How to be a woman. Or not.

It all went a bit quiet on this blog for a while.

Why? Well, there are three good reasons, and probably a load of bad ones (like laziness).

Reason one: the male half of this blog – me – has moved house and lost his web connection for what I’m now referring to as “a BT“. The “BT” is a new SI unit of time which I just invented. For those lucky people who don’t live in the UK, and aren’t afflicted with our wonderful privatised utilities, I offer this explanation: the “BT” is approximately the length of time it takes the Persian Empire to rise, fall, rise again, and then get pissed and stagger sideways into the Indian Ocean.

The second reason for the profound lack of activity here is that I’ve also entered a new and not entirely horrible relationship with a real life girl. Or woman. Or whatever. So now all of that spiteful sexism that made me want to rant about how rubbish girls are, and why sex should really be a lot better… well, the sex got better than lumpen ogre like me can reasonably expect, and the spite evaporated… or did it? Let’s see how this blog pans out.

The third and final reason for the echoing silence on this blog is that the female half – AKA Honey – has got herself a job, and no longer has the time to fanny around making sexist comments about men in general, and me in particular. But she still wants us men to pay for 100% of the food and wine.

I know this because on her other blog, with her Batman mask off, and in full view as @katy_red, she posted a reasoned article about How To Be A Man, in which she makes it clear that men should pay for all dates, but in which she doesn’t make it clear whether this is because it’s the last old-fashioned part of her personality (which is remarkably convenient for her), or if she’s just spectacularly tight-fisted.

Another, less enlightened man, might ask if there’s a specific term for a woman who wants a man to cough up a couple of hundred pounds up-front for the three dates that are required before she’ll agree to have sex with him.

Hey, it’s a reasonable conclusion to come to! Let’s face it, the way dating works is pretty one-sided. Men risk humiliation by asking you out; men do all the arrangements; men do all the driving; men have to do all of the entertaining; men have to pay.

Women, on the other hand, just sit back and let us throw all this stuff at them. And if the stuff is of high enough quality, you make us do it twice more and then lie back and let us do all of the work in bed.

And then you complain if we’re not a “proper man”, whatever that means. Well, thanks to Honey, we know what a proper man is – or at least what he isn’t.

• Because God forbid he should have his own mind, or express himself in any way! Not by wearing his own clothes, or by playing an instrument, or by having a hobby, or by loving his children or pets, or by fondly remembering old friends and lovers. His sole purpose in life should be entertaining you on a date, and his existence before that moment (and after) is of absolutely no concern.
• He’s got an Imperial Ton of penis between his legs, because it’s definitely entirely his fault if your minge is the size of the Blackwell tunnel, and his perfectly normal, anatomically perfect tallywacker can only touch one side at a time. In no way is any of that the entirely natural result of the woman’s experience with childbirth; or the unnatural result of the collection of over-sized dildos with which she passes the evenings. It’s all the man’s fault, and always will be. If he fails to measure up, he is utterly worthless; and the only time she wants to hear his name again is in a local news report that he’s just died under the influence of a bus.
• He has Honey’s exact sense of humour, not his own. Because if she fails to laugh at his impressive joke about the Large Hadron Collider, that’s due to his failings as a man, and not due to the woman’s failings to read anything except for Cosmo-Pudding-Brain magazine (this week’s special: 100 new ways to have an orgasm while finding out what Kate Middleton is wearing).
• He will have absolutely no physical failings of any kind. Not thinning hair, not wonky toes, not a susceptibility to the adventurous food hygiene standards on many Greek islands. I haven’t checked with The Oracle that is Honey, but I’m assuming it’s OK for him to have a sexy and interesting scar, as long as he got it without crying, being momentarily disabled, or making a mess on the carpet.

So now we know how to be a man. Cheers Honey, you’ve saved me literally years of introspection and personal growth. But sadly – and I know you’ll weep and rend your hair when you read this – sadly I suspect I’m not the man for you, because I did definitely have a cry, become temporarily enfeebled, and make a mess when I got my scar. Other than that, I think I’m probably perfect.

I have no idea how to be a man, I’ll make that clear from the outset. But I’d hazard a guess that a man isn’t spending a lot of time wondering if he’s a man. He’s just not all that arsed. That’s how the male brain works. The fourth of the three reasons that this blog has been so dead for so long is that I find it a bit tiresome to have to talk about myself, or think very much about what could laughingly be called my “inner life”. There isn’t much inner life for men. For most of us, I suspect, the screen-saver in our brains is Pong, being played between two pendulous breasts.

This is all a bit black-and-white, of course. Not every man is a sexist beast like me, and not every woman is a modern, thick-skinned go-getter like Honey. I suspect not even Honey is, and I know for damn sure that I’m not anywhere near the sexist beast that looms out of the dark when I’m allowed near a blog. Men are not just men, and women are not just women. we’re all somewhere on a continuum. Some people have what could be described as a “male brain”, and some a “female brain”, and I recommend a very fine and enjoyable book about it called Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps.

But for the purposes of annoying Honey I’m going to pretend all women all the same: a mewling, demanding, irrational ball of passive-aggressive handbags and hormonal weeping.

Oh, sorry, did that offend you? Yes? Oh good. Get used to it.

Here’s a list of things women shouldn’t do/be. It’s equally fucking stupid, sexist, impractical and unachievable, but if Honey can live in a 50-Shades dreamworld, so can I. Now bend over!

Stop having so much shit in your lives.

I should point out that this isn’t a specific dig at my ex, it’s a dig at all women, everywhere. I moved house last month, and every single thing that this 42-year-old man needs could fit in one transit van. Every single thing. And I work from home too, so that’s my entire household belongings and my business. I own 7 tshirts, 2 pairs of jeans, and a couple of suits. That’s plenty. More is pointless. I only have one body.

Whereas women own, at a conservative estimate, over one billion items of clothing each. And that’s just clothes – the same principle of “own everything, keep everything” pervades the entire female world.

My guess is that the average 2-person household contains 5% male stuff and 95% female. And the vast majority of that female stuff is… how can I put this delicately… I can’t. All your stuff is meaningless shit. Just pointless crap that clutters up your life and distracts you from finishing any story. Ever…

Just finish the fucking story.

Do you know why there are so few successful women film directors? It’s because so few of them have realised that stories should have a beginning, a middle and an end. For most women, stories have a beginning that men don’t understand, and then a middle that lasts for several days. The end comes when I sigh and look bored, which, with dilligence and plenty of practice, I can prevent from happening for several hours. But should I have to? Shouldn’t you just learn to identify the pertinent facts, and assume that my brain can fill in the rest?

Yes, I know Mildred from work. Yes I know she has that lopsided bosom. No, I have no interest in how she got it, and even if I did, surely you can tell me in less than the newly discovered measurement of time known as a BT? And if I should happen to encourage you to skip to the end, you become passive aggressive…

Passive-aggression.

Let me record a conversation that every man has had.

Me: You’re a bit quiet, is everything OK?

You: Yes.

(Nine hour silence)

You: It’s nice of you to bother asking.

