[…]

Check out this column….

Homophobia? …. check.

Transphobia? …. check.

Misogyny? … check.

What a refreshing start to the day.

Lynne Miles

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54 Responses

  1. Lynsey

    (ed note- Lynsey started with a short comment, the gist of which is ‘very strongly disliking Jan Moir and Amanda Platell’ which I entirely agree with but can’t publish as it’s a bit rude and probably against the comments policy! LM) How gross to stick the knife into a man who’s already dead.

  2. Laura

    What, so because someone in a civil partnership died and another man who had been in a civil partnership committed suicide, civil partnerships are evil?! Because clearly no heterosexual married couples die or kill themselves. Sometimes you almost have to laugh at the lengths the Mail will go to to push their bigoted agenda.

    One of my friends just forwarded me this Mail article, naming and shaming young women who had the audacity to wear skimpy outfits and get drunk on a night out. Leaves a real nasty taste in my mouth (though I agree the guy who urinated on the war memorial was in the wrong.)

  3. gadgetgal

    Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick… I’ve never been a fan of total censorship but if anything’s going to make me rethink that one then this is – what a complete IDIOT!!!!!

  4. Josie

    Oh I was hoping you lovely ladies would pick up on this! What a jaw-droppingly offensive piece of trash. They really have no shame over at Daily Male HQ. I had to read the paragraph about civil partnerships about 3 times and it still makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. If you want to talk about fairytales, let’s talk about hetero marriage with the white dresses and flowers and promises of happy-ever-after. My best friend is marrying a guy next weekend who is an utter asshole, yet everytime I meet an acquaintance of hers and mention the wedding, I get a ‘Oh how lovely!!!!’ comment. It really is seen as the magical ending that ‘every girl’ is after, and never mind whether it’s actually a healthy relationship. Sorry for that mini-rant – I can spend several hours on this topic with a following wind!

    And well said Lynsey, trying to dig up dirt surrounding a tragic death just proves what utter scum the DM are.

  5. Doris Day

    @Laura – whilst there’s nothing wrong with dressing as you want to, I do believe that this kind of behaviour is fairly gross. After all, the young men and women in places like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, etc. don’t usually behave in such a crass manner. I do believe that there is a fairly obnoxious vibe after hours in towns across the UK, this is not a gender discriminatory issue.

  6. red100

    just seen the photos of the students night out …Carnage ….yes …I work on the door at the cardiff students union …and yes …they get drunk ….every weekend …..and sometimes during the week ( i dont work weeknights ) …….the students wear all kind of things …..the guys are just as ‘skimpy’ dressed as the girls ….

    sometimes the guys wear less than the girls ……..

    they drink, they party, they dance ….they fall over, they throw up ,

    they then go home around 2 am ish …

    we do keep an eye on what goes on in the union …we tolerate things …but put a stop to any stupid, dangerous, disgusting, violent and ‘over’ sexual behaviour ……….

    we had to throw a guy out the other night because he thought he could just go to the toilet in the middle of the bar …..absolutely wrong ……….

    what happens outside of the union on the streets we cant control ….but to make out its some drunken rampage is daily mail scare tactics ……….

  7. BareNakedLady

    What’s cheering, though, is when an article like that gets universally slammed by DM readers in the comments. Given the kind of thing which it’s sometimes possible to read in DM comments, I find it particularly heartening when a piece of poison like this is rightly flamed.

  8. Laura

    @ Doris Day,

    Yes, I agree aspects of our alcohol culture are problematic. But I think what should concern people here is the pressure put on young people to drink themselves into oblivion and – for women in particular – to dress in an overtly sexual manner during Freshers’ Weeks and university socials, not what they actually look like. If you don’t drink I can imagine Freshers’ Week would be hugely alienating; everyone’s so desperate to make friends and fit in, and most of the activities that are organised revolve around drinking, while fancy dress codes often focus on sexualising female students. The Mail does place a clear focus on the women, and I just love how it interprets a woman sitting on the ground as her having ‘collapsed’. The majority of drunk students are just having a good time and not causing trouble, but the Mail’s hyperbolic descriptions make it sound like they’re a pack of wild animals.

