Man is wolf to man, Janusz Bardach concluded after living through the labour camps. He hunts, he kills, he eats, he sleeps. He jails, he oppresses. He fiddles endlessly, designing tools to do all these things better. He is Mr Heckler, Mr Koch and Mr Dzhugashvili . We know all this. We live with it and die by it, because half of us are men and this half can scarcely reimagine, still less reinvent, itself.

But what is man to woman, now that she has next to no biological need of him? As times2 notes, he used to be a giver as well as a taker of life, but liquid nitrogen, IVF and stem-cell wizardry are emasculating him more completely than half a century of bra burning has done. Now he retains only those roles that women don’t want. Domestic nuisance. Butt of Jo Brand jokes. Buyer of electronics. He also conducts the Proms (and seems to write all the music for them). And he presents Top Gear.

There was a time when men spoke up for themselves as monomaniacs. Multitasking was all very fine and feminine, they said, but without relentless focus nothing actually got done, or won. That time was one bracing morning — some time about elevenses — in the early nineties. Then other men invented the internet and suddenly everyone could do everything. No more excuses.

What is man to woman? Is he anything at all? The jury’s out, and the fellow in the dock has few reasons to be cheerful, but he does have this: the Romeo option. Schwarzenegger would call it girlie, and he would be wrong. The lover is as male as the fighter, and will be needed as long as women need to be admired. Man can be fan.