Stephen Fry

I really can't give a flying fuck what yet another white old gay man thinks. WTF does he know about women?

I like
he also speaks with frankness about his experiences in the "extraordinary underworld" of cottaging in his youth, cautioning, however, that while he was "slightly obsessed" with the clandestine practice as a teenager it was more for the graffiti and sense of solidarity.

This is like saying you buy Playboy for the articles about cars.

I want to hear Stephen’s musings on women as The BBC series. With his air of authority and accent perhaps he could team up with Philomena Cunk?

Stephen Fry is a very educated man in the public eye. He knows exactly what he thinks and I 100% guarantee his private, educated opinions are TERFY as all hell but I have no doubt his trans friends feel invalidated and he explained the issue without taking a side.

There's truth here but a lot unsaid. A lot that will never be said as Stephen Fry relies on public approval.

because women don't seem to enjoy that kind of anonymous sex

Because it's much more dangerous for women, perhaps? The 'zipless' fuck movement happened in the 1970s suggests it's not all that rare.

The GRA was the compromise. It's been abused to the point that the goodwill is now gone. Used up. Finished. The answer cannot be that women bear all the responsibility to compromise and give a bit more; they cannot bring more than 50% of a relationship to the table, and the relationship with the TQ+ political lobby is reaching the clean break point with SH Lawyers.

Mind you, having just read that second quote of Fry's... the poor chap doesn't sound terribly well.

I do love how batshit Helen Islan is. She's a one woman peaking machine.

I'm so grumpy that my autocucumber has done a number on that comment without me even noticing. " ... get some decent... " and " ... if he lived in..."

He's right, there are almost no women that are interested in that kind of thing.

I think where he has gone wrong is he thinks that because women don't seem to enjoy that kind of anonymous sex, they also are not enjoying the more intimate encounters. He doesn't see that there is a change in the physical experience because of the change in the emotional or mental situation.

And it is also the case that there are women for whom what he says is true, maybe especially younger women who haven't figured out how to have satisfying sex yet. Many women are prepared to spend some time having less satisfying sex in order to get to a play where it will be more satisfying. Or some do it without even expecting that, they do exactly what he said they are doing.

So it may be that he has observed that, or heard women talk about it, and has over-extrapolated.

Why are these men always so thick? Go read Helen Joyce's book before wading in, you arrogant fucks. Just gets one decent background on the issue before spouting off.

As for the sex comments... maybe if he lives in a physically weaker body that could get pregnant he might be less keen on shagging random strangers in bushes too. Fuckssake.

I suspect Fry thinks there could be a reasonable compromise, and is not aware of the extent to which anything like that was rejected long ago because of the claim that TW are literally, biologically, women. And I very much doubt he is up on things like AGP which complicates the scenario significantly.

He is basically back in the old days of the gay transexual and can't figure out why no one is making what seem like the obvious approaches that would make sense.

Based on the stuff some of the community post online they undermine their own dignity, no-one needs to do that for them.

Good lord.

Broadcaster and writer Stephen Fry has tried to establish himself as an unlikely authority on female sexuality, claiming that straight women only go to bed with men "because sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship".

In uncharacteristically extreme comments, the openly gay Twitter champion said he believed most straight men felt that "they disgust women" as they "find it difficult to believe that women are as interested in sex as they are".

"For good reason," he declares in a candid interview in the November issue of Attitude magazine. "If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas. Women would go and hang around in churchyards thinking: 'God, I've got to get my fucking rocks off', 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."

He may have taken the arguable position that in general, men seem to have higher sex drives and run with it there - to the foothills of extreme, past the extreme, onwards to the Cliffs of No Hope, cleverly avoided the possible Valley of Context and escaped the Forest of Variables, and continued on right off the edge of batshit into the wide blue yonder.

www.theguardian.com/media/2010/oct/31/stephen-fry-sex-women-relationships-attitude

Most of the rest of us went through the "things could be sorted out if both sides could discuss them calmly" phase about five years ago.

I would love to see Stephen Fry and JK Rowling discuss this topic! I wonder if he would be brave enough?

It's amusing to see that the main backlash seems to be coming from the TRAs when he obviously thought his 'some of my best friends are gentle thoughtful trans folk' bullshit would keep them onside.

You're not alone:

twitter.com/runthinkwrite/status/1593966183753175040?s=46&t=FKYhmwfHR3wMr60G0e2Stg

But that would involve males actually getting up off their bums and doing something instead of pontificating.

They leave the shitwork to women.

They have no problem at all in knowing who the women are. No genital inspections needed.

I look forward to hearing Stephen Fry and other men will make their spaces more welcoming so that Transwomen feel more comfortable using them. I feel so sorry for this community are made to feel so vulnerable that they seek sanctuary in a completely different groups sphere.

This.

SF doesn't seem to understand our position at all.

Although he hasn't got it quite as wrong as mimmymum.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1325299/Stephen-Fry-Women-dont-really-like-sex-What-know-ask-feminists.html

JanieAllen · Today 12:29
This is Stephen Fry who lectured straight women on their sex lives right????

What?😮

TheKeatingFive · Today 12:48
As Graham Norton demonstrated, this is a risky topic to weigh in on trying to be the 'voice of reason' in the middle. Because the voice of reason is already represented.

Oh yes!!

ArabellaScott · Today 13:06
'calm down, dear'.

Exactly!

(At times like this I love MN.)

How big does the sexism and double standards have to get before some of these men are able to see it?

Good question. Some of them will never see it because women are irrelevant to them.

The right and dignity being demanded is that females get their kit off and/or accepts intimate touch from and in front of any male who feels like it, and accepts the sword waving, wanking, behaviours, all while pretending convincingly for the male person's benefit that they believe the male is female. Or accepts that if they're not able to do this, that they are now excluded from all women's services, healthcare, resources, for the crime of being biologically female while not therapising males at their own expense.

Fuck off Stephen.

Females are fucking human too, and their dignity and privacy is not any less important than a male person's. And we're talking here about dignity as:

'I want the real, actual, basic human rights dignity of not getting undressed in a vulnerable space in sight of a male stranger' compared to 'I want the metaphorical and ephemoral dignity of female people not contradicting my self belief at any time'.

How big does the sexism and double standards have to get before some of these men are able to see it?

Try flipping it:

to consider that is possible for women to live full, accepted lives according to their terms in society, and for trans people to have all the rights and dignities they demand.