These are some of the more convincing arguments that have been advanced by various ladies over the years for not consummating a relationship.

• I like you too much.
• I don't like you enough.
• I'd like to, but Mecca don't allow it until after the Miss World contest.
• You can't afford me, sonny.
• We might start the dog barking.
• We'd only wake up the baby.
• I'm under the doctor at the moment.
• We're still not far enough from the shore.
• My coil dropped out this morning.
• My brothers in Sicily wouldn't like it.
• My sunburn hurts too much.
• We might drown.
• Not in the sand.
• We'd break the deck chair.
• All I want right now is a nice cup of tea.
• My husband is due back at any minute.
• I think the house is on fire.
• We're due into King's Cross in three minutes.
• We might get locked into the building.
• I've just come off the Pill.
• Our star signs are all wrong. It would be a disaster.
• Why can't we wait until we're married?
• I'm going to forget you ever said that.
• The usherette might shine her torch on us.
• I'm tired.
• Why don't you ask my friend?
• I feel far too maternal towards you.
• But you're just like a brother to me.
• The walls are paper thin.
• I wouldn't enjoy it.
• The chandelier in the room below would wake up the whole house.
• It's the wrong time of the month.
• I couldn't, not with the goldfish watching.
• Couldn't we play tennis instead?
• I made myself a promise two years ago and I intend to keep it.
• Not so soon after lunch.
• Not after church!
• May I think about it please?
• I never sleep with a man on our first date.
• The moment has gone.
• We left it too long.
• I don't want to lose your respect.
• If I went to bed with you, I'd fall in love with you, and I don't want to do that.
• I'd miss my bus.
• Can it wait until I've moved my car to another meter?
• I couldn't, not in my parents' house.
• I never play away.
• I only play away.
• Everyone would see the cable-car rocking.
• I'm not that sort of girl.

There was a time when this section could have ended quite happily here, but as more and more women take the sexual initiative, it has become incumbent on us men to find face-saving formulas to get ourselves out of a corner from time to time. A 'minor but persistent infection' is a powerful deterrent.

If you can see the situation developing in advance, the trick is to ask for a glass of water and then make a performance out of swallowing some pills - for real, if you have any on you, or pretend, if you haven't. No woman will be able to resist asking what the tablets are for, whereupon you reply, with feigned embarrassment, 'Oh, nothing important, just one of those stubborn little infections.' You then add, 'I shouldn't really be drinking alcohol, but what the hell', and change the subject, shifting your buttocks in apparent discomfort.

If there's no time to take cover, you have to come straight out with it - the excuse, that is. Try to assume the wounded desperation of a starving man who has trodden on his false teeth just as he is being handed a juicy T-bone steak and announce: 'There's nothing I'd like more, frankly, but we have a slight social problem to contend with. Can we have a rain check until my doctor hands me back my permit?'

Married men who don't want to tarnish their reputations may prefer to hide behind hyper-fertility. 'It's only fair to tell you that at the time all my five children were conceived my wife was on the Pill and had a coil fitted' could make a nun out of a nymphomaniac.

There is another deterrent which should halt even the most determined man-molester in her tracks, but you may not want to take the risk of it being spread about. It is simply this: 'I'm afraid I'm gay with absolutely no bi-sexual tendencies.'

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