George Sodini had a guru—not a murder-and-mayhem guru, but a love-and-romance guru.
The clues are in the videos Sodini posted to YouTube. In the first video Sodini is showing us—or whoever the video was made for—around his two-bedroom ranch-style home. If you look at the books on his coffee table, which Sodini takes a moment to point out, one is titled Date Young Women: For Men Over 35. Sodini says “we’re all familiar with” the books. Date Young Women: For Men Over 35—has there ever been a creepier title?—was written by R. Don Steele, a figure in the “seduction community,” and was published by “Steel Balls Press.” R. Don Steele also maintains a website, SteelBalls.com, where he sells his books. SteelBalls.com. A quick click through to SteelBalls.com makes it clear that Steele traffics in—and profits from—instilling false hopes in losers like George Sodini. (“Immediately improve your success with women! Everything is 100% guaranteed money back.”)
In the other video Sodini says, “RDS says I have 15 more years to be successful,” and then mentions “forgiveness exercises, per Hay.” That would nutty new age lifestyle guru Louise Hay, whose books are recommended at SteelBalls.com. So it seems pretty clear Sodini was following Steele’s advice. And these video were meant to be viewed by other guys who had a joined an online support group for guys following Steele’s advice on dating younger women. When Sodini goes into his extra bedroom he says that the tapes and CDs are things “I bought since joining the list.” He makes several references to how “she”—the woman he will presumably meet following Steele’s directions—is going to be impressed by things in his house.
“Somewhere there is a whole group of these guys doing exercises and getting ready for young women,” observes a Slog reader, a recovering journalist, who has been digging into this all morning.
Sodini clearly felt that he was entitled not just to sex and a romantic relationship, but to sex and a romantic relationship with a much younger woman. And he was following the advice of a love-and-romance guru who encouraged him to hold on to that belief and filled him with false hopes. Not normally a problem, I supposed. But Sodini wasn’t just another socially maladapted schlub furious with the world—and with women—for denying him all the 22-year-old ass he felt he deserved. He was a nut. And he couldn’t understand why, if he was doing everything right, he wasn’t finding the success that was Steele guaranteed him. He was employed, dressed nicely, in good shape—he even bought a matching sofa set. (“Couch and chair—they match, the woman will really be impressed.”) But none of it worked—and his failure couldn’t have been his own fault, since he was doing everything right, doing it all by the book. Unfortunately the book was Date Young Women: For Men Over 35. Someone needed to get Sodini a book that explained that settling down requires settling for and that young women are usually interested in young men and that we can’t always have what we want and that there were probably women out there who would date him—maybe women closer to his own age—but only if he got his shit together and stopped obsessing about college-age women.
I am, of course, not suggesting that R. Don Steele’s book made Sodini go shoot up that aerobics class. But it’s clear that Steele was not the guru Sodini needed.
One particularly chilling detail from Sodini’s online diary was his seething resentment for a neighbor. He had seen an attractive young woman leaving his neighbor’s house and was absolutely furious that his neighbor was sleeping with the kind of hot young girl that Sodini himself wanted but could never get. The girl was his neighbor’s daughter.
R. Don Steele offers one-on-one coaching sessions with “team members [who] demonstrate that they are following the Steel Balls Principles.” I wonder if Sodini ever had a private session with Steele.
More in NEWS
Local (and not-so-local) news from your favorite writers.
As I alluded to before; he’s the Michael Douglas character from Falling Down. Everything is perfect, everything is as it should be, except his romantic life. Except in FD, it was the character’s wife that didn’t “fit” into the “perfect” life he made; in this case it was the imaginary young woman who never materialized that ruined the illusion.
“You mean I’m the bad guy?”
I’m the worst armchair psychologist in the world.
Wow, it’s the Tom Cruise character (“Seduce And Destroy”) from Magnolia in real life.
I’m surprised there’s not a framed photo of Drew Peterson on the wall behind Sodini in that YouTube clip.
Well now we know how he can safely make that guarantee.
“traffics in – and prophets from…”
Is that a play on words, describing a “guru?”
