How do you define a feminist?

She claims that because there are so many negative stereotypes surrounding feminism, many women get scared to admit they are feminists for fear it will scare men off. "My friends and I call it, 'coming out as feminist' and which date you decide you are going to do that," she explains. "But have faith ladies, the right man will be excited by you being a feminist, not scared."

Men wouldn't be too scared if they read the findings of a recent poll carried out by two academics at Rutgers University. The study questioned 983 people aged between 18 and 65 and discovered that - shock, horror - feminists and the men who date them actually reported greater sexual satisfaction and greater relationship stability than those who were in relationships with non-feminists.

Why is this so?

Aside from a poll proving that not all feminists are man-hating bitches, and feminism is not incompatible with love. As my feminist friend Sally told me in a steely tone when I showed her the survey.

"When the man is always on top, things get a little boring for both parties. Feminists are all about gender equality, so, from the kitchen to the bedroom, we like to share the chores and positions. It keeps things spicy and interesting."

Still the issue remains: What does it mean to be a modern-day feminist? Are we supposed to pay our own bills, pay for dinners, expect equality everywhere we go and fight for our right to have it?

According to Samhita, feminism is the belief that "everyone deserves rights, humanity and compassion irrelevant of who they are or where they come from" and says that feminism has made people happier with who they are.

Her advice to feminists wanting to get into romantic relationships?

"To be honest with herself about the kind of relationship she wants and will make her happy irrelevant of what anybody else or society at large wants from her."

I couldn't resist asking her the age-old dating question - who should pay on the date?

"I think paying in general should be based on common sense. If one person obviously has more money than another it makes sense for that person to pay more often. I really think the focus on who pays just doesn't apply anymore. Yes, men statistically have more access to income generation, however, I really think it is case by case and I don't think it is inherently sexist for a man to pay and I don't think it makes a man less of a man for a woman to pay. Why can't people just use common sense?"

And finally I wondered about the notion that modern women are acting too much like men to be attractive. Samhita tells me that just because women have more options these days, they're not acting like men, they're acting like women with more options.

"I know that is a tough concept to grasp, but I think the men that will ultimately be happy in their love lives are going to be the ones that can evolve with the changing time. I have faith that many of them will be able to. And people love to blame feminism for everything, but men also benefit from women being happier in their lives, any man that really loves a woman knows that."

The scientific way of meeting someone?

Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt is terrified of being single again. The Ghost Whisperer star recently penned a dating survival guide titled, The Day I Shot Cupid: Hello, My Name is Jennifer Love Hewitt and I'm a Love-aholic.. Her advice for women ranges from "don't take a diuretic before a date", to "give your vibrator a name" and "don't call six times to confirm plans". Oh, and don't worry if he's late picking you up either. But the one rule you need to follow according to Hewitt? "Don't get on a scale while you're not worrying that you're being stood up."

Considering Hewitt has recently had a string of unsuccessful relationships, she may soon be facing her worst fear. (But hey, celebrities can do anything they want, right?) But perhaps she's onto something.

Singletons are doing it tough. Singletons are battling with all the mixed messages and they need help. So I've spent the weekend searching for the answers to those eternal dating problems ...

How do you meet someone of the opposite sex? What do you say? Who talks first? Do you go for the I'll date anyone approach? Do you ask friends to set you up with anyone that has two legs and no criminal record? And if you do meet someone - then what?

The opinions I've collected range from the simple (just smile and say hi), to the ridiculous (I date guys I meet on the internet seven days a week), to the really ridiculous (I have a casual sex buddy so I don't need to worry about meeting someone).

One man named Elton tells me he's been studying the methods of pick-up artists for the past five years. He's come up with a theory that concludes meeting through friends isn't always the best way to go.

"We are a tiny pea in a pod. Our pod is like our circle of friends, and that's the only people we really get to meet and hang out with. But in reality, we are a pea in a very large world. Imagine that - you're stuck in your pod and there's an entire world out there of people to meet."

Instead of sticking with our own social circle, or always hanging out in clubs and bars, Elton recommends taking the time to talk to every woman you might be interested in. But he does stipulate that what you say during these encounters will make or break your chances. And he doesn't believe in "pick-up lines" either.

"I always observe something about her. If she has nice shoes, I'll say, 'those are weird shoes! Where did you get them?' And then we'll start having a conversation. If I'm in the grocery store line I'll mention something that's in her basket and make a joke about it. Like, 'Wow, that's the biggest banana I've ever seen'. That way women don't put their guard up."

Who speaks first?

By Elton's reckoning, it's not enough for a woman to just smile at a man. "Everyone smiles. Guys don't take that as bait anymore. You need to open your mouth."

Relationships guru Dr. Pat Allen has another theory about who should approach who. Her old-fashioned advice, reminiscent of the defining dating of of the '90s The Rules, stipulates that men should always make the first move. Her theories are based on the idea that in every relationship there needs to be a balance of masculinity and femininity in order for sparks to fly. And "since male energy is assertive and female energy is passive, the one who speaks first is male".

How do you know it's worth giving a chance?

I recently met a single and dateless gal in in her 40s named Joan who tells me that she's done a load of work on herself in her attempt to find a man. After going through therapy, and attending the weekly seminars with Dr. Pat in Los Angeles, she says she's learned how to be quicker at spotting the bad seeds.

"Now when I date guys, I know whether after three dates if it's going to be a waste of time or not. Then I can let them go and move onto the next."

Joan repeats Dr. Pat's mantra: "These days you must go out and hunt for romance with the same skill and determination you would muster to look for a job or an apartment".

Hunting for romance online

Real estate agent Harriet seems to be taking this mantra a little too far. She's currently on an internet dating site and finds herself going on six or seven dates per week.

"I need a personal assistant just to keep up with it all," she says. (She might just be in luck with the new website, onlinedatingassistant.com ... http://www.onlinedatingassistant.com/). The trouble with it all, she says, is that while she's dating a slew of men, she's hardly interested in any of them. "I'm in my late 30s and just can't get interested in any man unless he's recently divorced or unavailable. I think it's my way of protecting myself from ever getting hurt."

The perfect match

Perhaps Harriet should stop dating unavailables and go for a man who is older than her, dumber than her and from the same background as her.

Well, that's if new scientific research released a couple of weeks ago about what makes the perfect marriage, is anything to go by. According to a study published in the European Journal of Operational Research which polled 1074 couples aged between 19 and 75, there are three qualities that make a great relationship:

- Women must be at least 27 per cent smarter than the man and should hold a degree while he should not

- The man should be five years older

- They should share the same heritage

The leader of the research concluded this: "If people follow these guidelines in choosing their partners, they can increase their chances of a happy, long marriage by up to 20 per cent."

