A proposition can be stylish, elegant and flowery — if you’re in luck. But most men weren’t cut out for scaling the heights of poetry and passion — the very idea is enough to bring on a severe attack of vertigo in the average Briton. And being a down-to-earth sort, Mr Average sees no point in beating about the gooseberry bush. If he fancies a bit of sub rosa at the bottom of your garden, the old Adam in him will just put it to you, thorns and all.

There’s a lot to be said for the Proposition Direct. You know where you’re working. A woman can often warm to a man who comes clean, and briskly suggests an interlude of workers’ playtime. ‘Look,’ said one man to me at the end of a wearisome conference, when financial cut-backs and reorganization problems had reduced company morale to rock bottom:

How would you like to come to bed with me tonight? You’re the most attractive woman here, I’m getting the annual award tomorrow for Salesman-Most-Likely-To — they’re all expecting it of us. We should do it — just to give ‘em all heart.

Tall, well-groomed, with a fantastic lean and hungry look, he was indeed the Man Most Likely To. Never say an Englishwoman cannot hear the call of duty, even when it comes sounding strangely like the call of the wild. But pour encourager les autres? What would you have done?

Inevitably the prototype of the ‘let’s not mess about’ approach was D. H. Lawrence. He was always writing ground rules for lovers. Here is one set addressed, rather aggressively, as if to enemy rather than friend:

To Women, As Far As I’m Concerned

1. The feelings I don’t have I don’t have.

2. The feelings I don’t have, I won’t say I have.

3. The feelings you say you have, you don’t have.

4. The feelings you would like to have, we neither of us have.

Got that, all you ‘orrible little women out there? Yessir! I can’t hear yer! SAH! YESSAH!

Admittedly the rule numberings are not in the original. But Lawrence seriously intended the whole thing this way. Doesn’t it make you wonder why anyone, particularly women, ever rushed to join Bert’s Army? Just listen to the end of this tirade:

So if you want either of us to feel anything at all You’d better abandon all idea of feeling altogether.

• Geddit?
• Goddit?
• Good!
• GEDDEMOFF!

That’s the way to tell ‘em.

The direct approach does not mean a man has to treat a woman like an overbearing NCO with the greenest rookie in a pack of raw recruits. He can dispense with diplomacy and still be attractive. There’s a macho grace in a man with enough cojones to take the bull by the horns. Ben Jonson’s great hero, Volpone, pinning the unsuspecting Celia to the bed, simply informs her:

Thou bast in place of a base husband Found a worthy lover!

Lucky old Celia. It always strikes a woman as a weakness of this magnificent drama that Celia at this point acts so wet. Confronted with this thrillingly romantic figure, half man, half fox, courting her with wine and song, sensuous compliments, pearls and diamonds, all goody-goody Celia can do is pray, weep, clap her legs together and screech for help. Some opportunities are wasted on some women.

On the other hand, most propositions are not at all hard to resist. Any woman would gladly take money for every time she’s heard the one that begins ‘We’re both adults . . Then there’s the one solemnly recommended by US sexologist John Eichenlaub MD as guaranteed to make a woman buckle into a man’s arms:

You are an AEI tumblebun.

Hop off, Eichenlaub. Corniest of all is any proposition that begins ‘My wife . . Yukkiest of all is anything in the genre which may be called ‘naming of parts’.

This is a category especially favoured by propositioning males. It’s quite staggering to a woman how dearly fond men are of giving a special separate personality to their own personal private pendant — and not just ‘the old man‘, ‘the holy trinity’ or ‘the wife’s best friend’. When you get to know men well enough to find out these things, you discover that they’ve all got some hysterical little nursery nickname for the biggest thing in their lives (if not the biggest in yours).

Choice in this depends on individual preference. ‘Percy’ and ‘Willie’ are always with us. RAF types go for ‘George, the automatic pilot’, ‘the Red Baron’, and even Biggles. One lapsed monk used to refer to his lower self as ‘The Bishop’, shrieking with ribald laughter. But my best was a 15-stone hunk who’d played prop-forward for Wales, and was famous up and down the valleys as a scrum in himself. The lucky girls kept a welcome in the hillsides for his ‘Binkie’! Think of that next time you see Willie John McBride!

So, no matter how much they sound like Noddy in Toytown and the Blighted Enid at her worst, here are some real-life, true (honest to God!) propositions in this line:

CI Percy’s ready to come out to play.

Wake Willie up, shall we?

What say we let George take over? — he’ll fly us home.

But the star award goes to the rugby player. His bid, which brought the girls running from their spinning wheels as far away as Llanfairfechan and Llandeilo consisted simply of:

Binkie wants a bite.

Doesn’t set your teeth a-twitch? Try imagining it in a magical lilting Welsh accent. As said by Richard Burton, perhaps?

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