Guest Column on Alexi Pappas' Memoir Bravey: How Bravey Could Have Been Braver

That review was pretty awful. I imagine the only thing that would be a bigger waste of my time would to read the book.

I think those not fans of Alexi have more than enough ammunition for reasons not to like her based on her decision to run for Greece or overall style self-promotion. But the point the reviewer tried to make about her mother's suicide was beyond stupid. I feel like we walked into some stupid Twitter dead naming spat regarding whether a former Decathlete should be called Bruce. In general, I think you are a total A$$hat if you lecture someone whose parent committed suicide on whether it's ok for them to say she "killed herself".

Thank you, Kate, for your thought-provoking critique of Alexi's memoir. Not having read the book, I'm inclined to agree with the other posters who argue that, as a memoir, Alexi's word choices are reflective of her own experience and should be viewed as such. I definitely agree that words matter and I'd feel differently were this a different kind of writing though.

With all of that said, you've inspired me to buy the book and I just ordered it. I'm generally an Alexi fan (unlike the misogynists who troll this board so heavily), but even I have found her to be a "bit much" at times so had held off on buying the book. So that's a win! :)

Haven't read the book. But I think the review makes a fair point about virginity. Virginity in boys is seen as a flaw or weakness and losing virginity is seen as a positive step into manhood. For girls, it is entirely the opposite. Girls who lose their virginity are seen as being tarnished at that moment and are looked down upon as being a slut if they decided to lose their virginity to someone who was not the true love of all their life. This is in line with the sexist societal norms that require males to be the pursuer and females the pursued when it comes to romantic relationships and sex. This is really Victorian era stuff and we should now have equity by 2021.

I don't think Pappas was trying to keep women down. I think she was just reflecting the overwhelming pressures from society on women's sexuality. So, I wouldn't fault her for it. But it is a fair observation by the reviewer.

The rest of the review does fall a bit too much into the form over substance that plagues woke culture. It sounds like Pappas was very brave in her discussion about suicide and mental illness. I don't think changing "kill herself" to "commit suicide" would have really made much of a difference. I understand why one term may be preferable. But it is also Pappas' story and she gets to use her own voice.

I registered solely to endorse this post. rojo, your statement is dangerously ignorant. Of course i know you won't retract your words, but know that this is just one of many reasons why your anxieties about being cancelled are justified.

Now please ban me as usual.

These poor word or phrase choices are the fault of the editor and publisher. I don't think Alexi Pappas should bear all of the responsibility for it. They could have caught them and changed them. But unfortunately, the publishing industry seems to push out poorly edited memoirs or inspirational material if there is an audience that will consume them. Quality is secondary.

+1

Yeah, that's gonna be a "yikes" from me, too, dog. I agree that "death by suicide" is a better phrase, but I think Pappas can use whatever language she wants to talk about the death of her own mother, in public or in private.

rojo wrote:

she admitted that she is "totally un PC about suicide" and wrote that she already tells her 4 kids - all of whom aren't even 10 yet - that it's "almost always a shameful thing to do unless you're going to die a certain painful death. People glorify suicide and I have zero doubt that people do it more than they would if it wasn't so socially acceptable."

I 100% agree.

Double yikes.

rojo wrote: People glorify suicide and I have zero doubt that people do it more than they would if it wasn't so socially acceptable."

What are you talking about?

__________________

Anybody who says "educate yourself" is usually woefully uneducated and/or trying to impose their own ideology on others. It is literally a fact that people who die by suicide "kill themselves," and euphemistic language will not change that. Who is Kate Raphael or anybody else to tell Alexi Pappas how to talk about a tragedy that affected her life? It's not their decision to make. They have a right to weigh in and be offended, but I think these criticisms should be brushed off.

I understand those criticizing langauge are doing so because they're trying to make the world a better place. But in doing so, they display an ironic lack of empathy for individual people who should be at liberty to describe their lives and experiences using language they choose. Can't you see that Alexi probably uses that language because she took her mother's suicide personally? That's the great tragedy of major depression; it is so consuming that people suffering from it cannot see anything other than their own despair. In this case, suicide caused Alexi to grow up thinking she wasn't important enough for her mother to choose life. Living relatives of people who commit suicide are under no obligation to describe their lives using language that somebody (a nameless moral authority) deem appropriate.

I'll aways defend people's right to say what they want, but in this case "killing oneself" is also defensible on the grounds that it's factual. I won't get into the weeds about how people sometimes kill themselves for reasons other than depression--suicide bombers, etc.

I'm on the fence about the "losing virginity" part. Yes, it's heteronormative and patriarchal. But most people are heterosexual (not by choice); that's probably why our language for talking about sex don't usually account for same-sex behavior. Patriarchal? Yes. But again, people have the right to describe their lives using the language they want--language that captures their experiences. You don't have to like it.

I agree wholeheartedly about the "vagina" part. The term is inaccurate, and our lack of correct language maps onto inaccurate knowledge about female sexual pleasure.

I have family and know other people who've died by suicide. I do not believe using the phrase "kill oneself" is offensive or that it indicates lack of empathy, education or understanding.