Twenty per cent? Maybe we should all stop our search right here and now. Or maybe we should keep on looking because a better partner / potential spouse might be the next person around the corner. And you'll never know until you try. Just don't forget to "bwark!"

The rise of the Omega males

I love a new man in town just as much as the next girl. Unfortunately not all of them are eligible Casanovas ripe for the picking. While I admit that rampant stereotyping and new buzzwords that aim to put men down have no real merit, sometimes I can't help but weigh in on the debate, even if it only manages to confuse us all a little further.

If protagonists in the latest spate of Hollywood flicks, my circle of friends and newspaper articles are anything to go by, there's a new bloke in town. He's the one who, in his 30s or 40s, can't drive, doesn't have a job and still dreams of becoming an astronaut.

Introducing the "Omega male" ...

If the Alpha male is 24's Jack Bauer out to save the world from weapons of mass destruction and the Beta bloke is the guy who manages his phones, then the Omega bloke is neither. He's the dude who sits idly in his apartment strumming his guitar while dreaming of the future and smoking a bong.

I've recently interviewed singles and couples, and it seems women have a common gripe: their men won't get off the bloody couch. Pot-smoking, non-driving, non-working man-boys seem to be the persona of the New Age boyfriend, and the women aren't exactly sure how to handle it.

As I sit typing this story, I've just picked up the latest issue of an American girly mag to find an article titled, "The Rise Of the Less Successful Boyfriend". The story mentions that two women wrote in to say that they were a little tired of dating men who were less successful than they were and continually having to "pick up the tab" and maintain a lifestyle that these boys were accustomed to.

True, the financial crisis turned into a major thorn in the relationship balloon. Men who defined themselves by their suits and ties lost their identities and their mojo. Expensive dinner dates became a thing of the past, sex lives started to wane and whining blogs by former "handbag" girlfriends to the rich and powerful began to pop up all over the internet.

"Where are all the Alpha males?" they cried. "Are there none left?"

Website Slate.com talks of the rise in these Omega males as a "masculinity crisis". They also site author Susan Faludi whose theory on men stated that, while boys were told from a young age that they would one day be able to be "masters" of the universe, nowadays they've sadly become "masters of nothing".

Where has Hollywood's macho man gone?

Thanks to Hollywood, we've seen the Omega bloke pop up everywhere from Courteney Cox's unemployed ex-husband in Cougar Town to the videogame playing boys in Knocked Up. Yet old-school actress Joan Collins says she's not impressed. In fact she says, it's the lack of the hunky, muscular, macho man on television and in films that gets her goat.

"Bring Back the Brawn!" says Joan Collins writing a guest article for Britain's Daily Mail. Collins says the days of the Hollywood-era-style star has sadly long gone and that, with modern actors looking "a bit wimpy", their style is infiltrating into the regular modern man's psyche.

I would have to concur. Compare the likes of teen heart-throbs Zac Efron or Robert Pattinson to men like Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, Sean Connery, John Wayne or Kirk Douglas and it's plain to see: there's simply no competition.

Collins says that this shift in popularity is possibly due to the fact that "when a nation's health improves, and life expectancy rises, women become attracted to more feminine-looking men, who appear to have gentler natures to match their little-boy faces".

But I have to disagree. Evidenced by research, I feel modern women have had to get stronger to survive. And therefore something had to balance out all the masculine energy many modern women are emanating from the boardroom to the bedroom. Hence the men have let their feminine sides shine. The women are shouting, and the men are shutting up.

One reader, writing in a response to Collins's musings, wrote this:

"I have to agree with Ms Collins. In fact, many of today's male stars make me think of only one word; flaccid."

True, when it comes to Hollywood blokes we'll always have George Clooney, but, with all the metrosexuals, mimbos and Omegas about, one can't help but wonder if a high level of testosterone is no longer that appealing ...

What do you think?

Have a great weekend and happy dating xx

Undateable:Things Guys Do That Guarantee They Won't Be Dating or Having Sex

"Let's face it. Women are complicated creatures and at times hard to understand. But the reality is, there's an unspoken list of things men say, wear, or do that will pretty much guarantee that the girl you just took out to dinner won't ever want to see you again," the authors write. "Or if she does, it will be to tell you that she 'just wants to be friends'." (Sound familiar?)

They say the visual clues and "undateable behaviour" includes things such as high-waisted "dad jeans", (reminiscent of Seinfeld), mandannas, (bandannas on men), owning a bong (if they're over 30), wearing tube socks with sandals (enough said) and sporting anything that says "Ed Hardy" on the front. Other deal breakers include if he carries a "murse" (man purse), adjusts his crotch in public (do any men not do that?), shaves his chest (are men really meant to wax?) or wears hair plugs.

While it all seems a little superficial to me, my serially single girlfriend maintains that, when it comes to visual deal breakers, every girl has a different level of what they will and won't accept.

She tells me the story of the time she walked into a potential boyfriend's house and in his bathroom she found two things that caused her to leave immediately: an at-home hair highlighting kit and an unflushed toilet ... with a something unsightly still floating in it.

"At first I was turned off by the highlighting kit, and then I lifted the toilet seat and I just had to get out of there," she recalls. "Even though he was quite handsome. It was a pity."

While others might say that there's nothing wrong with a little light guy-lighting (men who highlight their hair), that everyone forgets to flush once in a while and that women like my girlfriend are simply being "too picky", I decided to scan the opinion of bestselling author Lana Penrose to see if my friend (and the authors of Undateable) were being too harsh on the poor blokes.

In Penrose's latest book Kickstart My Heart: A Carnival of Dating Disasters, she talks about a slew of deal-breaking experiences ...

"If you're on a date with a man who miraculously produces a pair of tailor-made fangs and proclaims he's a vampire (as has happened to me - for real), I'd be tempted to walk, but not always. I absolutely draw the line if a crack pipe falls from his pocket (as has happened to me also)."

While these days she has a better eye for spotting an "undateable", she says it was mightily difficult learning to stop the cycle of dating one undateable after another.

"I've devoted the last two years to getting to the bottom of it. I made a firm decision that I would not go through the rest of my life falling in and out of stupid relationships. A lot of what I've learnt came courtesy of a beautiful cognitive behavioural therapist. I've also undertaken a host of other practical measures, including NLP, meditation, eye movement desensitisation reprocessing and visiting witches and healers. I've left nothing to chance!"

Unfortunately for many women who find themselves continually falling into the pattern of dating the undateable, perhaps taking drastic measures is the only way to break the habit.

Or if the Undateable book is anything to go by, then you can save yourself a heck of a lot of dough and simply look at the type of jeans he's wearing to know instantly whether or not he's the one ...

Why relationships fail‏?

