Thanks to "Family" web series actor Ernie Joseph for the tip on this. Bill O'Reilly and his guest commentators, "Culture Warriors" Gretchen Carlson and Margaret Hoover, take up the debate about polyamory and same-sex marriage. Hoover has a lot more on the ball than the other two, especially when she points out that polyamorists aren't interested in legal marriage. (This is not to say that there is zero interest in it, but there's very little at this point in time.)
After viewing a clip from Family in which a discussion takes place about who is going to sleep with whom that night, Carlson first poo poos O'Reilly's claim that Oprah has called Terisa Greenan to talk about an episode (she did), calls the clip ridiculous and claims that "most Americans believe this is ridiculous, tawdry." She also says she doesn't believe polyamory will become a trend. Clearly she isn't up on her poly facts as to how widespread the practice is today.
Hoover also flatly states that what polyamorists want is to be able to live their lives as they want to, and even O'Reilly agrees that as long as it's behind closed doors, he being all libertarian and all, whatever. But he then goes on to conflate polyamory and plural marriage as a way of proving that the subject should be taken seriously.
4 comments:
It's ok to watch violence, murder, and monogamous couples loving each other, but not polyamorists or gays loving each other (or see toddlers in birthday suits, or any other natural thing that has been deemed immoral or improper)?
It is interesting how some people hold traditionalism and security as a high value, are fearful of anything that strays from the monoamorous paradigm. I would like to have some conversations with people who feel like that, and find out what is really the fear or bothers them.
It's a values conflict too, and those are the most difficult conflicts to resolve. That is a challenge of society: how to allow people the utmost freedom to live their lives, when not everyone agrees with everyone else.
It seems that we polyamorists are just living our life the way we want to, and it seems like this year polyamory has really hit the mainstream media in a big way.
Thank you, Anita, for your excellent blog. xo
Miss Polyamory, you hit the nail on the head. The issue is, as someone once said (and I paraphrase): anyone's sex life, were it broadcast publicly, would cause shock and horror in others.
It doesn't matter what it is. Oral sex is "wrong" to some. Anal sex causes others to freak-out. The issue with "values" - the way I see it - is that insecure people use that word too loosely in an effort to validate their relationship through invalidating others. Theirs can't be "right" or "okay" unless someone else's is "wrong".
I don't see it as changing what values are or how people perceive their values are, but rather an issue of people becoming secure enough in themselves to let others live their lives as they wish as long as no one else is harmed emotionally, physically or financially in the process.
I think it's great that it's on the O'Reilly show! No matter his opinion, his bluster one way or another gets more attention to the topic, and the more attention there is, the more those who vibe with us instead of against us will find us, too.
BTW, could you put a link to the spot on YouTube where the vids come from, so we can go and comment on 'em too, just for future ones :)
Yes, I'm lazy, I have to go and do a search, oh the horror :)
PotGrrl
My Poly Blog
Me on YouTube
Thanks for your comment, Potgrrl. Actually that video came from the MediaMatters website and not YouTube. I think when you click on embedded YouTube videos they automatically take you to the YouTube page via imbedded link, but it seems that MediaMatters doesn't do the same. The O'Reilly video was on YouTube and referenced MediaMatters. I elected not to embed the YouTube version because the title the person who posted it gave it was pretty crude. It took a good bit of searching to find it on MediaMatters as I recall. Anyway, here's the link:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907270053
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