Dances with Wolves confirmed what we already suspected about Kevin Costner. All that gratuitous bum-baring in his loincloth is textbook priapic-man behaviour. We didn’t need the steady flow of rumours about his habit of propositioning anything in a skirt, including this new scandal involving a St Andrews hotel masseuse, to persuade us that Kev is a man who lives to bed women while keeping one eye on the mirror — or, alternatively, to shunt them up against the waxing trolley.

Anyone who is genuinely shocked by the revelations (if you missed it, Costner allegedly dropped his towel and indulged in a bit of self-massage) simply hasn’t been reading the signs, and you have to wonder where they’ve been. Fair enough, Kev may have offended the poor masseuse — and he was on his honeymoon, so no points for chivalry — but what can you expect from an oversexed, ageing Hollywoood heart-throb stripped to his spa towel?

In the same week, a Cambridge don has been hauled through the courts accused of indecently assaulting a former pupil, namely “grabbing her bottom, running his hands through her hair and trying to kiss her while making pervy Benny Hill noises”. Again, call me old-fashioned, but ageing dons, past-their-prime actors, cabinet ministers, TV chefs, footballers, sports presenters and racing drivers all include a quota of priapic men, and I’m not sure why we are so keen to rout them out and make them extinct.

I have some sympathy with the masseuse (some — whatever happened to the sharp rap with a cold spoon?), but it seems to me that we should be celebrating turbo-charged sex drives, not condemning them, pathologising them (the American trick) or criminalising them.

Men who continue to think of nothing much besides sex beyond their late forties are in the minority and provide a valuable service. A far greater threat to our wellbeing is men who aren’t that bothered. The curse of the British is not randy alpha males preying on unsuspecting maidens, but men who are tired, stressed, the worse for drink, waiting for a crucial phone call from the overseas bureau, nursing a bad back or permanently programming Sky Sports.

If you find one who doesn’t tick those boxes, then the chances are he would rather spend the evening rustling up an osso bucco, rehanging the pictures or leafing through the Cucina Direct catalogue. Either way, it makes for prematurely quiet evenings.

We modern women want a man who is sensitive, biddable and good with colour — but still, it’s a mistake to pretend that will ever make up for a good Costnering. And, let’s be honest, it’s the fact that most of us are going without that makes us so cross when we get a whiff of it.

I say, let the priapics be: there’s a time when many of us will be grateful for someone with the urge to chase us round a desk.

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