Did Gilberto Valle really want to kidnap, rape and barbecue his wife and her friends? Or was the “Cannibal Cop” really just indulging his severely twisted imagination, with no intention of acting on any of this?
Much of the evidence in the ongoing trial comes from transcripts of Valle’s chats with Dale Bolinger, a British nurse he met at an online fetish forum. Bolinger encouraged Valle’s plans by telling the cop he had recipes for human flesh and writing that “The meat isn’t quite like pork, but very meaty . . . I’ve eaten a black woman and a white person.”
“None of this is real. It is all fantasy,” Bolinger now insists. I don’t know about you, but that hardly makes me feel much better.
And it shouldn’t, says Christine Rosen, who writes on the social and cultural impact of technology for the New Atlantis — and expects to see more of these cases in the future.
“These are not,” she cautions, “the ‘thought crimes’ envisioned by dystopian science fiction writers of the past.” Rather, she says, “They are the mediated pre-crimes of the future, and they pose unique challenges to the criminal-justice system.”
Rosen worries that we’re too quick to assume that if bizarre behavior takes place online, it must be mere fantasy. In fact, the Islamist plotting, say, an Empire State Building attack who finds a bombmaker in a chat room is still plenty real.
As she notes, “The distinction between being ‘online’ and ‘offline’ has disappeared; the ethics of right and wrong behavior have not.Plotting to murder your wife is wrong regardless of whether it occurs online, on the telephone, or in person.”
But technology makes things a lot easier. Dan Akst, the author of “We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess,” says the Web is “great at bringing together buyers and sellers — whether they are dealers in antique typewriters or purveyors of perverse fantasies.”
On those fantasies, Akst sees two ways to look at the impact of technology: “It’s possible that having an outlet for something means you don’t engage in the behavior for real.” Thus, maybe “playing violent video games gives you a cathartic outlet and you don’t engage in violence.”
But the other possibility — which seems more likely — is that “indulging in these fantasies actually encourages you to act on them.” After all, “in many respects technology is disinhibiting.”
Akst explains, “If you were on a farm in the middle of nowhere with no Internet access, there would be nowhere to fan the flames.” Just as people are more likely to make absurd purchases on eBay at 2 a.m., so they’re also more likely to entertain some sick desires when their gratification can be both immediate and anonymous.
But it’s not just technology; our culture now encourages people to “explore” these more interesting sides of their imagination. A New York Times article last week described growing interest in and acceptance of “kinky” behaviors.
In celebratory tones, the piece described the club Paddles: “Tucked away in one room, a man and woman were sharing fire play, which involved accelerant placed on strategic points of the woman’s body and set ablaze in short, dramatic bursts. In another area, decorated to look like a dungeon, a middle-aged man was lashing a middle-aged woman’s bare back with a single tail whip.”
No, none of this was invented yesterday, but the Times piece is probably right to credit the “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy for the growing mainstream recognition of such behaviors and fantasies.
Many have noted that the advent of the e-book means you can order “Fifty Shades” without anyone having to know what you’re reading. But the e-book fantasies and a few Google searches lead you to chat rooms and “specialty” dating sites.
And next thing you know, you’ve found Dale Bolinger.