“Journalistic” bollocks of the day: “polyamory” edition

A lot of people just don’t get polyamory. Unfortunately, a lot of these people not getting polyamory also happen to be “journalists” who write ill-informed “articles” about it while “talking out of their arses”.

The latest in this stream of bollocks comes from one “Adam Sherwin”, who appears to have found a jar of scare quotes at the back of the fridge, and, realising they were close to their sell-by date, decided to throw them all over his regurgitation of a BBC press release. Here is a sample of phrases “Adam” “Sherwin” felt were scare-quotable:

“polyamorous”: are we a made-up word? (it’s scare-quoted throughout)
“feminist and a liberal”: also imaginary concepts, apparently.
“open relationships”: seriously, motherfucker, what the fuck is wrong with you?
“date”: OH LOOK THEY THINK THEY’RE PEOPLE.

Then there’s a load of bollocks, such as an obsessive focus on it all being about sex. I know for a fact that in at least one of the cases reported it definitely isn’t as I actually happen to know the people in that relationship. Even if I didn’t, it’s fairly obvious that it isn’t all about sex, when the actual quote from Charlie clearly points out that it’s a long-haul relationship rather than “wife-swapping”. It’s worth noting here, that “wife swapping” was one of the few phrases not scare-quoted by “Adam ‘Sherwin'”, by the way, which is pretty fucking charming and rather betrays the moral judgment he has made there.

Then there’s “Adam’s” vague pearl-clutching at the end here:

Another participant, Alice, interviewed for the programme, says she would be happy to leave her male partner to look after the children while she goes out seeking casual sex.

Excuse me while I put my monocle back in so I can side-eye this fucker. Yes, “Adam”. Sometimes women don’t stay at home looking after the kids. Again, note the lack of scare quotes.

It’s a perfect piss-storm, this piece of shit, and it represents the collision of two execrable fronts: society being awful, and journalism being mostly awful.

There is a societal tendency to circle the wagons around the institution of monogamy, expressing horror at the idea that anyone could happily live outside of this. Those who do are often stigmatised, portrayed as somehow broken as people. On top of this is the general negativity towards women’s sexuality: we’re not supposed to have sexual agency, and if we do we are somehow broken as people.

On top of this, journalists often aren’t particularly well-informed on issues. They regurgitate press-releases rather than research. It is kind of obvious that “Adam Sherwin” knew about as much about polyamory as Jon Snow does about survival in the snow, sex, and general Wildling politics. Even the scare quotes seem to be a product of ignorance, a kind of admission that he has never heard these words before and therefore stuck them in quotes in case they weren’t real.

Put together, all you get is more stigma coming from sources which are seen as credible. “What” “a” “load” “of” “pigshit”.