The concept of something being a ‘guilty pleasure’ has always irked me. Surely to god if something is pleasurable, you should feel only positive vibes towards it? Obvious criminal/nefarious activity notwithstanding.
Hearing someone (usually a woman, although I’m partial to a sweeping generalisation) describe listening to Will Young’s Your Game 8,984 times in the space of one Spotify calendar year as being a guilty pleasure makes me sad – for both Will Young and his genuinely wonderful song and for you, the listener, who is both disparaging Will and judging yourself as uncool based on the songs you truly love.
With this series, called Guiltless Pleasures, I’m asking people of note (read: People I am nosy about) to answer a series of questions about the things they love that might, in the past, be thought of as a guilty pleasure but that are now just out and proud as the unadulterated joys they are.
I may even publish my own at some point? ← This idea occurred to me live as I typed.
Onwards to the first participant.