"It is perhaps sad to think that they are as pathetically in the grip of a base and humiliating need to get their rocks off as men are, but if that is the case then that is the case and god knows I’m no expert on the subject and have no right either to confirm or deny the proposition"
Why is it ‘sad’? Or ‘base’ or ‘humiliating’? It’s natural. Sex is natural. The drive for sex is natural. And normal. It’s not sad nor base nor humiliating except, perhaps, to someone in the grips of an actually sad Puritan hangover.
Also, there is a video interview with you, it’s on YouTube and I suppose since I reference I should provide the link, but I’m pressed for time. Anyway, in it you plainly make the statement that ‘...women just don’t get it.’ and you were talking about the masucline need for sex. My point is this: Your own words indicate that you don’t believe women need or want sex as much and if you find yourself castigated to some extreme, look to your own statements. There may be validity in the response, and sometimes in the inference, that you may hold some patriarchal ideas in your lovely head about women and sex as any ill-informed or straight man with hangups of some sort might. Or do you think you are entirely immune from this or without your own bigotries?
Wouldn’t it be better to simply admit that you find the idea of women wanting or enjoying sex somehow uncomftorable to your own inner ideal of womanhood? Many men do, straight or gay. The old ‘the vagina should be a one way street and that street points OUT.” ideal. That women should be angelic and pure and without ‘base’ desires. Much of that thinking is tied to ‘Mother’.
If you really are no expert, as you again say, then why do you comment at all? Why do you entertain the ideas if you feel so hopelessly without reference? Why draw the comparison between women and straight or gay male sex drives? Why not leave women and what they want sexually out of your commentary?
I think you want it both ways: You want to opine you’re no expert but be able to toss out ludicrous thoughts about the female sex drive and you also want to be able to do that without criticism coming back at you. Well, which is it? You can’t both climb out on the limb of ideas, knowing it’s creaky and potentially going to result in a fall, and then whine about the limb being creaky. Or blame the journalist for doing their jobs. You’ve been a public figure for decades and then continuously complain and rant and whine about the publicity you get if you find it’s not flattering. You even go on to presume this gentlemen ‘wish you ill’. Come ON Stephen!! You sound a bit like a spoiled toddler not getting his way.
Your justifications and rationalizations for catching yourself up with your own words contrasted against the presumed world of mean, vile, ill-wishing journalists is really very much beneath your own ability to suss a thing out objectively. And also, I am guessing, beneath your true character.
I know, even though I’m a kind of fan of yours, that I will catch heat for giving an honest opinion about any of your remarks and reaction. But maybe I’m not the kind of fan who looks at any talent blindly. I have been an avid reader of your blogs, but quite honestly of late, they have taken a tone of a near whine throughout the entirety of a thing you write.
“For some reason they singled me out as the figure most responsible for it and before long I was Fry the anti-catholic, Fry the Pope-basher, Fry the atheistic hate-monger. Weird, worrying and barely sane.”
Stephen, they singled you out because you ARE a public figure and one of more, perhaps, popular culture reference. Your name is more recognizable, as well as your face, to a greater populace. Common sense would indicate this to be true. But your statement, again, rings of an overly self-defensive posture.
“Bloody luvvie, who does he think he is? Well, then, why publicise and bring my worthless opinions so sharply front and centre?”
No, no, no. Wrong! Use the same logic on yourself: If YOU believe you’re so unimportant, then don’t comment on socially important issues such as the continued hostility of men towards women. Women are under continual attack on many levels and feel it very deeply. If you are so certain that’s a topic where you are out of your element, then don’t comment if your commentary, as you say, is so unimportant. And if you do, EXPECT that people are going to listen. I mean, WTF? How could you believe it would be any other way?
But it gets even worse...here you are trying to COMPLETELY absolve yourself of ANY responsibility for the repurcussions of your own participation in ‘conversations’ or what you say before, during, or after an interview.
“Well they are the ones who make me prevalent.”
Who are you trying to kid? YOU pursue a public life. YOU are the first one in the process making yourself ‘prevalent’. Or are you being unwillingly forced by gunpoint into a public career such as film, TV, and authoring books? If so, you should call the police and let them know you have been a victim of this coersion for decades. Or whichever point you started pursuing acting as a career.
“I soon enough slink back and before long it’s as if nothing happened. Clears the air. Does good on all sides.”
And here it’s as if you are saying you hide from the fallout of your own words and actions. Wow. I don’t even know what to say to that. ‘Cowardice’ would be too strong a word and too unkind, which is nothing I mean towards you. But it slightly smacks of dropping a verbal bomb on a group of folks and then skittering out of the room before you hear any protests to what you have said.
This portion of what I write is meant slightly tongue in cheek as I couldn’t resist a Freudian interlude.
“...you can’t be trusted not to say something that will make you look a tit...”
Not a twit, but a tit. Hmm...’tit’ is slang for the female breast and you use it in a negative conotation here. So, is the female breast a bad thing? You do have a reputation for avoiding them and being horrified by the idea of seeing them. You winced and seemed quite revolted when your actress freind on QI threatened to break them out once. So...maybe you DO have a pyschological problem of some kind with women and sex. {Dr.Freud exits, stage right}
Finally, the sincerity of your blog ends rather insincerely, if not totally self-referential...
“No one can say my life isn’t unpredictable, interesting and … well, Fryish…”.
It makes one think you really could’ve cared less about anything you wrote. As someone spent the time to read it, I just want to say,”Thanks for that.”. You make it very apparant you value your time and your time is precious and your time is filled etc etc. Guess what?
This is so for some of your fans as well.
