The Soapboxx
Monday, December 11, 2006
It Must Be A Right Pain To Be An Agony Aunt, But What About The Readers?
In the past few months, without reason, meaning or justification, I've found myself drawn towards the Agony Aunt columns in pretty much every tabloid newspaper or trashy magazine I've been reading.
And I have no idea why.
I do know, however, that it's got me thinking. About a couple of things actually. First of all, how desperate do you have to be to write a letter to a publication for help when you must know that the answer you receive will be very generic, tailored to a greater point and basically useless? And secondly, do Agony Aunts have any kind of government body (the 'AAA' perhaps), that judges these judges, because even that general advice can and probably does cause all kinds of misery and destruction? Or is the entire business absolutely and totally fake and has itself kind of become a weak parody of those letters in Viz that spoofed the entire thing in the first place?
Think about it. Somebody - let's call him Jim, from Somerset - is feeling a bit uncomfortable that his wife is suddenly working late at the office each and every day, going away for 'training' most weekends, wearing a lot of push-up bras and expensive perfume and staying up late at night watching Bravo. So what does he do? Speak to his or her friends, follow her to work, hire a private investigator or, heaven forbid, confront her directly? No. He puts pen to paper and sends a letter off to bloody Claire Rayner. And what's she going to do exactly? State the bleeding obvious, of course, and tell him all the things he really must have known anyway. And if he didn't, then he deserves to be cheated on, let's face it.
But let's say she tells him to do what I suggested (in your face, Rayner) and he confronts his wife about her behaviour. What if the wife isn't cheating, and has made all of this effort for Jim, because she feels bad that she's working all hours and doesn't want him to feel left out? What if they have a massive row about it and end up splitting up anyway? What then, Rayner? What then? Another visit to the cake shop, I'd wager.
Nobody follows these stories up. Even assuming that they're true to start with, we're all none the wiser. We weren't aware of the problems before we read the letter, and we aren't aware of the end result.
But, believe it or not, another failed marriage isn't the end of the world. Neither is erectile dysfunction, a failure to achieve orgasm, an inability to prevent orgasm, bleeding nipples, incontinence, bestiality or most of the other typical letters the Agony Aunt receives (believe me, I know, because the bastards have ignored all of mine).
What concerns me is how many of these letters they must not print, either because they're simply not suitable for mass consumption, because they're too weird or, and this must happen, they're just plain wrong.
If I was a serial killer and fancied a bit of help, I know that I'd want to write to Miriam Stoppard and the Daily Mirror. "Dear Miriam," I'd say, "I'm on to my sixth victim and I can't see this coming to an end. Any tips or pointers? Yours, Disturbed from Hastings." And let's take a flight of fancy and imagine that she actually (a) read, and (b) published it, what could she possibly say?
It probably helps to consider how she approaches these things in the first place. "I'm not sure I give advice," she once said, "What I hope to do is to give the reader, for a moment, a new pair of spectacles which might put a different slant of light on their problem."
Well, OK. So going with past performance I'd expect a certain vagueness in the reply, and would envisage something like, "Dear Disturbed," she'd write, "Oh my! You have got yourself in a pickle. I suggest that, next time you leave the house, instead of packing a variety of knives, duct tape and chloroform, bring a good book instead. And a stress ball. Good luck!"
And it's not as if they ever ask anyone to write back again and let them know how they got on, because that would start adding a cheques and balances system to the Agony Aunt column, and suddenly make it all very serious indeed. But it is serious, surely, because if you're the kind of person who writes into these things in the first place, it has to be serious to you, doesn't it? I'm pretty sure you must have ran out of options. It's safe to say you're looking for decent advice.
And you'll be comforted to know that both Miriam Stoppard and Claire Rayner have had the best of training. Oh, wait, sorry - they haven't. Stoppard was a physician for about two weeks before she became a 'TV doctor' (translation: walking pamphlet) and Rayner was a nurse. Now, while these lovely ladies might be able to come up with a basic quick-fix answer to a reader concerned about Bird Flu or whether that bleeding mole on his left testicle needs to be checked out by a (real) doctor, they're not going to be an awful lot of use when it comes to anything that's even remotely psychologically pressing, are they?
And that kind of defeats the point, to me, because for the most part, the letters that are sent into these publications are problems of the mind. That's the agony part. Nobody writes in to the Daily Mirror and says, "My leg hurts." It's not that kind of agony. It's matters of the heart, and I fancy that 99.99% of the experience of both Rayner and Stoppard comes from their column in the first place. Chicken and the egg? Well, that's a bit rude, as I'm sure they both have lovely personalities.
I tell you what: I bet if somebody did a big exposé on what appears to be the safe and harmless Agony Aunt industry they'd uncover a web of sin. And more, too: intrigue, carnal lust and crime. And that's just in their own offices. Even if everything that is ultimately printed is not genuine, they must still receive tonnes of letters that they could never possibly publish, that are handed over to the police only after they've been photocopied and passed around Fleet Street. Letters that contain all manner of foulness and depravity. Tales of mass-fornication, Devil-worship and sheep worrying. Outside of Wales. And worse.
