I don't give a shit what Joan Collins says.

I absolutely admire her get upwards and become, though, and feel distressing whenever I reflect that she is older than my mum, who more than or less merely sits in the aforementioned spot in her own wee, twenty-four hour period in mean solar day out, while Ms Collins is putting on her slap, her high heels and her wig and going out and wowing her fans in daytime tv studios and god knows what all else she does.

Ordinarily I would have no idea what she is proverb, and care less.

Reading the Standard on the mode home though, I spotted her speaking of her regret that with our modernistic means we are killing off the art of seduction. For a dissever 2d I idea 'yes, you are correct, that is a shame'. Then: 'hang on a minute, what the fuck?!' What is this seduction that would be so sorely missed? I wonder whether what we are talking nearly is how to get around girls maxim no when 'they mean yes' or maybe y'all, with your seduction technique, inverse their mind. Apparently others, besides, similar Catherine Deneuve – another extra no longer in the showtime flush of youth, who has very successfully traded on her looks equally well equally her acting skill and even so does – are complaining that romance is being killed off by things like the #MeToo movement. Co-ordinate to a Guardian article, she says that the movement 'is puritanical and men should exist able to hitting on women'. I have to disagree. Information technology seems to me that there is a earth of difference between hitting on women (which seems to have been man's prerogative since time immemorial) and romance. Tin can't romance be – oh I don't know, forgive me it'south been a while since I have and then much every bit idea of never heed experienced any – a note in your lunchbox, a thoughtful souvenir, a mixtape, tea in bed and then on, or snuggling up on a sofa with no ulterior motive? I think nosotros all know what romance is, and it'south not corruption. Information technology's not harassment. It's not stalking, information technology's not trading a movie deal or promotion or rent for sexual favours. And information technology's non gender specific. I recall we know the deviation. Don't we? Don't men know the difference too? Peradventure not all.  And it seems not all women either.

I include myself hither. My mother – who, to be clear, did alive with and sleep with my dad before marriage – had fairly standard ideas presumably picked up from her mother about what squeamish girls did or didn't exercise. So we didn't ask men on dates only waited to be asked. We didn't become panting after them or seem too groovy on sex, unless information technology was to arouse them (not that they e'er needed arousing, merely to arouse them more). I distinctly call up my female parent telling me that 'when a human being'south willy goes hard he tin can't control himself'. The message is clear. Nosotros have to practice the controlling. (And permit's not forget, the consequences for women of a loss of control can be a lot worse than for men, not only in terms of reputation but in cold difficult fact.) At the same time, it is non okay to appear to exist controlling. Au contraire, mes amis. Control has to appear to accept been ceded completely to the man. One has to be overcome by his seduction technique. (Oh and by the way, he probably doesn't similar condoms.)

There are probably books and seminars on this subject, and I realise I am late to the political party and what I say is unsophisticated and scratches the surface. It's new to me. I fumble and stumble and realise how my well meaning parents and teachers fed me the lies they were fed themselves. It feels a scrap like realising there is no god (luckily I was spared this one). I don't remember ever assertive or no longer believing in Father Christmas, simply it must take been a similar, disappointing falling of scales from eyes. And come to call back of it, I am reminded that there are however scales in my eyes where my ex is concerned.

I am certain there are a dandy many men and women around the world sad at the loss of romance, similar Joan Collins and Catherine Deneuve, and not all of them rich or famous or cute. The sorts of men and women who take been brought upwardly from an early age on stories of knights in shining armour and damsels in distress, and establish them reinforced in ads on tv, in the workplace, at the school gates and at home. The sorts of people who call their daughters princess and teach their sons not to cry. Who assume that doctors are men and nurses are women. Who call up it is unladylike to affirm yourself. Near of united states, in other words, at some level. Men thinking they know best. Women like-minded with them. This is the lodge of the world, and anyone who argues is a killjoy and probably a lesbian. This is the sort of claptrap I bought all my life, for all my education and emancipated ways, and it has a lot to answer for. It's changing though, for our sons and daughters, and thank you to them.