Modern relationships aren't doing well. In a world in which casual sex is proffered like chocolate pudding off a menu, the sanctity of love and marriage is no longer a priority for many.
Instead, we live in an era in which the news of breakdowns of famous twosomes ricochet around the media more often than Victoria Beckham changes her hairstyle. And, says Dr John M. Gottman - the guru of relationship failure - 67 per cent of first marriages end in divorce over a four-year period. Now that's a whole lot of broken hearts, rebound sex and empty tubs of comfort ice-cream.
Despite all the information seemingly available to us in the form of the self-help aisle of the bookstore, still, we are mightily perplexed as to why exactly so many relationships go down the gurgler faster than I can down a dry martini ...
Unfortunately for many, instead of looking at the "why" we fail, we all spend our time trying to find the holy grail as to "how" to have a happy relationship. Which, if the experts are anything to go by, then all we have to do is dress up in a naughty nurse's outfit, make regular "date night" plans (without the kids) and remember not to forget everything from their birthday to their "Big O". Do this and everything will be hunky dory, right? Perhaps not.
So the question remains: why do relationships fail? What makes one person mentally or physically check out? What turns a once loving relationship into one that is slowly drowning in negativity?
Last week I interviewed Siimon Reynolds, author of the new book Why People Fail. He agrees that, while there are a myriad self-help books on the topic of how to succeed, no one ever tells you how to master failure. Yet, says Reynolds, there's a distinct line between success and failure, and combating it all begins with knowing what you want and then not allowing your enthusiasm to wane for the project at hand.
Can this apply to relationships? Reynolds certainly thinks so. Hence here are his top four reasons as to why relationships fail ... and what you can do to ensure you don't self-sabotage your own romantic union ...

1. There's not enough laughter
"Being positive is key," says Reynolds. "At least that's if the research carried out by Dr Gottman is anything to go by." After studying over 2000 couples and watching many interact in his "love lab", Gottman then followed up with them a few years later. He found that he had predicted their success with 90 per cent accuracy! How? Well a while back he discovered that in order for couples to have a successful future, there needs to be a five to one ratio of positive statements to negative ones within the relationship.
Gottman explained it to a Seattle TV station like this:

"If you add up the amount of positivity there is, you know, laughter, affection, empathy, understanding, just head-nodding and paying attention, and divide it by the number of seconds that they are critical or angry or disappointed or hurt, that in good relationships, stable relationships, there is five times as much positive going on as there is negative."
Of course it's OK to fight, but as author Alexandra Penney of How to Make Love To A Man once said, "The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands."

2. You're dating a pessimist
Reynolds says the satisfaction you have in a relationship is directly related to how the other person feels when they are around you. Hence in order to give them the warm fuzzies when they're around you, you need to be an eternal optimist. At least that's the solution proffered by Dr Martin Seligman who is known as the world's leading authority on optimism. Seligman says that, while every relationship needs at least one person who is an optimist, it's better if both partners are constantly positive and pushing each other up.
Of course it's a darn nightmare to remain positive and upbeat when your partner sits on the couch all day drowning their sorrows with booze or weed; if they abuse you emotional or physically, or if find yourselves moving in different life directions. (Seligman also once hypothesised that, "Women who display genuine smiles to the photographer at age 18 go on to have fewer divorces and more marital satisfaction than those who display fake smiles." Hm..)

3. You are not putting 100 per cent into the relationship
It's funny how easy it is to check out of the relationship under the guise of work, social life, family obligations or travel. And yet, if one person has mentally checked out of the relationship, things are going to go downhill pretty fast. I've have seen it all too often and it saddens me when one partner mentally checks out of the relationship while the other is still scrambling for any scraps of emotional connection they might be able to hang on to. Unfortunately, once one person's interest wanes, it gets increasingly difficult to change their mind.

4. Maintenance is an illusion
If you think that simply "maintaining" a relationship will make it work for the long haul, then you're kidding yourself, says Reynolds. Relationships take hard work, dedication and continual effort to spice things up.
Reynolds suggests doing two things to keep things spicy. Firstly, he abides by the "cruise director theory". In other words, one person should always take charge and suggest the activities and ways to keep things interesting.

And secondly, he says it's imperative to make memories together. "Meaningful memories draw you together," he says. "It's actually proven that the best relationships constantly focus on making new memories together by doing fun activities." Oh, and don't forget to take those happy snaps ...

Things I've learnt from people who've dumped me‏

It was English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson who said, "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Yet anyone with a broken heart would agree that to have "loved and lost" is akin to stabbing yourself in the eye with a toothpick while your heart gets twisted around like a corkscrew. In fact the only thing I can see that might be a positive outcome to emerge from a break-up is the fact that you either lose a heck of a lot of weight, or you can freely rediscover your penchant for vanilla fudge ripple ice-cream and triple choc chunk cookies. (Hey, at least it numbs the pain.)

Then there are other people - the more sensible ones among us - who will emerge from a toxic break-up with a list of lessons they've actually learnt in the process.
One such dude is Ben Karlin, the former senior editor of The Onion and editor of the book Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me. To him, break-ups can indeed teach lovers a myriad lessons for the next relationship. (That's if they're brave enough to put their heart on the line ever again.) ...
What men can learn from women who dump them
Karlin's lessons include:

* Never tell a woman you're moving state without discussing where the relationship is going.

* Don't express "indignation, rage, and heretofore unseen emotions" when you discover the object of your affection is seeing someone else in your absence.

* Don't commit any grand gestures such as flying over to see her at her parents' home where she is visiting. (This surprise move will only "confuse everybody, especially the parents, since they knew she was doing some other dude". He didn't know that yet.)

* And finally, don't avoid a break-up if it's inevitable - it will only result in a breakdown.

When I consulted my serial-dumped friend Artemus on the topic, he claimed that getting dumped is actually a male right of passage. He concurs with Karlin, admitting that he's been dumped so many times he's finally come up with his own top three lessons garnered from his ex-girlfriends ...
Always keep a relationship calendar: "I know this sounds crazy but if you ever forget the first date, the anniversary, her birthday (her mom's birthday), your song, or her favorite book ... consider yourself toast. Every girl who has ever broken up with me or who I've sent packing has told me the following: 'You just don't seem like you have enough time. You didn't even remember my birthday, asshole.' Yes, I'm bad with dates and I know all guys are, so write this stuff down!"

Lie: "Do you hate her friends and all the stupid 'girls night out' stuff? Do you think her mom is out to get you? Do you hate her hobbies, dance classes and guy friends? So did I, but there's no need to show her you do. The fact is, ALL guys can relate to (directly or indirectly) the points I made above as we all have the same Guy DNA. So do yourself a favour, become a great actor and pretend that you're either cool with these things, don't care either way or are totally passionate about her interests and social circle. If she doesn't feel like you're supporting her, she's going to nag and that leads to less sex and more fighting i.e. the break-up time bomb."

