![Tom Ford poses backstage at The Fashion Awards 2016 at Royal Albert Hall on December 5, 2016 in London, United Kingdom.](/web/20161209215630im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/5/k/0/n/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gt5ifz.png/1481067062505.jpg)
Tom Ford has backed comments he made over a decade ago about all men needing to experience penetration at least once in their lives in a bizarre interview with GQ this week, saying the practice would help men "understand women".
The designer and director, whose second film Nocturnal Animals is in cinemas, defended comments he made to the same publication in 2004, while apparently propositioning a male journalist.
In an interview with the publication this week, Ford, who married his long-term partner Richard Buckley in 2012, began by saying he was "taking the piss" out of the heterosexual journalist, and was drunk when he suggested anal sex was "really not that different than having a massage".
However, despite the caveats, Ford still defended his controversial comments arguing it would increase men's empathy for women.
"It's such a vulnerable position to be in, and it's such a passive position to be in. And there's such an invasion, in a way, that even if it's consensual, it's just very personal," he said.
"And I think there's a psyche that happens because of it that makes you understand and appreciate what women go through their whole life, because it's not just sexual, it's a complete setup of the way the world works, that one sex has the ability to literally — and is expected to and is wanted to — but also there's an invasion. And I think that that's something most men do not understand at all."
GQ writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner may have described Ford's tone while making the comments as "thoughtful and aware", but Twitter users were quick to point out the absurdity of men better understanding women through sexual acts with men.
Twitter user Chuck N. Rilley suggested maybe men "could just ask [women] how their day was".
"Get bent, Tom Ford," user Melissa McDowell wrote. "Women are not inherently vulnerable and passive. We don't get penetrated. We consume and devour."
Ford's GQ interview, comes with more 'peak Tom Ford' comments than you can poke a well styled stick at.
Musing on death, the designer says, "I look at a puppy and I think, 'Oh my God, that puppy's so beautiful. Oh, it's just going to be old and die.' And that makes that puppy even more beautiful."
But perhaps the strangest part comes during Brodesser-Akner's account of Ford getting his four-year-old son Jack ready for school.
The well dressed preschooler (who reportedly went through a "camel" - the colour, not the animal - phase aged two), is depicted as getting into an argument with his father about why he cannot wear light-up dinosaur shoes to school.
"What does Dada say about the dinosaur shoes?" Ford is reported as saying.
"They're tacky," young Jack replies.
"And when are we allowed to wear them?"
"On weekends."
And, with that, Jack is sent to school in a Lacoste shirt, jeans and a pair of Adidas Stan Smiths.