First of all, I'm going to say "some people", and by that, I really mean "some.", not all. So, don't argue "over-generalization."
And what I'm going to say could apply to women, but usually with different details. However, I'm not in the practice of attempting intimate relationships with women, so, I'm leaving that to other people.
Also, I like to look at human behavior on a spectrum: Nothing you can say about humanity is ever black and white, all or nothing. In other words, something like Epstein's peculiarities are a limited, gross exaggeration of the same type of behavior that many people engage in: It's just that it's not as egregious and immoral and illegal. Every day distractions are just at the low end of "how far people can go" with something they use as a distraction. So, he's an excessive example of a very common custom: Using unusual behaviors as a distraction from their own pain.
In other words, many people use drugs, booze, legal sex, and gambling, but also golf, sports watching, tennis, mountain climbing, community theater, historical re-enactments, and every other activity imaginable to distract themselves from their pain.
What all of these have in common, at both ends of the continuum, is that they will continue their favorite activity to the detriment of the rest of their lives, their profession, their relationships, their finances, and their sanity.
The saying is "It got the better of him." "It was out of control."
I've learned in my life that most relationships I've attempted have ultimately suffered from one of the more benign, socially accepted activities that was engaged in to excess, in spite of the effect it had on their lives.
So, what I'm saying is, before you ask, "how could this guy be so nuts that he'd screw his whole life up with his pathetic and immoral predilections" stop and notice that lots of people do this in smaller, legal, and less immoral ways. In fact, most men will continue destructive, repetitive behaviors at the cost of real intimacy and love and understanding: Their self-comforting takes a primary role in their lives, and anyone who wants to get involved with them must accept that the comforting behavior will always be protected above all else. Including those closest to them.
Family theory is largely an expression of how all family members learn over time to enable the dominant person's destructive behaviors. This includes segregation from others, hiding family secrets, taking the blame, minimizations, rationalizations, excusing, and all other disruptive coping mechanisms.
A destructive person will continue until stopped. He had other prison terms and lots of close calls, and still, he didn't get the message and stop. This is proven by this story: The only thing that made him stop was a prison cell. In this, he's not that different from people in your own life.
There is always a lesson to be learned from these exceptionally illegal and immoral cases. And it's not "He's nuts." He's not that unusual in his commitment to destruction.
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