I just watched the movie My Friend Dahmer, which is based on the book My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf, his high school classmate and friend. To be honest, I feel bad for this guy.
For Jeffrey Dahmer, murdering was the means to an end, not the end itself. He didn't necessarily enjoy killing. What he wanted was quenching his thirst in love and finding his ideal type of lover — a tall and slender male, unconscious, dead and being with him forever.
The realization of being homosexual already devastated young Jeff, back in the 1960s, when the society was very unforgiving to the LGBTQ.
Even more so when it occurred to him that he not only fantasized male sexual partners, but also fantasized unconscious and dead males. Obviously, he knew such fantasies were abnormal and sick, from the very beginning. He lashed out his shame and frustration by beating the trees. As he grew older, his sexual fantasies intensified, just like every other teen. What made him different was his love for unconscious males’ bodies — necrophilic fantasies.
He hated such necrophilic fantasies. He wanted to get them out of his mind. But as we all know, you can't really control what is popping up in your mind.
He resorted to alcohol, hoping to seek momentary peace. Alcohol fucked up his brain, academic performance, human relationships and physical health, but for Jeff it wasn't a bad price to pay in exchange for eliminating the sickening necrophilic fantasies.
Later, people he had been close to, and people he was supposed to be close to, left him one by one. His mother, his father, his brother and his high school friends. He was all alone in the house. He hated being left alone, despite all the social awkwardness. One crucial reason was that his abysmal sexual fantasies might consume him and eat him alive.
Soon, those sickening necrophilic fantasies started to take the better of him. Even if he could manage to resist them, he couldn't, after a certain point. Not anymore.
Meanwhile, his parents were going through an ugly divorce, trapped in those proceedings. The teachers turned a blind eye on him. When he was hitting the trees, coming back with his roadkill preys, walking in the hallways clearly drunk and high, behaving in a bizarre way, showing no interest in schoolwork, and endlessly consuming alcohol, no counselor was there to help him, no adult even spoke to him about it.
That's how he came to do what he did. His deeds demonstrated abominable cruelty. He had put 17 families in lifelong miseries.
He was outspoken and straightforward in each interview and interrogation — how and why he killed each of his victim, dismembered the bodies and dissolved the parts. He said he had real friendship in high school. Derf, as his high school friend, also mentioned that high school had to be Jeff's happiest years in his life. He showed his remorse in court. He decided to be cremated after death, no tombstone, no grave, no funeral. He said he simply wanted to be “wiped out.”
Was he absolutely irredeemable? I doubt. Had any adults intervened, he might not turn into the serial killer and cannibal; the victims’ lives might be spared. But his life was also a tragedy. His brain was wired in a way incompatible with the existing society. Even if adults had intervened, I highly doubt if he would ever possibly live a normal and happy life. His fate was decided from the moment his sexual fantasies emerged.
While we are appalled by what Dahmer had done decades ago, there may be closeted pedophiles and necrophiles lurking among us. They may deserve hatred, but they deserve help even more. There should be a way they can open up without fear and shame, and let the professionals help them survive.
HD
