TW! To not understand the people, mostly women, who sent Ian Watkins letters and money?

[DuvetsFTW]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-49249133.amp

The article is from 2019, but relevant given recent events.

I cannot believe that hundreds of people, mostly women, were allegedly writing letters to Ian Watkins in prison and even sending him money!!! To me, it’s terrifying that these people walk discreetly amongst us. If they’ll help this man, what else will they do? Where is the bar to them?

I’d be interested in hearing about the psychology of all this as I just can’t understand it!

Thanks. The Wiki on it is interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybristophilia

I’d like to think I would listen, yes.

However, whilst there may be reasons for this behaviour, I don’t think there’s many excuses I’d accept.

Because they’re worthless wastes of oxygen too. Glad that piece of shit got what he deserved.

I knew a woman who married a man on death row from a different country she was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Im not saying everyone with bipolar acts like this but I expect the majority are mentally unwell in one way or another

I can sooner put myself in a serial killers shoes than the groupies they manage to inspire, honestly baffled.

Define better? If you mean criminal, then the ratio of male to female prisoners is stark.

Same.

Actually very common for women to do this, as stated by pp above. Maybe related to some kind of personality disorder?

A very strange pastime to partake in.

I think it's really worrying that people do this. I wonder about whether such contact should be followed up on and help offered (as well as, perhaps, it coming up in back ground checks. It seems like a sign they are unfit for quite a number of roles in society.

I can only hope the people sending him money and love letters are deluded ignorant fools and didn’t read the judge’s transcript on sentencing him and the 2 women, rather than thinking what he/they did was ok.
He/they were abhorrent.
The judges, police, prison officers, physiatrists, solicitors dealing with these people deserve a medal for what they have to deal with and try to cope with mentally when they get home.

Maybe they’re emotionally stunted, can’t deal with a relationship with someone free to come and go and make their own choices?

A possible motive could be the desire to act out 'this man would be dangerous to anyone except me, because I am super special'. Btw I recently saw a video about the serial killer Dr Harold Shipman, where a journalist had made a long study of the letters written by these women. He used his knowledge to send letters to killers, pretending to be such a woman, in order to get more details from the killers about their crimes. Apparently he was quite successful.

Yes same with Chris Watts. Just do not understand it.

the cons know what to say to butter these women up.

They absolutely do. You only have to look at some of the profiles on Write a Prisoner. They’re very good at making you think life dealt them a poor hand, they made bad decisions, they’re full of remorse etc etc. Then when you see what crimes they’ve committed… horrific. Scary to think so many women fall for it.

It's bizarre. Isn't it something like a fantasy life, the criminal is their 'safe' person, he'll always be there, in jail, he'll never leave them, will never cheat. And they get to act out all this fantasy, a life with a 'bad boy', when actually they're never in danger, and will never have to actually live with him. And he's so 'complicated', 'different', not like others and loves only them. Also that chick lit trope good boys are saving the world, bad ones - will burn the whole world down to save me or some such.

But anyway, I don't understand these 'groupies' and don't want to. This sick fuck raped kids, even babies. Glad he's dead. And his groupies are not as bad as him, but sick and twisted too.

Wasn't there quite recently that American guy with a tattooed face, shared name with Deadpool character. Supposedly very 'handsome' to a lot o of women. He murdered a woman, very horribly. And had a legion of female fans, campaigning for his release, insisting he's innocent, some even went to say 'that ugly bitch deserved it and who cares about her'. Insane.

A surprising number of people don’t actually think crimes of a sexual nature are a problem unless it happens to them, or their direct family members. So yeah, not a huge surprise.

Women convicted of sexual offences against children, excluding those who are young women involved in relationships with teenagers, (I am referring to women who sexually abuse very young children including their own) almost always do it as part of a relationship where their male partner wants them to and the women are using the children to keep the attention and admiration of a man (or men for financial gain online).

Exceptions are drug related offences (in exchange for crack / heroin) and actual attraction to children (vanishingly rare).

There is a bigger issue than we like to admit of women who pander to men and put them before everything else.

(I work snd study in this field not just talking out my arse btw)

I was reading an article about Gaza that mentioned that the guy who killed Yitzhak Rabin (thus derailing the Oslo Accord) in the mid 1990s has managed to get married and have a child despite having been in solitary confinement for most of the last 30 years

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yigal_Amir

Take a look at the statistics. Women are much less likely to be paedophiles than men.

Thank you for sharing your expertise. I’d love to hear more about this! Do you have any further insights or recommended reading?

Humanity has a near infinite range of how and to what extent people are stupid, mentally unwell, vulnerable, traumatised and so on.

Once you understand that, pretty much no behaviour will surprise you.

I used to work in a men's prison, the inmates told me that many of their partners liked the fact that they knew where they were.

I don't think people are taking into consideration the fact that IW was a successful rock star with thousands of devoted fans before all this started. There is bound to be a proportion of these people who still believe he is innocent, who still listens to his music and - yes - still fancy him! So no it doesn't suprise me in the slightest that he had multiple fans writing to him. He wasn't exactly Joe bloggs from the local estate.

Even Jeffrey Dahmer had women sending him love letters. Despite being gay AND a cannibal 😮.