FEAR FACTORS: WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE AFRAID OF?
Peter Andrew Sacco, Ph.D.
February 07, 2007
I was doing a talk last evening on the evil that humans do to one another after hearing about yet another death of a Canadian tourist in Mexico. No sooner was I done discussing that point when a participant asked me about a teenager who recently took the life of an infant. Specializing in criminal psychology, the number one question I am always asked is “why”? After I am able to shed some light on the “why”, people want to know about the modus operandi or the “how”? You can pose reasons but in the end the actor only knows for sure the whys and the how’s.
There are so many people who live in fear because of what they are afraid of. They are not necessarily afraid of the Boogeyman or the ghosts which roam their houses when the lights are off. They know this stuff is make-believe. Some people choose to live their lives in fear because they are afraid of what they think might happen at the hands of another human being or Mother Nature. To live in fear is to not live at all!
This month I am officially celebrating the four year anniversary of my popular selling book Fear Factors. Often times people get it confused with the reality TV show Fear Factor. I came out with my title before the show and started writing the book in the early 90’s. For those not familiar with my book, it contains ten short stories. All the stories are psychological thrillers and horror laden guaranteed to make your spine tingle or at the very least ask, “where the hell did he get these ideas because they sure as heck are sick and twisted?” To this day I get asked that quite a bit from readers or fans I speak to at book clubs, luncheons or dinners tell me how I scared the hell out of them. What can I say, I warned people not to read the book before bed!
Fear Factors is a book about man’s inhumanity to man. It’s about the evil man does. Basically, its how some humans create hell for others! How far are you willing to push the envelope to get what you really, really want at the expense of another person? Folks, that’s called greed! At the time I was writing the book I would have never believed many of the things that are actually happening today, I wrote about. I am definitely by no means a prophet however being in the field of psychology only time tells how desensitized we will become and see how high up the rung of disenchantment we will climb.
I have been and still get contacted by production companies interested in looking to produce something new in the way of a television show or movie. It seems some people are totally emasculated with what Sigmund Freud coined the life and death instincts otherwise known to us as; sex and violence. I will be the first to admit my book contains both sex and violence amongst a whole other host of central tenets including ghosts, prostitutes, naughty vampires, witches, steroid pushers, axe-wielding psychos, talking dogs and Hitler to boot. One book reviewer summed Fear Factors up best, “It is a sick and twisted collection of madness and mayhem which rocks the reader from the front and then the backside.” To this day I still wonder what she meant by “backside”?
One Hell Of Sexy Deal and Battle With The Bulge are two of the book’s short stories which got a lot of recognition from readers, especially women. The first story deals with omnipotence and sexual potency. It’s a story about a man with a sex addiction who wants to be a modern day Don Juan. He is willing to sacrifice everything including his own life in the name of instant gratification. Sound familiar? Are you willing to sacrifice your marriage, family, relationships, career all in the name of a one night stand or a good time? Take a quick glance at divorce and infidelity rates and you see this story is art imitating life. Then you throw in a “sexy as hell” looking female she-devil who offers you eternal youth as you are struggling with a mid-life crisis and the next thing you know you grab the bait but get hooked. You can’t get off the line. You get reeled in. Before you know what even happened, your life spirals out of control and morals and values get thrown out the window. Gee, this kind of sounds like a few visits to the strip clubs doesn’t it? I’ve had some producers express an interest in this story’s movie potential because it’s downright sexy and naughty. The problem is I never intended it to become an erotic tale with the potential to be made into a naughty movie. I have passed on their offers as this story was intended to enlighten and warn, not stimulate and arouse!
Battle With The Bulge is perhaps one of the cruellest stories I have ever written. You read too often people obsessed with cosmetic surgery to the point of making a mess of themselves. They become freak shows. The worst part is some celebrities overdo themselves on a daily basis. In our society, so many men struggle with or feel the need to improve their masculinity. In a nut shell, “size matters”, at least to them it does. There are all these gimmicks which will make your penis grow; lotions, rubs, pumps and pills. Do any of them really work? All I know each week I have enough of these spam e-mails in my outbox pleading to me that they do indeed work, yeah okay! I wrote this story in the mid-90’s not know Viagra, Austin Powers’ penis pump and other gimmicks would be alive and well. I was old school and created a story based on surgical enhancement which would create much desired enlargement. What happens when you get a man with a penis enhancement which doesn’t work correctly? There are no manuals for this folks. Some say men think with what’s below the waist? What if their new found friend below the waist develops an independent mind of its own? What happens when it runs a man’s life? Gee, many women are already saying, “Is this not what’s already happening to most men?” Okay, I’ll give you that, perhaps you have reason to think that way. Female readers love this story, I wonder why? I am always getting asked how I could come up with the horrific yet comical plot-line? Simple, I took women’s spurn and scorn towards men and I exacted revenge for them in a masculine debasing way. I let man do to himself his greatest evil. And they said women are the more vain species. Think again!
The concept of bad and evil will always exist in our world. The sad part is that man’s ultimate nature is his or her own self-destruction. The funny part is we should stop being afraid of what’s out in the world and start becoming more afraid of what’s inside ourselves and correct it before we create our own monsters… or become a monster.
I invite readers to visit my website: www.petersacco.com to download for free One Hell Of A Sexy Deal if you want something provocative, stimulating and scary to read during these cold winter days. If you want to be frightened and you have time on your hands to smirk, scare, laugh and sigh, then I encourage you to read Fear Factors in its entirety. One book reviewer who really loved the book when it first came out asserted my book was a mix of Stephen King’s Night Shift meets Michael Crichton’s ER, but better. I am flattered to be compared to these two awesome writers, but Fear Factors truly is “man’s test of time” in today’s society. Hollywood gives you smoke and mirrors, I give you reality! What the hell are you afraid of, perhaps hell itself?
