This Deluge of Dysfunctional Divulgence

It must have been around three weeks ago that I was involved in a couple of conversations on Twitter, one about Ian Hislop’s Newsnight interview in which he bewailed that the plebs no longer deferred to their betters, and the other about the Daily Telegraph’s increasing promotion of sexual infidelity while attacking things like the traditional Sunday lunch. On the first, I pointed out that since the “satire boom” of the early 1960s, which was as long as most people had been alive, some public school Sixth Former from 1959 had been telling us all what to think, and if that had ever been funny, then it no longer was. On the second, I set out that while he himself had moved to a better payer, the Telegraph had always been the newspaper closest to Boris Johnson in his pomp. And he, of course, embodied Toryland’s financial fiddles and adulterous affairs. Theresa May was who they liked to think that they were, but Johnson was the truth and they knew it. As did he. Now, as the proprietor on which the Telegraph’s staff insisted to the point of having the Statute Law changed sacks 100 of them in favour of AI-generated puzzles, even The Critic, in the person of Ben Sixsmith, has dared to notice:

“I thought motherhood had killed my sex drive,” declares a headline in The Telegraph, “But I just needed a divorce.” Er — okay? The author of the Telegraph is apparently “a Modern Priestess of Pleasure guiding women out of burnout and into their feminine power”. Her book Blow Up Your Life claims to be “the book your husband doesn’t want you to read”, and contains sentences like: “we have buried our truth so deep, like an Easter egg in a Taylor Swift video …”

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to be an austere moralist. Divorce in ice-cold marriages can be the best thing for everyone involved, I’m sure, and it would doubtless be possible to write something interesting, compelling and challenging about the experience. I’m just not sure this is the thoughtful and nuanced voice that a Telegraph reader might deserve. But for some reason The Telegraph is absolutely heaving with this sort of thing: lifestyle columns about people — largely, but not exclusively, middle-aged women — upending their lives before grandly, prematurely celebrating it. At this point, the two quintessential Telegraph columns are “The woke pro-Palestine protestors have gone TOO FAR” and “I was bored with my marriage — until I started sleeping with other dudes”.

I’m not exaggerating here. The Telegraph really did publish a column with the title “ I was unhappy in my marriage — until we agreed I could sleep with other people”. Fine? I guess? Again, there will always be husbands and wives with alternative arrangements. That’s life. One might as well complain about the weather. But — my God — that doesn’t mean we have to hear about them. (Or that people’s children should have to grow up with the exhausting details of their parents’ “mono-poly” relationship just a click away.) Yet this is a favourite theme of The Telegraph. Here is a less than comprehensive selection of titles: “I’m married and dating other people — and so is my wife”, “I’m a boring middle-aged professor with a husband… and three lovers”, “How I raise my kids in an open relationship” (writing about it in the national newspapers, apparently), “I have autism and ADHD – I prefer to be in an open relationship” … 

How can we explain this deluge of dysfunctional divulgence? There are two possibilities here. The first is that, in a tough time for the press, this sort of column is exploiting an instinct towards a prurient interest in other people’s sex lives. Look — I get it. It’s hard to find readers nowadays. “My love life was getting stale — before I discovered having sex in public parks” is always going to attract more clicks than “The problem with John Healey’s new tax scheme”.

But 50 Shades of Grey sold more than Klara and the Sun and I still don’t expect to see EL James replacing Sir Kazuo Ishiguro on the “Authors” section of Faber and Faber. We shouldn’t publish anything for clicks, regardless of its literary value — or lack thereof — or its potentially degrading spiritual impact. (Again, there could be a thoughtful piece about a failed marriage, or an alternative sex life — just not by the sort of oversharing lifestyle coaches who unironically believe in things like “chakras”.) The second possibility is that people at The Telegraph are, well — not okay. Is this a cry for help? Is there something you want to talk about, friends?