Honestly, just fuck the fuck off with your fucking passive aggression. I’m sure men do it too, although I can’t ever remember noticing it. But you women: you love it. It’s as though it’s your only power – and believe me, it isn’t, not as long as nipples exist. But you’re so good at passive-aggression that as soon as it starts every man in the world knows he has 3 options:

1. Prostate grovelling, without really understanding why
2. Going to the pub until it blows over (usually about 3 years)
3. Kissing goodbye to the kids and moving back in with his mum

Stop telling me how fat you are.

Firstly, you’re not. Or at least, you probably aren’t. And if you are, we probably don’t mind one bit. If you have a problem with fat, take it up with Cosmo-Pudding-Brain magazine (this week’s special: how to diet yourself into a coma while reading about how Elle McPherson is a perfectly normal and average woman). It’s reading that vaccuous shite that persuades you to curdle your looks by dieting yourself into a torpor. Eat a bloody pie, woman. At least you’d have the energy to have some proper sex.

Have some proper sex.

I’ve been having sex since I was 14, which is very naughty of me, and I recommend you wait until later kids. But that’s 28 years of fucking, and during that entire time I’ve only met one woman who put her bloody back into it. Perhaps it’s the dieting, and you’re too enfeebled from living on 9 calories a day. Or perhaps you’re just idle. Whatever it is, stop it. Do at least 35% of the work – that seems fair, doesn’t it?

I should point out that I have absolutely no complaints, and even if I did I’d be too polite to raise them in public because I’m not insensitive and bitchy.

Stop being insensitive and bitchy.

I don’t know how to tell you this, but women are all fucking horrible about other people. Don’t assume that it’s OK to tell everyone all about your personal life if it involves belittling other people, you crass, awful, caterwauling harpies.

There, I said it.

If a guy takes you for a date and isn’t your type, that’s not his fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. But if it was somebody’s fault, it would be 50% yours. So stop whining about it: he did nothing wrong, he just had different taste than you. Who knows, maybe he had better taste than you! The failure of the date doesn’t automatically signify that he was worse than you were. Maybe he’s a sophisticated, intelligent and considerate man, and you’re a shrieking, preening slapper who just wants a pint of Lambrusco and a fight at the taxi rank. Does that make him bad? Or you? Maybe he liked Rousseau and you like Hello. Maybe he liked Sibelius and you like Shakira. Maybe he liked good films, and you liked Twilight.

Stop liking Twilight.

OK, it’s a bit hypocritical of me, considering how excited I am about the new Batman (which will probably be good, but hokum, and in any event it’s hardly Kieślowski’s Three Colours Trilogy).

But Twilight? Really?

The plot could be written in finger-paint, and probably was. The dialogue sounds like it was dribbled out accidentally by someone who was, moments earlier, listlessly licking the window of a Variety Club bus.The bloke is wetter than a haddock’s pocket, and the girl looks like she’s haunted by a truly terrifying series of mysterious drifting farts. It’s so dire. It’s more dire than Danny Dyer, and that’s about as dire as a thing can be, and still live. So stop it.

Put your money-shot where my mouth is.

It was a time of legend. A time before time. A time of heroes.

One man wanted to make a difference. One man was prepared to lay down his life for his brethren. One man would go where nobody else could go.

It was a time… for porn.

OK, you can stop reading it to yourself in “voice-over man” basso-profundo now, I’ve introduced enough. Here’s the story.

When I was at school porn didn’t exist. I mean, it did, but it was the exclusive domain of people old enough to go into shops and buy it, which didn’t necessarily mean 18. It could easily mean 37, if that’s how long it took you to work up the courage. Or, if you were too short to reach the top shelf, it could mean never. Think about that: until the internet was created, Ronnie Corbett had never seen a blank-eyed, soul-destroying, spunk-splattered diorama of fuck. The lucky sod.

He’s lucky because whenever sex happens to him, he doesn’t have unrealistic, crazy fantasies to compare it with. Whereas I do.

That one man, the one hero, the guy in the time before time – his name was Wilberforce (junior). He attended my tragically all-boys school and he was so prodigiously hirsute that at the age of 14 he could sprout a pretty convincing moustache in between morning prayers and after-lunch buggery. He was clearly the most valuable member of the student body apart from Costigan, a kleptomaniac whose dad owned an off-licence and had terrible stock-taking skills.

So the rest of the school stopped attempting to rape the first years long enough to force Wilberforce (junior) to smoke 12 Benson and Hedges in quick succession, so his voice would break for a couple of hours, and we could send him off to the corner shop to get any porn he could wangle.

He came back with a huge smile, lung-cancer and something called Razzle, which featured the kind of shabby, badly-lit, home-made scuzz that these days barely raises an eyebrow in Max Spielman, but back then was the most exciting thing to happen to my school since we discovered Murchison would make his sister show you her minge if you helped with his Latin prep.

So that was it: one shonky porno between 620 boys. It caused gang-warfare for months. Boys would fight to the death with hammers stolen from the woodwork shop for the chance to take it home and gaze within.

You have to remember that in those days, sex-education classes consisted of an over-head projector showing photos of turtles laying eggs, and it was still considered risqué to mention the word condom, even in a government information film about AIDS. None of us had seen a vagina apart from Murchison’s sister’s, and you had to be decent at Latin to get a glimpse of that. And although we’d all seen a penis, it was just your own (unless you were small, hairless, blonde, and unlucky enough to be alone in the changing rooms with one of the predatory ogres who lurked there waiting for a chance to strike. The school priest was a major ogre.)

I was lucky. I had my growth-spurt at the age of about 9, so until about 15 I was at least a foot taller and a stone heavier than any other boy, and safe from rape. Size, strength, and a sociopathic comfort with beating people senseless for wanking material also meant that I was amongst the first to take Razzle home, and got to have a long, tissue-strewn evening with it before too many of the pages became permanently bonded together.

I can’t remember how old I was, but I do remember seeing blowjobs for the first time, and having my eyes opened. And my eye (singular). I had no idea things like that happened, but now I wanted them to happen to me. Endlessly.

Sadly, my growth-spurt ended and every other boy overtook me in size and sexual confidence. So although I lost my virginity at the age of 14, after that my sex-life was so bleak that my virginity actually grew back. With the exception of the powdery, tufty mouth of my Auntie Marjory, who insisted on kissing me (non-sexually, I should emphasise) on the lips even though she had a face with the texture of a tennis ball, I had no contact with lips. Not even on my face, let alone my poor, abused penis.

Don’t feel too sorry for it – I was the one giving it the abuse.

But I was wrong about oral sex. I was so, so wrong. Because blowjobs are almost always utter rubbish. I’m forty-humph-mumph now, and it’s only in the last couple of months that I’ve experienced a blowjob that was good enough to make me want to carry on having it.

And I don’t think that’s very fair, because I’ve put so much effort into my own oral sex skills. Although everybody you sleep with is honour-bound to say “wow that was really good”, the truth is I know I’m exceptional with my tongue and fingers. I’ve got a perfectly average penis, and a perfectly average body. Everything about me is perfectly average except for my tongue, which is sterling silver and should be insured by Lloyds of London.

I’ll allow a little parenthesis into cunnilingus, because men reading this blog might want some advice, and women reading it might want to look on in amazement at how terribly wrong I am, and mock me endlessly for being self-deluded. But I’ll risk mockery, because I think this might (might) be valuable advice.

