I had to hunt it down – it’s been on all the blogs the past few days, Mac MacClelland’s story of how violent sex with her buddy Isaac cured her of the post-traumatic stress disorder she had acquired watching a horrendously abused Haitian woman called Sibylle flip out. The usual stable of highly privileged journalists were calling the story brave – but I’m pretty sure that only other journalists would have that reaction. I think that rest of us are probably more likely to think that poor Sibylle is sad hero of the story, the one with the problems, the one who must be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The journalist from the most comfortable society the world has ever known who plays at living in war zones, disaster areas, then flies back home after a couple of weeks, doesn’t really have a lot of standing to represent herself as deeply traumatized but still brave after a trip to Haiti and then a really violent round of sex.
What kind of a person writes a story like this after witnessing the absolute catastrophe of tens of thousands of ruined lives? “The shocking lack of sympathy I got from some industry people I talked to about my breakdown was only compounding my concerns that I didn’t deserve to be this distraught. ‘Editors are going to think I'm a liability now. What kind of fucking pussy cries and pukes about getting almost hurt or having to watch bad things happen to other people?’"
No. The question is not what kind of pussies puke after seeing tragedy. The question is what kind of prima donna asks us to sympathize with her when she has just asked to stare at pretty much the worst life has to offer. What would make her imagine that we read her accounts of disaster zones to sympathize with her reactions to them?
Happily, it looks like journalists re beginning to feel a bit silly about embracing the article. This defensive response to readers’ generally disgusted reaction to Mac’s grotesque egocentrism pretty much says it all. The journalist sort of gives up trying to defend herself and settles for: “On behalf of free thinkers and art lovers everywhere, I reserve the right to enjoy writing you'd rather I didn't. I'm as overly politicized, hypercritical, and analytic as any other neurotic journalist….Some things are simply to be enjoyed for their decadence. This is one of them.”
No. No one gives a rat’s ass what any journalist reads for pleasure. We are objecting to your characterization of Mac’s piece as fearless. Yes, to the revolting assertion that it takes guts to hang around in a situation which you can LEAVE, go home to food, comfort and fake violent sex after a couple of weeks.
Okay, we need journalists to do that. But we do not need hear from them how brave they have been. Because their psyches just aren’t really the point. We need them because we wouldn’t know anything at all without them, but having to wade through the journalist to get to the information is a pretty high price. It is really disgusting and really embarrassing.
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