  9. Doris Day

    @Laura

    ‘The majority of drunk students are just having a good time and not causing trouble’

    I agree with you. However, and forgive me if this sounds a little snobbish, but I do think that the kind of loud, coarse braying that we hear on our streets from drunk revellers is tiresome at best, and unfortunately a very British phenomenon

  10. sianmarie

    fry sums it up well:

    I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathesome and inhumane.

    but anyway i have complained to the PCC and i have posted my letter onto my blog so if you want to complain as well then please feel free to use my letter if you agree with its sentiments and if you haven’t got time to write your own.

    http://sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com/2009/10/jan-moir-and-stephen-gately.html

    love xx

  11. Victoria

    It really makes your head spin, this one, it’s so far beyond parody. I love the really essential misogyny of describing the Nolans’ tour as a “giant triumph of spirit over depleted oestrogen”. Presumably women should just kill themselves when they get menopausal (although if they do so and are married, this should in no way reflect badly on the institution of heterosexual marriage. It’s only gays who kill themselves who raise “troubling questions” about their partnerships).

    As for the sheer nastiness regarding Stephen Gateley’s death … My youngest son (four months) developed pulmonary odema at three weeks old, totally out of the blue. Clearly there are some sordid goings on in the cot when I’m not around. Perhaps the Daily Mail could come round and confirm which of the cuddly toys might be gay, then I’ll organise some kind of purge?

  12. Lynsey

    I thought my comment might not make the censor!

    Moir and Platell hate everyone, foreign, gay, rich, poor, but mostly female.

    They are poisonous and offer nothing good or even humorous to the world, it’s solely bile.

  14. sianmarie

    just in case people aren’t as avid at following twitter as i am – the daily mail have had to pull all the ads on the article page on the website due to protest and change the headline.

    so a part victory for the protest!

    the PCC site crashed due to the number of complaints. they’re worse than useless but at least we have made a lot of noise!

  15. Keighley

    I was directed to this article from a gossip website, so that show the anger at this ridiculous article is wide reaching. I felt so enraged when reading this, particularly the final comments on same sex unions, that I had to register with the daily mail website to express my annoyance. But then I felt bad about adding to there website hits…

  16. Vanessa

    Laura, I saw that ‘name and shame article’ from the daily mail. A lot of girls get up to that on a drunk night out – me included a couple of times. But naming and shaming them and putting cherry- picked unflattering pictures of girls (it looks like they went for the ones in the biggest state: this is how ‘ugly’/ pathetic drunk girls are; i.e. objectifying women to make a point about something).

    A weird element to the daily mail is its recurring theme of drunk women being a sign of a bad state of Britain. Here it seems their anger over this boy memorial- peeing, merely gives them an excuse to name and shame innocent girls sitting down on a pavement – two girls with their pants on show??? The mail is too creepy these days. How it gets away with the misogyny, which is always ‘over the line’ is beyond me. The first thing on any feminist agenda should be to take it down, as it clearly seethes at the mouth with an opportunity to bash women. More or less every article does.

  17. Amy

    Haha did you see the piece about Suri Cruise in the mail? That got flamed to hell by ALL the commenters :D

    I think one article about women getting angrier got flamed to death, with misogyny in the comments getting 200 red arrows. Sweet bliss in places you least expect!

  18. Laura

    On the DM comments: they recently changed their policy so most articles are only very lightly moderated, which is why the comments sections have got a bit better recently!

  19. Elmo

    about the students drinking-im 17, and i don’t drink, never have. this is because i see clever, charming people turn into complete idiots when drunk-and often scary ones. I refuse to believe that this is how every teenager throughout history has behaved-that its some kind of rite of passage to piss your knickers in the middle of the street, then throw up black bile everywhere. Im at college atm, which doesnt have a formal freshers week, which is great, there is no pressure to get smashed-ive had nothing but fun so far. next year, however, im starting uni, and im terrified-freshers week is ALL about getting pissed, and really feel i will be left out. i would be really interested to know if freshers week has always been driven by this-did any of you go to uni and experience a freshers like the ones today? My mum works for a uni, whose freshers motto this year was-“drink Edinburgh dry”-surely this is not a responsible way to run a uni-it teaches people that drinking is VITAL to having fun.

    in terms of feminism and freshers week-all of the ones ive heard about from my friends had themes that sexualized the women -“naughty schoolgirl” theme, “carnival costume” (ie sparkly bikini) theme, etc. My friends also had enormous pressure put on them to drink as much as possible. there really does seem to be an underlying aggressiveness about it all.

    i DO feel i will be alienated, I DO feel under pressure to be sexual-i DO think its a problem.

