HEAVY PETTING!

There is a new accessory without which no modern woman’s life is complete. It’s not tights that are ladder-proof, or a painless depilator: it’s a new type of man.

Women, you see, no longer want men to take on responsibilities. They just want men to run errands, perform tasks set down on lists, polish handbags. They want someone to keep at home to hug and cuddle, a man who, occasionally, on their own terms, they can use and abuse, take out on display, pamper and ignore. They want men to be like food from the uncle’s shop: convenient, with easily definable labels and sell-by dates. They want men to be their pets.

Petting is the latest thing _ women, at last, have come out as the pragmatic powerbrokers they truly are. They want realistic control. They want men to do happily what they are told. They are the women who read Nancy Friday’s Women on Top not because it’s a good book, but because it gives them something to do while their pets are muff diving.

Although there are hybrids, and cross overs, the pet is a simple animal easily classified into four species. As long as the pet knows his type and his place, he will have a cherished life.

Professional Pets, for example, are the sort of laptop-sized office portable types that every high-powered woman would keep near her work station. They are bred in kennels and come in either black or grey jackets. They are the least physical of all the species, usually content to drone on about their careers, have their egos stroked periodically and make the tea. They can, however, pose the most problems. They have a tendency to work to hidden agendas, secretly despising their subservient positions yet getting off on fantasies about leather-clad female executives throwing them over the desk for a good beating.

Household Pets, however, are rarely beaten _ domestic abuse, after all, can lead to the neighbours calling in the SPCA. Chosen correctly, they are peerless.

Essentially, they go out and hunt (usually at the supermarket), come home and cook.
Of all pet types these are the ones who require the most care and stroking. Keepers must bed down with them otherwise they have a tendency to get neurotic, overeat and over-drink, and become hard to handle. They are often referred to as “husbands.”

Which is not to confuse them with Social Pets, who also help with entertaining. Social Pets are just that: social. These are the guys whom women get to carry their handbags or hire out to their girlfriends. Good social pets are a dying breed because they require training, and must have membership of clubs, and money. They have a sense of humour _ which is just as well because they are often driven by the mistaken belief that the women might take them to bed. Poor souls.

So what’s in all this, I hear you ask, for you men? Well, for one thing, you will be loved and adored. The better you get at your new position, the more you will be treasured. They will buy you little gifts, pamper you and take you out to mingle with other pets. And in doing so, they will have removed from your shoulders that outdated macho urge to be Top Dog. You can relax because everything is much simpler: all you have to do is apply for one of the newly formed vacancies: Professional, Household, Social or…

Bed. It’s the toughest job of all and the most important category. IT’S the one with the most applications, and rejections. Yet it has the easiest entry qualification: touch the bottom of a pint glass with your tongue, without breaking your neck, ad the position’s all yours. Everything else is a simple matter of training.