Murder is a daily occurrence in Jamaica, and as we grapple with finding the root causes and solutions, the question is how much attention has been paid to the thesis that sex and murder have been inextricably linked over history. The Internet has further encouraged the linkage between murder and sex through various sites and Net links on the subject.

One page reads: Sex and Murder (sexandmurder.com):

The official home pages for Sex and Murder: the magazine of extreme horror, dark fiction, and splatterpunk. "Welcome to Sex and Murder, a magazine of extreme horror, dark fiction, to provide a place for writers whose work is too dark for the mainstream and showcase their talent, while providing readers with the very best fiction around. There aren't many magazines that go in for extreme horror, or splatterpunk. The general reason that's usually given is that there's no market for it. The stuff is just not palatable to the mainstream audience.

The writer disagrees with this notion as horror movies have steadily become more and more extreme in their depictions of violence and gore, and their audiences have come back time and time again begging for more. So, the audience is there, they're just not being reached."

Another site offers murder videos - "One of the world's largest video sites, serving the best videos, funniest movies and clips." (www.metacafe.com/tags/murder) In an environment of crime and violence home videos influence violence, at home and in the wider society. As our society becomes polarised in political factions and social gangs, it is chilling to hear one side shout its approval when a young gangster on 'our' side blows out the brains of two gangsters on 'their' side."

Gangster sex is real and the stories are chilling. In a talk with a gangster who solicits sex for a living, he reveals, "Sex is easy to get from men who have money because they always want a young guy like me ... . Once you agree to sex, you can use your gangster style to blackmail him for money as he would never want his wife to find out ... . If he pulls a gun, you have to beat him to the draw and dus' him out ... . Dead man tell no tales ... ."

Psychology of sex/murder

What is the psychology of murder and sex? Virginia Adams, writing in Time, a treasured essay dated from April 24, 1972, (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/) posits that for "all its sinister drama, the Mafia's bloodletting accounts for only an insignificant fraction of the killings that occur every year in the US - the toll for homicide continues to rise at alarming figures", as is the case in Jamaica where the influence of US media is strong.

Psychoanalysts have long informed that the trend in murder and sex is rooted in the glorification of violence and death. According to Adams, following Sartre, many young people believe that "violence is man re-creating himself," and that savagery is a kind of purifying force bearing the promise of redemption. The arts have always used murder as a central theme. An example is the Shakespearean stage, which was often littered with bodies by the fifth act.

Availability of firearms

Adams further posits, "The sheer availability of firearms is undoubtedly a stimulus to murder." Unlicensed guns are found almost daily by the police and it is well established that most murders are committed with unlicensed firearms and home-made shotguns. Some of the murders are committed with knives, through stabbings, and we have seen the increases in Jamaica, in particular among schoolchildren. As Princess Sita observed in Ramayana, the ancient Indian epic of non-violence: "The very bearing of weapons changeth the mind of those that carry them."

In day-to-day life, murders take place in a flash, impulsively out of anger in response to an insult or a minor quarrel over money, love or sex. Adams cited that many murders are committed by people who may be overconforming, which may help to explain their extreme violence when their rebellious impulses finally break out. Often the killer does not intend to kill, as in at least 20 of the cases, the act of murder may be committed in self-defence.

Indirect murder

Bound up in the matter of sex and the emotional burden it carries when there is a strong relationship, murder can take place indirectly in what is called psychic homicide. This happens when one partner is disappointed in the relationship, feels frustrated and loses hope to the extent that he or she, consciously or unconsciously, commits suicide. This may be fuelled by limited attempts at communication, leading to feelings of rejection and a lack of understanding by the partner who resorts to murder.

Power play

It is also a way of getting attention and feeling powerful. After rape and torture of a victim in a sex crime, the attacker, who is also a victim of social deprivation, will resort to murdering the victim, usually when carrying a gun, which gives all the power. They may kill the victim in one place and remove the corpse to another location where the body may not be found for several days or weeks. He/she becomes an anonymous murderer or a serial killer. With this kind of anarchic murder in the air, the killer gets further pleasure from watching the discovery of the body and the murder reported in the media.

Frustration

Frustration leads to aggressive behaviour. A person may become frustrated because of hopelessness, as a result of lack of employment, loss of a loved one, lack of appreciation by the family, which leads to feelings of physical, social or intellectual inferiority. The socialising period helps shape a person's outlook later in life. Physical and psychological abuse inflicted during childhood leads to frustration and aggression. This explains why some mothers are in denial and claim that the son is a 'good boy' when he is held for murder. Parents fail to make the connection between aggressive behaviour and rigid and abusive child-rearing practices.

According to Adams, sometimes the frustration that fires aggression is highly impersonal. Citing Yale psychoanalyst Robert Jay Lifton, he links at least some violence to general frustration, anger and anxiety over countless "little deaths" - the failure of national morality, the breakdown of family life and feelings of alienation in a mobile population. Boredom, too, drives people to look for meaning in nihilistic violence, to accept the philosophy, "I kill, therefore I am."

The invasion of sex-murder scenes in cinematography and videos is influencing a national tolerance for murder, with attraction to real-life brutality, as it occurs. Just as an individual must become aware of his problems before they can be solved, the nation, too, will have to acknowledge its unhealthy fascination with murder as the first step toward coming to terms with it. (Virginia Adams)

Definition of Splatterpunk: describes a subgenre of horror fiction distinguished by its graphic depiction of violence.

Send feedback/questions to Heather Little-White, PhD, at: heatherl@cwjamaica.com