Cr Kett told the Otago Daily Times yesterday if he were female and received a similar comment, he would probably take it as a compliment.
"If you’ve got a nice body, people will comment about it and I suppose if you were the other way, they’d still comment about you."
He said such comments had been around since his primary school days, and recalled other pupils referring to a teacher as "Molly Milkshakes".
In a statement today Cr Kett said he "had been informed" his comments were "inappropriate, misguided and offensive" and he wanted to apologise.
"I am not a woman and I cannot speak for how women feel. I would also like to apologise to the family of the teacher I spoke about in my comments. It was wrong of me to speak of her like that."
He said he had "deep respect for the women in my life".
"I am grateful to my colleagues and the staff here at council who are helping me to learn how to reflect on this.
"You are never too old to learn something new and I urge all of the men reading this to have a think about the way they treat women.
"Sometimes you have to make a mistake in order to learn something important and that is what has happened to me today.”