How to do tonguey things to a lady’s lady-garden area.

None of this “gently kiss my way down your body” bollocks. It’s sex, not Mills and Boon. And I don’t believe in gentle, loving, hearts-and-flowers sex. Neither of us are going to cum from that, and we can be intimate and cuddly afterwards. But first, I’m going to make you cum on my face, so get used to the idea. Bitch.

OK, “bitch” was unnecessary.

I’m going to grab your thighs, open them, pull you down the bed so you have room to wriggle around (because you will ladies, you will) and then look up at you as I move my mouth to the holiest of holies. You know you like eye-contact. I’m looking right at you. This is me, going down on you. Look at me.

Flat tongue, licking from the bottom of the pussy up to the clit, tasting you, getting you wet all over, opening your lips. Men are lucky – women taste fucking great, as opposed to a warm salty mouthful of gloppy custard (and just pray we haven’t eaten asparagus recently).

A fingertip just inside, very slowly moving as I point my tongue and flick on your clit with a steady rhythm. Then spit on you. No, not a little dribble just tippling out of my mouth – a big, noisy spit, so you know it’s happened, and you feel it splatting on your clit. While you’re still gasping and a little shocked at being misused this way, my mouth open on your pussy, sucking slightly as I write my name on your clitoris with my tongue and push my fingers deeper into you.

Guys who think it matters to finger you a mile deep are generally wrong. Girls, you may disagree. But I know where the g-spot is, and it’s around 2.3 knuckles deep (it’s that precise) where the skin feels different. Just a little rougher. That’s my target. I hook my fingers slightly inside you, and start to rub it pretty firmly while I carry on writing on your clit. If I have a spare hand, I reach up and pull on your nipple. Sometimes you cum from the tongue on you, and that’s great, I’ll be delighted if you do. But g-spot orgasms are so much better, and I’m giving you one tonight. So when your g-spot starts to swell and get courser and rougher under my fingers, I stop licking. My tongue is only a distraction now. You need to focus on how it feels inside.

And then it’s all about drawing my fingers down your g-spot, rolling them over it, gradually getting a little faster, keeping the pressure on, and when it pushes down onto my hand, and your pussy drools down my palm, reading your body language and using as much pressure as you can bear inside you, so the orgasm is stretched out for as long as I can possibly make it.

Hint:- if you think you’re about to piss, you’re not: you’re about to squirt, and that’s not the same thing. Don’t hold back, in fact push through it – it’s literally the best thing you can possibly do for us both. And I’ll wash the sheets, I’m totally house-trained. So have all the fun you possibly can!

And then holding you. Because if I’ve done my job, you’ll be shaking, panting and almost crying by the time it’s over.

And that’s how it’s done. Make your cheques payable to Honey and Cream (I’m sure Honey will want her cut).

So if I can do that – and I can! – why the flowery lilac fuck can’t you suck my cock properly! For literally 20 years (and as many as 4 whole women), I’ve had to experience the following:

Me: Would you mind… (nods southwards).

She: Really? Oh. OK. (Sigh)

Actually, that’s not entirely fair. I’m happy to report that many girls are very keen to go down on a guy, but sorry to report that many girls haven’t got a bleeding clue what to do once they get there.

The head of my penis is a weird thing: it can be incredibly sensitive, but it can also take being bashed around inside your foo-foo or (if I’m lucky) rear-foo-foo for an hour without getting close to an orgasm. I’m not idly boasting, it just takes me a stupidly long time. If you get bored while I’m fucking you, feel free to start a book – I won’t be offended.

So fluttery little licks around the head of my cock with a dry tongue aren’t going to send me into paroxysms of joy. A lot of the time I can barely feel them. Slap your tongue on it, woman! Delicately holding the shaft, gently kissing the bulb, and mechanically humming aren’t going to do the job either.

Make it dirty, because men like dirty women. Don’t pretend you don’t, fellas, you fucking love it! So girls, tell me what you want to do, don’t make me ask you to do it, and definitely don’t make me beg. Not much turns me off more than knowing you’re not having fun. So if you don’t like giving blowjobs, don’t even start: I’ll just throw a floppy one, and you’ll be offended. Having said that, if you want to pretend not to like it, and make me hold your hair in my fist and “force” you… ahem. Yes. That’d be fun… as long as we’re both aware it’s a game.

Spit is vital. Wetter is better. Don’t be shy. Blowjobs are very visual, and I’m going to love looking down at you and seeing stalactites of spit all around your mouth and drool all over me. Spit on my dick too, loudly, aggressively, and very, very wet.

I know you don’t have a penis, so you won’t have a very clear idea what feels great for your guy. But we do share several body parts, and if you like them being touched and licked, chances are we do too. If you want to feel my ass or even lick it, I’m going to make a mental note to take you to Harvey Nicks and spend my year’s salary on any pair of shoes you want. Licking my balls is fun too, although (and I’m only speaking personally here) it’s not something you should do for a prolonged period – there are more important things to be getting on with.

If you can take it deep, take it deep. If you can’t take it deep… take it deep anyway, and make a bit of noise. What men like is to fuck vaginas. So we’re going to want a blowjob that feels like that. If you don’t want us to fuck you in the face, don’t put your face near our cocks. You’ve been warned!

Use your hands on any part of me that isn’t vanishing into your mouth, and when you get a chance, look up at me, because 9 times out of 10 I’ll be looking down at you. If you’re doing it right, and I’m not looking down at you, it’s because I’ve thrown my head back in awe, and am wondering why I didn’t meet you when I was 21.

At some stage, I’ll ask you to stop. I don’t know if this is common amongst men: I have only a very limited experience of being in the room while men are getting blowjobs, so pretty much every lady reading this will know more than I do about whether it’s normal to be asked to stop. But I’ve never had an orgasm from oral sex. This might be because I’ve spent quarter of a century having bitterly disappointing and dull oral sex, or it might be because I’m at the opposite end of the scale from the poor guys with a hair-trigger (although they might be luckier – I often don’t cum at all, because everybody gets bored and wants to go home before I’m halfway there). But even sensational blowjobs haven’t got me there to date, although I live in hope. They’re not the end-game, they’re just an amazing part of the build-up.

So if you’re following my advice and I still stay stop, it’s because I want to do terrible things to your lower body with my penis. If you’re not following my advice and I say stop, it’s because you’re crap at blowjobs, and it’s time you realised it, did a little research, or gave up and let me focus on you instead. No more blowjobs, just grab me by the hair, and let me demonstrate my oral calligraphy talents on your clit. You say the letters, and I’ll draw them with my tongue.

Altogether now… I… L… O… V… E… O… R… A… L…

Women who want it all.

I’m a sexist pig.

I believe women should be respected and listened to. They should be paid equally, and have all the rights men have. There should be no glass ceiling, or assumption that women are best at cleaning and cooking. Women should have a full range of opportunities, dignity, security, safety, and control over reproductive rights.

You might think this makes me a feminist, but you’re wrong for two reasons:

1. It’s not for me to say I’m a feminist. If a woman thinks I am, fine. But I don’t think men can claim they’re feminists, because that’s kinda missing the point.
2. Even if I am a feminist, I also believe women to be a bunch of self-deluded irrational pillocks who just need putting into a sack and shaking up.