Surprise Her: "From time to time, change things up and surprise her with thoughtful gifts, new places to go to dinner, interesting date locations, walks on the beach ... WHATEVER. The biggest lesson I've learnt from failed relationships is that I stopped trying and, as a result, she lost interest or wanted more. Most guys hate surprises, cute moments or long walks. OK, but unless you do this every couple weeks, you risk complete failure and the famous 'let's just be friends' speech."
What women learn from men who've dumped them
While I've been dumped more times than I can shake a stick at, I've never actually contemplated the fact that these heart-breaking moments might have actually taught me a thing or two. Isn't it always their fault anyway? Yet, for the sake of this article, I've decided to retrace my steps and think about the top five things I've learnt from the men who've dumped me ...

Don't tell a guy you love him first: Especially if you don't know how he feels. Or if you've only been dating for two months. Or if you suspect he's back with his ex-girlfriend but has failed to mention that itty-bitty little fact to you.
Don't get drunk with your girlfriends and then attempt to call or see your boyfriend at two in the morning: When you're tipsy and he's not, women tend to whine, nag, cajole and berate the poor dude while he's simply trying to get some shut eye. Not to mention the fact that your pores are probably oozing with the stench of vodka and cigarette smoke all mingled in one rather unappealing combination.

Don't befriend his female BFF:. Firstly, she might just be trying to get into his pants the entire time you're dating him, hence will be attempting to sabotage your union at any opportunity she might have. Secondly, if you do actually genuinely start to like her, the minute you and your beau have a fight or break up, it's inevitable that she's going to take his side and spill all the beans you've trusted her with.

Don't introduce him to your mum too early on: It not only freaks him out but men have this weird belief that all women are going to turn out to look and act exactly like their mothers. Save the meet and greet for the wedding.
Don't keep your ex's phone number: Does this one really need an explanation?
And my final word of advice? I'll let the proverb speak for itself ...

"Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it's better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together."

The Mad Men Effect‏

"On TV, Men are the New Women" bellowed a headline from The New York Times in 2003. The premise of the article was simple: the effect of feminism hadn't properly infiltrated onto television. Women were still squeezed into "demeaning caricatures" and the men occupied two categories: "cads or dads". Fast forward to today and it would seem (at least on some shows) that men are back where they belong thanks to the Emmy-award-winning show Mad Men. In case you've missed it, in the show women act and dress like women (gasp!); men are smooth-talking, chain-smoking, polyamorous misogynists (double gasp!) and it's all set against a spectacular drop of a 1960s advertising agency.
Most surprisingly though is the fact that most of it is styled, written and directed by a group of women ... a rarity by Hollywood's standards ...
While a show such as Mad Men could have reeked of anti-feminist sentiment by squeezing the characters into demeaning stereotypes, it has actually gone on to do quite the opposite.
Female empowerment is high on display, effectively seeping through all the male-dominated guff, while subjects that were taboo back then, such as female self-pleasuring, sexual freedom, the pill and abortion, all get their fair share of air time and are presented from a woman's point of view.
Popular culture has followed suit with everyone from Mattel - it has just created its very own range of Mad Men inspired Barbies - to Paris Fashion Week following the Mad Men fashion lead.
"Paris embraces curves!" shouted fashion critics as a more curvaceous Elle Macpherson (at least by current top model standards) waltzed down the latest Paris Fashion Week catwalk for Louis Vuitton in looks reminiscent of the Mad Men set.
And the public is taking note.
Bella, a 34-year-old single girl who changes her style more often than Charlie Sheen swaps his casual sex partners, says the Mad Men look is her new choice of attire. But, as I take in her tweed skirt, beige cardigan and string of pearls, I do wonder if it could be a turn-off for men.
While we were talking, we were standing in a newsagency and were surrounded by scantily clad models and a pouting Megan Fox looking seductively at us from every lad's mag cover (no pearls in sight). I did, indeed, wonder just how attractive to men were women who wore clothing that didn't show off everything from their navel to the decolletage.
It also reminded me of the time when I decided to experiment with my outfit by wearing a mini taffeta cut-out dress complete with exploding cleavage and ridiculously high hooker heels.
What transpired was the positive attentions from a guy I'd known for years but who'd never before glanced in my direction. "Are you coming to the next club with me?" he asked me that night with a wink. I politely declined, but secretly revelled in the power a little change of dress had over men, but I think that's a whole other column.
Anyway, back to Bella, who was still trying to convince me of her choice of pearls before noon and in a shopping centre.
"I think the '50s and '60s were a beautiful time when women had a clear role as women ... before women were trying to be men," she said. "Women dressed in a ladylike fashion to accentuate their curves, wore beautiful colours and fabrics - and were not trying to suppress their femininity. These days women worry about not being taken seriously if they are not wearing feminine clothes."
I remembered a time when Bella had swapped her flowy, sexy dresses for sharp suits and structured lines. It was when she had started her business many years ago and she was trying to be taken more seriously in the man's world she was about to enter.
"I did not want to come across like a child or a frivolous girl," she explained. "I do think that people perceive you in a different way according to the way you present yourself. Of course this is only the beginning - once you open your mouth, it's different. But I think, from a cosmetic point of view, people will take you on your appearance at first."
Nowadays, she says her sense of Mad Men style is attracting different sorts of men into her life. "It attracts a different type of man - an older man who is looking for a wife rather than a young guy who is looking for a fling."
And, however ridiculous she might look in her cream cardigans and pearls during a day out in a shopping mall, this sort of man might be exactly what she wants ...

Should married people be allowed to have friends of the opposite sex?‏

Even before Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie started to film the upcoming Hollywood blockbuster The Tourist, Depp's girlfriend Vanessa Paradis allegedly declared she didn't want it to happen. Her reasoning? It seems she was concerned about the fact that Depp and Jolie were set to star together in a mightily steamy love scene ... and Paradis knew all too well what would happen if Jolie were to get her claws into her beau. While most male actors seem to be a priapic bunch, (especially when it comes to Jolie and her much talked-about man-claws), this got me thinking about a question I often get asked by readers of both sexes: should married people (or people in long-term relationships) have friends of the opposite sex? And should women such as Paradis - who has been dating Depp for 12 years and has two kids with him - be allowed to put a halt to a friendship should they be concerned it could get inappropriate? ...
The public reaction to Paradis's man-foot-stamping has been mixed. Some say "go girl!" to her for standing up for herself. Others say "to hell with what your partner says!" and claim that one should be able to be friends with whomever they desire, opposite sex or not.
Recently CNN news tackled the subject in a story titled, "Should Your Wife Have Guy Friends?" with the findings being a little inconclusive. Hence I decided to seek out the expertise of psychologist John Aiken, author of the new book Accidentally Single ...

