I think people are inherently self-aggrandizing, pleasureseeking, unempathetic, self-serving, greedy and lustful.

I do think a lot of sexual violence stems from experiences in childhood or at puberty. Some people become sadistic after suffering early abuse at the hands of parents, relatives or friends. But for others, the seed is planted in the formative years by the conflation of images of violence with those of sexual arousal. Magazines, TV shows and, especially, slasher movies are masters at doing this.

I think people are inherently self-aggrandizing, pleasureseeking, unempathetic, self-serving, greedy and lustful.

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.

Psychiatrists are usually very well imbued with the clinical role, where helping the sick person is the goal. And that's quite incompatible with the truthseeking role. That's probably true of the other fields, too, but maybe more so of the personalities that gravitate toward psychiatry. They tend to care about people and wish to be helpful.

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.

Celebrity stalkers also are not necessarily fixated on one person as the public thinks. Rather, they tend to switch targets, going from, say, an athlete to an actor to a politician.