TO GODFREY SMITH

In every way a Superman

My only qualification for writing this book is a lifelong interest in the subject. The male—I have found—is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness and kindness, can be trained to do most things. It is important to have one in your life to turn on your bath water, do up your zips, carry your suitcases, work out tips, tell silly jokes to, use as a threat when you are having trouble with tradesmen or unwelcome suitors and ultimately to arrange your funeral.

Men, according to legend, want only one thing, are deceivers ever, are not interested in gossip, like a cosy armful, need two eggs, and seldom wash behind their ears.

They come in all shapes and sizes except for their organs, which according to all the sex books, are exactly the same size when erect and similarly capable of giving pleasure.

At present men are under fire from the Women’s Lib movement, which has been described as a storm in a B-Cup, and the biggest bore of the century, only rivalled by the Common Market. One cannot dismiss something, however, because it is boring. Every day through my letter box thunders Women’s Lib propaganda: The Feminine Mystique, Women on Women, Women under Women, and so on.

Men in fact have come in for such a pasting that when I started to write this book, I intended it to be in their defence—my charger and my white plume at the ready. But I found as I progressed how fundamental the antagonism between the sexes really is—how although I love a few individual supermen very deeply, as a sex men drive me up the wall. In fact if there was a third sex, I doubt if they would get a look in from me.

I find I resent the fact that I can’t live without them, that they hurt me emotionally, that I hate yet secretly enjoy being bullied by them, that they can do tasks domestic far better than I can, that they enjoy the company of other men so much, and on the whole prefer a bat to a bit on the side.