I think people start allowing themselves behaviors on the fringe, which then changes their perception of what is acceptable and further pushes their belief of where the fringe is, which then gives them reason to allow themselves behaviors on that new fringe, and so on...

Eventually they end up somewhere messed up. Morality is malleable and normality is relative. Unless you pay attention at every step, I can see how someone who's playing a bit loose with the rules might end up in a spot where they're doing truly awful things.

I think the fact that many don't real that this was an elaborate blackmail operation often clouds people's ability to understand what happened. The fact that abused his resources just shows he was exactly the only type of person who can run such blackmail operation.

That's a piece of it, but if it were just blackmail Epstein wouldn't have a fraction of the connections he actually did.

The whole thing makes more sense if you assume Epstein wasn't truly in charge of anything. He was the manager, not the owner. It's a pretty safe bet that few if any of the blackmail tapes will ever surface, partly because of this.

What did he actually manage then? Taking the risks associated with joining such an operation just to fuck teen girls or anybody smells bullshit.

He was handed hundreds of millions of dollars in personal wealth (probably either blackmailed or proceeds from money laundering or both) and decades of legal impunity to indulge his predatory urges. Up until the end he probably thought he was untouchable, or he wouldn't have flown back from Paris to be arrested at Teterboro airport in the first place. It's not hard to understand why he took this "bargain." I'm sure the intelligence agencies who helped set it up even put some twisted "it's your patriotic duty" spin on it.

I was discussing the exact same question with some friends the other day. Do we all naturally have these intrusive, power fantasy thoughts (but just don't have the means or will to act on them), or are the rich and powerful more predisposed to these aberrant behaviours (see the link between success in the modern world and psychopathy)? Or perhaps some third hypothesis?

It has nothing to do with pleasure/sex. Those are metonyms for power.