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Great post. A few underformed thoughts;
I think there's a direct line of similarity between your Victim/Perpetrator dichotomy and the oft lampooned "Men want to offer solutions to your problems / women just want to be heard and listened too about their problems."
I don't know if your Self-Awarewolf second paragraph was intentional. You recognize that your disgust with the brutality of some of these crimes triggers in you a desire to ... commit brutal crimes. The feeling isn't wrong. I'd say most emotionally healthy men who read about Dahmer, Bundy etc. probably have some similar thoughts. It's just an interesting pot-calling-the-kettle-black-while-looking-in-the-mirror situation.
I think there's also a difference in intuitive understanding of subjects here. Women emote so heavily with the True Crime victims because women intuitively understand sexualization. Most women can tell very specific stories about hitting puberty and then starting to get leering stares, "friendly" attention from male strangers etc. On the other hand, I believe men have an intuition in understanding physical violence. Let me reiterate I said understanding not desire for. A common ritual for adolescent boys is their first fight. From 16-24, a lot of a guy's free time is taken up with physical violence related subjects - being on a sports team, going to the gym, perhaps joining the military etc.
It would make sense, then, that the respective sexes 'default' to their intuition when faced with True Crime like scenarios. Women relate and emote to the other woman in the story and their sexualized victimization. Men tap into their male rage and physical violence reserves in a (vain) effort to go out and do something about it.
"It's not about the nail."
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A lot of women’s interest in True Crime is just good old fashioned female hybristophilia.
Reading or watching a show about men killing people is titillating for women like watching the aforementioned Shakira thot around in a music video is titillating for men. See, for example, women finding themselves attracted to Bill Hader after watching his eponymous character killing people in Barry, when they weren’t before.
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