Ghislaine Maxwell

GM I’d say is an old school madam. All about being available and kindly, encouraging nudity, massage etc.

If she’d been found in Soho minding a brothel with a set of clean towels and a there there for the girls she would be unremarkable. She is just likely to be another rather morally degraded woman who is weak morally and exploits others. I wouldn’t imagine she’s very different from any of those madams, really. She may have been paid more, but it’s the same psychology at work.

Plenty of people have adverse or traumatic childhoods but manage to go on and lead meaningful lives.

To add to this, many of the child abusers who claim to have been abused have later admitted to lying about it to try to engender sympathy or gain mitigation. The belief that abused children become abusers is seriously lacking evidence.

I do find it interesting that it is incredibly rare to ever hear of a woman carrying out these sorts of crimes without a man being involved

I think serial offending CSA by women is rare however a large proportion of female offenders target their own children so it doesn't reach the press to protect the children. The one case I can remember was of women working at a nursery creating videos of CSA which they were then selling online. Even then, one claimed that she'd been forced into it by an abusive boyfriend but I imagine she'd been claiming anything she could to get mitigation.

We do know that it is far rarer for women to develop sexual perversions, so asking why it happens when it does isn't looking to excuse it so much as trying to understand a rare situation.

I know you’re not trying to excuse her but whatever childhood experience she had is irrelevant.

I think it was just arrogance that kept her in the USA. Because she’s a psychopath she genuinely thinks she’s more intelligent than everyone else and that she couldn’t be found.

DidoI'm not for a moment making excuses. My point is more that her background is unusual. The moral compass that adults have is developed in childhood. Or not in her case

Why when a woman does a really bad thing does this plea in mitigation of terrible men did terrible things to her always come up?

Dido I'm not for a moment making excuses. My point is more that her background is unusual. The moral compass that adults have is developed in childhood. Or not in her case.

I also agree that had her father not been wealthy and powerful, her "anorexia" would have been more likely to have been flagged.

I think all abuse is about power.

That's pretty much it. That, and no empathy.

I doubt Epstein would have gotten away with half the stuff he did without a female accomplice. Women automatically feel safer with a woman present, god knows why, women can be just as abusive as men.

I do think that women tend to play that role in sex trafficking, winning the trust of the victims. Rose West did the same.

Yes, definitely true.

And Myra Hindley and Rose West were serial killers in conjunction with their partners. Serial killing is incredibly rare so not sure why that's being used as an example

I don't understand what you mean here. I was making the point that even the most notorious of female criminals (the ones that people always reference in 'women are just as bad as men you know' arguments) were carrying out their crimes alongside a male. There are dozens and dozens, hundreds actually, of notorious male criminals who carried out their crimes with no female associate whatsoever.

It doesn't mean females never perpetrate abuse. But the disparity is noteworthy to say the least.

There have always been women like Ghislaine in the old days she would be the madam of a brothel. I do think that women tend to play that role in sex trafficking, winning the trust of the victims. Rose West did the same.

Her childhood is relevant because it was so wired. That doesn’t excuse her but her father was awful and she apparently adored him. She would have to overlook a lot in order to do so.

I think all abuse is about power. She didn’t see the girls as real people. Neither did Prince Andrew. A normal person would have thought these girls are the same age as my daughters.

She has powerful friends. One of the Lady someone give and interview to GMB when they first started looking for her and she implied that she knew where she was and wouldn’t be found. She was living a life of luxury in hiding.

@WhereILiveIsWhereIStay but none of that specifically talks about whether women are carrying out crimes completely alone or along with a male perpetrator as well?

Overall, 98% of sexual offences are carried out by males.

I'm really not saying that women are incapable of horrific acts at all and Ghislaine Maxwell is a woman and is fully responsible for her actions. But as I said, it does seem rare, particularly for them to do it entirely alone without any involvement whatsoever from a male. The same is not true the other way around. And I think that is worthy of discussion.

Like I said; it's not incredibly rare for females to sexually abuse.

And Myra Hindley and Rose West were serial killers in conjunction with their partners. Serial killing is incredibly rare so not sure why that's being used as an example

The Telegraph also has an article similar to the Guardian one featuring the opinion of Laura Goldman which includes this gem.