Me: Should married people or people in a relationship have friends of the opposite sex?
John: Yes - absolutely! Married people can have healthy friendships with members of the opposite sex. It's not the friendship itself that's a problem - but rather if there are any strong sexual feelings between the two of you or inappropriate behaviours (e.g sexual touching, exclusive catch-ups, secrets, etc). If this sounds familiar and you're guilty of this, then you need to leave it alone. Otherwise - enjoy!

Me: They say platonic friendships can never work. Does one person ALWAYS fall for the other?
John: No, that doesn't have to happen, as long as you watch boundaries and don't cross over the line. For instance, if you're touching each other inappropriately, talking about issues in your marriage, calling each other pet names, meeting up exclusively and keeping secrets then it's much more likely that someone is going to fall for the other.

Me: What do you advise your clients?
John: If you're single and you have feelings for the married person I say keep away or at least dramatically limit your contact with them and put in place strict boundaries so that you don't cross the line. If it's the married person with the feelings, I tell them to end the friendship and start dealing with the problems that are going on in their own relationship.

Me: Can you ever see it working?
John: Yes - hot single friends are fine to have in your life if you're married as long as you keep putting your married partner first, you keep clear boundaries with your friends and you avoid secrets or lies.

Q: What do you think? Should married people or those in relationships be allowed to have friendships with those of the opposite sex? Do you think Depp should be allowed to do the sex scene with Angelina or do you think his girlfriend has a right to panic?

Going Braless: Fab or Drab?

Who would have thought that bras would be around this long? Certainly not Germaine Greer, who in the early 1960s refused to wear a bra insisting it was a "ludicrous invention". Yet exactly 40 years on, after her ground-breaking tome The Female Eunuch hit the feminist airwaves, it seems the undergarment is here to stay. Yep, a whopping 90 per cent of Aussie women own a bra, with most females housing at least six in their wardrobes.
But Greer isn't impressed with the lack of free-flowing bosoms on display. She recently wrote in The Guardian newspaper that bras had turned modern breasts into somewhat of a joke ...
"Where once 'boobs' were a secret waiting to be revealed, now double welts of marbled flesh propped up by balcony bras are pushed at you by waitresses, schoolgirls and receptionists of all ages," she wrote. "Where once you would have blushed to display a bra strap, dresses are cut so low that the brassiere and its bulging overspill are on permanent display ... Now that you can buy them, bosoms are over."
I'm not quite sure whether bosoms will ever be "over". After all, what will happen to Playboy bunnies, celebrity plastic surgeons and Pamela Anderson? Yet, despite the brassiere's increasing popularity (we can thank Heidi Klum, Lady Gaga and Jean Paul Gaultier's conical bras for that), these days, if a woman's breasts are naturally perky, upright and the right size, should she be forced to wear a bra? I mean, really, what purpose would a bra have for these anomalies, other than to make them walk around constricted, barely able to breathe and with metal wires sticking into their ribs?
At least this seems to be the mantra of France's first lady Carla Bruni, who arrived at a state dinner in a dress so tight it might as well have been made of cling wrap. Oh, and she wasn't wearing a bra either.
While news headlines around the world debated whether or not her decision to go without her nipples being covered up was indeed a sound choice to be made by France's first lady, the real question on everyone's lips seemed to be this: is she too old to let her feminine assets run freely?
Because, let's face it: while the Lindsay Lohans and Kate Mosses of the world might be able to get away with free-flowing breasts and pert nipples shining through see-through gowns, perhaps Bruni, aged 42, doesn't have as much freedom when it comes to what she should and shouldn't wear to important political occasions.
She's not alone in garnering negative nipple-related press either.
Forty-four year old Elizabeth Hurley came under similar fire for a similar nipple display, although she went one step further and donned a see-through sari dress.
Yet, it wasn't hailed as a bad but "conscious" fashionable decision. Nor was it applauded for being a bold statement of the times that announced no matter what your age, if you can look that good with a bra, then you're free to go without one. Instead her choice to waltz up the red carpet sans a bra was dubbed a fashion "malfunction"; a mistaken slip of the nipple.
Really? Surely, with all those stylists, agents, managers and makeover specialists surrounding Hurley's every move, would there ever really be such a thing as a mistaken case of the see-through dress? I think not.
I'd be lying if I said I've never left the house in a dress without a bra for a more comfortable stroll around my neighbourhood without feeling imprisoned. But whether I would do the same if I was wearing a slightly see-through dress, I'm pretty sure the answer would be no. Whether I would give a supermodel or actress kudos for pulling off the look with sheer and utter confidence - absolutely ...

