Pink Pound: Big Pink Bollocks

An article in The Observer wins this week's award for 'The Biggest Load of Tosh a Journalist Could Get Away With Writing About Gay Men'.

Its headline provides a handy summary of the piece; 'Pink pound loses its glow as more gay couples become parents'.

But it's hard to see what is news-worthy in its "findings"; gay couples who become parents will spend money on their children, and so will have less money to spend on other things that they used to spend money on.

Wow!

Wait, there's more. The Observer states that "gay market research company Out Now Consulting" (no, me neither) "has already found signs that becoming a parent has a big impact on gay men's attitudes to spending."

Really? Do tell.

"'The introduction of children into gay men's lives does impact on their lifestyle and expenditure habits,'" says the company's founder and CEO, Ian Johnson. "'This is likely to become part of the lifestyle impacts affecting gay men.'"

Amazing! If only we were giving out awards for stating the obvious, too.

Out Now Consulting has already done some research - stop laughing - which they claim shows "homosexual men and women earned upwards of £81bn in 2007".

Oh, come on Out Now. If you're going to pick a fantastically large figure out of the ether to try and dupe big businesses into investing in some mythical gay market filled with millions of rich gay men who don't actually exist - which is what all this big pink bollocks is actually all about - then why stop there?

The article also says that the number of children adopted by same-sex couples in the UK is between 80-90 a year.

Which according to research by my gay market research company, Made-up - Gay Statistics, means the potential amount spent on each child adopted by homosexual men and women could be upwards of £1bn.

I know, it's hard to believe, isn't it?

Which should always serve as a warning sign that a statistic has been made-up.