Eamonn Holmes doesn’t want to date Taylor Swift.
He’s finally gone on record, dashing the dreams of the Blank Space hit-maker who recently became the only artist in history to win four Album of the Year awards at the Grammys.
His declaration brings to an end years of specul…
OK, you get the idea.
The GB News host (clue was in the job title) said during a segment this week that he thought Swift was “bitter” and that he wouldn’t want to date her. I think it’s because her new album is thought to be about her ex-boyfriend and this, I suppose, triggered some unseen bro-code alarm that a ho was trashing a member of the brotherhood.
He went on to agree that she has too many boyfriends and can’t keep one for longer than a few months, almost directly quoting the lyrics to Shake It Off.
I go on too many dates
But I can't make 'em stay
I know Eamonn Holmes is an old man. I’m not being derogatory, merely pointing out that his attitudes towards what he would undoubtedly call “the fairer sex” might be a bit stuck in 1987. But what he represents still prevails.
And as we know from all the coverage of the modern INCELS and their belief that women’s bodies are anything to do with them, it’s not just old men.
Men not wanting to sleep with us is still considered a sick burn by a large chunk of the patriarchy. In a world where our worth is almost entirely tied to whether we’re - as Amy Schumer illustrated so beautifully in her memorable sketch “Last Fuckable Day” - sexually attractive to men, they think this is the worst thing we can be told. And conversely, men wanting to have sex with us is always a compliment.
They will turn to soft fruit, blow-up dolls and robots, but they wouldn’t lower themselves to having it off with you.
But back to the original point. Random men not wanting to put their parts, whether invited or not, into your parts is supposed to be taken as bad news. And their reasoning is always the same. Otherwise physically attractive women who express opinions on things are spoiling the alluring qualities these men could otherwise enjoy if we just shut up for a second.
They will turn to soft fruit, blow-up dolls and robots, but they wouldn’t lower themselves to having it off with you while you’re banging on all the time. You’re redundant to the human race. If they don’t even want to breed with you, what are you for? How do you like that?
I remember the first time I became sexually sentient. I was too young, as is so often the case, and changing out of my nightshirt with a cartoon character on the front, in my bedroom one morning before school. I was 11. Possibly 12. The sound of laughter made me turn towards my bedroom window to see a man in a yellow hard hat, standing on the bucket of a digger in the field behind my house. The bucket had been raised to full height by his smirking friend in the digger’s cab.
He was looking right at me. It didn’t make me happy, it made me afraid.
Being in the world after that became like negotiating an obstacle course. If men were even looking at my un-developed child’s body, they were looking at all bodies coded as female, all the time.
Lips, tits, hips, skin, curves, legs, long hair. This was the uniform.
Everything around me backed this up. Every woman on TV, in magazines, in the newspaper supplements I delivered on my paper round, on page 3 of the red tops I gawped at before posting them through letterboxes, confirmed it. Lips, tits, hips, skin, curves, legs, long hair. This was the uniform.
And so it began. My awareness that the woman who made herself nice for men, who laughed at the uncomfortable joke and licked her lips and dipped her eyes and opened the next button down and wore painful shoes and gave them access, was probably going to do better in a patriarchy than I was.
And it hasn’t gone away. What wave of feminism are we on now? The firm, underlying belief that being wanted by men is the greatest of all honours. We’re all competing for their eyeballs, apparently. We don’t say it. But of course we must be. Some men simply know it to be true, no matter how we protest and say we’re busy thinking of other things.
Who can forget the straw that finally broke GB News’ back over their employment of Laurence Fox? A woman said something he disagreed with and he countered by pointing out that no one would want to “shag that”.
Or family entertainer and children’s author David Walliams caught in an off-duty moment talking about a female contestant on the talent show he was judging. They know it’s their ultimate power, to grant or deny access to their mighty pole. And we are just the villagers in white smocks, dancing around it, hoping to be picked.
I’m not angry, I’m disappointed. That isn’t true of course, I am angry. And bored.
I’m from the generation that was told feminism was, if anything, a bit redundant now. Women can get jobs and vote. What’s the problem?
So many problems. But chief among them still seems to be this insistence that women shouldn’t be out in public unless they’ve had a quick mirror check first.
And stop shouting or men will label you angry and stop wanting to shag you no matter how nice your bottom is.
Since turning 40, I’ve leaned quite hard into buying clothes I like the look of that don’t “show off my shape” and “flatter” my body.
As I skid towards the end of my forties, I fantasise about “letting go” and embracing sackcloth and eyebrows that meet in the middle. But I know I won’t. Because something is broken inside that makes me afraid to stop plucking the stray hairs and buying clothes that flatter me. Actually, that isn’t true. Since turning 40, I’ve leaned quite hard into buying clothes I like the look of that don’t “show off my shape” and “flatter” my body. I just like them and feel comfy in them. So I suppose it’s started. The caring less. But never not caring at all. I can’t see it.
Everywhere I look, I see frightened famous women, taught as twenty-somethings, “rocking” a bikini on their 60th birthday. And I do not judge them. I think “fair enough” because the currency for us hasn’t really changed. They’re only trying to play the same game we all are.
I’m not sure what opting out even looks like anymore. If you “let yourself go” it’s note worthy as either political (angry) or lazy (sad). If you try to stay some semblance of what you were at 35, it’s note worthy for how well you’re doing it or not doing it. And are you admitting to it or not mentioning it and is that dishonest? I’m sorry, I’ve started writing Barbie.
The most frightening people in our society are the women who no longer care. The witches. They flaunt their grey hair and old jumpers spare rolls of flesh and ashen complexions and some men are genuinely afraid of them. Maybe they don’t even know where the unease comes from but it’s probably the lack of pandering to their eyes and crotch.
Eamonn Holmes is angry with Taylor Swift. The thought of her will always irk him now, like Piers Morgan and his screwed up fists every time he thinks about Meghan Markle.
Holmes won’t do anything with his anger. It’ll just sit there, like it does with so many men, making him clench his jaw at night in bed.
Taylor Swift will never know his name or have to call the police to report that a furious Eamonn Holmes is outside her condo, demanding entry.
But maybe she’ll hear tell of his sage words and ponder her life choices accordingly.
‘Taylor Swift will never know his name’ 🎯
I wonder if these old men ever take a moment to navel gaze and think about how gross they are even talking about sex with young women
I remember years ago catching an episode of Big Brother’s Big Mouth where Eamonn was a guest and some of the appalling things he was saying about the women contestants suggested he has some serious issues there. Also: justice for Anthea Turner – everyone swallowed that ‘Princess Tippy Toes’ jibe from Eamonn and, along with the whole ridiculous chocolate bar photo thing, it really drove a hole in the side of her career. He’s awful.