Stephen Fry compares interviews with being raped

Stephen Fry has compared agreeing to being interviewed by journalists to consenting to "being mugged, raped or burgled" after a row broke out over remarks he made to a magazine.

The television presenter came under fire last month after he was apparently quoted claiming the only reason women slept with men is that "sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship".

Writing on his blog, he said his remarks had been taken out of context and misunderstood.

He wrote: "Much as you may wish to think me a compound of the most misogynistic, ignorant, sexist and antediluvian pig who ever trod the planet I can truly report that I know and love enough women to be quite assured of the fact that women do indeed enjoy sex."

And he criticised the "self-righteous, indignant and contemptuous figures" who condemned him.

Fry, who published his memoirs earlier this year, said his work often meant he had to carry out "publicity duties" but he would prefer not to.

He wrote: "For reasons that should be obvious now if they weren't before, I don't give print interviews. I never consent to them any more than you, dear reader, would voluntarily consent to being mugged, raped or burgled, but when under pressure I will compromise by agreeing to do a profile for some small magazine or other."

The original interview, with gay magazine Attitude, was partly reprinted in The Observer last Sunday which highlighted what they called Fry's "uncharacteristically extreme comments".

Fry was reported as having told an Attitude journalist: "If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas ... It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."

In the four page entry on his blog, Fry said he only agreed to speak to the magazine "out of kindness".

He said his remarks were not "some kind of eternal gender truth" and said: "I was simply taking a thought for a walk".