The Twinkle Theory

David Gettman
The Twinkle
Theory
Online Originals
David Gettman
The Twinkle
Theory
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Online Originals
The Twinkle Theory David Gettman
The Twinkle Theory

First published in 1997
by Online Originals
London and Bordeaux
Copyright © David Gettman 1997
All rights reserved. Readers are welcome to view, save, file

and print out single copies of this work for their personal
use. No reproduction, display, performance, multiple copy,
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
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claims for damages.
ISBN 1-84045-009-6
3
Preface
The best theories have three basic features. First, they are
exceedingly simple. Second, although they may not have
been obvious to the people who discovered them—once
they are widely known, they seem rather obvious to
everyone else.
Take the theory of natural selection: that new
beneficial traits are likely to be passed on. Or of
psychoanalysis: that unconscious feelings can affect one’s
behaviour. Both are easy to understand. And now that
they’re familiar to us, they simply ring true in our daily
lives, and have a secure place at the very centre of our
common world view.
Of the entertaining theory presented in this short
book, I can say for certain only that it is simple. I cannot say
whether the Twinkle Theory will fit in with everyone’s daily
experience and so become part of our accepted knowledge
of the world. But what has prompted me to write down this
theory is that virtually everyone to whom I’ve mentioned it
has commented that the theory seems to ring true. Since
hearing the Twinkle Theory, people involuntarily see every
father and child they meet in terms of its simple equation. It
has already become a part of their world view.
The third feature of a good theory is the Eureka!
factor. This refers to the moment—such as when the
apocryphal apple falls on Newton’s head—that a casual
observation finds itself suddenly inflated into a full-blown
4
truism.
Whether a portent or not, the theory in this book
started with just such a moment.
One evening in spring, my wife, young son, and I went to a

pizza restaurant opposite Hyde Park, here in London.
Although a pizza place, and therefore suitable for children,
this particular restaurant has a vaguely glitzy, adult
atmosphere, attracting status-conscious urban parents who
would rather avoid fast-food chains. As we sat waiting for
our pizzas to arrive (two mushroom, one quattro formaggio,
for historical accuracy), I watched a mother and two little
girls—one about my son’s age, the other about a year old
—come in the front door of the restaurant. By the style of
their dress and the famous names on their shopping bags, it
was plain to see that they were visitors from America.
The mother was holding the pre-schooler’s wrist with
one hand and pushing the baby’s pram with the other, the
handles of which were laden with bags and parcels from
Harrods, Laura Ashley, and the Scotch House. They were
shown to a table near to ours. Then there followed the
inevitable commotion: parcels and children put down
anywhere, sweaters and wraps removed, high chairs and
booster seats brought and assembled, cutlery knocked to the
floor, whining, scolding, tears, consolation, and the repeated
re-arrangement of seating positions.
When the reticent waiter finally ventured near to clear
the fourth place setting, we overheard the mother say to
him, “No, please leave it. My husband will be here in a
minute. He’s just parking the car.”
I don’t know why, but with a sly grin on my face, I
turned to my wife and whispered, “I’ll bet you anything that
her husband is one of those macho guys with a moustache
5
and a muscle shirt.”

“What makes you think so? Do you think the woman
is pretty?” she asked.
“It’s not that. It’s because they’ve got two daughters.
Those kind of guys always want a son—you know, to coach
in Little League, go fishing on weekends, play rough and
tumble in the living room. Having frilly daughters is, kind
of, their come-uppance.”
As my wife began to object that girls needn’t be frilly
and can be just as good at sports as boys, in he came.
Six-foot-three. Well-built. Moustache. OK, no muscle
shirt—but a T-shirt with L.A. Rams insignia. Looking
harassed, and to me rather resigned to his fate, he said not a
word to his little harem of females, sat down, and ordered a
Budweiser.
I smiled at my wife. She rolled her eyes and said
nothing for a moment. Then smiling herself, she said, “And
what about you? Is having a boy your come-uppance for
being a wimp and reading my magazines?”
“No, it’s my reward for being kind and sensitive,” I
corrected her. “My type always has boys.”
6
Chapter One
The Twinkle Theory Proclaimed
‘When you were just a twinkle in your father’s eye,’ the old
saying goes. It’s an intriguing thought—that there’s a tiny,
magical glimmer of every new being in the eye of its
predecessor. But what about this twinkle? What is its
significance? And why is the twinkle in the eye of the father
rather than the mother?
The mother’s role in reproduction is naturally beyond
all controversy. Her womb and hips clearly made for
gestation, monthly cycle made for fertility, breasts made for
first nourishment and bonding, and womanly instincts made
for nurturing and nesting, couldn’t be more pregnant
(excuse the pun) representations of her central, vital role in
making babies. Moreover, it’s now generally taken for
granted that a child receives most of its guidance in post-
natal development from its mother, not its father
—immunity and ideal nourishment from the mother’s milk,
emotional security from the mother’s affection and physical
contact, and intellectual stimulation from the mother’s face
and voice, and later from her speech and activities.
By contrast, particularly in the late twentieth century,
the father’s role in furthering the species has been radically
marginalised, and sometimes denied altogether. Apart from
supplying (these days, not even necessarily implanting) the
requisite sperm in order to make up the missing
complement to the egg’s 23 chromosomes—the character,
behaviour, or abilities of the father would appear to have
7
little if any significance in child bearing or rearing. In terms

