One of the problems with studies that examine the effects of violent imagery is that they typically use mentally healthy psychology students. If you want to do a meaningful study, show movies like Body Double and Copycat to a group of sexual psychopaths the day before you release them.

Only the individual can decide what level of risk she can tolerate and what level of freedom she's willing to sacrifice for the sake of safety.

Consider surgeons and their work. It's unthinkable to put your hands in the warm blood of another human's gut. Even with rubber gloves on. Who'd want to do that? But surgeons get over it.

One of the biggest mistakes celebrities make is being overly friendly. They allow photo shoots in their homes, even their bedrooms and bathrooms; they send fans autographed pictures. All that serves to support viewers with a delusional relationship with the celebrity.

Killers seldom meet the legal standard for insanity, which is quite different from the way most people use the word every day. Killers may be disturbed, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they can't tell right from wrong or are compelled to maim or murder.

One of the few times I'm hit emotionally is when I listen to the tapes sadists make of torturing their victims. There the person is currently suffering, you can hear them suffer, and that calls out for an empathic response. But when they're dead, when they're no longer suffering, when it's over, it's hard to feel empathetic for the corpse.

With rare exceptions, people are responsible for what they do.