  20. gadgetgal

    @Elmo

    Don’t worry too much about Fresher’s week – my first week at university was so hectic with trying to move all my stuff into halls and generally navigating my way around somewhere I didn’t have a clue about kind of nixed the whole drinking myself into a stupour idea!! In fact the only times I DID go out were a couple of times to the local pub with some of the others from my halls to get to know them, and not all of us drank because we wanted to actually get to know each other rather than forgetting everyone’s names! Some of the organised events can be pretty raw but on the whole most people didn’t go to them, and the ones who did were pretty tame – that’s why out of the many thousands of people at any one university you’ll generally only see 5 or 6 with their pictures ending up the the Mail (not that that excuses it, of course!).

    Just be yourself and don’t let anyone try and get you to do otherwise – you’ll meet like-minded people as well as not, and even the ones who aren’t can be pretty cool too! Good luck!

  21. Daniela Vincenti

    Well Elmo, don’t drink don’t dress up and maye don’t even go to fresher week if that is what you want. Stuff the pressure… you are an adult and you do what you think is right for you. After a while people will start respecting you for it.

  22. Berrnie

    Well, you won’t be alienated from other women who really think hard about these issues.

    I can’t drink for medical reasons, but I doubt I would anyway. And if people ever try and make me feel weird about it, they don’t get very far. I have no problem with people enjoying a drink – in moderation. But I feel not a lot but pity/disdain for those who get plastered mindlessly, whether its my best friend, my father, or someone in the street. It just shows a lack of decorum. People who don’t do the (expensive) tacky hyper-drinking should be proud. But, I think they should also use that confidence to inspire others to lead a healthier lifestyle. Then everyone wins.

  25. Laurel Dearing

    hmm i think freshers week is important because you talk to a lot of people in open ways you never will again. however i think mot unis, if you look, have an alternative freshers which very often includes non-drinking events like bowling and stuff like that. i guess with certain religions being anti-alcohol these are probably more common now as well. also, later on, after freshers, chances are that therell be quiet pubs both for and not for students where you and your friends can go for a quiet drink with or without alcohol, without having to worry about this stuff.

  27. Lynne Miles

    Yes, apparently the PCC complaints website crashed, and she’s issued the world’s lamest apology . They’ve also edited the title away … for those just coming to this now, the top of that page originally read something along the lines of “There was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death” (I forget the exact wording)

  28. Anna

    ‘But I feel not a lot but pity/disdain for those who get plastered mindlessly, whether its my best friend, my father, or someone in the street. It just shows a lack of decorum’

    No. If I’m not going to call you boring for staying in, you can’t tell me that I lack class or decorum because I like to get off my face every night. Why is it so hard to just respect each other’s choices?

  33. Ruth Moss

    You’re right Lynn, the apology was crap. But can we please not use ableist words like “lame” to describe it?

    I notice also her rubbish “apology” was confined to the appalling tripe she spouted about Gately, not her use of transmisogynistic language in a later part of her article, not the misogyny and mother-blaming in another part of her article, and not her ageism and fatphobia in another part again, either.

    Pathetic. Truly pathetic.

  34. childerowland

    Elmo, just wanted to say that I’m teetotal – always have been – and I experienced no negativity at all during my Freshers’ week in 2001 where not drinking alcohol was concerned, nor did I feel alienated. I enjoyed the week and made some good friends. There was definitely a veneer of ‘alcohol is the most important thing!’ but I found that in reality it was more of a front than anything else, and pretty much everyone I knew drank in moderation (as opposed to getting drunk all the time).

  35. Victoria

    I find it quite inspiring the way opposition to this piece has gained strength. The Daily Mail has got away with this nastiness for so long and it’d be great if they could be pulled up for it more and more. The non-apology of Jan Moir is quite a classic (I like the complaint about an “orchestrated” campaign, as though somehow people aren’t playing fair by responding en masse to her bigotry).

    Did anyone else read the whole of her column? She’s even got something against over-adventurous scone flavourings (honest!).

  36. polly

    I just read Jan Moir’s justification of herself and it’s bizarre to say the least.

    “”Yes, anyone can die at anytime of anything. However, it seems unlikely to me that what took place in the hours immediately preceding Gately’s death – out all evening at a nightclub, taking illegal substances, bringing a stranger back to the flat, getting intimate with that stranger – did not have a bearing on his death. At the very least, it could have exacerbated an underlying medical condition.””

    Why would sex with a stranger give someone pulmonary odoema? Yes unprotected sex with multiple partners can be dangerous in terms of HIV transmission, but a)that’s not confined to gay men and b)is there any evidence Gately DID have sex with the man him and his partner met at the nightclub anyway?

