Truthful Tony's unremarkable advice

OF all the things that must happen immediately, the most urgent is this: Helen McCabe, editor-in-chief of The Australian Women's Weekly, must be captured and placed under lock and key.

OF all the things that must happen immediately, the most urgent is this: Helen McCabe, editor-in-chief of The Australian Women's Weekly, must be captured and placed under lock and key.

It may sound a bit harsh but consider what McCabe has done. A week ago, she said in this newspaper she wouldn't be running eight glossy pages on Prince William because Australian women deserved a magazine that was more creative and intelligent than that. McCabe then headed out to interview the alternative prime minister. The result? We're all now forced to think and talk about Tony Abbott, virgins and sex.

It's not entirely McCabe's fault. The image of Abbott trying to cork the nation's horny goat weed comes to us not only because McCabe's a wily interviewer but because Abbott cannot tell a lie.

Consider his conduct before he entered public life, when he flirted with becoming a Catholic priest. Imagine the first-round interview. "Have you lain down with a woman who is not your wife?" I have. "Can you imagine yourself having sex again?" I can.

Abbott didn't get the call back, obviously, but here is the thing: having proven he couldn't lie, he went into politics. Politics! The profession about which it's been said: "Politics is like nappies. The players need regular changing, and for the same reason."

In his interview with the AWW (accompanied by a slightly creepy picture of Abbott in a Hugh Hefner-style hug with his three daughters), Abbott was asked about sex before marriage. He described virginity as a gift and said girls should be careful about giving it away.

Given his acknowledged "problem with women [voters]", many wondered who, exactly, Abbott was trying to win over with this statement. Comedian Wil Anderson thinks he must have been going for the cougar vote.

Abbott didn't say girls should keep themselves nice until they get married. He was talking about respect. Many fathers would say to their daughters precisely what Abbott said: be careful. It's a jungle out there, and there's some real creeps about. That's not controversial, it's just a reworking of another old saying about virginity: one prick, and it's gone.

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