Cause I'm wondering, after reading this article about a man who tragically raped a 12 year-old boy. At the end of the article it states:
'The 45 year-old, who is in a civil partnership...'
In the UK, it could not say 'married', since, even though most people have no trouble calling them marriages, they're officially civil unions. But is this just slipped in there to highlight the fact that the rapist was gay, and perpetuate the myth that most pedophiles are gay men? I'm hoping if he were married to a woman it would say 'the 45 year-old, who is married', but I don't know if it would.
Does anyone know if it is commonplace to state things like this in articles of this sort?
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Um, I think I've read plenty of stories where the rapist is identified as being married for x number of years or having a wife and kids. In those cases I always think the intention is "look how perverted this seemingly-normal guy is. Anyone you know could be a pedophile!" In this case it feels like identifying his relationship served to perpetuate a false belief that equates gay men with pedophiles. Even though I have seen cases where a straight perpetrator's relationship is mentioned, I don't think it's unreasonable to wonder why the information is in the article in either case.
It's pretty common to refer to the rapist's marital status. A lot of times they refer to a wife and kids, and I think I've seen it mentioned when the rapist lives alone. News stories often give weird irrelevant details about sexual predators and murderers, and I think a lot of it is just morbid fascination. Notice how people are obsessed with serial killers? ("How could you marry a pedophile and have five kids together and not notice?")
Of course, it could be good old fashioned homophobia.
If you always mention the marital status of pedophiles when you write about them, is it weird benevolent homophobia to refuse to mention marital status because the pedophile is gay?