Or just a spell-check escapee?
Sigh… the danger of homonyms.
You know… it just occurs to me that every so often some nutjob does something nutty and awful and we all go, “Oh, this nutjob is emblematic of a more serious problem in our society.” Then we anatomize his or her nuttiness in excruciating detail and pretend we’re engaged in something other than prurient voyeurism. And whatever, fine, knock yourself out.
But really? Contrary to what some would have us believe (keshmeshi, I’m looking at you), this exact kind of mass murder is not — and will not become — a widespread social problem. Three people were murdered, and that’s profoundly fucked up. But the blame doesn’t fall on sex gurus or porn or the media. It falls on a nutjob, being a nutjob. If it wasn’t sex gurus that set him off it would’ve been Jews or black people or the barking dog next door. We live in a confusing world that makes a lot of demands on us, and stupid high strung people with a screw loose will sometimes parse all that confusing input in such a way that the pieces spell out “murder.” It happens. It’s always happened. It will happen again. And there isn’t much we can do about it.
Want to save lives? Lobby for higher automobile safety standards. Picking this crazy fucker’s life apart isn’t going to do anyone any good.
@6: on the other hand, that doesn’t mean that the existence of a book called “Date Young Women: For Men Over 35” isn’t fucking creepy.
Kinda creepy that you’re following this guy so closely. I have no desire to get into the mind of ‘crazy’.
@Judah: Well said.
just gotta say it….this reminds me why i used to hate men.
“whatever happened to crazy?”
Look at this Google cache of R. Don Steel’s YouTube Channel that he’s since updated. You can’t watch the video, but you can see a screenshot of a former featured video of Steele teaching at one of his conferences.
Look at the guy in the white shirt. I swear, that looks JUST like Sodini. I think it IS Sodini. The video is now gone, deleted by Steele. I suspect he KNEW Sodini. In fact, he’s the first commenter on one of Sodini’s YouTube videos and he warns him not to try to contact the “Titanium Girls”–the sexy hired hands used by Steele at his conferences. Creepy indeed.
The next comment on Sodini’s house tour video is from whom I think is a Titanium Girl, giving tips on how to improve his home.
I think Steele was using these girls to trap these lonely men into keeping up with the books/DVDs/conferences and had to check the old men when they got out of line. He warns Sodini not to befriend one of the Titanium Girls on MySpace. Can’t yet find her MySpace page.
Obviously, I’ve lost my morning to this.
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:F0yw…
Confluence: “Kinda creepy that you’re following this guy so closely.”
For better or worse, Soldini is a poster child for carelessly bandied-about “help” published and hawked by clueless asshats. What worries me even more is those who help promote such bullshit. (Cue Oprah/Dr. Phil/like ilk.)
It’s just pathetic the wacko losers who make a living giving out relationship advice these days…
@6,
I’d like some evidence of where exactly I said that. But please, Judah, inform us on how women were obligated to fuck Sodini so he wouldn’t do something like this, or does that only apply to nerds?
It cuts off my link. Try this one: http://tinyurl.com/lsprlj
If that doesn’t work, google “r don steele tbabes” and then click the cached link for the first result.
Also, the T Babe that commented on Sodini’s video is a film student in LA. (via her YouTube channel)
Proof of the rule: douche baggery begets even greater douche baggery.
In high school my friend’s dad got a brand new beautiful young wife via Russia. I wonder why he didn’t try the mail order bride thing? He would probably have had no problem getting himself someone young and hot considering the competition- guys poorer, less attractive, and often older than himself. I still think something else was holding him back. I’ll bet he rejected out of hand the interest of women who were not all that great looking
This “pick up artist” subculture mentality seems to be the catalyst behind a lot of the ill concepts here. Sure, some of the superficial stuff works for a one night stand, but for these “true depressed losers” or whatever they call themselves, its a cruel joke. For not only can they not find true love, they can’t even get some action or find a date because they are so full of self denial/loathing. You can read all the books in the world and try all the techniques, but if one does lacks the spark of true confidence and self love its all for naught. These “pick up artist” con schemes not only dehumanize women, but they also demoralize what could someday be decent men.
