Jennifer Horgan: I will openly admire a good-looking man in his smalls — that's not double standards

David Beckham in the new Boss underwear campaign.

My mind is more slow cooker than microwave. I stew, for hours sometimes, days, letting ideas marinade, or evaporate off altogether.

My mental speed works okay when I’m asked to write a column once a week, but it’s a little less than ideal when I’m invited on live radio.

Unfortunately, for listeners, one occupation can lead to the other, and occasionally I find myself, diffident ol’ columnist me, plonked beneath a microphone in a studio, part excited, but mostly completely overwhelmed.

Such was the situation last Friday, when I shared a booth with the inimitable Pat Fitzpatrick (aka Reggie) and the lovely Matt Cooper.

The creation of radio is faster paced than it sounds, and I was doing my best to keep up when at the start of our second exchange, following some ad breaks, Matt turned to me.

Matt Cooper: "Jennifer Horgan, how do you feel about David Beckham’s latest ad campaign for Boss underwear."

Jennifer Horgan: “I love seeing David Beckham in his underwear.” 

Left with little to work with, Matt asked if I was in danger of being called sexist, or of keeping a double standard.

My mental stew emitted something then, escaping through my mouth with the elegance of a meaty burp. Something like: “Ah sure, it’ll build empathy between the sexes.” I spent the entirety of the next day cringing.

Pause and rewind

So here, back in the slow-cook safety zone of my column, I’d like to rewind the segment. Hit that pause button, Matt! Here is my answer for you, fully cooked and ready to serve.

Matt Cooper: Jennifer Horgan, are you not being sexist? Is that not a double standard?

Jennifer Horgan: Well, no Matt, I don’t believe it is a double standard. For it to be a double standard we would have to agree that the standards are the same for men and women. The history of men and women being captured in their undergarments could not be more different.

(No doubt Pat Fitzpatrick would have chimed in here, mentioning Reggie’s penchant for gracing the stage in his bikini-style smalls.) Then, swiftly back to me.

You see Matt, David Beckham is a 49-year-old man. He is the captain of his fate and master of a vast fortune. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He is inviting me, a heterosexual woman of a similar age, to admire him, and admire him I will

However, women, or should I say girls, have rarely been the designers of their own careers when getting snapped in their underpants. I’m thinking of Kate Moss, a barely pubescent child in her bedroom back in the early nineties. Remember her? She later revealed that she cried throughout the shoot and always found it traumatising as a young girl when she was asked to pose in her underwear because, like most teenagers, she was conscious of her young body. 

Or I’m thinking of all the pictures I used to avoid seeing on newspapers on tubes when I worked in London in the mid-noughties. Jesus, all those mornings when I’d pretend not to notice the middle-aged men stuffed up next to me, salivating over a barely dressed, no doubt underpaid, noticeably young girl.

It can’t be a double standard, Matt, when the standards are not the same.

He’d look impressed of course, before (understandably) posing the next question to Pat Fitzpatrick.

You see, I’m annoyed with myself because this wasn’t the first time I’ve been charged with this ‘double standard’ accusation.

I had a similar chat off air and off the record a few weeks ago, with an intelligent creative man. Let’s call him Geoff.

We were discussing poetry when he informed me that he has stopped reading any work with even a hint of misogyny. “I’m so sick of it,” he expanded. “It is so full of… (yes, wait for it….) double standards.” I pressed him on the matter, feeling far more articulate without the presence of a microphone.

“Well, to give one example, I was reading an article in The Guardian, written by a female journalist. She went on a tirade against Elon Musk, mocking him for wearing a T-shirt that was far too tight for his frame. It was body shaming pure and simple. A man would never get away with it. It’s a total double standard. So, I’ve had enough of it — all this man-bashing. I’m done with it.” 

On this occasion, I did articulate the view that women’s frustration with men like Elon Musk, a billionaire who chooses to support creeps like Conor McGregor and Tommy Robinson, has a certain validity. Especially in an age when women and men are victims to an overwhelming amount of male violence. To women, I suggested, Musk’s unchecked power, his war on inclusion, his devastating impact on the world’s most vulnerable, is scary. I conceded that it sounded like a silly article but suggested that to ignore any criticism of men like Musk seemed illogical.

Geoff was busy tucking into a lemon drizzle cake and muttered something about women having a right to be angry, and that’s where we left it.

Listen up, boys

But let me make the point here, very slowly, in case it is unclear. Women admiring or criticising the appearance of a fully grown man is nothing like men admiring or criticising the appearance of a young girl or even a fully grown woman. The histories are too different for it to be the same thing. The baggage carried is entirely different. There is no comparison to be drawn upon, so men need to stop attempting to make one.

There are crossovers — absolutely. Young boys have been manipulated by men since the dawn of time. The Boyzone documentary currently running on Sky is well worth a watch with this point in mind. Poor Shane Lynch knew well that his body got him his position in the band, and cringes to see the footage of their Late Late Show introduction with Gay Bryne. Louis Walsh is undoubtedly the villain of the piece. “It wasn’t perfect,” he says, smiling joyfully into the camera, “but it was perfect for me.” 

Not so with women. Of course, older women have had manipulative relationships with younger men, but not to the same extent, not consistently across time.

When you accuse women of a double standard you are wiping the slate clear, erasing centuries of abuse by older, powerful men, of both young girls and boys

 Middle-aged women like me simply don’t have the same profile. Of course, if ever a woman does stray into that territory it is picked up by the media in seconds. How many books, films, and series have been made about older female teachers bedding their male students? A disproportionate amount.

So, yes, I will openly admire a good-looking man in his smalls, just as I will admire a man for his humour or intelligence. Women have earned that freedom in a way that men have not. Suck it up, lads.

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I often wonder how many men have ever really imagined what it is like to be a woman in Ireland today, looking to the government and seeing mostly men in suits. Have men ever imagined being ruled by a government of women?

Whatever the speed of their thought, I don’t believe many men think about what it feels like to be a woman very much at all. They are too busy defending themselves. Not all men … Blah blah blah.

It’s no wonder men so casually accuse women of so-called ‘double standards. It’s no wonder women like me end up struggling to articulate themselves on air. We have spent our whole lives stewing over what men consistently ignore.