to those enjoyed only by men who are wealthy, celebrated, or for some other reason extraordinarily attractive. Plain and awkward women have their pick of sexual partners if they are seeking nothing in addition to the sex.
I believe that Speck’s evident enjoyment of taking on female characteristics in the all-male environment of prison and his bragging about the sexual partners he had there indicates a deep and longstanding envy of this female advantage of sexual opportunity.
Women’s sexual advantages don’t stop at opportunity. In the usual heterosexual procedure, the man approaches the woman rather than the other way around and, quite often, his overtures are rebuffed. If the man has been courteous, the woman is somewhat discomfited but also flattered. The rejected man, on the other hand, is left with feelings entirely negative. The special vulnerability of the person who initiates sexual relationships is obscured by our custom of referring to the initiator as the “aggressor†with the word’s connotations of power and conquest. However, the position of the person who makes overtures could also be seen as, and more importantly felt as, that of “supplicant.â€
A man may pay for women’s company, as Speck often did but, especially if his income is low and uncertain, as Speck’s was, resents having to do so.
What’s more, he may feel disadvantaged in the sex act itself. According to an article by Dennis L. Breo published in the Chicago Tribune, Speck often gave up “his turn” during consensual “gang-bangs” of prostitutes because he was impotent. He probably felt incontrovertibly exposed by his limp penis and, in his humiliation, envied the ability of the female to engage in sex regardless of her arousal level as well as to feign sexual passion.
It is this writer’s opinion that Speck’s envy of women’s sexual opportunities, of their position as the courted sex and their capacity to “fake it,†deepened into murderous hatred. Of course, many decent men may envy the above-mentioned female advantages without that envy turning destructive.
However, I believe that a key to understanding why a small minority of men become dangerous to women is to understand that, in the area of sexual opportunity, women are the gender of wealth and plenty while men are the gender of poverty and want.
A previous, very different version of this essay was published in Mélange and appears online at karisable.com.
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Stumble It!
July 1st, 2006 at 5:31 pm
This is a fascinating and original interpretation, but I think you rely too much on the “women get sex more easily” hook to carry the weight of your argument.
Now, if you happen to be the “only” woman available to a trapped, bored and otherwise disengaged group of men, then, yes, your argument makes sense.
But in the ordinary marketplace of human exchange, variables like age, education, physical health and economic prospects (not to mention an affinity for sex and its outcomes,) flit in a whirlwind of unlikely encounters. But the game of chance is rigged – because any man or woman who occupies the favored position for each of these traits is likely to get what they want in way of sex, offspring, prospects… all with the proverbial wind at their backs. (That’s another way of saying, “some people have more options than others.”)
Mike
July 1st, 2006 at 5:42 pm
This is what Denise Noe is saying:
“Richard Speck and most male sex criminals are clearly representative of all men. Women are wealth and plenty, love and compassion. Men are poverty, want and impotency. The male sex drive is an impulse that springs from men’s rage at not having any sexual opportunity.”
Denise cautions her remarks by saying “a small minority of men” but then generalizes in the same sentence which effectively negates her caution.
In reality – and especially in the modern sexual/dating scene, women approach men as often as men approach women. Women give sex freely and easily, there is no scarcity. If ANY man is in want, the slightest effort will bring sexual satisfaction from modern women.
Attempting to make a sex criminal an American “everyman” is obscene. Denise should be ashamed. I could pen a column painting every woman as Andrea Yates, securing and celebrating the ultimate power of femininity through the murder of her own children. “Andrea proved her superiority over her husbands sex drive with every second her babies struggled for breath as she held them under water. Andrea’s husband was ultimately poor of children and impotent of control, thus proving Denise Noe’s theory of male/female relations.”
Has it come to this? Is Denise Noe the best MND can come up with? Why not replace her with Maureen Dowd? At least Dowd is funny because she is always wrong. Denise Noe is simply dishonest.
July 1st, 2006 at 5:52 pm
What!?? it looks to me like bethesday paul didn’t even read the same article I did. I don’t think that’s even remotely akin to what Denise wrote.
July 1st, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Bethesda Paul sees the obvious. I’ve seen this in feminist theory. Take the worst example of a deranged or mentally ill man and generalize his behavior to explain the nature of men.
