There has been a request to report on Keith Raniere’s use of the term “Virgin Successor” something that became known to the public with the reading of the Camila and Raniere texts and emails at his trial.
The author of this post sheds a little light on it, from her experiences. She is someone known to Frank Report and was once Keith Raniere’s girlfriend, and lived with him, long before he became the Vanguard. She posts comments on FR using the initial “L”
BY L
Every time I dive back into all the memories and markers to synthesize things he said and did with what I now know of abnormal psychology – it’s like wading back into a sea of filth.
I find it hardest to understand the involvement of women who were older and more experienced before they encountered him. The younger ones – he had years to work on them and the assistance of the harem of believers/flying monkeys.
And over the decades he accreted and expanded mechanisms that worked to feed his addiction. Cognitive dissonance is hard to fathom from the outside – even one’s own cognitive dissonance.
Keith Raniere before he started Nxivm.
I was lucky; I had my own ignorance to face but no criminal behavior. I wonder if any of his harem will ever be able to shed light on their buy-in on the “virgin successor”. I cannot even imagine the mental journey of shame it would take.
He also used past traumas to set the hook on his marks. Any place there was a weakness in one’s psyche – he used it as an anchor point. In his “empathy” and “understanding”, he set the stage for victims to discount their own feelings, thoughts, and knowledge in favor of his. Perhaps that was how he made inroads on the older, more experienced women?
I keep seeing the seeds of his pathology in my experiences with him early on in his career of abuse.
The latest was Camila’s recounting of rape when she wanted to leave and how NXIVM taught that that was natural – for men to exert their claim when a woman wished to leave.
I had tried to break things off with Raniere – he got physical. Not in any really dangerous, leave bruises or break bones way, but physical and with an unwanted sexual component – enough to wake me up that I had to get out no matter what.
Our apartment lease was expiring, and I said I wanted to live in an apartment alone for a while (since I’d never really done that). I guess he was worried it meant I was ending our relationship because he asked me to promise I would have sex with him one last time for closure if I ever wanted to break up with him.
I promised/lied, and walked. And I’m sure his harem would vilify me for that lie, but I feel no remorse whatsoever.
***
“Virgin Successor” was simply his way of getting more virgins to deflower. It was important to him that he was the only one that ever touched a girl/woman that way, and the number of his virgin conquests was important to him.
Yes, I believe he’d pretty much bed any woman he could get – but the special high was getting a virgin and keeping her ignorant as long as possible.
He is sick, as in “I put my penis in you – that makes you mine – and if anyone else gets to do it after that, you’re ruined as my toy.”
As for the youth of his prey, it’s easiest to bamboozle young, inexperienced women who haven’t been through the cycle of sex/love/relationship, who haven’t learned how to distinguish true acts of love from just (false) words of love. That fragile state exists for only so long though before a girl/woman starts questioning the reality. Then he needs a new high -a new “virgin successor”.
Did he just want tail – yes. But he’s also sick/addicted in a specific way that makes him prey on young virgins for the high it gives him. And when I say sick, I mean it in a permanent sense – I don’t believe he can ever be cured. The only answer is the oubliette.
An oubliette or dungeon.
A lesser corollary was taking a woman away from someone else. That was a reaffirmation to him that he was superior to the other man. But nothing like the high of obtaining a virgin.
