Ghislaine Maxwell

[RadandMad]

Not GC, but I'd be interested to hear what you think motivated GM to do the stuff she did. I mean she's rich, beautiful, Oxbridge educated, so what on earth did Epstein have to offer her? If she was simply in love with him, how did that work given he evidently preferred young girls to her. I'm intrigued by the psychology at work here.

She was groomed by her own terrible father to please men. With GM you are looking at a deeply traumatised individual. This does not excuse her acts however

This. It doesn't excuse her actions, but she is someone who was seriously fucked up as a child. seeing her described as anorexic as a toddler is worrying

I truly hate this pleading in mitigation. Is there any woman, no matter how bad, this hand wringing would not be trotted out for. It's pathetic.

I was wondering this myself.

Whatever it is, I'm sure the defence team will broadcast it sooner or later.

What is an 'anorexic toddler'?
One of my kids more or less refused to eat, it's called being a very fussy eater and isn't that unusual.
She's a predator, females can be predatory off their own bat, no matter how hard you all try and look for excuses and blame it on men.

I have been interested in the same question OP. I looked into her background to see what could have motivated her, here's what I wondered...

She was one of nine kids but was the youngest and the favourite child of her dad, apparently they were very close.

He was a very wealthy media mogul and she grew up in what one news outlet called "unimaginable luxury."

He committed suicide in 1991(either that or he fell off his boat and drowned, but suicide is suspected.) It is speculated he possibly committee suicide because he was engaging in pension fraud to fund his own lifestyle, basically dipping into employees' pension pots and had spent $20 million of it.

Upon his death, Ghislaine was devastated and also she went from having unlimited cash to having to exist on trust fund cash of $100,000 per year.

A friend said she 'worshipped domineering, wealthy men' (perhaps men like her dad). Perhaps she was trying to find a father replacement. Jeffrey Epstein was so wealthy he was able to give her the lifestyle she wanted, and in return she gave him society connections, apparently he was socially awkward and shy.

They had a 3 year long relationship and she wanted him to marry her but he refused. Their relationship turned into something more like a friendship eventually.

I wonder if the trauma of her father's death and the loss of access to the old lifestyle she led, had her intent on finding someone to replace him, and she thought Jeffrey was that person, and she was willing to hang on to him no matter what, because he was able to keep her in the lifestyle she had been accustomed to, when she was younger.

This is me playing armchair psychologist.

I think she was traumatised but I also think she's a vile person. Apparently she absolutely treated the abused young women like something she found on her shoe. Maybe through jealousy that they had something Epstein wanted (yuck) but she held out hope for a long time that he would marry her. So perhaps that's why she gave him what he wanted.

So in conclusion, I believe she was motivated by money and by trauma over the loss of her father and resources when she was younger, and would do anything to hang on to Jeffrey Epstein. Maybe she's a sadist, too. That's what Virginia Guiffre said, she behaved sadistically towards the young women they ensnared, the maximum pain she could inflict.

Bear in mind some of this info about her background is reported in places like the Daily Mail so not sure how reliable it is.

Some people don't seem to care about anyone else, or don't really think of other people as real.

The way the system works means that psychopaths are more likely to rise to the top. And unfortunately some people do seem to be incapable of empathy with people who are not like themselves. I presume she wasn't given a good moral grounding in her childhood but wouldn't that be nearly every criminal's excuse?

She's a predator, females can be predatory off their own bat, no matter how hard you all try and look for excuses and blame it on men.

I get that women can be predatory too, but what I don't understand about GM was what was in it for her. It was him getting the sexual gratification, not her. She was more a procurer than a predator, it seems.

Bit of background from the Times.
Agree with wildone84
She lost her domineering wealthy father and looked for a replacement.
All the children were traumatised by Maxwell.

The daddy’s girl with a monstrous legacy

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-daddys-girl-with-a-monstrous-legacy-f2z2wsjbh

She’s a psychopath who thinks people not on the same social level as her are worthy of consideration.

We don’t know she wasn’t also getting sexual gratification. She is supposed to have taken part in threesomes.

I watched the documentary on Netflix about Epstein and the main thing I took away from it was that all the people who were abusing and manipulating the young girls and women just didn't see them as human, they were just bodies to be exploited.

Thats why Prince Andrew feels no remorse, thats why current and previous US presidents can act like its nothing to do with them, thats why GM can comfortably do what she did and only care that she got caught.

There were a lot of people involved, I don't think we'll ever fully know how high and how wide the it goes (and I'm sure its still going on). I don't think the survivors will ever see justice.

Do you have a share token for that article?

As mentioned above she seemed in part attracted to men who behaved as her father did. So in Epstein she found a mutually beneficial relationship. The other parts of the equation being money and power - she had expectations of being extremely wealthy and part of a particular social set but that fell apart somewhat after Maxwell Snr died.

I did read somewhere that part of the trafficking ring was about kompromat/blackmail - hence the cameras everywhere. I wouldn't like to guess at whether she actually got any sexual gratification from her involvement because so much abuse is about power and control anyway.

She's obviously someone with no moral centre and a thirst for money and power - a perfect storm of ingredients and meeting a like mind in Epstein exacerbated that. Whether she was like that innately, learned it from her father or a bit of both I don't think we'll ever know.

There is no such thing as 'an anorexic toddler'. The way this is framed is that she was traumatised by the death of her brother. Except she was only a few days old when he died. She had no concept of who he was and would not have by the time she became 'anorexic'.

In a family which was poor and working class we'd be doing other investigations and asking questions about why a child of that age was 'anorexic' if it was more than merely being a fussy child.

But because its the family of such a rich and influencial man its sanitised to put emphasis on a 2 year old rather examine what's going on in the family as a whole.

And since her father is now widely disliked due to the effects of the collapse of his empire, she now gets something of a free pass because no one looked at this when they should.

Her father never had to take responsibility for his actions. That was part of the status and money. Why would she be any different?

The continuing wording to frame her as anorexic only serves to continue the blindness to behaviour that wouldn't be acceptable in other social classes. It continues to sanitise the abuses of the ultra rich.

Being female doesn't exclude you from being sexually aroused by abusing others.

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

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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.

@Kantastic

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.

If I was a suspicious sort I'd think it was all about trying to paint her in the least worst light possible.

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.

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

@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.

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."

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.

Yes, I was talking to DH about exactly that last night. Has there ever been a well known case of a female abuser working on her own? They always seem to be sidekicks to the men.