Gawd bless him, yesterday morning 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 interviews with 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: For people outside the UK, here it is on YouTube.)

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