One potential explanation for Conservative MP David Davies' poorly phrased remarks on gay marriage?
A lack of diversity training, according to the man himself: "I haven't done years of diversity training, so sometimes I say things which are probably tactless, and I don't mean to, to be honest."
The Welsh MP has revealed his concerns over the effects gay marriage will have on sex education, a fortnight after being criticised for saying that many parents "would prefer their child not to be gay" and labelling gay marriage as "barking mad".
In an interview with the Guardian's Decca Aitkenhead, Davies expressed concern over how sex education in schools would change to reflect gay marriage, admits he doesn't know why he wouldn't want his children to be gay and claims his general "unease" towards the issue is due to being a victim of the era in which he was brought up.
Davies previously attempted to dismiss claims of homophobia by tweeting that he once boxed a gay man as an amateur, later posting a YouTube video of the bout:
Davies, described by Aitkenhead as the "most guileless and gauche politician I have ever met", tells an anecdote of a school friend who came out as gay aged 16 and "started coming down to the pub at 16 with, you know, splits in his jeans, and started buying Erasure albums, and all the rest of it," before becoming engaged to a woman only three years later.
Davies continues with his Erasure fixation later in the interview. Aitkenhead writes:
"Do you also have to start explaining in similar detail how gay sex is carried out?" I'm far from sure you do, actually, but more to the point, no amount of familiarity with homosexual mechanics would have turned my 10-year-old self into a lesbian.
"But you're a lady, you're a woman, so you wouldn't have felt quite the same way. I mean, at school the girls all went out and bought Erasure without any issue." He's being perfectly serious. But what about the lesbians in my class – what would have helped them? "Oh, I don't know what they went out and bought." No, I mean what about them feeling confused and excluded? "I wish there was some way round this that meant they didn't feel excluded, I really do."
The Monmouth MP goes on to expresses his concern that the recognition of gay marriage would lead to children being taught about gay sex in schools. "I just worry if children are going to be taught that [heterosexuality] isn't necessarily the norm," says Davies, who then questions if that would lead to teachers saying: "'Right, this is straight sex, this is gay sex, feel free to choose, it's perfectly normal to want to do both. And you know, why not try both out?' I mean, are we going to have that?"
Davies, a Tory MP since 2005, is no stranger to opening self up to criticism through his words. Earlier this year, he told a radio caller to "go and join the BNP" in a row of the Welsh language.
That came only weeks after slamming "incompetence at the highest level of government", saying: "David Cameron needs to change his tact very rapidly other wise he's not going to be in position for very long."
In January, Davies compared the United Kingdom to the Titanic in a committee meeting on devolution, saying "It's just a question of how long it takes to sink."