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.

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

@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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

She was living a life of luxury in hiding.

That's another thing I wonder about. She knew the FBI were going to go after Epstein's partners in crime, according to the report I saw on TV. Why on earth did she decide to stay in the US? Why not disappear into Antigua or wherever rich people hide out these days? It seems remarkably stupid for a supposedly intelligent woman.

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.

@Bluebell1995

I was wondering about her motivations. Reading on Wikipedia , her brother was in a serious accident a few days before she was born and was in a coma for years before he died.

I wonder how much that would have affected her very early years. She was also an anorexic toddler.

Not excusing her at all, but obviously trauma in childhood has long term ramifications in some people.

I had an abusive and emotionally traumatic childhood, as did my brother. Neither of us are sex offenders or paedophiles, nor do we facilitate them in committing offences. Plenty of people have adverse or traumatic childhoods but manage to go on and lead meaningful lives.

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

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.

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.

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.

This speculation is very interesting but do you think we will ever actually know? Won’t she plead guilty to a lesser charge and be held somewhere remote (a la Martha Stewart who was supposedly deliberately sent somewhere the press couldn’t reach) and then disappear on release (probably with a fat cheque from the rich men she didn’t grass on)?

Just as PA "saw everyone as a servant", so did GM. They were silly, expendable servant girls who would do what their told.

She may even have believed she was giving them an opportunity, after all how many trailer park girls get to meet a real prince?

I think the main thing to hold onto is that whatever GM’s motivation (which we’ll more than likely never know) she enjoyed what she did.

Even in the most very famous cases of female criminals (Myra Hindley, Rose West) there is a man very closely involved.

I was just thinking about this today. Myra Hindley was the one who would entice the children, being a woman she was less suspicious and children being naturally trusting of a "kind woman"....

Same kind of MO of Ghislaine Maxwell..... befriend vulnerable girls in order to deliver them and to satisfy Jeffrey Epstein.

UGH

I think the thing about her childhood that is relevant is that she learned from an early age to appease a powerful and abusive man. She has both an enormous sense of entitlement and very low self esteem. She was afraid that Epstein would abandon her. He dumped her and she still spent her life pandering to his every need.

I have also read this article about her in Tatler (it is long). She really knew absolutely everyone.

www.tatler.com/article/where-on-earth-is-ghislaine-maxwell

@feelingverylazytoday

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.

Medically speaking it’s called failure to thrive and isn’t a form of fussy eating.

I think the likelihood is her own childhood is the reason but many children have abusive, dysfunctional formative years and are able to grow into normal adults.

I knew an intelligent, articulate attractive lady who got married.
Her husband was so toxic that all three of their children were taken into care and then adopted.
She divorced that man and married one who her beat up such that she had an emergency hysterectomy at 33.
She divorced him and went back to the first one.
I last saw her ten years after that, covered in bruises telling me how happy they were.
It turned out her father was an abuser too.

Ghislane is rich but she is very very damaged

Anorexia just means a person won't eat, AFAIK? I think it can manifest for a lot of different reasons in different age groups.

@FannyCann

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."

Sounds like Laura might be running damage control for PA using a 'friendship' with Maxwell as a proxy. Better to be thought of as posh and dumb than a perv type of thing.

Sounds like Laura might be running damage control for PA using a 'friendship' with Maxwell as a proxy. Better to be thought of as posh and dumb than a perv type of thing.

Absolutely! This is straight out of the Malcolm Tucker spin bible.

A reputation for stupidity is better than a reputation as child-rapist.

Of course, PA is so egotistical and so entitled he even undermines his own positive PR.

It's tailored to the audience too isn't it? Play up an abused manipulated woman angle on Maxwell for the Guardian readers, and inform the Telegraph that the upper-crust white man isn't as bad as everyone's making out.