In my time as a journalist, I have done some difficult things. I've flown into an active war zone dressed as Santa Claus, drove around London in a limousine while trying to handle a live turkey, and attempted to coax usable quotes out of a truculent, jet-lagged, visibly bored Chuck D. But now I am going to attempt the most difficult task of all - persuading you that Katie Hopkins is sexy.
Katie's public stock is quite low at the moment, after her comments about tattoos and ginger children and children with names that sound suspiciously working class. But it is not with me, I just think she's dreamy. While you're all pillorying her for her insanely wrong-headed televisual trolling, I'm thinking, "leave lovely Katie alone! She has an exquisite equine countenance and hair like summer meadows!" And, lest we forget, summer meadows are among the locations in which Katie has been known to act out her erotic affairs, with a married man indeed! I don't even know where to start, other than to politely suggest that such behaviour suggests that Katie may be more than a little on the naughty side. I think that having extra-marital frolics with her in a field would really be tremendous fun.
Sorry, got a bit hot and bothered there. Of course, a liking for getting jiggy in fields with married men is not, on its own, a reason for finding a woman irresistible, so let me count the ways. For one thing, Katie's career of late has seen her morph from an Apprentice contestant into an outrage-to-order rent-a-gob (her Wikipedia page, with charming haughtiness, describes her as a "social commentator") who will say literally anything and then absorb the subsequent vitriol like a vast black hole of nonchalance. She has no stop signs, she just comes out and says it and, in my experience, people who have no stop signs in their psychological make-up tend to be - how to put this? - absolutely terrific on the mattress. Either that or they become serial murderers, who coincidentally occupy roughly the same level of public affection as Katie does.
And she's arrogant too. That Wikipedia entry, I'd wager, was almost certainly wrought by her own fair hand, and the fact that she feels qualified to be paid to pontificate on anything at all given that she was, lest we forget, merely a memorably unpleasant contestant on a reality TV show, is a testament to that inflated ego. But I'm not criticising it - there are plenty of people out there who find a certain chest-beating swagger incredibly sexy, and so extreme is her self-aggrandisement that there simply has to be some quality to back it up. Whether that quality manifests itself in matters erotic, it is not for me to say. I'm guessing, however, that it is important for Katie to believe that she is the best at everything, whether that be business, morning TV outrage generation, needlepoint, orienteering or fellatio. I'm guessing that Katie Hopkins does not just have sex, she exacts it upon her quarry with the wrath of gods, just so as to be number one.
Another thing that Katie is - as well as devilishly sexy, have I mentioned that? - is insanely competitive with other women, many of whom, as a result, don't like her. Caitlin Moran was moved to tweet about the desire to run her over with a tank after the "kids with naff names" shitstorm, to which Katie retorted, "I don't think you need a tank sweetie. Those thighs would do it" - zing! Yes, it's fair to say that other women don't much care for Katie, which is often the case with the absurdly attractive and it merely adds another layer of mystique to their overall appeal. Why exactly don't they like her? Is it just because of the appalling things she says, or is there more to it? Are they jealous of the simple fact that she gets to say them at all, her supreme confidence, her never-back-down chutzpah, the aforementioned meadow-like hair? When you're getting up the noses of so many of your own gender, you are either doing something right or being thrillingly wrong.
In summary, Katie, like Krispy Kreme doughnuts and pints of snakebite and black, is just that - so thrillingly wrong that she simply has to be right, the very definition of an erotic guilty pleasure, and yet one that I feel impelled to defend and protect when people are being mean about her, which they are, all the time. She's basically the female equivalent of the classic male archetype, the irresistible bastard - I find it very easy to imagine her gussied up in dominatrix gear, brandishing a cat-o'-nine-tails, lustful malevolence etched into her lovely mug. In confessing that she makes me feel all gooey when she gets all strident and contrary, I am not revealing myself to be barking in the least. I am merely fulfilling my part of the bargain.