April 22, 2008
The art of making up quotes
The Daily Mail, above, quotes me in its article today, "Sun, sand, sex and stupidity: Why thousands of middle-aged women are obsessed with holiday gigolos." Or more accurately, my name is used as a prop for the reporter to warn and scold women about chasing younger guys on foreign beaches.Does anyone remember when journalistic charlatan Jayson Blaire wrote an article about Jessica Lynch, the soldier rescued in Iraq? He pretended to go to her home in West Virginia and described a view of "tobacco fields and cattle pastures" from the family porch.
He'd never been to Lynch's home, and it had no view of any such thing.
The fascinating detail that came to light after his fantasy article was published was this: No one complained to his editors at the New York Times! They just assumed journalists make everything up.
I'm reminded of this as I ponder whether to contact an editor at the Daily Mail regarding an interview their reporter, Diana Appleyard, conducted with me three weeks ago, the results of which appeared today.
Or actually, some parallel interview appeared with another "Jeannette Belliveau" who wrote a book identically titled to my own "Romance on the Road." She doesn't live where I live, she wasn't divorced when I was divorced, she doesn't speak or think like I do, but there she is, right in print!
I'm more bemused than bothered and am just intrigued with this whole notion of making up stuff they have in the U.K. tabloids. Maybe I'm just vain, or as a long-time copy editor, sort of in love with the idea that words have precise meanings that don't survive radical alteration and accuracy is worth pursuing.
My first clue that our interview was published today was when I came down this morning to an e-mail box full of requests for interviews with other members of the UK press.
That is the Faustian pact involved with publicity: As long as they spell your name and book title correctly, there's no such thing as bad publicity, right? Especially as I watch "Romance on the Road" zoom up the sales rankings at Amazon.co.uk,
Still, I am still innocent enough to be somewhat amazed by the lip service UK journalists pay to pretending to interview the subject of an article. This is apparently done tactically to avoid having to admit to the world that no, they never even contacted the person quoted. At least when they call, they can pretend their madeup quotes are some sort of misunderstanding.
Anyway, here's a blow-by-blow of what I told Diana in our interview, and how it came out in the article.
It was fun to hear from Diana. I mentioned at the start of our interview, fittingly conducted on April Fool's Day, how pivotal Daily Mail articles on female sex travelers were to compiling 
Romance on the Road.
By way of intro, I told Diana, "I'm not really a sex tourist at all. I think of myself more as a world traveler who was open to intimate encounters during my travels. Because few women are willing to publicly disclose such affairs, I tend to serve as a proxy for actual sex tourists in interviews with the BBC and other media."
This came out as:
"Writer Jeannette Belliveau, a self-confessed former 'sex tourist' " ...
OK, let's start maybe color coding the errors. I will put errors in red, and accurate material in blue, and we will see how this sorts out. One more time:
Writer Jeannette Belliveau, a self-confessed former 'sex tourist' " ...After my name, things fall apart a little bit, with two major errors in five words: I'm not really a sex tourist, now or formerly, and the opposite of a self-confessed one.
Next I am quoted as saying "the problem is becoming endemic and that these women are deluding themselves about the dangers such flings present."
I never simply describe sex tourism, either in this interview or others or my writing, as a "problem," it is more of a natural human response to loneliness and the ability of travel to bring farflung men and women together.
Nor do I call it "endemic." It is worldwide and ubiquitous, found in all the world's resorts and even non-resorts, such as the Nepalese Himalayas. "Endemic" is a loaded word that suggests a disease, one I would not use for sex travel by women.
Nor did I say women are deluding themselves about the dangers of such flings. I said the media focused on supposed exploitation of poor men, rather than genuine risks to health and safety.
What I really told Diana: "Critics tend to focus obsessively on fears of exploitation of the men of the Caribbean by wealthier tourists, and they ignore the real potential risks, which are rape, murder and HIV or AIDS."
This came out as:
"The ultimate risk is death," she says, bluntly. "In the past two years three Western women have been killed for their money by their foreign 'toy boys'."The first phrase, "the ultimate risk is death," is accurate. The sentence that follows, "In the past two years, three Western women have been killed for their money by their foreign 'toy boys'," is pure fantasy. What I told her was the Experiences chapter of "Romance on the Road" describes four apparent murders, and these occurred from 1975 through 2000, and NONE involved MONEY!
Further, the expression "foreign toy boys" has never once crossed my lips. Nor has the more semantically accurate "boy toys."
At this point, this article is really losing me with its ratio of fiction to fact.