OMG- a video by this Steele guy where he has a panel of young women assembled to answer questions on what young women want. OMG. Watch, at least the first couple minutes. Where did they find them?? How did they keep from laughing??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPN6kZhw2…
@16: Don’t know if it’s him or not.
Wow, this is blowing the lid off of, if you’ll forgive the expression, a can of creepy worms I vaguely knew existed but don’t really like to think about much. I think what makes it so gruesomely compelling is not the murdering but the underworld support system that, while not TO BLAME, exactly, clearly drove this freak over the edge.
Fact: men like younger women. Young women are pretty and sexy and delightful and sweet and fragrant and summery and ripe, delicious fruit. Fact: psychological control systems can be used by trained operatives to persuade impressionable young ladies into forming sexual and even emotional attachments to otherwise unsuitable gentlemen. But that doesn’t make it a good idea, or a likely one.
Men have been encouraged to see themselves falling in love with young girls since forever: ever seen an Audrey Hepburn movie? (Bogart, Astaire, Grant, always 20, 30, 40 years older than her). It is PERFECTLY NATURAL to find youth attractive. But when it filters down to these creepy books and DVDs, it’s not natural anymore, and it’s not nice, long before it turns to murder. “You’re gonna get laid, dude! You’re going to nail that hot girl next door you’ve been jerking off to!”
It’s actually pretty closely related to not just the mail-order bride business mentioned @18, but the sex-tourism business in Thailand and elsewhere.
Sometimes I’m ashamed to be a man. Sorry, ladies. If I’m smiling at you, I swear to god I’m not planning ways to fuck you. But I’m not sure you should believe me, even if I’m telling the truth.
Steele looks like an older Sodini. Creepy.
@21: Neither do I, but he certainly attended at least one. Steele’s comment on his house vid:
“Tbabes will comment here. I do not want them to sign up to be your friend if you have a myspace. We DO NOT commmunicate with TBABES after the workshop.”
It looks like he wanted specific advice from Titanium Babes about his house so uploaded this video so they could see it.
The next comment is from a user, kinkfink9:
“Very nice place! Critisms: take the computer out of the living room and put it in the spare bedroom. Get different couches when you can. Those are ugly. Try a dark brown leather couch. Nice dining table, but hide the placemats and try a center piece (something like a candle opera). Very clean for the most part, but do some spring cleaning and get rid of all the junk you don’t need anymore so there’s less clutter. And LOVE the punching bag! Becka’s right, you could be a badass type!
-Erin “
So these two Titanium Babes, Erin and Becka both teased this murderous jackass: “You could be a badass type!”
::shivers::
Oh dear.
I hope that won’t be me a coupla years down the line.
I think I don’t have an entitlement issue, but isn’t the sufferer always the last to know?
@13…the difference between this Steele guy and hawkers like Oprah and Dr. Phill is that the latter will tell you to get your ass into counseling, while Steele is not as likely to cut off his money train by cutting you lose–he’ll just keep trying to string you along to milk you a little more with false hope.
I’m not advocating murder, but why the hell didn’t Sodini shoot Steele at his next conference, since it was all of Steele’s BS that didn’t “work” for him? That makes more sense. Of course, I’m trying to impose reason on an irrational act.
@24 They said “candle opera”??? That’s my new favorite misspelling ever! 🙂
Have you never heard of Tom Leykis? This exactly the kind of thing he talks about, getting girls in their early 20s when you’re middle aged.
This is also the kind of thing that shows up in movies all the time. Some 40ish, 50ish, 60ish, maybe 70ish year old guy with a 20ish or 30ish year old woman. Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt anyone?
I’m sad to say that I can empathize with Sodini to some degree. Not to a scary degree, mind you, but I think I have some insight into his situation. Attractive, confident women aren’t just desirable, making it easy to feel bad if they’re not interested in you. They’re also what men may desire to *be*. For instance, Sodini was apparently attractive and fit, yet women didn’t flock to him. But a woman who is attractive and fit is immediately desirable, as he well knew.
