Journalist Mac McClelland Stages Her Own Rape To Overcome Trauma

This has got to be one of the most asinine stories we’ve ever heard.

Mac McClelland, a civil rights reporter who has seen the impact of sexual violence around the globe, couldn’t shake the image of Sybille, a woman who said she had been raped at gunpoint and mutilated in the aftermath of Haiti’s catastrophic 2010 earthquake.

While on assignment for Mother Jones last September, McClelland said she accompanied Sybille to the hospital when the woman saw her attackers and went into “a full paroxysm — wailing, flailing” in terror.

Something snapped in McClelland, too. She became progressively enveloped in the classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress — avoidance of feelings, flashbacks and recurrent thoughts that triggered crying spells. There were smells that made her gag.

McClelland, 31, sought professional help but said she ultimately cured herself by staging her own rape, which she writes about in a haunting piece for the online magazine Good. The title: “How Violent Sex Helped Ease My PTSD.”

Her sexual partner mercilessly pinned her, beat her about the head and brutally violated McClelland — at her request.

“I was not crazy,” she told ABCNews.com. “It was a way for me to deal in sort of a simulated, but controlled situation. I could say ‘stop’ at any time. But it was still awful, and the body doesn’t understand when it’s in a fight.”

McClelland writes, “It was easier to picture violence I controlled than the abominable nonconsensual things that had happened to Sybille.”

The article brought out disgust in some readers, who called her “a racist and a f**ked up whore.” But many more were supportive.

“I got an email every 10 minutes from a total stranger, thanking me for saying they felt a lot less isolated and they appreciated someone starting the conversation,” she said. “Some of them were incredibly intense and emotional.”

Experts don’t recommend self-treatment as a way to alleviate post-traumatic stress, but they say the concept of “mastery” of the situation — or literally reliving the experience that triggered the mental breakdown — can be effective.

“People want to feel better and have the tendency when they are feeling terrible to attempt some way at mastery,” said Elana Newman, research director for the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma and a professor of psychology at the University of Tulsa. “People try to make sense of the experience in any way they can with the resources they’ve got.”

Yeah, okay. And what would she have done if this hadn’t “cured” her? Or worse, if her “friend” had taken the whole role play thing too far?

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