So I must be a sexist pig, right? I mean, I like women. I do. I think they are, by and large, far more interesting than a man is. There’s something about their brains which is endlessly complex and fascinating, like (if you’ll excuse my geeky maths reference) a Mandelbrot fractal. And that’s just their brains – their bodies fascinate me even more, as you can see from the illustration below:

But in spite of liking women, they do drive me fucking scatty.

A friend of mine… actually, is she a friend if I don’t know her name, what she looks like, or what she does? I enjoy her tweets, and mine don’t seem to annoy her particularly, so I’m going to call her a friend.

A friend of mine has been posting for ages that she’s sick of being single. There is, it appears, a drought of eligible men in Chelsea. But sometimes she tweets that she’s seeing a guy, but he wants too much from her. Or not enough.

Or that he wants the right thing, but not at the right time.

Or that he’s texting weird shit, or not answering her messages.

Or that he’s just slung one up her, and now she’s cramping up because of the morning-after pill.

Or, or, or, or…

I think the reason there aren’t any eligible men in Chelsea is that they’re all under sunbeds, or being waxed until they have a body as smooth and bland as soap in a desperate attempt to give women what they want. But they’re wrong! A woman doesn’t want a pampered, preening twat.

She wants a man’s man who likes a laugh and doesn’t care about the hair on his back. But also wants him to get rid of that back-fur, and wear some better clothes; but she doesn’t want him to care about clothes, that’s too effeminate. And while he’s at it, she’d like him to get her hair done properly, and moisturise, and have lovely nails… but don’t be such a flouncing girl about things. She wants a proper man who will be a provider, but she doesn’t want to be a kept woman. And she doesn’t want a man who keeps going off to do his own thing, but he’d better not be weak and controlled.

Are you seeing a pattern here? It’s like Mandelbrot: there is a pattern, we can all kinda make it out, but it’s infinitely complex and makes your head hurt if you try to focus on it.

And the single reason I find feminism such an impractical concept – in spite of wholeheartedly agreeing with the overall principle – is that it sanctions this airhead non-logic, and teaches women that they should “want it all”. Want it all? All at the same time? You’re going to need a bigger handbag, girls.

Let’s just apply the “want it all” concept the incredibly annoying thing women do in restaurants.

(You, the woman at the back: you’re about to tell me you don’t do this. I agree, you probably don’t. But after you’ve popped to the toilet, your bloke will lean over to me and whisper “she totally does, but you’ll understand if I pretend she doesn’t”. And yes, I understand. I pretend too.)

Man walks into restaurant. Picks up menu. Flips to the “raw meat” section and chooses a lump of animal, which, if he’s got any style and class at all, he will have served rare. Job done. And a beer while I’m waiting.

He then sits and gazes at his date, who hasn’t opened the menu yet, because she’s fussing about a small sticky spot on the back of it, discussing how pretty the napkins are, and telling you about Gladys and the problems she’s having with her tilted uterus. After several meaningful glances at his watch and a heavy sigh from the man, she gets testy and sulky, so the guy has to make apologetic noises or drop exceedingly subtle hints that he might be a bit peckish, and the restaurant closes in four hours. No apology? In that case you get “the silent treatment” and absolutely no hope of getting your dick wet. It’s blackmail!

With a great deal of patience and gentle encouragement, a mere 45 minutes after being seated, she makes a first attempt at reading the menu. But it doesn’t last long because the word “soup” has reminded her about Beverley and the rude thing she said to Joanne. Who these mewling, squabbling floozies are is a mystery, as is the connection to soup, so the man zones out for a bit to practice the “mind-over-matter” solution to his growling hunger, and to look at the norks on one of the waitresses.

Around the time the guy getting to the bottom of his second pint and scouring around the floor for his will to live, which he appears to have mislaid, the girl has managed to open the menu and is into “decision-making mode”. What this means is that she reads every single thing (slowly) but doesn’t make any qualitative judgement about any of it: she just looks at the words and keeps talking. Sometimes she’ll break off her monologue to demand to know what the man thinks about what she’s saying, but the man is only thinking about the greenish fur that’s probably now growing on the food he’d like to order. So he sighs again.

Sighing is a bad way to communicate, but it beats the alternatives which are forming in our heads, namely screaming WILL YOU MAKE A FUCKING DECISION at the top of our lungs. But that would mean no sex again ever, so we fall back on sighing.

As a result of the sigh the atmosphere grows chilly, but after a period of time during which you could grow a reasonable cactus, she’s past the starter menu and onto the page which lists actual food. The man’s stomach is bellowing like a trapped bear, and he’s starting to turn to desperate measures: he could chew a limb off another diner, or he could go for broke, and ask if she at least has a shortlist? And she does: the shortlist is essentially the entire menu, except for anything containing lamb: because they’re cute.

And on it goes, into a second week of indecisiveness. It’s a wonder restaurants don’t raise a surcharge for seating women. If I ran a nice eatery, I’d have two menus. For men there would be a proper list of food, with prices. For women there would be one sheet of paper descibing a salad, with a large arrow pointing to it and the words “This is the thing you want to eat”. And a dessert menu, but only so she can see what the man is going to have, and then eat half of it herself. Cos the calories don’t count if you didn’t place the order in person.

Women, you see, have been told they can “have it all”. But they can’t. They can only have one thing at a time; all they need to do is decide which thing it is. It’s just like that menu: all the options are right in front of you. You simply have to stop blabbering about bullshit, make up your mind, and tuck in.

But do it soon, because otherwise all the men you might want will be pissed up on booze and fattened up on sponge pudding before you’ve even thought about the entrée. And no matter what you want, I know for a fact you don’t want a fat impatient drunk.

Let the Games Begin.

You boys really do take things too personally.

Of course you must be happy! No-one is condemning you for loving your itchy balled, fun-filled life and wanting to celebrate the fact that you are in a good place. Yeah, joy to the world! See I can do it too! (I’m literally smiling at the computer at the thought of you skipping down to the petrol station to buy a bunch of flowers and a box of milk tray. No, literally cracking up.)

The happiness is not the issue, the coolness is.

Be cool, my friend, be cool.

I have made no secret in the past of the fact that I have rather an issue with men being too open and generous with their emotions. Naturally we all must have some, but sadly, I find men that are too at one with theirs rather off putting. Yes, I’m old fashioned, yes, my father never hugged me enough as a child, yadda yadda but that as it maybe, I find it hard to get my head around men that feel compelled to tell the world everything, all the time.

Leave that shit to us, women have worked for years for that reputation, you’re not stealing it from us now.

To expand, I have a friend who often tells me she doesn’t like playing games in relationships. That she wants to ‘bugger all that bullshit game playing and find a man who’s straight down the line’. And then this happens: they call her, they text her, they tell Twitter and Facebook and anyone that will listen that they are ‘In a relationship!’ that they are ‘No longer available!’ that they could no longer possibly comment on X,Y and Z because THEY HAVE A GIRLFRIEND. And suddenly, like black dog out of the mist devouring the happy lurve bubble she was in, she goes from thinking, what a thoroughly decent chap he was to thinking fuck I am that girlfriend and my ‘open,’ ‘non game playing’ boyfriend has suddenly LOST HIS COOL.

Panic sets in.