So, I suspect he was tormented by both of these factors. And since no one else has brought this up, I thought I’d mention it.
@24: Candle Opera would make a great nu-metal bandname.
@6: Judah, nutjobs like this show the extremes of our society. I think our compulsion to analyze them is pretty healthy, because the extremes often illustrate ugly themes that run through our culture. Sodini is interesting because he embodies an attitude that, when shoved in our faces, we immediately recognize as repugnant.
But we don’t immediately recognize the repugnance of a movie starring 1000-year-old Jack Nicholson with his ear hair and crazy eyebrows and some 20-something hottie. And we do raise our eyebrows when Demi Moore marries a beefcake 16 years her junior, forever breaking Dan Savage’s heart (she married Ashton Kutcher, for the record).
I think it’s to our credit that when tragedies like this happen, we pause to examine the attitudes in our culture that tacitly sanction the craziness in the perpetrator. Not every culture has the capacity for self-criticism, and I think it’s a strength that we do.
Also, Fnarf: something tells me that when you smile at a women you’d even secretly like to have sex with, you probably don’t have the crazy eyes. I wouldn’t worry.
@ 24: “candle opera”? Really?
@31: Dan had the hots for Demi?
@15
Okay. Below is the quote, from the string “Thou Shalt Take Thy Bipolar Medication?” where you implied that there is “something wrong with a significant number of men,” that leads them to commit rape and murder.
On a related note, can you show me the part of my post on nerds where I said that women were obligated to fuck anyone? No, you can’t, because I didn’t say it and, as I’ve pointed out repeatedly, actually said the opposite. It’s funny that you’re all, “show me where I said that,” right before you accuse me, for the fourth or fifth time, of saying something I never said. Here’s what I actually said:
You notice the third and fourth sentences there? Try wiping the froth and spittle off your screen and taking a good long look at those two sentences. See how they actually say the opposite of what you keep accusing me of having said? In fact, if you go back and read the whole comment, you might find that it contains pretty much the same ideas as Dan’s post about how these murders might not have happened if prostitution was legal.
I posted a comment, you read what you wanted into it, and you haven’t been able to let it go since. Asshole.
@33: Yeah, yeah, I phrased it badly. But surely you remember the Ashton Kutcher phase of Savage Love?
@34: WELCOME TO THE INTERNET 😀
I have to dust my candle opera today. It sits right in the middle of my chillingly empty dining room.
AAARRgh! I need to stop following this story.
I think that this crime is the extreme end of a continuum of sexism and follows quite naturally from that sexism. A system of oppression that consistently treats women as inferior chattel can be taken to a logical conclusion: those bitches aren’t doing what I want so I’ll punish them. Does anyone disagree? If you do, I’ll respond when I leave work.
No #33, not for Demi
Judah – Kesh does seem to have something against, men, but your post does say that the solution (nerds treating women properly) to the problem (nerds treating women poorly) would be if women would have sex with them (which you do not think they should have to). You make women responsible for the men’s problem.
But certainly there is some other solution that doesn’t involve someone other than the nerd, culture, or nerd culture, or something? Couldn’t you have said any number of things.
But nerds, alas, will also want to have sex with who they want to have sex with; we can’t seem to do much about that either. But changing nerds (men) would seem to be just as viable an option as changing women.
I think some women get tired of hearing how they are at fault (in some way) for men’s craziness. It would probably rub me the wrong way, too.
Kesh, on the other hand, IS completely misreading your post. You clearly did not say that women should have sex with nerds, or that women are solely at fault for nerds inability to treat women properly. Kesh does seem to think men (or a significant number of men) hold ill will towards women. I have found this makes it difficult to have a rational exchange regarding this topic.
By the way, you, Judah, are one of my favorite posters here on Slog, and I’m glad you are back (or at least more active as of late).
A coffee table book like this is on par with a “No fat chicks” t-shirt or a “Moustache rides 5 cents” t-shirt. I am sure this book includes sage advice on buying drinks for random women in bars and the seven varieties of hair flips and what they mean. The appendix of the third edition even has some great tips for afternoons of revving the engine of your immaculately maintained Camaro in front of the high school.
