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I Regret the Zine I Was Writing
Sorry, access list, I’m not done with you. (To everyone else, hello.)
I’ve been working on a zine, on and off, for years now. It’s titled “Psycho!” (or “PSYCHO,” or “Psycho”—it doesn’t really matter yet), and it’s about [my] sociopathy/antisocial personality disorder. No draft of it has stuck yet. I write for a while, a few pages at a time, and then I stop. It never feels right. It barely feels like I have something to say. It’s far from my aspirations of a seminal work on sociopathy. And I can never figure out why.
Well, I figured out why.
It’s because it’s written as if for empaths, to convince them that sociopaths/psychopaths are not frightening and inferior. Every draft explains my capacity for care, my lack of abusive tendencies, or exactly how I’m not worse than empaths. It’s not revolutionary, it’s defensive. It’s begging for scraps. It’s arguing my humanity to people I don’t fucking care about.
It’s like I’m apologizing for my choice of title by relentlessly clarifying our worthiness. I co-wrote the fucking Dyke Manifesto, and I can’t write a zine about the fundamentals of myself without acting sorry for using a derogative? Give me a fucking break.
I don’t know if that zine’s ever getting done. I’ve been working through a lot of complicated thoughts on my own sociopathy that make the idea less appealing (though also less vapid, at least). But I have made the very firm decision that if I do finish it, it will not be a defense of sociopaths. I do not write anything in defense. I write offensive, in every sense of the word, and I will not let this project be the exception. If that means the project’s dead, that’s fine.
I will never publish anything from the back foot.
I’ve been working on a zine, on and off, for years now. It’s titled “Psycho!” (or “PSYCHO,” or “Psycho”—it doesn’t really matter yet), and it’s about [my] sociopathy/antisocial personality disorder. No draft of it has stuck yet. I write for a while, a few pages at a time, and then I stop. It never feels right. It barely feels like I have something to say. It’s far from my aspirations of a seminal work on sociopathy. And I can never figure out why.
Well, I figured out why.
It’s because it’s written as if for empaths, to convince them that sociopaths/psychopaths are not frightening and inferior. Every draft explains my capacity for care, my lack of abusive tendencies, or exactly how I’m not worse than empaths. It’s not revolutionary, it’s defensive. It’s begging for scraps. It’s arguing my humanity to people I don’t fucking care about.
It’s like I’m apologizing for my choice of title by relentlessly clarifying our worthiness. I co-wrote the fucking Dyke Manifesto, and I can’t write a zine about the fundamentals of myself without acting sorry for using a derogative? Give me a fucking break.
I don’t know if that zine’s ever getting done. I’ve been working through a lot of complicated thoughts on my own sociopathy that make the idea less appealing (though also less vapid, at least). But I have made the very firm decision that if I do finish it, it will not be a defense of sociopaths. I do not write anything in defense. I write offensive, in every sense of the word, and I will not let this project be the exception. If that means the project’s dead, that’s fine.
I will never publish anything from the back foot.