Opinion: Why is the comedy industry home to so many questionable men?

After signing up to a dating app for artsy creatives, I found a hotbed of infidelity and weird obsessions. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION

Last year I found myself single, aged 31, for the first time in a decade. So once I’d cleared the initial blast radius of the divorce process, I decided to grit my teeth and get stuck into the world of dating apps.

My app of choice - Feeld - has a reputation for two things. Attracting artsy, creative types, and being open-minded about more niche sexual practices. Both of these seemed fairly appealing given I’m a writer who was mostly, at this point, just looking to have some enjoyable no-strings-attached sex.

People complain a lot about the app experience, but for the most part, I loved it. Having heard that there are ‘no good men’, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of interesting, clever, funny people I was matching with.

But the specific detail which surprised me most about the app was the seemingly disproportionate number of comedians on there, and the fact that almost every negative sexual experience I had during that period was down to someone whose job was being funny.

After a couple of months on the app, I met my now boyfriend (the ‘I just want to have sex’ thing didn’t stick), so I duly deleted the app and moved on with my life.

But in the wake of the Dispatches investigation, I found myself reflecting on the question of why this industry, more so than apparently any other, seems to be such a home for questionable men.

Whatever the reason, I eventually concluded I would simply swipe left on anyone who had a picture of themselves on a stage with a microphone in their hand. Photo / 12RF

Extraordinary behaviour

I’d like to preface the following anecdotes about my dating life with the disclaimer that I was unbelievably gauche when I started dating. I was sad and lonely and mourning the loss of my marriage, so I put up with some extraordinary behaviour.

The first comedian I matched with had pictures of himself on the set of a well-known TV show. Obviously, I found this impressive. He was not attractive, and he was a lot older than me, and yet he’d been on telly, so I was willing to talk to him (please note, I have also been on telly many, many times, so there’s no excuse for finding this impressive).

He told me, almost instantly, that he didn’t like dating in the comedy world because it’s so “gossipy” and “toxic”. He then told me that he was married and that he required me to be extremely discreet. “Is it an open marriage?” I asked, blithely. “Yes,” he told me. “But I don’t want anyone to know that.” I’ve since learned that his marriage was not open and that I’m an idiot.

He then sent very specific demands for very specific nude pictures, and when I was unable or unwilling to deliver, would refuse to talk to me for a set period of time (usually 24 hours), at which point he would offer me the chance to “make it up” to him. Why didn’t I just block him? I don’t know. It was a weird time.

Perhaps it’s the old adage that comedians can pull women who they’d never usually be able to get into bed? Photo / 123RF

Universally dreadful

After the TV bloke came a succession of others, all of whom had profile pictures taken during a set at one prestigious London comedy club or another. And while there are two exceptions of men who were charming, and whom I remain on friendly Instagram terms with, the rest of them were universally dreadful.

One requested to be pegged the moment that we matched; another sent me pictures of his penis that I was very clear I did not want or enjoy. And each and every one complained that the comedy world where they worked was “too gossipy”, “too obsessed with #MeToo” and “impossible to date in”.

I did occasionally toy with asking why they’d chosen to strike up a conversation with a columnist who has a demonstrable track record of harvesting her own life events for content if they’re looking for privacy, but I wasn’t supposed to be the amusing one in any of these conversations.

I wondered at the time, and I still wonder now, what is it about the world of comedy which can create this situation? Is it the confidence required to go up on stage and do something so vulnerable? Is there a comorbidity between making a room full of people laugh and the confidence to put dozens of photos of yourself at work on a dating app and assume that your wife won’t ever find out?

Perhaps it’s the old adage that comedians can pull women who they’d never usually be able to get into bed? That they’re making hay while the sun shines because in their youth they were ignored or reviled?

Whatever the reason, I eventually concluded that I would simply swipe left on anyone who had a picture of themself on a stage with a microphone in their hand, and because I’m a writer rather than a comedian and I don’t have to do the circuit with these men, that was sort of all right.

But having had a glancing insight into the way some of these men regard women, I feel unspeakably sorry for the women working with these men, and entirely unsurprised that there are, to this day, still so few female comedians.