Game over.

You see when people say there is nothing wrong with saying how you feel and being open and honest with your emotions they are right (I’ll learn to live with it, I will, I will) Except sometimes, you’ve just got to hold back.

Now I’m not the expert, not having balls, itchy or otherwise, but from what Cream tells us, men are naturally hunters and women, hunted. With this being the case then, like it or loathe it, at the end of the day we are all game players, and to a certain degree, at least at the beginning of relationships, must behave as such.

When a man tells me he hasn’t had a girlfriend for years and is desperate to settle down ASAP I don’t think, Oh, lucky me, how lovely and honest and start shopping for wedding dresses – I wonder why the hell not. When a man changes his Facebook status to ‘In a relationship’ after 2 weeks of seeing me I don’t ‘like’ it and return the compliment I think that he is either a 12 year old in a 35 year olds body or frigging desperate. A text on the hour every hour is, at first, endearing, cute even, but will eventually become annoying. And so the rot sets in …

Don’t be fooled, either, into girls that tell you they hate ‘games’. It’s all nonsense, even if they think they want to know where they stand they don’t really. Hates feeling insecure and vulnerable? Wants to know you’re going to call everyday? Ignore every word of it, she will tire of your predictability and grow bored of your availability.

Half the fun of a relationship is grafting for it at the beginning and not knowing what is around the corner, daring to dream it will grow into something amazing; it is not about knowing without ANY shadow of a doubt that you’ve got a keeper, or should I call that a clinger.

Didn’t that bag of penny sweets you had to wash a car to get taste better than the ones you were given for doing nothing?

Well, it’s the same for relationships, the ones I have to put some effort in for seem taste so much sweeter when they work, if I have earned your heart I will savor it all the more.

A man doesn’t lose his appeal simply because I know I have him, he does lose his mystery though and a person that makes themselves a ‘prize’ will never be short of admirers.

So, boys, of course, be happy, love that you’re in a relationship and that you’ve a date for Saturday night, but for Christ’s sake keep it to yourself … you’ll thank me for it in the long run.

Man up.

The Big Lebowski: What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski? Is it being prepared to do the right thing, whatever the cost? Isn’t that what makes a man?

The Dude: Hmmm… Sure, that and a pair of testicles.

If you haven’t seen The Big Lebowski, thank you for visiting, and make sure the door doesn’t smack your useless ass on the way out. Apart from The Life Of Brian and Anchorman it’s the most hilariously quotable movie ever. And The Artist, of course.

But it’s a smart movie too, and it asks interesting questions about the nature of masculinity, avoids answering them, and says “fuck it, let’s go bowling instead”. Maybe it’s a ‘guy’ movie. “Fuck it, let’s go bowling” might as well be tattooed on us.

Parenthesis:

Should I get a tattoo? Tribal, on my left shoulder? Good, bad, or mid-life-crisis? I’ve lost the ability to decide, so it might be the first ever tattoo-by-blog-poll.

Parenthesis over.

This blog is about the problems of being a man – the inability to decide about a tattoo notwithstanding. Some of you might think this is an excuse to weep about how tough men have it, how feminism and IVF have made our lives pointless, how we’re misunderstood and underestimated, and how beneath this thick, crass, eternally randy and untrustworthy exterior there lives a frightened kitten. Well it’s all bullshit folks. Being a man is ridiculously easy. I do it every day, and barely give it a thought.

And feminists are right, but I wish they’d shut up about it. Not about feminism, about being right. Starting to sound smug now!

Girls: you probably woke this morning and worried about your face, and your hair, your skin, your waist and your gluteus maximus. You probably felt good, bad, guilty or slutty about your style of intimate lady-fuzz; and if you felt slutty, you probably felt good, bad and guilty about that too. It’s so meta!

Then you probably panicked about what your choice of shoes would tell your boss about your career goals, and whether your career goals were good enough, or you should give them up and become a traditional mum, and whether doing that would be betraying “the sisterhood”.

You may have felt a demented squall of hormones as your menstrual cycle freewheels down the hill towards you, or crashes off a cliff behind you. It’s likely you agonised about that guy you dated last weekend, and what he meant by the words “This was fun, let’s do it again sometime”.

I’m guessing all of this, of course, based on a thousand inane, circular conversations women I’ve known. Talking to you lot is like being trapped in a Moebius loop: there’s only one side, and I’m always on the wrong side of it.

But I’m generalising, and in your particular case I might be wrong. Maybe you’ve got it together, and your right-brain and left-brain are (at least) on amicable terms. I’m tempted to say “well done you”, but honestly: I don’t give a yellow rubbery fuck, because I’m a man and when I get out of bed I worry that my scrotum itches. Then I scratch it, and that’s that problem solved. If I’m having a particularly sensitive day, I might continue into a brief introverted ponder about how funny the word scrotum is, and whether it’s appropriate or legal to shout it at next door’s 13 year old next time he kicks a ball at my window.

And that’s all my worrying done for the day. Women want to talk about it and analyse it. Men just want to anal-ize it!

You’ll notice I’ve finished with self-analysis, and I’m not even out of the dangly area between my legs. The rest of my body, brain and inter-personal relationships can go to hell, I’m too busy being utterly oblivious to them. Being a man is amazingly easy: the hardest thing we have to do is nonchalantly shoo away all the moral crises that plague women, and find tissues to wipe up after we masturbate. If tissues aren’t available, the curtains will do fine.

So what that guy meant by “this was fun, let’s do it again sometime” was: “This was fun. Let’s do it again sometime… and have sex too”.

That’s the hidden message. It’s the only hidden message. All other messages are unhidden. Our emotional range goes from A almost all the way to B.

That doesn’t mean I don’t express feelings, it’s just that they’re hardly subtle when I do express them. When a guy is happy, he’ll be happy. He won’t panic about it, or worry that he’s making himself look like a fool. Honestly, if he’s a proper man he won’t care what other people think about him anyway – we leave that shit to women. I spent every waking hour from the age of 12 to 26 trying to be cool. I was a slow learner, and it took me that long to work out that cool people don’t care whether they’re cool or not. I’m probably still not cool, but I definitely no longer care what people think. I definitely don’t care if people think I’m an idiot for being happy, or sad, or… hold on, I’m sure there’s a third emotion, now what was it?

So here comes the response. Man up, you’ll say. Urgh, I don’t need your feelings. Oh really?! You’re in a tizzy because you don’t know what “This was fun” meant; can you imagine the miasma of self-doubt you’d suffer if men didn’t make things bloody obvious? If we were really as blankly stoic as Lee Marvin you’d be having a fucking kanipshin.

Bad news: we all want to be Lee Marvin. Good news: we’re not. We have feelings, and sometimes, even though we’ve all spent our teens practicing our dead, blank, hard-man stare in the bathroom mirror, those feelings keep leaping up and waving like a jacked-up jack-in-a-box.

There are unfortunate side effects: the nauseating smug couple syndrome is blamed at least 50% on men, and personally I feel that’s unfair. Women are smug about relationships, but men are only smug during a brief post-sex interval. It’s not immediately after sex, or if it is the guy should be putting more effort in, and needs telling. Here’s the timetable for post-sex activity.

