(Continued)

The Evolution of Utter Submission

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In The Collector, Miranda initially fights her captor and tries to resist via begging, threatening Frederick, and starving herself. However, when her situation becomes clear and she realizes that she cannot escape, she eventually gets used to her captivity and at times even looks forward to seeing Frederick. He did not take pains to brainwash her, but he does rely on a technique long known to sadists engaged in a relationship with submissive partners: gestures of kindness mixed with the torture can often win the slave's affection, even adoration.

Some mental health experts might view this experience as classic Stockholm Syndrome, which occurs under unusual conditions of severe stress in captivity, especially where there's torture and uncertainty about the outcome. The captive appears to become involved to some degree with his or her captor, even to the point in some cases of consenting to the abuse and captivity. That person may express feelings of sympathy and affection in a way that surprises outsiders and makes them wonder just how abused the person really was, but the captive's confusing response derives from the intensity of the situational and the malleability of the human psyche. Unless one has been in this situation, it's difficult to judge it fairly from the outside. What appears to occur is that the person "freezes" in defense and then yields as a way to appease the captor, which may then lessen the abuse and even curry some favor. If the captor then looks to the captive's basic needs, the captive may feel grateful and become more susceptible to suggestion.

In the case of a female sex slave with a male captor, the captor's fantasies dominate. He isolates the girl, who's generally a submissive type of person, and makes her feel as if she has no one in the world except him. (Kach indicated that Hose had told her that no one was looking for her so she was on her own a frightening possibility for a fourteen-year-old who has no way to support herself.) The captive has little choice but to acquiesce and do what the captor demands. Her capitulation makes him feel more manly, so he continues it because outside this relationship he has a poor sense of himself. (Hose, a middle-aged man, was still living with his parents, so it's likely he felt inadequate.)

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