Gordon Ramsay's jus-smeared, sweat-heavy swear-fest The F-Word starts tonight (14/5) on Channel 4, prompting a vital debate: is the Marathon-running hob-botherer, you know, fit or not? I'm decidedly in the yuk camp (that self-satisfied lip-curl, that arched eyebrow, yuk, yuk, YUK), but know that there are many people who don't agree with my eww-face.

So: we've surveyed some top media ladies – all highly scientific, this, m'lud – to find out whether Gordon warms their saucepan or boils their gravy. Read, rage, and continue the debate below.

HELEN BOWNASS, MORE MAGAZINE

The F-Word starts tonight, and I for one couldn't be more aroused. And it's all for the Gordonator. He's rude. He's vile. He swears more than I do. But oooh, what a man. I know it doesn't make me a nice person. But I literally couldn't fancy anyone anymore. In a hate fancy kind of way. I want him to come into my kitchen and tell me how foul the rotting rocket at the back of my fridge is and roll his eyes so much they slip down his dirty throat. I want to fill his creviced face with cheap mint choc chop ice-cream, then lick it all out. I want him to throw me against his island unit for 30 seconds then shout, "Helen, done." Er, yes. I loathe myself as much as you probably do. But I just can't help it.

MARINA HYDE, THE GUARDIAN

I can only guess at the nature of the inadequacy that causes him to strip to the waist in the kitchen, define himself by swearing at minimum-waged 18 year-olds, and demand that his semi-articulate orders be answered “yes chef!” You’d think he was some U-boat captain coordinating a torpedo launch, as opposed to a bloke telling them when to stick the peas on.

Plus, I adore that he’s one of those celebrities whose friends are all other celebrities he met ten minutes ago, and with whom he only has celebrity in common. Every time I see him and Tana out with the Beckhams I cackle at the thought of the failed footballer Gordon greasing up to David, whilst the failed eater Victoria greases up to him. Another pointless evening, chef!

CAITLIN MORAN, THE TIMES

I yearn to touch the mysterious, scar-like sigil on Ramsay’s face. Is it a mysterious tribal marking - carved onto his face in an initiation ceremony on how to correctly cook the sacred nut-nut corn? Is it from a Sharks. Vs. Jets-like street-fight in Manilla, with hoodlums pulling blades on Big G? Or does his face just crease very easily when sleeping? Gordon! FYI! Marilyn Monroe swore by satin pillowcases to alleviate this crumpling!

WENDY ROBY, THE LIPSTER

Gordon Ramsay: two things, yes? First, his irritating habit of turning even the most innocuous statement into a question. Yes? I think he thinks this is how French people speak, putting a quizzical ‘uh?’ at the end of every sentence, so that whoever he’s speaking to feels compelled to reply. If we were to pop-psychologise for a moment (and I think we ought), I think we can safely say Gordon is someone who needs rather a lot of validation. He needs to feel in charge, yes? And if this constant questioning is representative of his verbal stylings in real life, you can imagine how things go down round Ramsay’s house. ‘So we’re going out to the fucking cinema, yes? Fucking Ocean’s 11, uh? At 7.45, yes?’ Yes, Gordon. YES, YES, YES, YES, YES. Now if I were Tana, I’d bank a few of those positive responses, just to save some bloody time. A nice big neon sign in every room saying ‘YES.’ should do the trick, or T-shirt which you could just point to when he was getting on your tits.

Two, despite what the biographers would have you believe, he’s not quite the polymath he claims. Gordon wants you to think he was a professional footballer and then a world-beating chef, plucking Michelin stars from the culinary firmament like so many prize-winning apples. In fact, he played a total of 30 minutes for Glasgow Rangers before they told him and his gimpy ankle to sod off aged 19. Now, does 30 minutes (that’s a third of one game, girls) make you an ex-professional footballer, or someone who once signed a contract with a big club (like hundreds and hundreds of young British lads), but who ultimately wasn’t good enough? I spent 30 minutes on stage at the Royal Albert Hall playing in a brass band when I was 12. Does that make me an ex-classical virtuostic genius? Sadly not.

GEORGINA TERRY, LONDONERS BLOG

Everything about Gordon Ramsay is wrong wrong wrong: he's an obnoxious bully, has a face he's clearly slept in, and is in danger of turning into a parody of himself very soon. But, golly, there's a little dirty 'but' inside that longs for him to get handy with a spatula while having a very serious discussion with me about my vegetarianism.

KAY RIBEIRO, HEAT

In theory, Gordon Ramsay shouldn't be sexy. He's a giant (well, to me at least - I'm 5ft 2.5 in and he's 6ft 2in), has more lines on face than a London tube map and has a mane Aslan would be proud of. Yet somehow it works. Why? He’s got all the right ingredients that attract a woman: equal measures of charm and arrogance, a tablespoon of volatility and more than a teaspoon of sex appeal. Plus, he’s super fit. Who else do you know who's run nine marathons?

I've interviewed the big man four times for heat and each time his supreme self-assurance and charisma send me a little loopy. All sensible questions fall out of my head and I find myself flirting with him outrageously: is he as passionate in the bedroom as he is in the kitchen, does he wax his back, sack and crack (not questions usually in my repertoire). And he totally gets it. Rather than looking at me blankly/have me removed from his restaurant, he engages in the banter - the last time he even decided to flash me his nipple as proof that he shaved it pre-marathon so the plasters would stick. So you see, it’s no longer weird to fancy him. In fact, it’s par for the course.

LEONIE COOPER, THE LIPSTER

I once saw Gordon Ramsay jogging alongside the River Thames, right near that bit of green grass next to the big building that apparently Jeffrey Archer lives in the penthouse of. He was as wide as he was tall and his face was the colour of a pomodorino tomato that had just been involved in a rather vicious knife fight with a bottle of ketchup. As smug telly chefs go, give me Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and his small-holding larks over big sweaty Gordon anyday. Though y'know, props to him for stealing the name of his television show from a feminist website think of all the accidental Googles!