    Similarly, taking drugs is hardly a gay only pastime, neither is staying out all night at a nightclub. It’s entirely correct to suggest that some drugs can be harmful – cocaine particularly can cause heart attacks.

    But again there is no evidence as far as I’m aware, that Gately’s death was immediately preceeded by him taking drugs.

    There are probably millions of ‘respectable’ heterosexuals – some of them may even work on the Mail! – who take drugs, go to nightclubs and have sex with people they just met. But Moir seems to think that gay men are uniquely dissolute.

    http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=44483&c=1

  37. Lynne Miles

    You’re right Lynn, the apology was crap. But can we please not use ableist words like “lame” to describe it?

    Point well taken, Ruth, that was thoughtless. Sorry.

  38. Berrnie

    If you stay in you may be boring, but its hardly going to give you the chance to harm yourself quite like getting trashed would! And they are hardly the only two choices.

    I can’t help thinking that on some level, not minding that you’d cause that harm to yourself means a lack of self-concern. Because no one anywhere can possibly say binge drinking is good for you. Regular binge drinking just not something I could ever accept as a good life choice, much like smoking. Its my opinion and I stick to it.

    I would never tell a person that to their face because they are an adult! They do indeed have the right to make their own choices. Providing they are over 18, no point in me offending a person.

    But come on now…don’t people being sick/falling over on the street look very silly? How can they not?

  39. polly

    Well interestingly the definition of binge drinking for a woman is over six units of alcohol in a day.

    http://www.bupa.co.uk/health_information/html/healthy_living/lifestyle/alcohol/alcohol_binge_drinking.html

    I’ve never, ever gone out and deliberately drunk so much I’d throw up, I almost never have a hangover after drinking, and more days than not I’m alchohol free.

    But I do often consume more than six units of alcohol on a night out, and I have a good time. Like it or not, alcohol is a sociable drug. Being a bit drunk is a pleasant sensation. The idea that there is nothing in between being a teetotaller and a pisshead who urinates in the street is a bit daft actually.

    But going out and getting pissed and feeling dreadful the next day is a phase a lot of people go through. The point is it is beneficial in so far as they enjoy themselves, and most people eventually learn to moderate their alcohol intake after a while.

  41. Melanie

    I’m so glad that Jan Moir’s sick (and additionally really badly written and completely incoherent) column has been so widely condemned and that the Mail, wildly overestimating the homophobia of its readership and the British population generally, has been hoist with its own petard.

    For the sake of Gately’s widower and other relatives who have been so publicly insulted, I’m hoping that at least some good will come out of this and it could prove a real watershed in social attitudes – I get the impression that even people who do not generally approve of homosexuality are appalled by the disrespect shown to the recently bereaved families, so maybe these readers will reflect on this and become more sensitive to homophobia in future.

    I’m considering writing to M&S and the other companies who have pulled their advertising from the Mail to congratulate them on their stance and will increase my custom with them in future.

    I also really hope that blatant misogyny in the media starts to get this kind of outrage, too.

  42. Berrnie

    I did not say there is a getting pissed all the time vs teetotaller dichotomy. I said in my first post I understand why people like a drink in moderation, i.e I do understand that drinking may be pleasant. Not an issue.

    What I find unpleasant is the sort of drinking that seems to be quite common in a lot of towns/cities, at least near where I live – people go out to drink as much as possible and don’t care about the consequences to themselves or others. I find the way that this is seen as a valid, OK form of entertain by so many worrying.

    Sure, a lot of people might be more sensible as they grow older and drink less. The problem is that there is another generation, then another, so there are a consistent (sp!) group that WILL just go out and become very/ dangerously drunk and disturb other people living/going out nearby. And no one needs it! I’ve nothing against people enjoying alcohol, but when they start throwing up and screaming outside my window at 2am, when they utilise emergency services through inflicting harm upon themselves..I don’t have much patience for that.

    Its not “drinkers” I’m talking about, its the drinkers who cause social disorder and who inconvenience everyone else by throwing up/starting fights/making an unbelievable amount of noise/making it unsafe to walk around, because they think its fun. I accept that plenty of people act in a human fashion when on a night out. But a sizeable minority do not, and thats what I can’t stand.

  43. Berrnie

    Sorry, just to clarify – I meant using emergency services as a result of self-inflicted drunkenness, inflicted in the name of “having a good time”. I didn’t mean to imply that absolutely anyone with self-inflicted injury is wasting resources, I meant in the specific context, in this case, of inflicting harm on yourself/others through “having a good time”, voluntarily.

