Polyday organizers debate TV talk-show hosts

ITV (U.K.)

As if their big newspaper article plugging Polyday tomorrow (August 27th) wasn't enough, Polyday folks in London got themselves onto British TV yesterday, on ITV's "This Morning" show. The promo:

We meet three women who have all made the decision to share the same man...

Maxine, Eunice and Mimi each have more than one partner... and their partners have other partners... and all 3 women share the same man... and they all know about it, and are all friends... confused?

They have all adopted the Polyamorous lifestyle and are here to tell us all about how it works.

Denise Robertson joins them to give her views on polyamory.

From the looks of the promo picture they may have dished out smart poly goodness by the spoonful, but they also had to bat away crap like "Let me put it to you that you are in fact a victim" from sad-looking co-host Eamonn Holmes. Too bad that you can only watch the show from the UK (unless you can spoof a UK IP address). Can someone find a backchannel link? It aired August 25, 2011.

Update: Okay, thanks! Watch it here worldwide (10 minutes).

Maxine Green, at left on the couch, is Polyday's chief organizer. Elsewhere today she tweets, "Really quite funny watching the three of us trying to get a word in edgeways!" She credits the Polyamory Media Association "for useful training in talking to journalists" (thanks Joreth!). Sounds like it's a good thing they were prepared.

Following the show, Lotte of the PolyinPictures webcomic posted this:

Gawd bless him, on This Morning on ITV (UK), Eamonn Holmes’ life appeared to be full of woe. It was all caused by three awesome, articulate women, talking to him and co-interviewer (IT’S A WORD) Ruth Langsford about polyamory. The idea seems to cause him some distress.

Jemima Willcox was there to talk about her book (ebook available on Amazon here), which is a collection of stories about polyamorous people. She was joined by two friends, and all of them did a bang up job when accused of being victims, cultists, naive and doooooooomed.

Let me save you some pain. (If you’re a masochist and don’t want spoilers, here’s a link to the debate in full. ETA: Anyone who puts this up on YouTube and sends me a link gets my eternal gratitude; there are readers outside the UK who apparently can’t view the video.)

Agony aunt Denise Robertson called polyamory a “lovely little scheme” (condescending much?) and said that it would all end in tears. Eamonn Holmes referred to Jemima’s book as the Bible for polyamory, despite objections from the author and references to other works. These stunning, emotionally mature and intelligent women were told that it only worked because they were in their 20s and that when they wanted to settle down and have kids they’d fail. Denise Robertson said that if polyamory worked, we wouldn’t as a species have been monogamous for all this time.

So, here’s my proposal. OPERATION HUG.

You’ve got two options, in order of priority:

1) Hug Eamonn Holmes’ head. He obviously needs some reassurance that we’re not all nutters, and that we can actually love lots of people, so we should share the love with him. (Ruth Langsford seemed more balanced about it all.)

If this isn’t possible…

2) Write a nice email to Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford, or the This Morning people in general, telling them about your loving families and long-term polyamorous relationships. Young and old, with and without kids, out and closeted. We may be few and far between, but we have so many stories to share. Their email address seems to be viewerservices@itv.com unless anyone else knows any better? Also, they’re on Twitter: @itvthismorning

Go have some fun.

P.S.: I see they also got this notice into the arts & culture guide Time Out London. These people know how to do publicity.

All the coverage prompted a spot-on explanation of polyamory by Lori Smith at the online women's magazine BitchBuzz (Aug. 26, 2011).

Update: A blogger's story of her Polyday day.

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