0-30 seconds	Sweating, gasping, pressing your guppy mouth against her face and saying “Oh Jesus” repeatedly. Variations such as “Oh God” are fine, but try to avoid “Oh Allah” unless you’re a Muslim or a very brave comedian.
30-60 seconds	Some blood returns to your brain, you remember she exists, and try to enquire if it was good without looking too desperate for approval.
60-80 seconds	Smugness.
80 seconds onwards	Wanting to do it again, wishing you were still 18 and recovered in 30 seconds, and being glad you’re not 18 any more because back then you only lasted 30 seconds anyway.

Don’t blame men for being part of a smug couple, not unless they’re a very adventurous couple and you’ve been in their presence during that brief post-coital window of smugness. In which case I’m looking forward to your detailed blog about it.

So if you see a smug couple, blame the woman. Not for being smug, just for being daft enough to feel smug about a man. We’re not that great, so don’t feel smug about us. And don’t misinterpret our grin as smugness. We’re just dogs chasing a bone: of course we bear our teeth when we’re boning all the time.

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit …

Damn right we talk about men.

Fuck me, the only thing that keeps a woman sane in a relationship is the ability to dissect every word, action, physically imperfection and personality flaw of her ‘beloved’ with her most faithful girlfriends. Don’t be fooled into thinking your silence has anything to do with honor, it’s simply not in your nature, or in men’s generally to be quite so passionate in their ability to analyze every detail.

Or should the word be blatant? Because here’s the difference; women talk, we’re famous for it. We discuss, we debate, we bitch, we gossip, we mull, and yes we share. Of course I can’t talk for the whole of womankind and far be it from me to generalize but I think it’s fair to say we like feedback. So shoot us.

Why I sometimes struggle to order a drink without consulting twitter first. That’s not to say I’m going to sleep with you one night then ask Alan Sugar to RT how big your knob was the next morning, just that if a friend happens to call and I happen to have had you in my bed within the last 24 hours for the first time then you will be discussed. (Relax, if I want to see you again, you’ll get a glowing report – not all talk is bad talk.)

Men might mock us for our loose lips (you should be so lucky) and write songs about how we’ve got more rabbit than Sainsbury’s but you do the same it’s just what we call gossip you call banter.

And do you see us complaining?

If a chick is going to shag a guy in the toilets of Inferno’s after 18 shots of black Sambuca then, I’m sorry, but she’s open for debate. I’d no sooner expect a one night stand I was never going to see again to keep his mouth shut to his friends about our ‘romantic’ interlude than I would him to call me again after I was sick in my handbag halfway through giving him head (no that didn’t happen, work with me, I’m being creative) and if he didn’t have a good old ‘banter’ about it with his mates over a fry up the next morning then I could only conclude he was either mateless or thought he was going to start some kind of LTR with me at some point in the future, the poor deluded fool.

It’s exactly the same as what we do, just with a different name and a bit more streaky bacon.

That being said, just as you so graciously remind us, when talking about someone you give a shit about (yes, believe it, it can happen, not often mind you) even us ‘gossiping girlies’ can curb the chat, or at the very least highlight the good bits and skim over the bad.

Maybe you’re right and men are more private than women, or that they have a stronger sense of propriety (though I doubt this) or it’s simply a case that, whereas women get almost as much enjoyment in discussing a recent sexual interlude over a large glass of wine with friends than they do actually doing it, men just want to go straight for the blow job and bugger the conversation.

I’ve heard it said that men are often amazed at how women can spend hours, nay, days discussing the same subject. How incredible their ability to draw out a conversation about something, be it cock size, Katie Price or the current cuts in funding for the NHS to monumental lengths. And if I’m honest it is an attribute I’m extremely proud of. Where ever would we be without a full and hearty discussion. BT would be up shit creek that’s one thing I know for sure, they could pay off the national debt of a small African country the amount of time I spend gassing on the blower (focus, boys focus).

So here’s the thing, dress it up how you want, we all like to talk, you just call it something different and don’t give quite so much money to international phone companies. That being said, Cream, if you want to think of yourself as keeping quiet be my guest, a blog writer who doesn’t like to share, my, my now that is something to talk about …

My cock is perfect… so keep it to yourself.

On behalf of men everywhere, I’d like to say thanks to Honey for conclusively answering the “does size matter” question.

Or did she? It’s a meaty topic. A big one too. And a hard one, which is ripe for juicy debate. In fact, everyone should join in, and we can have a mass debate. We can pump each other for information. Although we don’t want things to become sticky! I’ve got a nice Sémillon, it’s mouthwatering. I’ll whap it on the table, you can all have a slurp, and it’ll get things nicely lubricated so that nobody gets rubbed up the wrong way. Thankfully I’ve been boning up, and I’ve discovered three things:

1. It’s possible to break all records for the number of stupid innuendos in one paragraph.
2. Innuendo sounds a bit like “in your end-o”. Which is delightful!
3. It’s not possible to hear about huge cocks without worrying about your own.

I’ll say this now: I wish I had a huge cock, but not for the reasons you’d assume. I don’t think they’re an overwhelmingly important factor for the majority of people. I’m certain many women will respond to this blog with “you don’t know what you’re talking about; we all yearn for a foot of sturdy trouser-pipe”, but I don’t think those women speak for everyone; they just speak loudly, and probably cackle too (in groups of three they can affect the weather).

Down the years I’ve been (at various times) amazing at sex, passable at sex, dismal at sex, and terrifyingly, heart-rendingly bad at sex. And it’s got nothing to do with me, it’s got to do with the combination of me and my partner. Some combinations work. Some don’t. Until you’re in bed with somebody, you can’t tell, so comparisons about physique are pointless.

I once knew (Platonically) a girl who told me she’d dragged a guy back to her bedroom, got him naked, taken one look at his vast, looming penis, and said “no way are you putting that thing anywhere in me”. For her, size mattered: it had to be small enough to avoid doing damage to her internal organs.

In the interests of disclosure, I should say I’m on a perfectly normal scale, at the top-end of the normal range. I know it undermines my argument a bit, but it’s a fact that I’m glad I’m not at the lower end of the norm. It shouldn’t matter. But it does – although I don’t think it matters much sexually, just psychologically.

But even though I’m normal, sometimes even I struggle to enter a girl because, well, that’s how anatomy is supposed to work! A lady’s private sanctum should feel comfortably, warmly snug around a normal penis. If yours only feels comfortable around something the size of a narrowboat, don’t blame men. I shall studiously avoid the terms “wizard’s sleeve” or “clown’s pocket”, and simply congratulate you on how easy childbirth will be. A hearty cough should do the trick.

All women are generally the appropriate width, but you’re all deeper than necessary. The average erect cock is (thank you Wikipedia) between 5.1 and 5.9 inches, not the 11 inches porn suggests. And the average vagina is around 8 inches deep. That’s at least 2 spare inches per lady.

(For years I wondered if there was something we could do with all that spare cunt, and then I saw George Osborne and realised it had already been taken care of).

Don’t get me wrong: if cock-enhancement was a proper thing, and actually worked, and didn’t cause a lifetime of urinary infections, erectile problems and erratic ejaculation, I’d be waking the surgeon up at 5am tomorrow and demanding an instant cut-and-shut with a salami. Not because I want you to have more fun, or because I think it’s necessary; but because somewhere in my idiotic, porn-addled amygdala, I’m persuaded a huge tallywacker makes me more of a man. The rest of my brain knows that’s bullshit, but my ancient, animalistic hindbrain is screaming at me to grow another couple of inches.