Is "wife" is a dirty word?‏

Another day, another mistress exposed. I've stopped counting (could there possibly be more?) but last week all the extramarital relations were a little hard for me to ignore. In case you missed it, one of Tiger's many gals leaked all his raunchy, albeit pornographic text messages (warning: they're not breakfast cereal reading material).
Senator John Edwards's obscure mistress Rielle Hunter ruined any chance of public sympathy with a photoshoot in which she cavorted sexually around her child's bedroom.
And golden girl Sandra Bullock discovered what no woman ever wants to discover - that her husband had been doing the nasty with a woman who is covered in full body tattoos, sports enormous fake breasts and appears (from photos posted all over the internet) to have a penchant for dressing up as a Nazi in her spare time.
All this in one week? Yikes. So it might be understandable that I can't help but be a little distracted by all the marital disarray ...
Sure, we can pontificate for hours over whether or not the mistresses all knew that their new squeezes had partners already, were married with kids and would never consider leaving their families. We can debate for yonkers what the heck runs through the heads of these seemingly vacuous women who get ensconced with such men. We can question their motives and whether they really thought that their casual sex buddies were going to dump their wives. But in the end we always seem to come to the same conclusion: Who knows? Who cares?
What we do know, though, is that while these women cause a heck of a lot of heartache, pain and financial ruin for everyone involved, the photographic evidence points to the unavoidable truth: these women are not exactly supermodels. In fact, when it comes to the recent cases at hand, the "other women" are rather off-putting.
Usually we just skim over the surface of this icky issue, but today I felt the need to delve a little deeper in the psyche of it all. What I found during my research travels was an old tome written by Michael Drury (who is a woman despite her name), who in 1965 interviewed an anonymous old mistress at length to discover what exactly goes on inside the minds of those who screw up relationships for the rest of us.
The result? Advice to a Young Wife from an Old Mistress - 110 pages of lessons a mistress garnered during her tenor as a man's "other woman".
The anonymous mistress puts forward an interesting argument. She said that mistresses get the best lesson of all as to how to forge a brilliant relationship with a man. And they do it by getting an inside peak into the wife's myriad mistakes.
"Mistresses have to learn like anybody else from observation and mistakes," she says, "and it is often wives who prove the ablest teachers, both by what they do and fail of doing - or of seeing."
Mistresses know all too well that there is to be no berating, scolding, nagging, urging him to talk or demanding him to change while she is in his company. She seems to know her place, bites her tongue and, instead, is "immediately and intensely caught up in [the] man" creating what the anonymous mistress describes as a "magnetic field" when the two of them are together.
One strength of a mistress is apparently "her paradoxical gift of restoring native loneliness" for the man she's bonking. And wives would be surprised to learn that the mistress's role isn't all revolved around sex.
"Wives might be amazed to know how much time a mistress spends listening; cooking favourite dishes; selecting a gift or her own clothes to please; developing her knowledge of many things from medieval art to fly-casting; seeking out new places to go; caring."
The mistress acknowledges that, while women like her have nothing to do with a man's feeling about his wife - "they are simply not on the same plane" - she does say that wives are getting it all wrong. "Everything is for tomorrow," she says, describing the communication the wife usually has with her husband, "the children's education, the bigger house, next year's promotion, retirement, the long focus upon some event not yet arrived. A mistress lives perhaps too much in the present, but this very immediacy, physical and spiritual, is a lodestar."
She adds, "More than one man has said, or thought, that with his mistress he at least knows himself alive."
This all definitely got me thinking: has "wife" become a dirty word?
A girlfriend of mine is concerned that this is just the case in her parent's marriage. She fears her mother has given up being seen as attractive by her husband.
"She doesn't care what she eats, what she wears or how she grooms herself," my concerned friend explains. "It's weird - but it's like she's given up any hope of ever being seen as attractive in my father's eyes ever again."
How many wives feel the same? Do wives become a little complacent over their looks, leave the bathroom door open, dress in tatty old clothes to watch a DVD on a Saturday night, and generally stop caring about attracting their man?
Sure, it's all a big effort, and yes, always having to put on a "show" for your man would take a heck of a lot of willpower and hours on the Pilates reformer bed. But Jeanann Pannasch, a writer for the website YourTango, says that, while women often want to foster closeness by talking about things such as the "time of the month", their toilet habits and how many times they may have vomited from a stomach bug, she wishes it were a little different when it comes to her own relationship.
During a skiing trip with her husband, he asked her how many times she'd vomited from a stomach virus. She suddenly realised that, while she didn't really want to talk about the icky bathroom disaster with her husband, after six years of marriage they had already opened that proverbial bathroom door a long time ago.
When all she could muster was, "I'm your wife", she suddenly realised that "wife" actually made it seem as if she should be sharing her bowel movements with him after all.
She writes: "After all, I wasn't his 'girlfriend', 'lover' or 'fiancee'. And wife, let's face it, is a dirty word - and not the good kind of dirty. A wife might buy your toilet paper. She might wash your underwear. She's expected to be the willing, concerned ear, listening like your mommy would, to the details of your popped blisters."
Over the course of her story, she decides to explore all the ways in which to bring back the girlfriend-boyfriend dynamic. After all, Pannasch says, thinking of herself as a "girlfriend" alludes to the fact that there's a "willingness - or desire - to impress".
She explores how to "find the erotic in the same home where we change dirty diapers", and finds the solution is to keep some things (including bathroom habits) to oneself.
Her conclusion? "For better or for worse, 'girlfriend' signifies that he still has to work, or at least think - and 'wife' doesn't."
Perhaps, if more couples started caring again and acting more like boyfriend and girlfriend and less like shrews or old maids, marriages would still hold the same zing, chemistry and sexuality as at the beginning of the courtship.
And maybe, just maybe, the mistress would no longer have a place in our newspaper columns ...

Lies All Women Tell‏ to their husbands or boyfriends

"Women lie more and better than men!" tut-tutted a recent CBS News headline. The story emerged off the back of the surprising results of a survey of 500 women carried out by well-known US commentator Susan Shapiro Barash, author of the new book Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Women and Deception. Her findings? The fairer sex do indeed fib more - about everything from love, to money, to the amount of botox they get inject into their foreheads. Yikes.
But before you choke on your cornflakes over the fact that your significant other might be lying about the amount of money she spent on her new pair of high heels, there's another lie doing the relationship rounds that might scare you into making every future girlfriend take a lie-detector test before you bonk her.
According to a 2004 survey, almost half of all women would lie to their partners to keep their relationships going if they became pregnant by another man ...
This according to The National Scruples and Lies Survey carried out in the UK which questioned 5000 women and found that 45 per cent of women tell white lies "most days".
While all malicious tactics and tricks in the form of lies are enough to send any man running for the hills, when it comes to innocent white lies (if there are such a thing) many women believe they have a legitimate reason to fib.
Why? Women are emotional creatures by nature. And so when it comes to what gets said, women tend to think of the potential emotional consequences their words might have on the other person. Hence they rationalise that, instead of telling the truth, a little lie might avoid a slag-fest and avoid the risk of hurting someone's feelings.
As actress Nancy Giles told CBS during the show about Barash's book, "[Lying] is part of our DNA! ... If you told the truth all the time, you'd be exhausted."
Indeed. Yet all this info on fibbing made me wonder: do men know women lie? What do they think we lie about? Can they see through our lies? And most importantly, do they lie themselves?
In an effort to gauge some male insight and answers to my questions, I flipped over to my favourite online male portal, Ask Men, in search of the male's point of view on the topic and was a little surprised to find that they think there are five key lies we all tell.
Now, while I'm the first to admit that a little peacekeeping in the form of a fib never hurt anyone, I think the gents might be mistaken as to what exactly we lie about ... and what we don't.

Lie #1: "I'm not mad at you."
I'm not sure what type of women Ask Men polled, but in my experience the first thing a woman does when she's mad at a bloke is she explodes ... vocally. He'll know exactly why she's mad, and she'll do it in about 10,000 more words than she needs to use in order to explain the problem, which could probably be broken down into three syllables. Yep, women like to talk, talk, talk through our problems and trust me when I say that, when a woman is mad, you - and her entire office / yoga session / dog walking crew - are going to know all about it. What is kind of true though, is that, while we're gabbering on about all the things we're angry about, we're not actually after a solution. We get it: you want to solve the problem. But you don't get it: we just want to vent about it. But lie about it? Hell no. Where would the fun be in that?

Lie #2: "I don't mind if you go to strip clubs with the boys."
Ladies, is this really a lie? Do we really give a toss if our boyfriend hits a strip club with his boozed-up mates? It's going to happen anyway, so we know that we might as well ask him if he had a great time instead of berating him over it, which in turn will make him lose the thrill of it all anyway. This may come as a mighty big surprise but the fact is that we are OK with you going to see naked booty on display. And we are also secure in the knowledge that, after a couple of hours, you'll be running home to us faster than your beige loafers can carry you.

