Polyamory lends cachet to a celebrity

Irish and UK media


The entertainment pages in the UK and especially Ireland are aflutter today about the new Irish contestant on the reality show Big Brother UK, mostly because she calls herself polyamorous. She hasn't explained much of what she means by it as far as I've seen, so the newspapers are thrown back on dictionary definitions. She also calls the Catholic Church "a cult," kind of a big deal to say in Ireland.

Jade-Martina Lynch

In The Irish Independent:

'Polyamorous' Jade-Martina from Dublin among Big Brother contestants

...[The broadcaster] has taken the unprecedented step of introducing the 16 people who will be subject to round-the-clock filming before the new series airs for the first time on Tuesday.

Among them is Jade-Martina Lynch, described as "a polyamorous 24-year-old model from Dublin". To be polyamorous means to have open sexual or romantic relationships with more than one person at a time.

Whole article (May 5, 2015).

In today's Daily Edge in Dublin:

The Irish Big Brother contestant is definitely the most interesting – here’s why

IF THERE WAS going to be one word used to describe you in a slew of newspaper articles about your impending reality TV debut, you would want it to be “polyamorous”, right?

Right?

That’s how Dublin model Jade Martina Lynch is introduced in headlines in many of today’s papers, as she’s revealed as the only Irish person (so far) to be heading into the Big Brother house this year.

We’re also fairly certain that she’s the most interesting.

Here’s why…

1. She’s polyamorous

Jade certainly doesn’t mind her polyamory being out in the open. In fact, she wants to educate people about it.

Polyamory is the practice of being in non-exclusive relationships, and everyone involved in them are aware of the situation....

Whole article (May 11, 2015).

She's interviewed in yesterday's DigitalSpy:

Jade wants to bust some myths about polyamory.

"It's not talked about much, especially in Dublin," she said. "In Ireland in general we're quite backward because it's very Catholic -- we're kind of back in the day and there's nobody in Ireland that I've met that's polyamorous. [Hey, google Polyamory Ireland right there in Dublin. And she must have missed this stuff. –Ed.] Polyamory to me is freedom of your soul, freedom to express yourself, sexual freedom. It's all about freedom for me.

"People don't seem to grasp that concept, because I don't want to go and cheat on someone and break the trust and hurt them and give them a negative emotion. I want them to have a positive experience and a positive emotion. And if everyone was free and polyamorous and open I genuinely think we'd be a lot happier." Although even she admitted she has been jealous in the past.

"But being this person that I am now, jealousy doesn't come into it because I've accepted who I am," she said. "If you are a jealous type of person, I wouldn't recommend being polyamorous because it will just ruin your life! But other than that it's fun and it gives you a different window to life." She wouldn't have sex in the [Big Brother] house, though, describing that as "morally wrong". "Although I'm very free about sex and very sexual, sex to me is very personal and it's on another level of life, so that's very private to me," she said.

The whole interview (May 10, 2015).

About Big Brother: People are thrown together to live in a group house. Everyone better get along, because one is voted out of the house each week. Survivors win cash prizes. Cameras watch nearly everything, big-brother style.

The show began in the US in 1999, became a success, and has franchised itself out to many other countries that do their own local versions. The 16th season of Big Brother UK begins tomorrow (Tuesday May 12).

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