Next we have these passages:
Statistically, a third of all cross-cultural "marriages" end in divorce, and Jeannette says the naivety of the women involved is unbelievable. "Most of them are middle class and intelligent, which makes their behaviour even more baffling," she says. "These guys are after their money, pure and simple, and the ultimate goal is marriage so they can get a visa and move to the UK. The fact that they can fall for lines such as 'You are so gorgeous' is ridiculous."I cannot even speculate how Diana came to put those words in my mouth. Here I am fairly convinced that she may have misattributed a chunk of text where perhaps she meant to quote Jacqueline Sanchez-Taylor, or someone else she interviewed?
We discussed the fact that she planned to interview Sanchez-Taylor, who has been very helpful to me in my research, but who tends to look at the phenomenon of women's sex travel in a far more negative light than I do.
The entire point of my book, "Romance on the Road," is to look at the entire spectrum of Western women who travel to meet foreign men, and a major premise is that sincere love comes out of some proportion of these seemingly random holiday encounters.
Next we have:
Fifty-three-year-old Jeannette, from Surrey, divorced in her early 30s.I am not from Surrey. I am from Maryland in the United States. I lived in Surrey from 1981-85. I've been back in my home state, and nowhere near Surrey, for 22 years, since 1985.
I divorced when I was 27 years old, not my early 30s. How did the authoress pick "early 30s," I wonder?
Why not just write, "She was abducted by an alien spaceship when she was 47 and had sex with younger, repeat younger, darkskinned, repeat darkskinned, Romulans under the triple moons of Alpha Centauri, prior to joining the middle class and renouncing such plebian activities with a brisk, 'Wise up!'"
It's interesting, it's random, why not?
Next sentence:
A few years later, despairing of the lack of dates in the UK, she began to travel the world and had numerous sexual encounters with young, foreign men.A few years later? No. My first encounter with foreign men was when I was 27, and I was separated at the time. Here are the opening words of my chapter on my experiences in Greece:
"At the age of 27, I made the first of three visits to Greece."
I guess Diana did not quite make it to page 16 of the pdf I e-mailed her of "Romance on the Road!"
"A lack of dates in the UK." No. I also make it clear in that chapter that I had a boyfriend in England at the time of my Greece trip. My estranged husband made some attempts to reconcile, and in addition to the boyfriend, other men made clear their interest in little flirtatious visits to my office and my home.
"Numerous" sexual encounters. More like "some" or "a few."
"Young" foreign men. I think a fair number of them were my age or older.
Next, note a completely accurate paragraph (pops open champagne!) followed by a more shaky one:
"In countries such as the Gambia and Kenya, there is both a surplus of men and the fact that women there tend to marry men at least ten years older than themselves, which is the culture. So for 18-year-old and 20-plus men, there is no one to date.I would not describe poverty in the Gambia as "rife," I tend to speak very precisely on poverty, which I devoted a chapter to in my first book, "An Amateur's Guide to the Planet," and note in "Romance on the Road" that the Gambia is wealthier than nearby countries, quite possibly due to female tourists providing capital to start local businesses."Poverty is rife. Then, over the past ten years, planeloads of mature single British women have started arriving, their handbags full of cash. They're fit, good-looking men and it didn't take them long to realise that there are rich pickings here."
The "10 years of mature British women" reference is made up ... I note in "Romance on the Road" that Scandinavian women began arriving in the Gambia in the late 1960s, and that is not British women, and more like 40 years ago.
"Handbags full of cash" is an utter fabrication out of Diana's imagination.
I would be highly unlikely to describe Gambian men as "fit," they are strong and buff, not "fit" as in yuppies who go to a gym.
"Rich pickings" is a phrase that has never passed my lips. I might well say that a woman can take her pick on the beach, that is certainly a fact.
Reading on:
Sex tourism by British women is not a new phenomenon. As far back as the 1890s, [As Romance on the Road notes, more like the 1840s,] there are recorded incidents of single British women becoming involved with dark-skinned Italian and French men ["dark-skinned" Italian and French men? BWA HA HA HA!] on their cultural 'tours' of Europe. [I write much more of the early travelers to Syria and Tunisia and Egypt, not France!]This is a mangling of the research in "Romance on the Road," which describes numerous instances of India's rajas and nawabs becoming smitten with Englishwomen, often maids. Diana has some sort of obsession with older women with younger men, that she overlays onto the dynamic of India, where age differences had zilch to do with intercultural romances.During the British Raj, it was not unknown for English matrons to fall prey to the darkeyed charms of young Indian men.
But in the past two decades, the phenomenon has escalated. Author Jeannette says that since the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of western women have had affairs with much younger foreign men.See earlier point about Diana's obsession with age differences. My estimates are that 600,000 Western women have engaged in travel sex (not just with younger men) from 1980 (not "since the 1990s) to 2005.
