If Aidan Turner insists we ogle, I cannot resist
Every time the Irish actor Aidan Turner, who plays Poldark, takes off his shirt, it seems he sparks some roaring debate over whether it is permissible for women to ogle men in the way that men are now discouraged from ogling women.
It has transpired that, far from shirtlessness being the idea of some overbearing, sleazy producer, it was Mr Turner himself who suggested he do some topless scything in the first series in 2015, and thereby created a furore. Early in the most recent series, Turner is seen coming out of the Cornish sea, his hard work at the gym visible yet again, clad in a pair of flesh-coloured breeches. And now he has even admitted that he chose “a small horse”, Seamus, in order to make himself look bigger on screen. It is clear that Mr Turner is every bit as savvy at exploiting his allure as were the starlets of the old Hollywood studio system.
When someone observed that Marilyn Monroe was so sexy that she could look good in a potato sack, she duly got herself stitched into a skintight dress made of just that material, and smouldered for all she was worth. I wish Mr Turner good luck: he has contributed greatly to the gaiety of the nation.
But it also begs a question of etiquette that is applicable, still, to both sexes: when an individual embarks on such a clear quest to incite a bit of happy ogling, is it or is it not simple good manners to oblige?