There are so many people who live in fear because of what they are afraid of. They are not necessarily afraid of the Boogeyman or the ghosts which roam their houses when the lights are off. They know this stuff is make-believe. Some people choose to live their lives in fear because they are afraid of what they think might happen at the hands of another human being or Mother Nature. To live in fear is to not live at all!
This month I am officially celebrating the four year anniversary of my popular selling book Fear Factors. Often times people get it confused with the reality TV show Fear Factor. I came out with my title before the show and started writing the book in the early 90’s. For those not familiar with my book, it contains ten short stories. All the stories are psychological thrillers and horror laden guaranteed to make your spine tingle or at the very least ask, “where the hell did he get these ideas because they sure as heck are sick and twisted?” To this day I get asked that quite a bit from readers or fans I speak to at book clubs, luncheons or dinners tell me how I scared the hell out of them. What can I say, I warned people not to read the book before bed!
Fear Factors is a book about man’s inhumanity to man. It’s about the evil man does. Basically, its how some humans create hell for others! How far are you willing to push the envelope to get what you really, really want at the expense of another person? Folks, that’s called greed! At the time I was writing the book I would have never believed many of the things that are actually happening today, I wrote about. I am definitely by no means a prophet however being in the field of psychology only time tells how desensitized we will become and see how high up the rung of disenchantment we will climb.
I have been and still get contacted by production companies interested in looking to produce something new in the way of a television show or movie. It seems some people are totally emasculated with what Sigmund Freud coined the life and death instincts otherwise known to us as; sex and violence. I will be the first to admit my book contains both sex and violence amongst a whole other host of central tenets including ghosts, prostitutes, naughty vampires, witches, steroid pushers, axe-wielding psychos, talking dogs and Hitler to boot. One book reviewer summed Fear Factors up best, “It is a sick and twisted collection of madness and mayhem which rocks the reader from the front and then the backside.” To this day I still wonder what she meant by “backside”?
One Hell Of Sexy Deal and Battle With The Bulge are two of the book’s short stories which got a lot of recognition from readers, especially women. The first story deals with omnipotence and sexual potency. It’s a story about a man with a sex addiction who wants to be a modern day Don Juan. He is willing to sacrifice everything including his own life in the name of instant gratification. Sound familiar? Are you willing to sacrifice your marriage, family, relationships, career all in the name of a one night stand or a good time? Take a quick glance at divorce and infidelity rates and you see this story is art imitating life. Then you throw in a “sexy as hell” looking female she-devil who offers you eternal youth as you are struggling with a mid-life crisis and the next thing you know you grab the bait but get hooked. You can’t get off the line. You get reeled in. Before you know what even happened, your life spirals out of control and morals and values get thrown out the window. Gee, this kind of sounds like a few visits to the strip clubs doesn’t it? I’ve had some producers express an interest in this story’s movie potential because it’s downright sexy and naughty. The problem is I never intended it to become an erotic tale with the potential to be made into a naughty movie. I have passed on their offers as this story was intended to enlighten and warn, not stimulate and arouse!
Battle With The Bulge is perhaps one of the cruellest stories I have ever written. You read too often people obsessed with cosmetic surgery to the point of making a mess of themselves. They become freak shows. The worst part is some celebrities overdo themselves on a daily basis. In our society, so many men struggle with or feel the need to improve their masculinity. In a nut shell, “size matters”, at least to them it does. There are all these gimmicks which will make your penis grow; lotions, rubs, pumps and pills. Do any of them really work? All I know each week I have enough of these spam e-mails in my outbox pleading to me that they do indeed work, yeah okay! I wrote this story in the mid-90’s not know Viagra, Austin Powers’ penis pump and other gimmicks would be alive and well. I was old school and created a story based on surgical enhancement which would create much desired enlargement. What happens when you get a man with a penis enhancement which doesn’t work correctly? There are no manuals for this folks. Some say men think with what’s below the waist? What if their new found friend below the waist develops an independent mind of its own? What happens when it runs a man’s life? Gee, many women are already saying, “Is this not what’s already happening to most men?” Okay, I’ll give you that, perhaps you have reason to think that way. Female readers love this story, I wonder why? I am always getting asked how I could come up with the horrific yet comical plot-line? Simple, I took women’s spurn and scorn towards men and I exacted revenge for them in a masculine debasing way. I let man do to himself his greatest evil. And they said women are the more vain species. Think again!
The concept of bad and evil will always exist in our world. The sad part is that man’s ultimate nature is his or her own self-destruction. The funny part is we should stop being afraid of what’s out in the world and start becoming more afraid of what’s inside ourselves and correct it before we create our own monsters… or become a monster.
I invite readers to visit my website: www.petersacco.com to download for free One Hell Of A Sexy Deal if you want something provocative, stimulating and scary to read during these cold winter days. If you want to be frightened and you have time on your hands to smirk, scare, laugh and sigh, then I encourage you to read Fear Factors in its entirety. One book reviewer who really loved the book when it first came out asserted my book was a mix of Stephen King’s Night Shift meets Michael Crichton’s ER, but better. I am flattered to be compared to these two awesome writers, but Fear Factors truly is “man’s test of time” in today’s society. Hollywood gives you smoke and mirrors, I give you reality! What the hell are you afraid of, perhaps hell itself?
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