In 1987, I had a bout of clinical depression severe enough to cause "suicidal ideation" and suicidal urges so severe and unrelenting that I checked myself into a hospital to prevent myself from acting on them. In the past 10 years, I've had other bouts of depression with these features, for which I've found the most effective medical treatment has been IV infusions of ketamine.

Every time I've had "suicidal ideation," what I wanted to do was to kill myself. That's exactly how everyone I've ever met who has suffered the same feelings would describe it. We wanted to kill ourselves, not "die by suicide" or experience/commit "death by suicide."

By imposing a new blanket rule decreeing that suicide now can only be spoken of by using the anodyne and sanitized terminology you and some others prefer, you are prohibiting people who feel suicidal from describing our own thoughts and feelings - and telling others of them - in the authentic, plain-spoken, honest language that comes most naturally to us and which describes our experience and its urgency in the simplest, most straightforward way that we find most appropriate.

By making it verboten to use the term "kill oneself" you are, IMHO, giving suicidal people one more reason to feel shame about what we are going through and not to reach out and get help.

If I had been been prevented from, and shamed for, saying the words "I want to kill myself" and "I am afraid I will kill myself" in 1987 or at various points in the past decade coz such words are "incorrect," "insensitive" and indicative of ignorance, I doubt I would've found the wherewithal to have gotten help as I did. For me and many others, the very words "I want to kill myself" were/are "life lines" we've used to telegraph in the shortest, most succinct way possible just how terrible we felt/feel.

When I was a kid in the 1960s, the rules of "polite society" decreed that talking about suicide should be avoided altogether - but if the topic did have to be dealt with, it should be spoken of only euphemistically. Hence, many women were said to have "died in childbirth" and many men were said to have "died in a hunting accident."

This did not stop anyone from thinking of or committing suicide. Nor did it help any of the people who grew up thinking that their parents died that way.

Educate yourself

Agree. As a psychiatrist I have no qualms with her use of "killed herself" considering this is a memoir of her own lived experience

As for the vulva vs vagina issue, teaching little girls the proper terminology is essential to educating them about their anatomy and proper hygiene.

For example, girls and women need to be taught that it's okay to wash the vulva with water and mild soap - but soap and water (or any other cleansers) should not be put in the vagina, an organ that is naturally self-cleaning and has its own distinctive microflora. I have met many young women who were not taught this, and as a result have ended up with chronic and very painful vaginitis coz of using all sorts of cleaners in their vaginas.

Using the correct terminology for the vulva and vagina helps girls and women prevent frequent urinary tract infections, explain what's going on in our bodies in order to get proper medical care, use tampons and certain forms of birth control like diaphragms, and understand - and deal with - what we experience during and after childbirth as well as in older age. Vaginas are rarely injured during childbirth, but vulvas often are. By contrast, after menopause and especially when elderly, many women experience painful vaginal atrophy as well as irritation of a specific part of the vulva - the urethra - due to lack of estrogen.

Knowing and speaking of the difference between the vulva and vagina is also pretty important for women who want to have satisfying sex lives. Plus, it's information, and terminology, that heterosexual males who want their female partners to experience sexual pleasure and orgasm will find comes in handy (LOL). After all, the female sexual pleasure center - the clitoris - is part of the vulva, not the vagina.

Thank you very much for sharing this.

I'm battling depression for almost 20 years now. And I survived a suicide attempt.

I didn't want to "die by suicide", I wanted to kill myself. It was a conscious decision, not something that happened to me like an accident.

The phrase "death by suicide" denies that decision and basically frames me as a victim.

I find that quite insulting and it actually makes me a bit angry.

No mention in the article on how she betrayed her country.

I don’t know if I’m more annoyed that I wasted 5 minutes of my life reading this terrible review or the fact that it’s getting traction as the “quote of the day.”

I think it’s a nice thought to bring in guest columnists to give them a voice but not when they choose to criticize how someone else describes their own trauma in their own memoir. Wonder if letsrun would bring in a guest columnist to nit pick this book if a dude wrote it? My guess is they would be quoting all the legitimate people who were signing its praises.....and last I checked Bravey had plenty of that.

Nemo wrote:

Thank you very much for sharing this.

I'm battling depression for almost 20 years now. And I survived a suicide attempt.

I didn't want to "die by suicide", I wanted to kill myself. It was a conscious decision, not something that happened to me like an accident.

The phrase "death by suicide" denies that decision and basically frames me as a victim.

I find that quite insulting and it actually makes me a bit angry.

I'm finding this thread to be very educational and plan on readin the links people have provided (haven't had time yet), but am glad people like yourself have posted comments like yours in defense of my instinctual (but admittedly non researched ) ake).

The death by suicide language to me is nicer to those that are dead (and their friends and family that are grieving), but insulting to those struggling with the suicidal thoughts themselves. To me, it denies you of your agency in your own life. I'm more interested in preventing one future suicide than helping people feel better about ones that have already happened.

It’s ignorant and insulting to think the term “death by suicide” causes suicide. Watch your mouth