Some time ago, Helen Mellett posted: > What I detest is the portrayal of women with strong > sexual drives and desires as psychotic and or murderers! > What is this saying? Sexuality = Mental Illness????? > Glenn Close, _Fatal Attraction_, Sharon Stone, _Basic > Instinct_ and Madonna, _Body of Evidence_. Any others? > I thought of some older "made for TV" movies that are still kicking around. Heather (played by Jennifer O'Neil 1989) in "Personals." An obvious mental case. A shy, repressed librarian, who was dumped by a married man, goes around puncturing hearts of other cheating married men in the heat of passion. On the other hand, she may not be all that aggressive; she only responds to the personal ads posted by the men. Joanna (played by Stephanie Zimbalist 1980) in "the Babysitter." She insinuates herself into a dysfunctional family and embarks on a campaign of seduction of William Shatner, and eventually succedes. In this case, she has been psycho probably since before coming of sexual maturity (first recorded killing at about age 12). She first seduced the teenage boy we see her kill in a sailing "accident." And as the movie winds up, we find that she had already killed a family of three before the film opens after her sexual liaison with the husband had been exposed. She is thwarted from killing another family of three (Shattner, Patty Duke Astin, and daughter) at the last moment. A third film came to mind which doesn't fall within the bounds of "Psycho-bitches," but which "demonstrates" how an intelligent woman who kicks over the traces set for her by society is bound for hell and perdition (figuratively). Diana Rockland, (played by Stephanie Zimbalist -- 1985) in "Love on the Run," is a sexually repressed young lawyer, who takes care of her semi-invalid father until his death. She is vulnerable to seduction by a prison inmate (Alec Baldwin) and breaks him out of prison. She finds that, in essence, his only competence is in bed and, despite her best efforts to keep them out of the clutches of the law, he screws up every effort she makes to earn the money they need to survive. She even has to assume the responsibility to ensure that he is not killed when they are captured by the police. In the end, she loses everything in this "misguided" pursuit of love. She's not psycho, but letting her sexual desires loose spells disaster. I have often wondered whether this movie was the "reality check" on Stephanie Zimbalist's character "Laura Holt" in the then popular TV series "Remington Steele." I hope this didn't stray too far from the topic at hand. Derk Bruins [log in to unmask]