Wowser watch: battle of sexes skewed against men

There was no sex, either involving him alone or Sharks style with a pack of his teammates queueing up in the hotel corridors.

``I invited a young lady, who I’d been communicating with for a month or so beforehand, to my room at our team hotel and we spent some time together alone. This was a meeting we’d arranged earlier in the week and (we) were both keen to meet face-to-face for the first time,’’ Clinton said when this heinous crime became public knowledge.

So gun-shy are rugby league players now of being seen in the company of women that he felt compelled to end his statement with this:

``I would like to let people know that this situation is not the subject of a police investigation.’‘

Thank heavens for that, or who knows what fate would have befallen Mr Clinton.

Fifty-freakin-thousand bucks of his hard-earned down the drain because Joel Clinton broke team rules that state you can’t have a woman on the same floor, let alone your room, on match eve.

What madness is it that adults can be treated this way?

This is the way Australia has been shaping its workplaces since the mid-90s.

Watch what happens if a bloke says something even vaguely personal to a female in an office environment these days.

``Gee, you look great Agnes. Have you been hitting the gym?’’

A red light will start flashing, a siren will sound, and stormtroopers from Human Resources will march into the room and drag the admirer away in chains to give him a stern talking to and a permanent dent in his career.

Asking someone out is almost a sackable offence. To do so requires bravery of the highest order because if the subject of the request takes offence you can go from being mildly infatuated to pariah in the time it takes to scream ``pervert!’‘.

In the relentless campaign to eradicate boorish behaviour like office harassment and football gang bangs we have neutered much of what makes the world go round _ a healthy regard for and frequent mingling with the opposite sex.