The truth is, Honey’s preference for a huge one is just Honey’s preference. And I’m not really mocking her cavern of delights. I’m sure it’s compact and bijou, and engenders paroxisms of joy for that highly select handful of elite individuals who are invited within. Their names shall ring down the ages, the lucky, lucky fuckers.

And she’s right: I doubt there are many women who yearn for something the size and shape of a Walnut Whip; and I’m sure that herioc scale and an aesthetic muscularity are desirable, if only visually. But most girls are perfectly satisfied with what most men have, or at least as satisfied as the men are with women (don’t get me started on that, you wouldn’t like it).

Most of the nerve endings are on the outside anyway, and there is genuinely some debate as to whether a vaginal orgasm can even happen, or if it’s all happening in the clitoris (my opinion is that vaginal orgasms are real, and I have the magic fingers to prove it). But most of the vagina feels very little, except for the first inch or two and the gspot. The rest of your ladybarn* needs to take a hell of a bashing, so being over-sensitive would be a Very Bad Thing.

* Ladybarn is a district of Manchester. I can’t tell you how pleased that makes me.

Similarly, the head of my cock is so sensitive it could detect warmth in the heart of Maggie Thatcher. But the rest of my penis is, frankly, just a podium for it to stand on. Sure, it feels lovely to get the whole thing wet, but you could chomp on my lower penis without me noticing as long as you’re doing that amazing thing to the head of it with the back of your throat… hold on a moment… good lord madam… aaaand we’re back in room.

Teeth near the tip, however, will lead to the kind of involuntary spasm that can bring a knee into contact with a face, and a furious trip to A+E. Gently now ladies, it’s about as sensitive as your eyeball is.

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This bit is for the guys.

If you ever wanted a massive cock, remember that people with massive cocks almost never get deepthroat, and don’t get anywhere near as hard as a regular cock does. There’s only so much blood to go around, and it’s like half-inflating a balloon.

And lots of girls might like to hold, look at, admire and slap around something that belongs on a Derby winner, but they sure as hell don’t like to have it introduced into their fundament. So you can have a big cock, or you can experience anal sex: not both. Not unless you’re working in porn, an industry with, surprisingly, industrial levels of muscle relaxants, muscle harderners, not-entirely-legal painkillers and reconstructive anal surgery.

Frankly I’d rather remain diamond hard and adventurous with what nature gave me.

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Honey’s comments about sharing those details with the girls though? Wow. I know it happens, because it’s what most TV is currently based on: the vast majority of popular shows are about dragging some poor, unsuspecting bastard onto a stage to be bitched about by the nation, and about 85% of viewers for those programmes are women. I’m not being sexist, it’s disappointingly true – just look at the adverts! They’re hardly flogging carburetors and power tools, are they?

So there’s something deep within women that makes you think it’s OK to act like that. I’m not judging you (you’re better at judging anyway, so I’ll leave it to you), I’m just pointing out the facts and leaving them hanging in the air like a cabbagy fart.

But does anyone really think it’s OK to share that kind of personal detail about somebody you’re supposed to have feelings for (even if those feelings only emit from your groin)? Maybe it’s just me, and other men are just as “sharing and sensitive” as girls are, i.e. all sharing and no sensitivity. But I suspect not. Guys are happy to talk about stranger’s tits, but if you mention the tits of a mate’s wife he’ll deck you. We’re alpha. We protect our own.

So whether my girlfriend is young, smart and smoking-hot, or old, pudgy and looks like a saddle-bag, I would never discuss it with my friends. Or with you. I’m certain that if my mates met her, they’d wait until she was in the bathroom and then congratulate me (and ask how the hell I did it). But that’s as far as the comments can go. Because – believe it or not – men have a sense of propriety. You’d have to torture me to reveal anything about her body, partly because it’s not in my nature, but mainly because every woman in the world would brutally and ritualistically murder her man if she thought he was talking about her. And quite right too.

Now, if only there was such a thing as a movement deter objectification and demand dignified and equal treatment of the sexes…

The size of the ship.

Tits. Yes, agreed, they’re great.

A good pair are fucking stupendous. I’ve been known to double take, myself, at a top pair of knockers walking down the street (attached to an owner hopefully) and we can all remember that girl in school who had a terrific pair. They don’t have to be big, but they do have to be shapely and in proportion, in that big tits on a slim girl is fine, no tits on a heavier chick? not so great (don’t shoot me, I had one boob bigger than the other my entire life and now have both filled with industrial strength silicone, I can say what I want).

The good thing about tits is that regardless of their size and shape, I have found that the general feedback from most men is that so long as they can look/squeeze/suck/bite them then they’re perfect. Never in my entire history of boob play has a man ever mentioned to me that one of my boobs was bigger than the other, they are usually too busy with their mouth full. And I’m sure, despite not being a man, that a cup size to big/small or a nipple to pink/brown is rarely a deal breaker. I can’t see a man going back to his mates after a trip to first base (Omg, he like, totally took my bra off with one hand!) and telling them that she was totally gorgeous, really fun and fantastic at giving head but had slightly smaller nipples than he’d hoped for.

Sadly the same cannot be said for men and their pride and joy. I’m going to say it fellas and I know you don’t like to hear it but it’s coming anyway …

Size matters.

I might be speaking from the perspective of a member of a rather critical and scathing group of girls but I think its fair to say that after one of us has entered into a new sexual relationship/evening/hour the question soon comes up – was he big?

If the answer comes back as ‘Yes, he was fucking huge!’ that means he was big, if it comes back as ‘Yeah, it was fine, sex was great!’ Then it was average and if it comes back as ‘Listen, size isn’t everything, he does amazing things with his hands’ then the guy’s inverted.

I’m not suggesting that either of the last two responses would automatically mean a doomed relationship, just that big is a bonus, actually, hold that, big and hard is a bonus. Rock hard …. And back in the room.

Far be it for me to feel sorry for men but this is one area where actually I pity them slightly. For it’s not just the length that matters, Oh no, it’s all about girth too. What’s the use in a 10-inch cock if it’s the width of a cheese string? I want a good seeing to here, not a cervical sweep! And nobody likes a pencil dick.

Likewise, a short fat winkle will land you in trouble, 3 balls anyone?

Then there’s the lopsided variety, or the banana, (which I often wonder is exclusive to America as the only 2 Yanks I have ever slept with ‘pointed out,’ as it were, it must be something in the MacDonald’s, or maybe my bad luck, anyway I digress.) Both these varieties are fine if you’re G spot is somewhere on your hip, but generally speaking, and I know I sound terribly demanding and desperately greedy, but I like em’ big, thick, hard and straight.

(How to send the fear of God into a man in one easy blog post)

Then there’s the come (I hate cum, Cream, we agree on something). How much is Ok? Someone asked me recently if being potent was a good thing. And that answer, to my mind, is slightly more complex than the average size variety one.

