Here's the complete article so people can judge for themselves. I thought it was rather tedious and uninteresting - but it's not the outrageous statement that the selective twitter snapshot suggests.
"Now I am old, grey and losing muscle tone, over-familiar emails and workplace flirting are likely to leave women repulsed
A few days a woman called Melanie emailed from The Times to ask me to write an article about something or other. I never much fancy extra work but the deadline was a way off and it was only short and she was new to the paper, so I wrote back: “Yes, of course, I’d be happy to do a piece.” And then I wrote: “xx Giles.”
And then I went to hit “send”. But as my finger hovered over the key, I found myself looking down at those x’s in a way I have never looked at x’s before.
And I wondered suddenly why I was sending this unmet young woman the globally accepted lexicographical symbol for the pressing of one’s lips to the lips of another.
I suppose because I have always signed off letters and emails with kisses, to both girls and boys. But mostly to girls. And I’ve never meant anything by it. They are only crosses tapped thoughtlessly twice on a keyboard. But they still do mean “kiss, kiss”, and I wouldn’t put them on an email to the editor. I don’t really want to drop a smooch on young Melanie. Do I?
And at that moment I realised the time had come to start being more careful about who I make out that I want to kiss. For we live in a post-Weinstein world now. And we already did, before Weinstein. Though nobody told Weinstein.
Over the last few years, man after man in the public eye has met his downfall when a woman came forward and made claims against him of sexual aggression of one sort or another.
It’s time for me to stop smiling back at young women in the street
And when one female accuser comes out, more come. Inevitable as the rain. Sometimes it is hundreds, as with Weinstein. And then without any cross-examination of the stories, the man is finished. No trials or second chances. Even if nobody said “rape”. Even if it was just touching, or saying things, or simply standing there in a bathrobe being an ugly fat old slob, looking as if you would quite like to have sex (a crime of which I myself am frequently guilty), the man is finished.
And rightly, I suppose. Women have suffered sexual microaggressions (and macro ones) at the hands of men for thousands of years. All of them, from what I can make out, by all of us. And I don’t want to run the slightest risk of being seen to have any part in any of it any more.
Melanie asked me to write a piece for The Times. She didn’t ask to be unexpectedly metaphorically snogged. She did not ask to be backed into the corner of an imaginary party and have some old man’s crackly lips pressed figuratively up against her own. Why did I want to put kisses?
I think I must accept that in part it was because I sometimes think I am still a bit sexy. That Melanie might want to be kissed by me. It is a mistake many men make as they get older, not noticing that they have become unattractive and that gestures which might once have been seen as charming have gradually become revolting. Like the proverbial toad in a saucepan of water, warming slowly and unwittingly towards its inevitable death.
I was a nice-looking boy, once upon a time. I didn’t smell or have unsightly body hair, and girls sometimes did want to kiss me, and said so. So I kissed them. And from time to time I kissed girls who worked with me. Sometimes we had sex. They were usually younger than me (not always, but mostly) and as time went on, the age gap between them and me widened.
Historic crimes, real or imagined, will tumble upon one wrong move
I am as certain as a man can be that I never touched a woman who didn’t want me to. But I suppose one or two of them might have mistakenly thought that shagging me could in some way end up proving useful. Although I would put my eyes out now, here, all over my iPad, if I thought a woman had ever had sex with me because she thought she had to. (I’m not counting anyone who might have shagged me just to be polite. We’ve surely all done that: got to the point where stopping now would simply look rude and just gritted our teeth and pushed on through.)
But I am old and grey now and losing muscle tone and it would be nothing but the ridiculous vanity of a withered ego to assume any young woman wanted to kiss me, unless she thought it might get her a job. Which it sadly wouldn’t.
So I think it’s time to put it all away. Time to stop smiling back at women in the street who are only smiling because they’ve seen me on the telly, not because they think I’m hot.
Time to stop being “charming” to waitresses. Time to stop trying to make women laugh. I like making women laugh more than I like making men laugh. Partly because the hot gust of a woman’s breath when she does so is rarely as punishing as a man’s, and partly because of the old saw about women finding funny men sexy. Ooh, she laughed: she fancies me.
That’s got to end now. No more jokes. And no more half-smiles across parties that used (I think) to look beguiling, but now look like Fagin ogling an unguarded farthing.
No more wearing nice shirts and doing my hair and standing up straight and trying to look manly. No more being just a tiny bit ruder than other men as if maybe I’m dangerous in bed (I’m not). Weinstein has spoiled all that.
One misfired flirt and I could be out of a job, publicly shunned, end up in prison. The women are out there who could make it happen. The historical crimes, real or imagined, are waiting to tumble upon one wrong move.
Ping out a couple of unwanted crosses into the ether and the world could fall on my head. And possibly rightly. I no longer feel morally competent to judge.
So no kisses today, but thank you very much, Melanie, for the commission. Yes, I’ll do it. And good luck in the new job.
All the best,
Giles."