  44. Anne Onne

    I agree with Laura Woodhouse in particular. Fresher’s week activities can very much be aimed at drinking oneself comatose and wearing as little as possible if you’re female, and it seems to be something across the board in terms of universities. Many people I know at university who don’t drink at all, or not much find the way many social events are organised specifically around getting bladdered rather alienating. It’s a societal thing, too, apparently you just can’t have fun without getting pissed.

    What a lie. If you feel you need to build confidence, alcohol really isn’t an answer.

    But the good thing is, for all you soon-to-be-university students, drinking in excess isn’t the only thing you can do as a fresher, I’m sure you’ll make lots of friends and have a good time regardless! Just do what you feel suits you.

    As for where to draw the line at ‘binge’ drinking (polly’s point), the actual amount of alcohol, and time needed to cause serious damage varies for different conditions, so it doesn’t actually take hundreds of units a week or being addicted, to cause serious health problems. Which isn’t to say nobody should ever drink more than the recommended units, but that there are reasons they are recommended.

    Interestingly, I watched a programme which claimed that teenagers brains are wired in such a way that they are more tolerant to alcohol, so it could be that we are learning to drink when we can take it more, but develop long-term habits that are hard to shake, and impact us more and cause us more damage later on. Getting a bit tipsy might be pleasant for most of us, but our relationship as a society with alcohol is rather complex, and not all pleasant.

    I’m saying this not to suggest that people should not have personal choice and nobody should drink, but to point out that our society absolutely does have a problem with our relationship to alcohol, encouraging us to use it as a crutch rather than work through our issues, and as a justification for behaviour we wouldn’t otherwise do. For a lot of us, alcohol runs a lot deeper than merely enjoying the taste of ethanol or feeling a bit giddy.

  45. Anne Onne

    I’m also not sure whether ‘most people eventually learn to moderate their alcohol intake after a while’.

    A lot of the reasons why people drink lots are complex, alcohol is an addictive substance (albeit not so much as nicotine), and I think it’s too simplistic to say most people grow out of drinking. Habits are hard to kick, and as far as society goes, older generations may drink less than raving clubbers on average, but many of them are also causing themselves permanent liver damage (remember that NHS warning about that middle-aged drinkers drinking fairly moderately?), not to mention the damage they may have already incurred through drinking heavily in their youth. I won’t say that all people who drink are in the same boat: the amounts people drink, and their reasons differ greatly. Some move on and moderate themselves. Many develop problems that need help. I just believe that as a society which believes drinking is nearly a necessity, we make it hard for people with a drinking problem to realise they have a problem, seek help and stay off it.

    I believe people have a right to drink, and a right to healthcare whatever they get up to. But we need to be honest about alcohol as a society and make the risks even more known. I just don’t think it’s treated as seriously as it deserves, given the extent to which alcohol can damage our bodies. There’s no need for poisoning oneself to be seen as an integral, almost obligatory part of socialising, yet it currently is.

  46. polly

    The key word I’ve used Anne is ‘most’ – ie more than 50%. Data on ‘binge drinking’ is presented in very deceptive ways.

    Actually the alcohol ‘safe’ limits are completely arbitrary and have no scientific/research basis whatsoever, Men who drink between 21 and 30 units a week have the highest life expectancy of all males – more than teetotallers. A teetotal male has the same life expectancy as one consuming 63 units a week in fact.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article2697975.ece

    But far more irritating, to me at least is the way women are castigated for drinking, and not just by the Mail. Do you remember the campaign a few years back when the government said that because 1 in three women who are raped had been drinking (note that is drinking any alchohol at all, not binge drinking), they were at fault for ‘making themselves vulnerable’.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6153822.stm

  47. Anne Onne

    Fair enough. I wouldn’t personally be sure how many people who drink seriously excessively later learn to drink without damaging their bodies, but I respect your opinion.

    It’s obvious that drinking below a certain level is perfectly healthy, even beneficial, and that over a certain level is problematic, but of course it’s hard to decide what level should be arbitrarily decided as a ‘safe’ amount.

    I suspect they decided to choose a particular number of units in that people can find unclear guidelines hard to follow and can interpret them to mean that there isn’t really any difference. I don’t find it unusual that drinking moderately over the limit would (as far as we know) be fairly safe, since guidelines on dosage are nearly always written to play on the ‘safe side’ so to speak. However I disagree with keeping guidelines ridiculously low (such as the women should never drink during pregnancy suggestion) just to make things ‘easier to understand’.

