Is there anyone in modern Britain who likes a prank more than Joe Lycett? The comedian who changed his name to Hugo Boss and who apparently shredded £10,000 on TV is like a modern-day Jeremy Beadle, but with an edge. And a razor.
Such is his propensity for taking everyone else for fools that his announcement last week about having become a father was greeted not only with many congratulations, but a fair few question marks to boot.
The fact that Lycett’s statement made reference to having signed an exclusive deal with Auto Trader for publication of the first baby pictures was taken by some as evidence that the whole thing was a wind-up, rather than a typically Lycettesque commentary on the world of celebrity media.
But the other factor that seems to have caused confusion among those who prefer a linear life is Lycett’s pansexuality.
In the past, he routinely described himself as bisexual, and previously used the way people assumed he was gay, due to his “entire personality”, in his stand-up routines.
The revelation earlier this year that he was, in fact, in a long-term relationship with a woman subsequently led to him asserting his pansexuality. Attraction to an individual, Lycett told The Pieces podcast, was for him not a matter of gender. “To me,” he said, “that suggests that sexuality is not just man, woman. So the intellectual side of me goes it’s pansexual, which means all. So, that’s how I feel about myself.”
I confess I am not a huge fan of labels when it comes either to sexuality or gender identity. It seems to me they can confine just as easily as define. But I appreciate that for many people putting a tag on an identity is important.
In any event, pansexuality, as labels go, is a good one in that it deliberately doesn’t confine. And it feels particularly refreshing in Lycett’s case to discuss pansexuality and parenthood in the same breath. It is a corrective to those who seem to regard pansexuality (or perhaps even anything other than heterosexuality) as a kind of no-holds-barred, sex-mad approach to life that precludes permanent relationships or standard family life.
To that extent, it wouldn’t even matter if Lycett’s son was in fact a prank. Having the conversation – largely in positive terms, insofar as media coverage is concerned – can serve a wider purpose.
After all, while it would be naive to think that discrimination based on sexuality is a thing of the past, there can be no question that Britain is a more accepting place than it was even three decades ago.
I remember, for instance, the casual homophobia that was thrown around at my school on a nearly constant basis. Stuff that was stupid was “gay”; anyone who didn’t conform? “Probably gay”.
I’d love to say I wasn’t a part of it, but I know I was. I barely even gave it any thought – it was part of the vernacular; a bit of early-mid Nineties culture that you don’t hear about in the current wave of nostalgia for that period.
In those days, before the repeal of Section 28 of the Local Government Act, sex education was strictly heteronormative. And while there obviously were people at my school who were not heterosexual, nobody was out about it. Hardly a surprise, given the context.
By contrast, my children seem both blithely aware and blithely unbothered by the idea that there are ranges of sexuality and that nothing needs to be set in stone. Anyone can be with anyone; family and parenthood take many forms. Politicians may like to score cheap points by bashing “wokery”, but the world has changed – even if it does require constant vigilance.
Joe Lycett is a funny man who likes a prank and a silly social media joke. But he likes to convey a serious message, too. His openness about his pansexuality – and about his apparent fatherhood – can help ensure the wheels of progressiveness keep turning.
