Paul Sheehan, Bettina Arndt, Sexology, Filthy Feminists and Sexy Stepford Wives

As the leaves sear yellow at the start of autumn, and the abundant grapes melt under the beaks of our local Indian mynah birds, I thought now was as good a time as any to contemplate with satisfaction our legislative agenda for loon pond these next few months.

(1) The removal of all gum trees from this fair land, to be replaced by concrete, tar, car parks and malls;

(2) The removal of all greenies and lefties to Tasmania where they can dwell amongst the remaining trees, and perhaps get burnt off in a fire storm or two;

(3) The banning of the bikini (people wearing thongs to be arbitrarily shot);

(4) The killing of all sharks, and their conversion to flake so that fish and chips will be abundant throughout the land;

(5) The lifting of any and all speeding fines on lead footed right wing newspaper columnists, while there's to be triple points for anyone identifying as left;

(6) The setting up of a Royal Commission to identify anyone claiming bushfire charity while uninsured. We're still not sure whether we should bring back the stocks for this offence, or whether simply converting Telstra stadium to a gulag is the best way forward;

(7) The declaration of compassionate conservatism as the ruling philosophy throughout the land, and anyone who doesn't like it to be given given a good flogging with a cat o' nine tails. A Botany Bay dozen should set most people straight, but I think it wise to reserve hanging for recalcitrants. Maybe we should also think about bringing back the irons for self-declared lefties incapable of reform?

I have no doubt by year's end, inspired by the wondrous insights of the denizens of loon pond, that we'll have a good dozen initiatives that'll set this land straighter than a die.

There's no doubt there's a new vigor for justice and right thinking as we chafe under the administration of that toxic bore and dullard Kevin Rudd. Clearly feminism is also a problem, quite likely the explanation for everything that has gone wrong these last fifty years in this fair country, but it's not quite clear yet from reading the runes as to what's the best policy option.

Banning all women from work, school, university, and public activity is a trifle extreme, as is the thought that we need some kind of clothing to hide their shame and their lustful bodies from the world, but I've no doubt that Archbishop Pell will provide insights into the best way to bring back nuns' clothing and nunneries.

Meantime, we can rely on Paul Sheehan to snipe away as he celebrates Bettina Arndt's new book, The Sex Diaries, by describing her as "a professional thorn in the side of feminist victimology for many years" in his column Winning war with bedroom battles.

Funnily enough, we remember Arndt from her earlier days on Australian Forum, where she took a different view of the world, before leering off into other kinds of sexology, and an almost redemptive, fetishistic desire to celebrate men over women. (We like to call it male victimology but that's the kind of bitch we is - it seemed to happen around the time she got hitched).

Chameleons have got nothing on the changing ideas of Arndt, which contribute a lot of public heat but very little light in understanding relationships, sex, men and women, and a lot of cliches in search of substance (you know, like "bedroom battles", such a core term in discussing domestic harmony).

Sheehan offers a potted summary of Arndt's new book, and it seems clear that married sex is a disaster, part of that 'bedroom battle' for dominance and supremacy, in which women go off the boil and men miss out. Based on a massive survey of 98 couples, thereby ensuring that statistical relevance is not an issue.

It seems Arndt doesn't mind affairs - no sex, feel free to play - and then doesn't believe in confession of the sin - telling doesn't fix things, it just adds to things. So commit the crime, and don't do the time. Sounds good. A healthy, hearty basis for trust in a relationship.

Funnily enough Sheehan then goes on to mention how men adopt silence as a way of dealing with the death of lust in their wives. Well. you would. wouldn't you. if all you've got to say is how you fucked the secretarial help in the office, or carried on a brutish affair with a nymphet from sales. Silence is golden.

But it seems when women get mad as hell about being sex deprived, they get angry - four out of ten female diarists with stronger sex drives than their partners upped and left the relationship during the time of the study (what's that you say, "The numbers are too small for any real conclusion". But what the heck, let's do it anyway, these uppity women upped and left when confronted with an unfulfilling sex life, while many of the male diarists were just putting up and shutting up. Noble men, flibberty gibbet women).

So it's on to a bit about chemistry being cruel, a bit about groping and a joke about foreplay to wrap up proceedings.

My conclusion from this superficial, flimsy report from the trenches on the battle of the sexes? Sheehan doesn't have a clue, but we can elucidate a new campaign point:

(8) Feminists must be burnt at the stake, as was sensibly and piously done with the witches of Salem (that'll learn them about victimology), while a campaign to convert married women into Stepford wives must begin immediately. I can see a new ministry for the federal government - the Ministry for maligned men and submissive women - who can immediately begin conditioning women to return to the nineteen fifties, where they lay in bed and did their duty for god, queen and country.

So much to learn from the loons, and now so much to do to save the country. Remember one step at a time, but every step is an important step as we re-make this country into an endless re-run of Little House on the Prairie.