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Gay News: Stephen Fry is in a fury after a national newspaper allegedly misquoted his views on female sexuality.
By: Nigel Robinson
Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry: "Now I'm the Antichrist"
1 November 2010
Following an article in the Observer, Fry tweeted to his two million followers: “So some f***ing paper misquotes a humorous interview I gave, which itself misquoted me and now I’m the Antichrist. I give up.”
The Observer was commenting on an interview Fry gave to gay magazine Attitude, in which the comedian said that women only went to bed with men “because sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship.”
The Observer described his comments as “uncharacteristically extreme” and said that they denoted “a marked break in tone from a man whose public schtick tends towards inoffensive charm and gently up market wit.”
In the original interview with Attitude, Fry is quoted as saying that if women liked sex as much as men then there would be straight cruising areas just as there are gay cruising areas.
“Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking; ‘God, I’ve got to get my f***ing rocks off’,” he is reported to have said. “Or they’d go to Hampstead Heath and meet strangers to shag behind a bush.
“It doesn’t happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it.
“I feel sorry for straight men,” he went on. “The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want.
“Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, ‘Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!. But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?”
Among those criticising Fry’s views have been journalist Rosie Boycott who described his remarks as “kind of rubbish” Women are just as capable as men are of enjoying sex. We don’t go cruising or cottaging on Hampstead Heath because we don’t need to.
Feminist Germaine Greer accused Fry as having delusions of grandeur, and said:
“Stephen Fry is clearly under a delusion that he is an authority on female sexuality. Well, if he thinks that women are not interested in genital encounters with total strangers then he is absolutely right. But to conclude that we are therefore uninterested in sex is madness.”