Because, believe me, it does get a lot worse. Robert Ressler, ex-FBI agent and the grandfather of the modern serial killer profiler, once observed that "Whoever fights monsters, must become one themselves." If that's even halfway true, just imagine how messed up Marje Proops was.
And I have no idea why.
I do know, however, that it's got me thinking. About a couple of things actually. First of all, how desperate do you have to be to write a letter to a publication for help when you must know that the answer you receive will be very generic, tailored to a greater point and basically useless? And secondly, do Agony Aunts have any kind of government body (the 'AAA' perhaps), that judges these judges, because even that general advice can and probably does cause all kinds of misery and destruction? Or is the entire business absolutely and totally fake and has itself kind of become a weak parody of those letters in Viz that spoofed the entire thing in the first place?
Think about it. Somebody - let's call him Jim, from Somerset - is feeling a bit uncomfortable that his wife is suddenly working late at the office each and every day, going away for 'training' most weekends, wearing a lot of push-up bras and expensive perfume and staying up late at night watching Bravo. So what does he do? Speak to his or her friends, follow her to work, hire a private investigator or, heaven forbid, confront her directly? No. He puts pen to paper and sends a letter off to bloody Claire Rayner. And what's she going to do exactly? State the bleeding obvious, of course, and tell him all the things he really must have known anyway. And if he didn't, then he deserves to be cheated on, let's face it.
But let's say she tells him to do what I suggested (in your face, Rayner) and he confronts his wife about her behaviour. What if the wife isn't cheating, and has made all of this effort for Jim, because she feels bad that she's working all hours and doesn't want him to feel left out? What if they have a massive row about it and end up splitting up anyway? What then, Rayner? What then? Another visit to the cake shop, I'd wager.
Nobody follows these stories up. Even assuming that they're true to start with, we're all none the wiser. We weren't aware of the problems before we read the letter, and we aren't aware of the end result.
But, believe it or not, another failed marriage isn't the end of the world. Neither is erectile dysfunction, a failure to achieve orgasm, an inability to prevent orgasm, bleeding nipples, incontinence, bestiality or most of the other typical letters the Agony Aunt receives (believe me, I know, because the bastards have ignored all of mine).
What concerns me is how many of these letters they must not print, either because they're simply not suitable for mass consumption, because they're too weird or, and this must happen, they're just plain wrong.
If I was a serial killer and fancied a bit of help, I know that I'd want to write to Miriam Stoppard and the Daily Mirror. "Dear Miriam," I'd say, "I'm on to my sixth victim and I can't see this coming to an end. Any tips or pointers? Yours, Disturbed from Hastings." And let's take a flight of fancy and imagine that she actually (a) read, and (b) published it, what could she possibly say?
It probably helps to consider how she approaches these things in the first place. "I'm not sure I give advice," she once said, "What I hope to do is to give the reader, for a moment, a new pair of spectacles which might put a different slant of light on their problem."
Well, OK. So going with past performance I'd expect a certain vagueness in the reply, and would envisage something like, "Dear Disturbed," she'd write, "Oh my! You have got yourself in a pickle. I suggest that, next time you leave the house, instead of packing a variety of knives, duct tape and chloroform, bring a good book instead. And a stress ball. Good luck!"
And it's not as if they ever ask anyone to write back again and let them know how they got on, because that would start adding a cheques and balances system to the Agony Aunt column, and suddenly make it all very serious indeed. But it is serious, surely, because if you're the kind of person who writes into these things in the first place, it has to be serious to you, doesn't it? I'm pretty sure you must have ran out of options. It's safe to say you're looking for decent advice.
And you'll be comforted to know that both Miriam Stoppard and Claire Rayner have had the best of training. Oh, wait, sorry - they haven't. Stoppard was a physician for about two weeks before she became a 'TV doctor' (translation: walking pamphlet) and Rayner was a nurse. Now, while these lovely ladies might be able to come up with a basic quick-fix answer to a reader concerned about Bird Flu or whether that bleeding mole on his left testicle needs to be checked out by a (real) doctor, they're not going to be an awful lot of use when it comes to anything that's even remotely psychologically pressing, are they?
And that kind of defeats the point, to me, because for the most part, the letters that are sent into these publications are problems of the mind. That's the agony part. Nobody writes in to the Daily Mirror and says, "My leg hurts." It's not that kind of agony. It's matters of the heart, and I fancy that 99.99% of the experience of both Rayner and Stoppard comes from their column in the first place. Chicken and the egg? Well, that's a bit rude, as I'm sure they both have lovely personalities.
I tell you what: I bet if somebody did a big exposé on what appears to be the safe and harmless Agony Aunt industry they'd uncover a web of sin. And more, too: intrigue, carnal lust and crime. And that's just in their own offices. Even if everything that is ultimately printed is not genuine, they must still receive tonnes of letters that they could never possibly publish, that are handed over to the police only after they've been photocopied and passed around Fleet Street. Letters that contain all manner of foulness and depravity. Tales of mass-fornication, Devil-worship and sheep worrying. Outside of Wales. And worse.
Because, believe me, it does get a lot worse. Robert Ressler, ex-FBI agent and the grandfather of the modern serial killer profiler, once observed that "Whoever fights monsters, must become one themselves." If that's even halfway true, just imagine how messed up Marje Proops was.
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