This is NOT an article about a deranged rapist who became a homosexual in prison. It is about Denise Noe and her hatred of men. Men do not envy women because we can have sex regardless of arousal. Just because we have organs that do not require erection for activity doesn’t mean that is all there is to it. It also doesn’t reflect on pathology or sanity.
Denise Noe is a radical feminist and unfit to read. Does anyone think men are the “gender of poverty and want” ?? The man I’m married to doesn’t reflect poverty or want. What is Denise’s point?
Sounds like Denise is a hardcore feminist having fun with Mens News Daily.
July 1st, 2006 at 9:36 pm
As far as the myth of the XYY “SuperMale” goes, it’s mostly rubbish. In his book “The Descent Of Men”, Steve Jones talk about a study to find if there’s a relationship between the genetic error XYY and criminality. He cite a 1960 Scottish study made in the prisons of Scottland to geneticaly test for the elusive extra Y. The result was negative, only 2 inmate registered as XYY carriers and was dismissed as a statistical fluke. They then tested a larger segment of the Scottish population and find 16 carriers. Only one became a professional criminal.
So, the romance of the Hyper-Genetic-Male is only fiction.
July 2nd, 2006 at 6:44 am
Denise Noe is a radical feminist and unfit to read. Does anyone think men are the “gender of poverty and want†?? The man I’m married to doesn’t reflect poverty or want.
Probably because he married a real woman, as did I. There are so many men who post on this site that have had awful experiences with women, and then extrapolate that to the entire population. Well they need to keep looking, no matter how long it takes. Women like you are out there, and if they only look towards nuts like Denise Noe, they won’t find them. I’m convinced there are more Ann Coulters out there than there are Maureen Dowds, they’re just harder to find amid all the screaming.
July 2nd, 2006 at 10:14 am
There are so many men who post on this site that have had awful experiences with women, and then extrapolate that to the entire population.
I don’t see much of that, but yes the reverse is ubiquitous, such as this XYY nonsense, the whole Maureen Dowd / Dr Phil mindset, in advertising, and in government. The difference is that for male-bashing, there is no PC Thought Police trying to prevent women from bashing all men, its actually encouraged, while even MND is not immune from the PC faithful keeping watch for the sake of women.
There are decent women in America, but they are getting fewer because of a female entitlement culture, where women are always victims, men are always guilty, children don’t matter, and the solution is always for the male to give money to the female and for men to go to prison, while we look for excuses and for a man to blame for female deviants.
Women aren’t any better than men, and men aren’t any better than women. If we had a culture of male entitlement, the reverse of what we have now, there would be a lot of men taking advantage of it, but there would also be a lot of decent men who are better than the culture just as there remains better women now. If that was the case, women would have to be very concerned that a decent man who doesn’t take advantage of it could always turn on her and go to a courtroom or a receptive media and cash in on his superior rights. Some women would blame that on men, but the problem would not be the nature of men, it would be the culture itself.
Its my view that our culture, a feminist one, is exposing the dark side of women, such as just how vindictive, selfish, lying, and deceiful women can be when they know they can get away with it. We see this constant barrage of male-bashing in advertising, and its success reveals a lot about the nature of women, including that it is no better or worse than that of men. Then we have false accusations of rape and abuse, paternity fraud, parental alienation, and a whole lot more going on right now. Give somebody authority with no responsibility and subdue all dissent if you want to see their unrestricted nature.
So, some men may blame the nature of women, just as women are constantly yearning to blame the nature of men. I view it more as a cultural problem, instigated by feminism, and implemented primarily through the courts and PC media.
As to the feminization of Richard Speck, that’s another symptom of a deranged man living in a deranged culture sent to live in a government operated gay dungeon. I’m sure there are butch lesbians in female prisons who were formerly extremely passive heterosexuals, but we don’t see articles using them to stereotype the true nature of women. And yes, there are probably fewer such women than such men, but that is because we don’t like holding females responsible for their actions nor do we punish them in the same way or as often as we do men.