Sensationally revealing that Ms Maxwell had a "fling" with the now 60-year-old royal, Ms Goldman claimed the socialite "doesn't see any reason to speak about him to the authorities", adding that Ms Maxwell found the Queen's son "kind of stupid and naive".
"If there were girls in the house while he was there, he would have thought they were servants," Ms Goldman said from her home in Philadelphia. "All these people thinking he is evil are just wrong. He is just the kind of entitled person who sees everyone as a servant."

@Highperbolay

It being incredibly rare to hear of women perpertrating child sexual abuse without the influence of a man, does not mean that it isn't happening or is rare in actuality.

The NSPCC themselves admit it is likely to be indereported based on their studies and reports to Childline.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets/documents/information-service/research-briefing-child-sexual-abuse1.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiAyo2vkbTqAhXATBUIHXowBqoQFjAIegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw2RJjH0sehLbAs7QdGrM8sC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets/documents/information-service/research-briefing-child-sexual-abuse1.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiAyo2vkbTqAhXATBUIHXowBqoQFjAIegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw2RJjH0sehLbAs7QdGrM8sC

17% of calls to childline identifying a female abuser.

There have been numerous studies in the UK and US around the actual prevalence (which doesn't correlate with conviction rates) of female perpertrators of CSA. It isn't rare at all.

High I agree it’s not making excuses to say women have different motivations than men for this type of behaviour. It’s not excusing it. It’s just that their motives are different. .

I read some research recently about how female paedophiles are actually not as predatory in their behaviour as male. They’re less likely to go from one victim to the next to the next. It doesn’t make their behaviour any less despicable or damaging to the victims. But where men are motivated by sexual gratification and will use predatory behaviour to get this at any cost, female paedophiles are almost always looking for some kind of validation from a relationship. Whether that’s with the male they are helping to abuse children or what seems to be the most common one, teacher - student relationships where they think they’ve formed some kind of soulful connection

I'd also be wondering what the 'friend' gets out of it because as you say it's an odd time to want your name associated with this purely because you want to say 'helpful' things.

She was born into a disfunctional family, raised as the pet of a deeply unpleasant, controlling man, who then died when she was barely adult.

It would have been hard for her to develop an independent moral centre, and she quickly replaced one rich controlling man with another.

I'm not saying she has no responsibility, of course not. She comes from a bad place.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/04/ghislaine-maxwell-will-not-say-anything-about-prince-andrew-says-friend

this article interviewing a "friend" purports to shed light on her motivations. I am unclear why anyone would decide right now is a good time to tell the media you're Ghislaine Maxwell's friend, so I'm not sure what to think of it.

Sorry UncleMatthew
Is it because I'm in my phone? I can't find a way to do it. I only recently signed up for a free month so haven't worked out how to do things like a share token. There's several interesting articles about the Maxwells today.

@RedToothBrush.

Yes she wouldn't have known her brother at all. But my first thought on reading that event was; what frame of mind were her parents in during those first few years of her life? How would a parent deal with a significant child trauma and a newborn a the same time?
And then reading about the kind of person her father was, doesn't make for a great start in life.

She sounds like a psychopath. But I was interested to know what brought her to those awful crimes.

I'm never going to make excuses for Ghislaine Maxwell, whatever happened in her childhood. Plenty of men also have fucked up childhoods and go on to be abusers and we don't excuse them.

But...

I do find it interesting that it is incredibly rare to ever hear of a woman carrying out these sorts of crimes without a man being involved. Even in the most very famous cases of female criminals (Myra Hindley, Rose West) there is a man very closely involved.

She appears to have facilitated child abuse. It doesn't matter if she had been bullied by her father. There are many women, including me, who have been victims of abuse and bullying but we don't then go on to abuse children and women as adults. Please don't make excuses for her. It makes a mockery of all the women who have been abused but, miraculously, don't go on to abuse anyone, except perhaps themselves.

If the reports are correct, then she is a vile, abusive criminal.

Personally, I think she will either do a deal with the FBI and turn on everyone or will 'commit suicide' in her cell