Sociopath alert: Darren Sharper

This blog has stated numerous times that people generally don't go on about how caring and decent they are unless they aren't.

For instance, sociopathic prison inmates looking for pen pals will inevitably go on about what warm-hearted, considerate, loving people they are. (These self-descriptions never seem to jibe with the crimes that they are in for.)

Bernie Madoff's old business website described how personal integrity was the key to his business.

We were given another wonderful example of this this past week in the person of Darren Sharper, former NFL star, a vocal women's right advocate. He has been quoted as saying:

My daughter makes (me) mindful of how women are treated, undervalued and exploited, which is why I felt compelled to take advantage of this opportunity to speak up about domestic violence. 

Sharper was also active in A Call to Men, a national organization dedicated to preventing violence against women. 

Sharper is now under investigation for eleven druggings and seven rapes in four states. Evidently his modus operandi was to spike a woman's drink with a date rape drug, then rape her. 

Had Sharper merely been accused of being a serial rapist, it would be probable that he was a sociopath. Had it been known that he would initially be friendly to these women, and charm them, then surreptitiously drug them and rape them, it would be all but certain. 

That he actually was an active proponent of women's rights at the same time leaves absolutely no doubt. 

Most people would react to this story by thinking, "Wow, what a hypocrite! A guy who campaigns for women's rights then turns around and rapes them? What a scumbag!"

What most fail to realize is that a sociopathic serial rapist is far more likely than your average guy to pay lip service to stopping violence against women.

What better subterfuge for a rapist than to pretend to be a feminist? There are audible echoes of Bernie Madoff and all those prison pen pals here. 

The point of this post is not to name Sharper as a sociopath: that's a foregone conclusion. The point is merely to emphasize, once again, that whenever you hear someone advertise his good character, beware. 

Spoken like a sociopath

In February 2014 I pointed out that former NFL star Darren Sharper, who'd been accused of eleven druggings and seven rapes in four states, was also active in A Call to Men, an organization dedicated to preventing violence against women.

(Note the pink ribbon -- raising awareness of breast cancer -- on Sharper's lapel.)

The point of the post wasn't that it was surprising that a guy active in that organization would turn out to be guilty of sexual assault. It was that you should actually expect a sociopathic serial rapist to do something like that. What better cover for being a rapist than to pose as an advocate for women? It's not as if a sociopath is going to be bothered by his own hypocrisy.

It was a little like when Ted Bundy worked at that suicide prevention hotline.

Since then, Sharper has been convicted. (And it seems likely that the women who came forward represent only a fraction of the women Sharper assaulted.)

Yesterday, he was sentenced in California for the two druggings and two rapes he committed there.

What I found most striking about the AP article was what Sharper said to the judge in Louisiana when he was being sentenced there: that he "wanted to apologize a thousand times."

There's something peculiarly sociopathic about being so emphatic in one's phoniness.