July 2nd, 2006 at 12:32 pm
Dierdre wrote –
“Men do not envy women because we can have sex regardless of arousal. Just because we have organs that do not require erection for activity doesn’t mean that is all there is to it. It also doesn’t reflect on pathology or sanity.”
Actually, Dierdre, you might want to look at your engorged clitoris the next time you are having intercourse “without erection.”
This from the best feminist book I’ve ever come across – “THE CLITORAL TRUTH: The Secret World at Your Fingertips.” (Rebecca Chalker).
—
(Excerpted quotes)-
“In both the clitoris and the penis, there are two types of erectile tissue: body of caverns (corpus caversosum) and spongy body (corpus spongiosum), which fill with blood during sexual response, causing an erection.
The clitoral shaft is attached to the glans, just underneath the surface of the skin. The shaft is a round fibrous segment of spongy erectile tissue, and like the glans, it is very sensitive.
If you roll your finger back and forth just above the glans during sexual response, you should be able to feel a hard ridge about one-half to one ince long, and about the diameter of a soda straw, and rises toward the pubic mound for a short distance, then dends sharply and divides, forming two slender legs or cura (Latin for “legs”), which are also composed of spongy tissue. The legs of the clitoris flare out somewhat like the wishbone of a chicken.
… underneath the inner lips are twin bulbs of cavernous erectile tissue. During sexual response these structures fill with blood, which then becomes trapped in their cryptic spaces, casuing erection.
In both women and men, the urethra (the tube through which we urinate) is surrounded by a ring of spongy erectile tissue that is identical to the type of erectile tissue that surrounds the penis.
So, we now know … women have a complex and powerful genital system that is designed for one specific purpose – pleasure.”
—
Proving that the clinical is always political!
And please, no more misinformation about women not getting blue balls …
July 2nd, 2006 at 1:27 pm
DadWithGirls missed the point, but seems to want to talk about female erectile tissue in detail. I think a woman would know about what equipment she was born with and doesn’t need a lecture about how it works.
Dierdre was responding to Denise Noe’s point that men are weaker because they are always the aggressor and must be “on” sexually to perform.
Of course, if you still want to talk about women manually pleasuring themselves, go right ahead…
July 2nd, 2006 at 1:32 pm
My God did he miss the point.
Thanks Paul, you answered the point perfectly. Again, Denise Noe is using a typical feminist line of reasoning; that women hold all sexual power and men either supplicate for access or take sexual pleasure violently. She was generalizing broadly from the case of a very disturbed sex criminal.
July 3rd, 2006 at 9:22 am
Andrea Dworkin unintentionally helped to reveal what traditionalist men have known all along: Women consider sex to be a submissive act so they ultimately require men to pay to make up for it. Most women consider even gratifying but commitment free heterosexual sex with attractive men to be a burden.
Denise perpetuates the myth that women consider sex to be a burden due to fears of pregnancy but the reality is that women want commitment from men because they recognize, rightly so, that raising children is expensive and they value the judgement of other women and don’t want to be seen as sexually loose.
Sadly, Dierdre, Denise is right that women do hold “sexual” power and can deny men sex for entirely arbitrary reasons much like the “soup nazi” character in Seinfeld. Women can and do parlay sexual attention into profit but only because women don’t derive the same level of satisfaction that men do from it. That is the puritannical underside of the coin that feminists don’t like admitting: That men generally enjoy greater sexual pleasure than women. That even if he’s F’ed over in a divorce, or pays $1000 for a prostitute, etc. he’ll still probably feel better about himself at the end of the day than the woman. (This also explains why American women, who may appear more empowered, are usually totally friggin’ nuts.)
July 25th, 2006 at 2:33 am
I can see an amazingly deep and valid insight into a criminal’s mind. Most criminals — male or female do commit their crime partly because they are terribly disadvantaged in society.
Like Frankenstein these criminals have often nothing to live for and hold huge rage toward society and those who are more fortunate. Consider David Chapman.
USA tries to solve the crime problem by applying the most severe punishments to all those convicted. Scandinavia and Canada have solved the problem much more efficiently by providing EVERYONE with reasonable sustenance — like 1/3 of GNP per capita. That means that even someone who does not have the ability to find a job can still have reasonable lifestyle and does not need to commit any crimes.