I’d imagine it very much comes down to personal taste and nothing quite says ‘Me man, you woman’ like a faceful of jizz but, litres of white, sticky glue in my hair, all over my back, on my sheets, gallons of it? Not to my taste. (Quite literally) That being said a teaspoon of the stuff after a hardcore lovemaking session doesn’t exactly rock my boat either. Put it this way, if I need a few tissues to remove all evidence it’s enough, if I’m drowning or can window clean the shard with it, it’s probably too much.

So there it is, you’ve got the bad deal in this case, boys. All we have to do is bend over, wear a nice a bra and make a few noises and you think we’re the fuck of the century, you’ve got more to worry about than Karen Matthews on day release.

Sometimes it’s good to be a woman.

Staring at women’s tits.

Last week I decided to add to my collection of geography-teacher outfits, so I popped into Manchester to buy a new brown corduroy jacket with elbow patches.

Disappointed by the modern fad for clothes that actually look good on people, I came home empty-handed. I was disconsolately walking back towards the car, feeling a sense of resignation that I might have to accidentally be fashionable, when some letters floated in front of my eyes. I wasn’t paying much attention, and couldn’t make out what they said. So I squinted and tilted my head, until eventually I spotted they said this:

Donny’s bitch.

And it was only then I realised they were written across the upturned slope of a lady’s bosom, and that she and her friend were glaring at me. Busted.

I realise men have a reputation for staring at tits, but (a) I wasn’t – for once – and (b) if you don’t want people to stare at your tits, don’t daub Donny’s bitch across them in copperplate writing.

Women are always castigating men for staring. But the truth is, for the most part men are simply staring into space – you just happen to walk into the space they’re staring into at the time. Gazing blankly is our “thing”. We do it extremely well.

For years, when a girl would look at me, smile and ask, “what are you thinking about?”, I’d have to grope around in the vast, echoing cavern of my mind for something interesting to say. And it’s not that easy to answer that question. I’d rack my brains, but all I ended up with was long brains. No answer seemed satisfactory. These days I don’t even try to fib. When I’m asked: “what are you thinking about?”, I tell the truth.

Nothing. I’m just looking at stuff.

It’s actually a really handy skill, assuming you’re still a caveman – and that’s a fair assumption to make, ladies! Imagine you’re on the Serengeti in a loincloth, waiting for a mildly crippled and vulnerable Springbok to hobble past. Having a modicum of brain activity would be a distinct disadvantage. If you had an active and agile mind, you’d quickly say “fuck it”, and walk off to start a crèche or knit a longboat. That’s what a woman would do.

But a propensity to just sit and gaze into space, doing sweet FA and wasting the whole morning – that’s a positive boon! And that’s why men are good at doing just one thing, and even better at putting that one thing off for days so they can sit around gazing into space.

(This is a true story: my parents were married for 51 years, and in all that time my dad never got round to fixing the back doorstep. Never. I find something quite admirable in that, and even more admirable in the fact that my mum never beat him to death with a bedpan.)

While primordeal men were out wasting days on the grassy plains, their wives were at home raising kids and gathering nuts in large groups of other women. And that’s how women became so exceptionally good at complex relationships, networks, talking to 9 people at the same time and – and this is the bit that flabbergasts men – listening to all 9 of them too. How do you do that!?

(With men, one speaks until he needs to drink from his pint, then the other one takes over. This continues until the beer is gone, and then they work out who’s round it is with a series of grunts and rudimentary hand signals.)

This explains why women have evolved to multi-task, just get the fuck on with stuff, and handle nuts so well. In the course of one afternoon, I’ve known a girl to make mine shrivel, bounce, twitch, glow and inwardly sigh… all without even touching them! Praise be to evolution: it gave you 250,000 years to practice manipulating my gentleman’s area, and the results are sensational. They might still look like an egg-cup made from grandpa’s elbow, but boy are they responsive to the right touch!

But all of this shouldn’t take away from a few core facts about staring – it’s still true that men like to look at women’s bodies. You may think we just look at the beautiful, but we don’t. We look at everybody. Genetically, the thing that really gets our attention is the hip-to-waist ratio, and it doesn’t matter if you’re big or small, as long as the ratio is right. So all of you, stop worrying that your arse is big. Yes, it is! Bend over, at once.

And why not? Why shouldn’t we look at women’s bodies: they’re marvellous things! I can prove conclusively that all women are better looking than all men. Imagine you see a distant figure, and can’t work out the gender. The question you ask is: is that a man, or a really ugly woman?

Case proven. Men are rubbish, and I don’t know why you fancy us. So will you please get on with lezzing up?

Hunt me down.

Chemistry, Physics, Biology… where are we, Cream, in a frigging 6^th form common room 3 hours before an exam?! Relax, you’re over thinking us and complicating things again, just shut up and get naked, far less taxing on the brain.

Failing that could I suggest the following, and before you start throwing copies of Men are from Mars Women are from Venus at me, I’ll say it first; it’s an outdated sexist view that should have been buried along with penny-farthings and smoking jackets. But it’s my outdated view and I’m sticking to it.

You’re a man, you make the first move.

I’m not interested in all this nonsense about you not reading the signs, what do you want me to do, for heavens sakes, run down Oxford Street with a mega phone and a flashing pair of knickers with the words I fancy you spray canned across my arse? You be the hunter, you do the maths, that’s what makes you sexy.

And for fear of dragging us all back to the common room again, may I suggest that this chemistry, of which you so fear, is there for this very reason. So that us girls don’t need to spell it out to you. It’s the way you feel we like you, the buzz you get when we’re near and the energy that radiates between two people pushing you to go forth and buy white wine spritzers and jager bomb chasers.

Your blindness aside and, God knows, I’m sure you’re not the only one, could I also point out that our old fashioned ideals can’t be the only thing to blame either. Why, if we went around all day declaring undying love to every man we thought had a cut smile/butt/forearm (oh, yes girls, haven’t you heard, they’re all the rage these days) then we’d be sectioned under the mental health act and getting comfy in a padded cell before you could say ‘Here’s Jonny’.

Sadly society these days still isn’t overly welcoming to the idea of women taking the lead. You only have to read twitter at leap year, the day that women are supposedly allowed to propose to their boyfriends, to see the sniggers and hand-covered laughter directed at women who take the initiate.

There’s not a relationship book on the shelves (oh, go on then, so I’ve read He’s just not that into you, get over it) that recommends a woman approaching/phoning/texting/asking first. Agreed, they may all be somewhat outdated or just plain wrong, but there has to be something in it, it’s biology.

Men are hunters, and translated, that means, that as delightful and relaxing as it would be for you to lie back, Cream and let us do all the hard work (and we all know how much you like the idea of that), when it comes to the initial approach you need to sit up, open your eyes and start paying attention.

There is another theory of course, that actually, you know exactly when you are being hunted but just don’t want to take the leap for fear of rejection. Understandable, of course, and I’m sure it’s that fear that stops a lot of men from making the first move.

But here’s the deal, if we have to sit tight, not phone, not text, not chase or open ourselves up emotionally in any form whatsoever for fear of being branded too keen or desperate, then the very least you can do is get a little bit scared once in a while.

If it’s any consolation, if you think that staying alert and seizing an opportunity terrifies you now, you wait until we’ve really got our hooks into you … the female of the species is more deadlier than the male.