These gurus would be quite short on business if more men realized the can enjoy some success if they ditch the theatrics *gasp* and have a conversation with a woman as if she is a normal human being.
Just two little words on this tragic episode – GUN CONTROL!
This “guru” is selling dangerous misogyny: that men are entitled to young, desirable women, who can be tricked into handing over their bodies and emotions.
That’s an entitlement similar to abusers and rapists’: and the rage engendered if the fuckdolls don’t behave precisely the way Mr. Entitlement likes, is an outcome of the sense of entitlement.
According to at least one of these “pickup artists” random women ought to put out to the dangerously deluded, or all women somehow earn their death and dismemberment:
“As I’ve written before, to men on the losing side of the desireability bell curve celibacy is walking death and anything is justified in avoiding that miserable fate.”
http://tinyurl.com/kjrc9m
Although according to the pickup artist above, the books and bad advice his ilk is dealing out, can save the creeps from coming out of the wood work with Uzis blazing.
But no, the women killed in that gym are more proof of the entitlement pickup artists are selling, not of saving anyone from anything.
@41: The latest edition also includes a chart on the “handbag code”, a way of using purse style, brand, fabric, color and position to determine a woman’s real desires.
For example, a lambskin prada zippered clutch in royal purple with gold accents in the left hand with demi-straps in the down position means a Sushi and Martini bottom, man buys.
It’s a little hard to disagree because you’ve got so many conditional statements in your premise — Are you saying that a system of oppression that consistently treats women as inferior chattel is the extreme end of spectrum of sexism? And that murder naturally follows from that?
If that’s what you’re saying, I agree in principle; such a system would incite murder, just like murder followed naturally from slavery — which was the extreme end of a spectrum of racism that consistently treated black people as inferior chattel.
I guess the part of your premise that I disagree with, if that’s actually what you’re saying, is that an actual system of oppression that consistently treats women as inferior chattel exists in any meaningful sense, in the United States, outside of human trafficking. There’s a difference between the existence of a fringe philosophy that is attractive to crazy stupid people, and a working system that carries out and sanctions atrocities. Slavery in the United States is a good working example — slavery once existed as a working system, and atrocities were committed as part of that system. But no sane American would consider slavery a viable philosophy in this day and age. That is not to say that individuals do not commit atrocities as part of a racist agenda that includes slavery, or that these individuals don’t form networks, and encourage each other. But those individuals are generally either deeply stupid, don’t really believe what they’re saying, crazy, or some combination of the three. Their networks can’t be broken down with reasoning or cultural introspection because they’re predicated on the needs and desires of individuals, even if they’re operating in concert.
According to the Wikipedia article on Sodini, the women he killed at the gym were 38, 46, and 49. Not exactly the “young women” he seems to have had it out for.
I don’t want to step in to the argument between Jonah and Keshmeshi on who implied what morally outragous thing, but I do think Jonah’s comments @6 above are insightful. Crazy people will integrate their psychosis into some convenient narriative in their society and the fact that they do so isn’t good evidence that the narriative they pick is a causative factor.
“My name is Donnie Smith, and I have lots of love to give. “
See, I don’t think I did. Saying that Thing A would have Effect B is not the same as saying that:
1) thing A is the only thing that will have Effect B;
2) failure to do Thing A leads directly to Effect B; or
3) refusing to do Thing A makes you responsible for Effect B.
It just doesn’t. Obviously I anticipated that someone might read it that way, but that doesn’t mean I said, or meant to say, any of points 1-3.
Cool. Thanks.
@6 It is a wide spread social problem! The list is long. Every week, some place of business, school, restaurant is shot up and numbers of people killed and injured. Columbine, Virginia Tech., etc. ad nauseum. Easy guns and twisted minds are everywhere. The twisted minds always were but now they’re armed with semi- automatics.
I am also in Jonah’s camp, at least in regards to the comments made @6.