"These are respectable middleclass women ...The phrase "respectable middleclass women" has never passed my lips. Good lord, have I morphed into Miss Jean Brodie? The hectoring Scottish schoolmarm played by Maggie Smith?
"Not all of them are unwitting victims to these sexual conmen," she says. "On top of the fact this quote is made up, I have no idea what point is being made here.
"I have spoken to many women who fly to the Gambia or Jamaica specifically for the purpose of recreational sex."Never said this, I haven't spoken to more than a few women who happened to have sexual experiences in the Gambia and the French Caribbean, and in these cases, romance and tenderness and even marriage were part of these women's stories. Here's a giant chunk of made-up quotes:
Jeannette agrees. "Wise up," she says.The phrase "wise up" has never passed my lips.
"At the very least you will be fleeced out of hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds.Not only did I never say this, who in their right mind would claim traveling women automatically lose thousands of pounds to conmen every time they have a casual shag? The reference to "pounds" rather than "money" is another giveaway that this is a madeup quote attributed to an American who doesn't automatically talk about pounds sterling.
"Kenya and Africa generally, Aids is endemic and you are putting yourself at serious risk."This sentence is remotely similar to what i actually said, which is that Kenya has the highest HIV rate of any country known for visits by women seeking sex tourism.
"Some of these guys are so poor they have nothing to lose, and they may turn violent. if you go off alone with them and change your mind, they may well rape you anyway."Oh Lord up in Heaven!! This sentence is complete fantasy or perhaps delusion. This is what I actually told Diana:
"I note in my Ethics and Etiquette chapter that it's important to be careful in going off alone with your guide, which is close to an automatic presumption that sex is likely to occur. So you either should not go off alone together or be prepared to fight him off if you don't want an advance."
"I know i have been guilty of sex tourism in the past, but there is no way i would take those risks now, knowing what i know."The sentence above is just insane. "Guilty of sex tourism"? Those words have never crossed my lips.
This is a colossal mangling of what I told Diana, where she takes remarks not by me, but from A WOMAN I INTERVIEWED, mangles them, and attributes them to me directly. What I said:
"I interviewed a woman for my Africa chapter who had traveled in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s and enjoyed sexual encounters with men there, who said she would not recommend anyone engage in this behavior today, it's just too risky."
Well, finally, many minutes later, I am at the end of this article ... no more misquotes.
I'll polish this up and send a link to a Daily Mail editor and see what happens, as sort of a lab experiment to see if the folks in West Virginia were correct to not waste their time with contacting editors about fabrications.
Here's the oddest oddity: Yesterday Diana asked me for some women to talk to about their experiences.
I replied:
Hi Diana, Possibly Fiona Pitt-Kethley, the poet who now lives in Spain ... google her you might find her details for contact, or the Guardian might have them, I believe she writes for them intermittently.Someone in the wee few hours between midday Monday U.K. time, when I was contacted, and Diana's Monday night deadline, we have full-blown profiles of two women, "Sarah Jarvis" and "Nicky Jardine," who ostensibly had affairs in Turkey and Egypt respectively.I have a contact in Germany who is willing to discuss these things with the media. (You'll find that usually media have to find women not in their home country to interview ... due to the delicate nature of the story ...)
There are some women quoted in an article in Woman magazine, see link here:
http://www.beaumonde.net/pdfs/womanmag.pdf
Assuming they aren't made up, the author might share the names with you! she was I believe Anna Kingsley: annakingsley@hotmail.com
Juliane Stokes in Nottingham is writing a dissertation on female sex tourism, you could see if she ever found anyone, I know she found it an uphill battle:
jstokes085@aol.com
Yvonne wrote an article in Eve magazine, you can try her too:
yvonne.illsley@btconnect.com
good luck -- Jeannette
And both read straight out of a romance novel.
So far, a good number of Diana's UK colleagues are hot on the heels of "Sarah Jarvis" and "Nicky Jardin" and asking me (not sure why) how to get in touch with them. Since their names have been changed, this will not be easy!
I have a feeling the closest they will get is in the pages of Diana Appleyard's romance novels, "Too Beautiful to Dance," "Playing with Fire," "Out of Love" and "Every Good Woman Deserves a Lover."
They act fictionally and implausibly.
This would just be more humorous examples of Tom Stoppard's adage that there should be a journalist doll -- "Wind it up and it gets it wrong" -- except that I try to operate in the world of responsible, factual journalism.
And I relied on the Daily Mail for some of my anecdotes in "Romance on the Road." And now, frankly, they are suspect, and I may have to drum my fingers and think about revising them out of the picture.
P.S. -- Want to read a 100 percent accurate interview with me on female sex tourism? Try Emily McCoombs "Ticket to Ride" that appeared in Bust magazine, link here.