Lie #3: "I'm just not ready for a boyfriend right now"
True, a man may peddle this line to placate a woman he's not too interested in. (Specifically used after he's slept with her.) But as for women? It all depends on timing. Take my friend Amber. She dumps her boyfriend and, two days later, a man who she's been secretly lusting after, puts the pressure on her to enter into a relationship with him. Two days after she's ended things with guy number one! She tells guy number two that she's just "not ready for a boyfriend right now". Which is a perfectly normal response for someone in her situation. And yet, when she gets home from a date with boy number two, she tells me she's thinking about boy number two as potential marriage material! True story.
Which leads me to my point: when women say that they are "not ready for a boyfriend right now", they could indeed be lying. Because sadly, it's become the norm for women to go on one or two dates with a man and then to pin all her hopes on him for a serious relationship. Why? Because she is of the belief that there might not be another man around the corner ... for at least another decade.
Which, sadly, leads to the conclusion that women are always "ready for a boyfriend right now", whether they admit it or not. (Feel free to beat me up over that one ... but I would gladly be proven wrong if you can show me a woman who feels otherwise.)

Lie #4: "I don't mind picking up the tab tonight; you always pay anyway."
Contrary to popular male opinion not all women are gold-diggers who view their boyfriends as ATM machines with muscles. True, most women (even the feminists among us) like a man to pay on the first date (and the second and the third), but when it comes to the fourth, we do like to contribute a little something. Of course we'll secretly think you're cheap if you don't reciprocate, or if you make us go Dutch one too many times, but sometimes it's actually acceptable for you to let a woman pay for something ... even if it's just a piece of sushi.

Lie #5: That was f---ing great!"
According to AskMen, after sex, when women gush too much about how well a man has just performed, then she's generally lying through her teeth. In fact, the site says, anything women say after sex is a lie ... so you shouldn't bother listening to her gabble on and instead do what you really want to do, which is roll over and get some shut-eye. But let me just set the record straight here and fill you in on a little female secret: everything we say after sex is the truth; it's the stuff we say before we hop into bed with you that's the lie.

"I've never done this before" tops the list as the No.1 lie women tell men when they sleep with them after the first date; "I've only slept with X amount of men," comes in as lie No.2 (no matter what number she tells you, it's always going to be a lie), and "Wow! You're the biggest I've ever seen!" comes in as the third most told lie. Sorry gents to burst your bubble, although I'm sure when she told you, it was indeed the truth ...

Dating douchebags and Clingerellas: And do interventions work?‏

It's a strange phenomenon for me to see smart, beautiful, talented women who, time and again, fall for men who are douche bags, addicts, losers, cads, manipulative, controlling, money-grabbing or simply uninspiring. These women should know better, right? And yet they continue to find themselves stripped of their confidence and self-worth because they become ensconced with a man who treats them badly and puts them in second place (or third or fourth).
Just the other day I encountered a man named Luke who described this female behaviour as the "anti-nice-guy" syndrome. A successful entrepreneur hailing from New Zealand, he explained that, when he meets a woman with whom he feels he has a connection, he can't help but being extremely nice to her. And yet it only backfires.
"She immediately becomes uninterested when I act interested. A guy can't win!" Well, actually he sort of can. Because, on the flip side, Luke admits that it's the women whom he acts as if he's hardly interested in, who instantly morph into what he's termed "Clingerellas" ...
"After one or two dates, if I tell a girl I'm too busy or I don't have time to see her, she becomes a Clingerella. She calls, texts and texts again even when I don't reply. What's the deal with modern women?"
It's about this time in every column when I like to whip out the old "bad boy syndrome" cliche to explain the female motivation behind this sort of erratic behaviour. But these days I don't feel I can use this excuse any longer.
Seriously, modern women are smarter than that, right? We know by now (or at least we should) that the bad boy is only out for one thing ... our booty. And we know that when he gets into our pants he's going to throw us out along with last night's used condom and our email address. And we should already know that if we try to contact him again he's only going to laugh at our nagging texts and emails with his mates, musing that we were just another notch on his ever-growing "I've-shagged-her" belt. "Next!" he yells with glee.
Now let's be honest here: what type of woman would want to put herself in that situation? Consciously, none who I know of. Subconsciously, I'm not so sure many are even aware that they are simply repeating these bad habits.
So why do women stick around with these types of men hoping they will one day change? Now that's the eternal question. Because it seems that everyone from Amy Winehouse to Dorothy Parker to Sienna Miller has admitted that, despite their ex-relationship being utterly toxic, they can't help but continually go back. And the rest of us can't understand what the heck goes on inside their heads. (At least we know Winehouse has a viable excuse, but what's up with the rest of them?)
We can pontificate for hours over the psychological analysis of why women do this. We can stem it back to father absentee issues, societal pressures forcing us to "settle" or simply sincere stupidity. But, at the end of the day, do women really want to be unhappy for the rest of their lives? And with so much choice available to us these days with everything from our careers to our men, the question still plagues me: why?
I think Oscar Wilde summed it up best when he said, "I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters all the time."
Regina Barreca explained Wilde's quote in a brilliant article she penned for the Psychology Today magazine with this interesting analogy: "[Wilde] focused on the drive that some women have to find the man who will colonize their emotions, enslave their passions, and rule over their lives - and so in the name of finding love, they find a fascist."
It's extremely upsetting to me that a nice guy like Luke might have to turn into a bona fide "fascist" to keep a woman he likes for more than a second date.
Either way, all this got me thinking of an email I received from a distraught reader a while back. She was about to get married. But instead of walking down the aisle on what was meant to be the happiest day of her life, she found herself at an intervention put together by her family and girlfriends. They didn't want her to marry her fiance. Why? Because they all said that he made her unhappy, leeched off her, took all her money and was never going to amount to anything worthy of her affections.
Her response? "I never even realised there might have been an opportunity for me to actually be happier in my relationship. I just thought that was the way life was supposed to be."
Supposed to be? Let's only hope that the rest of the female population wises up and fast ... before it's too late ...

From men to boys: If The Boy had to guess, Mamissmo!