    I think we can both agree that how we look at alcohol, from all perspectives, could use a shake-up.

    I agree fully that singling out women for *shock horror* drinking (or ‘acting like men’!!!!!) is vile. How funny is it that somehow behaviour deemed as inappropriate but masculine and a part of being a bloke is seen as being that much worse when a woman does it?

  48. Laurel Dearing

    as an add to the give-elmo-advice stuff (lol) id say, if you use yougofurther, create a forum thread on your intended uni about being worried about the drinking clubbing whatever scene and maybe other people will add to it and you can arrange an alternative thing through there. i was comforted by being told of quiet pubs and alternative freshers events through there, and one of the other people that posted on there, through pure coincidence is someone i then met at freshers and now live with =)

  49. Kit

    “What I find unpleasant is the sort of drinking that seems to be quite common in a lot of towns/cities, at least near where I live – people go out to drink as much as possible and don’t care about the consequences to themselves or others. I find the way that this is seen as a valid, OK form of entertain by so many worrying.” – I’m with you on that front Berrnie. Swansea centre is a state on Saturday and Sunday mornings. I feel really sorry for the people who have to get up early and clean it all up before the general public are up and about.

    @Elmo – I didn’t go out to any of the drinking freshers’ socials in my first year at uni, there were still other events going on that weren’t all about that but I did feel a bit left out when all my housemates & friends would go to them. I didn’t take part in any society events in my first year either, but the ones I joined later on had more “let’s not get off our faces”-friendly events :)

  50. FeminaErecta

    Melanie-do not buy ANYTHING from M&S whilst they continue to sell personal alarms at the budget-shattering £19.95 that they advertise in bus stops; if they ain’t capitalising on fear then I don’t know what is! Though vg for them removing the ads from the DM’s page.

    Also check out that the PCC have now created their own special ‘complain about Jan Moir’ page on the website! http://www.pcc.org.uk/news/index.html?article=NTk4NA==

  51. Kate

    Back to the Mail, did anyone else read the MoS’s interview with the female TV presenter who was raped and then disfigured by a former boyfriend? Even in what was supposed to be a sympathetic piece the journalist managed to make digs at her “judgement” and said she “lied” to her doctors about her initial injuries following the rape. The Mail’s journalists need some serious education in way rape victims may respond to an attack, because they sure as hell don’t all immediately file politely down to the police station and then reveal all to the A&E room.

  54. Kez

    The more I hear and think about this, the more annoyed I get (and I barely knew who Stephen Gately was before the news broke of his death). Jan Moir’s article is hateful, and her subsequent comments are no better. She believes she has been the victim of a “heavily orchestrated internet campaign” (by the well known gay mafia who run the internet, I guess) and that most people who have complained have probably not even read her article. This is nonsensical and insulting. Many of the people who complained may not, admittedly, have been regular Daily Mail readers, but once the article was brought to their attention (as it was to mine) they have every right to complain about it if they find it offensive. To suggest that people have not even read the article is idiotic. It’s the Daily Mail, Jan, not Dostoyevsky – it’s hardly difficult to read, or to find online. An “orchestrated campaign” is also nonsense – all I have seen is many people, outraged by what they have read, writing or Tweeting about it and hence more and more people have become aware of it and have, in their turn, been outraged. That’s not an orchestrated campaign, that’s just how stuff happens. Has it occurred to her that the reason so many people have expressed shock and anger is because what she wrote was, indeed, particularly offensive and insensitive?

    As I said, I knew little about Stephen Gately, but from what I can gather he was a young man to whom no particular scandal ever attached itself during his lifetime, unless being gay is itself a scandal (which it clearly is, in the eyes of the Daily Mail). To suggest that his death was inevitably a consequence of some sleazy lifestyle, on the grounds that (a) he was gay, (b) he and his long-term partner invited a guest back to their home, and (c) he smoked cannabis (horrors!) is ludicrous. I don’t know whether there was any evidence other than in Jan Moir’s dirty mind of a sexual encounter with this guest – frankly, it’s none of my business – but even if there was, I fail to see what it could have to do with his death, unless she is suggesting that the visitor murdered him. Let’s face it, Stephen Gately could have died while sitting on his sofa watching Coronation Street and drinking a cup of cocoa, after a day spent tiling the bathroom, and Jan Moir would still have found something “unnatural” and “sleazy” about it.

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