Tom Ford has backed comments he made over a decade ago about all men needing to experience penetration at least once in their lives in a bizarre interview with GQ this week, saying the practice would help men "understand women".

The designer and director, whose second film Nocturnal Animals is in cinemas, defended comments he made to the same publication in 2004, while apparently propositioning a male journalist.

Tom Ford poses backstage at The Fashion Awards 2016 at Royal Albert Hall on December 5, 2016 in London, United Kingdom. Credit:Getty

In an interview with the publication this week, Ford, who married his long-term partner Richard Buckley in 2012, began by saying he was "taking the piss" out of the heterosexual journalist, and was drunk when he suggested anal sex was "really not that different than having a massage".

However, despite the caveats, Ford still defended his controversial comments arguing it would increase men's empathy for women.