Something awry seems to be going on with modern men. As evidenced by Brendan Fevola allegedly passing around a nude photograph of ex-fling Lara Bingle (culminating in the photograph being published in a mainstream women's magazine), it seems that, instead of growing up, many men are actually becoming more immature by the minute. Unfortunately, you can forget your modern man taking you to a swanky white tablecloth restaurant because nowadays you're more likely to get an offer to sit on his couch and watch him play PlayStation all night instead. (Especially since the mean age of those who play video games is 33, Geek.com says.)
Oh, and don't expect this breed of modern man to clean up his mess afterwards either. Oh no. Apparently there's now a whole generation of dudes who don't cook, clean or wash their own underpants, most likely because they're one of the 25 per cent of dudes aged 20-34 who according to the Bureau of Statistics, still live at home with their mum.
Unfortunately for modern alpha females, it's clear to see that, while the women have had to "man" up in order to survive in a man's world, the opposite has occurred for the opposite sex ...
Take the character of Tom Scavo, Lynette Scavo's devoted husband in the series Desperate Housewives. While his high-flying-career-driven wife holds down the fort when it comes to the family's money, meals and mothering, Tom quits his job, joins a rock band and opens up a mediocre pizza restaurant ... enabling him to live out his childhood fantasies ... in his 40s.
While Desperate Housewives is clearly fantastical, Gary Crost, author of the new book Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity, says the notion that modern men are "immaturing" with age is very real.
Crost reckons that modern men have gone from idolising the likes of Cary Grant (mature) to aping the actions of actor Hugh Grant (immature). The reason? Crost surmises that it all comes down to the fact that the men have lost their role as the primary family caretaker and hence have ended up mightily confused as to what the heck they're meant to do be doing in all their spare time.
"Why not fill it up with having a mighty good 'ol time?" they say with glee.
Yet it seems the men themselves aren't the only ones to blame. Crost says the media is partly responsible with magazines such as Ralph and FHM to television shows such as Entourage and Adam Sandler movies all encouraging immature boyish behaviour.
There's actually a good 'ol buzzword to describe these gents. (And you know how we love a derogatory label at Ask Sam headquarters!) While the term was originally designed to describe an Italian phenomenon, thanks to Fevola and his ilk, the term is now starting to infiltrate our Aussie shores.
Introducing "mammismo", which is the opposite of machismo, and refers to a man who is forever a mummy's boy. Hence his social skills aren't fully developed by the time he is thrust out into the real world sans the apron strings.
My mate is dating one such mammissmo. Her biggest complaint? That he is utterly selfish, through and through.
"He always does what he wants to do, regardless of whether I want to or not. And everything is about him and his feelings. It drives me crazy how little disregard he has for anyone else but himself," she says.
But when she accompanied me the other night to listen to a psychiatrist give his two cents' worth on modern relationships, she and I were both shocked to hear him say that we all date someone who is a combination of the very worst aspects of both our parents "in order to finish the business we didn't finish with them".
Wow. Hendrix said we actually pick out a mate from an unconscious state, and we pick someone similar to the parent "with whom we had the most difficulty."
While I've long suspected that we do indeed subconsciously date someone like our opposite gender parent, to say that we have to go through a series of boyfriends or girlfriends in order to resolve all our unfinished volatile business with our parents is just plain torturous.
For the sake of all of us on this blog, I can only hope this isn't true ...

Do women want men who are funny or rich?

It was Oscar Wilde who said, "Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others." While Wilde might have been under the impression that a man with a heavier wallet scored more dates, more casual sex and would get more raunchy handwritten love letters, perhaps he also predicted that news would emerge in the future that rich men would be able to give women better orgasms.
Yep. According to the findings of Newcastle University psychologist Dr Thomas Pollet, who polled more than 5000 people (including 1534 women with boyfriends or husbands), the theory lies in biology.
In fact, just like Charles Darwin's evolutionary theories (he suggested that people choose their mates depending on their ability to reproduce), Pollet's conclusion is that, when a modern woman invests in a man sexually, there's a risk she'll have a child with him. Therefore, biologically, she is inclined to want to mate with someone who will be able to provide for her and her family.
(The other theory is that she wants to show off her ability to reach orgasm in order to impress her suitor) ...
Yep, while we've long been told that money can't buy love, it seems it can indeed lead to more sex.
My first thought upon reading such tripe? Poor blokes! As if modern women aren't picky enough already! As if they don't have enough competition to contend with! But now we have to add to their angst by measuring the bulge in their wallets before the one in their pants?
Silly women. Don't they know that the more they point a finger at a man's bank balance before bonking him, the more he'll retreat into his cave, away from their sweaty palms reaching for his fortune?
Yet some men don't seem to mind.
While I'm always skeptical of such surveys, the proof seems to lie in the gold-plated pudding if the likes of Hugh Hefner, Donald Trump and the Rolling Stones' Ronnie Wood are anything to go by.
True, these gents aren't exactly oil paintings. But when a guy (who can afford a personal trainer, spray tanner, manicurist and hair stylist) picks you up in his gold-plated limo, whips you up to his rooftop jacuzzi, opens one of his bottles of Dom Perignon and tempts you with his Egyptian cotton sheets, it's enough foreplay to get any woman off, especially if she values that sort of thing. Which my colleague Charlize certainly does.
By her reckoning if you can fall in love with anyone, why not fall in love with a millionaire? After all, roughly 75 per cent of women have never even had an orgasm, so why not get one served in silky sheets with a side of caviar?
She does admit, though, that the blokes she dates aren't exactly Jerry Seinfelds when it comes to the humour department.
"They're as boring as bat shit," she says.
Either way, if my friend Charlize's sentiment is anything to go by, then it's no wonder the No.1 complaint I hear from single men hankering after a date is that they're not "rich" enough by women's standards.
"They all expect a really wealthy guy," the men tell me. "And when they find out I drive an average car and have an average salary, it's probably a huge turn-off."
I can tell you now, it's actually not. In fact, truth be told, women don't really give a toss whether you take us to the best restaurant in town, or the smallest but most delicious pizza cafe in a cute little hidden neighbourhood. (In fact many of us would prefer the latter.)
But two things are a turn-off: a lack of confidence and a lack of a sense of humour. Realistically, all we want is a man who is generous towards us (without having to spend a fortune), and ... one who makes us laugh.
Funny men better in bed?
Which brings me to my next point. It was Marilyn Monroe who said, "If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything." Even possibly have a Big O.
Because you see, in this day and age, when the financial crisis is barely over and being wealthy only seems to put a strain on relationships and one's sex drive, it would seem that laughter truly is the best medicine.
(Just take a look at a blog titled, DABA Girls - Dating A Banker Anonymous, and it's enough to turn any singleton off dating a man with dough.)
Add to the fact that a good sense of humour is possibly the No.1 trait women look for in a partner, and you can bet your knock-knock jokes she'll be clamouring to get between your sheets before you can yell, "More cheap vino?"
But ladies take note: while we certainly adore a man with a good sense of humour, psychologists say that studies have shown (XX) that the same does not hold true when the sexes are reversed. So, let him tell the jokes and just make sure you laugh at the punchlines ...