of participating in procreation, the father is, if anything at
all, a support and backup system for the mother—occasion-
ally helpful, maybe desirable, but not at all necessary.
In many aspects—from sperm banks to custody battles
to confusion about sexual orientation—Western society in
the late twentieth century echoes the effects of this
marginalisation of the male. And it appears to be getting
worse—lately, young women are intentionally arranging to
conceive, bear, and raise their children without the burden,
as they see it, of having an interfering man on the scene.
Most dramatically, these attitudes have affected the
Western male’s perception of himself. The heartfelt need of
every modern thinking man to discover his cosmic relevance
and even justify his very existence—mainly in terms of
earnings, social status, or similar achievements—is the
source of much unhappiness in men themselves, in their
relationships, and in society at large.
Perhaps the time has come to change men’s perception
of their existential importance to the future of the species.
For the essence of the Twinkle Theory is that the father too
has a vital and hitherto unrecognised role to play in
procreation, in society, and in human history.
To put it succinctly, the Twinkle Theory holds that a child’s

sex is determined by its father’s temperament (at the time of
conception). More specifically, the Twinkle Theory
proposes that a father with a traditionally ‘masculine’
disposition will produce a daughter, while a father with a
disposition commonly thought of as ‘feminine’ will produce
a son. More generally, the theory suggests that the father’s
temperament may also determine other key characteristics
of the child.
8
Why should it be the case that psychology affects

heredity? The simple, direct rationale is that a man’s
temperament—volatile and changeable, as every woman
knows—is a reflection of the state of the social group into
which the child will be born. The male’s role in procreation,
beyond simply contributing half of the child’s
chromosomes, is to reflect by his psychological state the
trends and needs of society, and to fulfil society’s needs
through his effect on the inherited character of his
offspring.
The corollary of the Twinkle Theory is that the
mother’s role in procreation—beyond contributing half of
the child’s chromosomes and providing an appropriate
environment for gestation and early development—is to
balance the male’s changeability with hereditary constancy
and stability.
Apart from the Twinkle Theory, elementary biology
itself already suggests a profound difference in the
respective roles of males and females in the process of
heredity. At a female’s birth, her ovaries contain all the eggs
(approximately 400,000) that she will ever have. They never
change. But the male, once matured, constantly
manufactures new sperm throughout his lifetime. This
makes the male’s gametes more likely to be subject to
complex environmental influences. Why has Nature
imposed this radical difference between males and females,
if not for some essential reason?
One must not be misled to assume that the Twinkle
Theory is somehow addressing the nature (heredity) versus
nurture (social environment) debate. In recent decades, this
debate has ostensibly been resolved in a ‘de facto’
compromise—in the idea that every person is moulded by
both their genes and their upbringing. The Twinkle Theory
9
does not re-open the nature/nurture debate. Rather, it

should be seen to signify the end of this dichotomy, because
it implies that nature and nurture are the very same thing:
that social environment changes heredity at every
conception and that heredity changes the social
environment with each new generation.
Also, the sex determination aspect of the Twinkle
Theory is in no way contradicted by the scientific
hypothesis that the mother’s vaginal acidity may correlate
with her baby’s sex. This correlation tells us nothing about
cause and effect. A woman’s acidity may also correlate to her
mate’s temperament, or even to her preference for that
temperament in a man. It is nonsense to think that pH, for
no reason, in itself causes X- or Y-chromosome-bearing
sperm to succeed or fail. Such a correlation may or may not
be a fact, but without a rationale it is a meaningless fact. By
contrast, there exists a meaningful rationale for the Twinkle
Theory (see Chapter Two).
The biological fact that X-chromosome-bearing
sperm yield girls, and that Y-chromosome-bearing sperm
yield boys, is of course pertinent to the Twinkle Theory. In
biological terms, the Twinkle Theory might suggest, for
example, that the relative propensity of X- or Y-
chromosome-bearing (male- or female-making) sperm to
fertilise an egg is temporarily affected by a man’s
psychological state. There may be a reproductive link, for
example, to the neurotransmitter seratonin, the levels of
which have been shown to correlate with high or low self-
esteem. Or perhaps a man’s temperament causes ‘protector’
sperm to alter the proportion of X and Y ‘fertilising’ sperm.
If such hypotheses are not already being researched, I
suggest that they are likely topics for lucrative grants. But
scientific evidence is no more necessary for the Twinkle
10
Theory than it is for, say, the theory of evolution, or for

Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis. Experimental science is
inadequate to the task, because the effects of such complex
phenomena as social environment and individual
temperament—or for that matter the ecological
management of species, or the history of the subconscious
—cannot usefully be examined by the isolation and study of
single variables in a laboratory.
The most entertaining implication of the Twinkle
Theory is that one should be able to tell a couple whether
they will have a boy or girl just by knowing the father’s
temperament at the time of conception. Indeed, it seems
that one can—although truly ‘knowing’ the father’s
temperament at any one time is far from easy. And a lot of
men are very skilled at disguising their real attitudes and
feelings.
Most of this book deals with the sex determination
part of the Twinkle Theory—defining it, analysing it, and
exploring its various repercussions. The last chapter,
however, deals with what I consider to be the more
interesting implications of the Twinkle Theory. Namely:
that men as individuals are anything but surplus to Nature’s
requirements. That a father’s role in life’s continuity is as
much a given as a mother’s role. And that although men and
women as groups have equally important roles to play in
procreation, an individual father’s contribution to the
character of his offspring is—dare I say it—ultimately more
important than the mother’s.
11
Chapter Two
Nature’s Reasons
Nature does not work by accident, and there are good

reasons for everything under the sun, including the Twinkle
Theory. As you will see, it makes perfect sense to the needs
of Nature that a father’s temperament should affect the sex
of his child.
In the case of the Twinkle Theory, as with most
modern explanations of natural phenomena, Nature’s main
driving force is Darwinian: to ensure the strength and
viability of the species. The survival of the human species, in
particular, is in turn dependent upon the strength and
viability of human society.
People are social animals in every sense. Their very
survival, from shelter to food to protection, is secure only in
numbers. Lone humans, such as hermits, recluses, and
castaways, are universally considered to lead unnatural lives.
Unless steeled to the task by careful training or profound
self-confidence, loners are very likely to suffer mental
breakdown. Solitary confinement is of course one of the
cruellest forms of punishment. In purely practical terms, the
strongest loner is less assured of survival than even the
weakest participant in a fully-developed society. Living
outside society, the loner must find or build his or her own
shelter, hunt, gather, or cultivate food, and defend himself
or herself against disease and natural enemies, all without
the benefit of any cultural knowledge or technology or
traditional ways of working. Society’s strength and viability,
12
through its accumulated knowledge, complex technology,

and organisational efficiency, is far greater than the sum of
the strengths of its individual members.
So important to human survival are our social
capabilities, that we can safely assume, in Darwinian terms,
that any human characteristic not obviously essential to an
individual’s personal survival or reproductive viability is
bound to exist in service of social cohesion. Such is the case
with the Twinkle Theory. The reason that a father’s
temperament should determine his child’s sex is mysterious
in the context of the individual. But in the context of the
viability of the social group, the reason for the link becomes
clear.
To understand, we must first consider the familiar
patterns of social behaviour that in common knowledge
would be described as ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’. The
Twinkle Theory would propose that in order for any social
group, at any level, to be viable, it must contain a
complementary balance of masculine and feminine
behaviour. For example, for protection, a social group needs
sufficient assertiveness towards outsiders and social misfits
(a masculine tendency), but this must be balanced by
sufficient social compassion for the disadvantaged within (a
feminine tendency). To progress, society also needs social
dissent and innovation (a masculine tendency), so long as it
is balanced by the pro-active acceptance of a collective
lifestyle (a feminine tendency). And to be run efficiently,
society needs authoritative management (a masculine
tendency), implemented by accommodating administration
(a feminine tendency). A society in which one or the other
social sex role becomes too dominant will soon be subject to
internal confusion and chaos. It ultimately risks dissolution
from within or destruction from without.
13
Although the above will sound like sexist cliché to any

modern sensibility, this assessment of ‘masculine’ and
‘feminine’ tendencies is not at all a comment on what
biological males and females can do or should be doing. It’s
just a description of two complementary categories of
human behaviour. Indeed, the basis for the Twinkle Theory
is a peculiarity in the correlation between the biological
sexes on the one hand, and masculine and feminine social
roles on the other.
This peculiarity is the fact that biological males and
biological females do not correlate one-for-one to masculine
and feminine social roles. Men, depending on their
inclination, are able to take on either a masculine or
feminine social role. But women—that is, women who
physically bear and nurture children—tend to be forced into
a feminine social role by the biological and psychological
demands of heterosexual sex, pregnancy, and infant care.
Women who do not procreate are of course outside
evolution and its Darwinian causes and effects. (Incidentally,
this may be why society tends to dictate that women who
take on masculine social roles should do so only if they give
up or delay having children.)
It is certainly unfair that men, whether they reproduce
or not, have flexibility with regard to social sex roles, and
that women, if they reproduce, do not. But this is a
phenomenon rooted in biology, not in custom or values.
The unjust consequence of biology is that so long as women
conceive, bear, and nurture children bodily, these
experiences—and the instincts that prepare them for these
experiences—will tend to channel their social behaviour
into femininity, which poorly equips them for achieving
social equality with men. To achieve their just aims,
feminists must either develop an artificial means of
14
pregnancy and infant care—which may not be desirable in

itself—or else make men participate more fully in all the
biological and psychological aspects of procreation.
It is important to state at this point that masculine
males do not correspond to heterosexuals nor feminine
males to homosexuals. There are both masculine gay men
and feminine gay men—indeed, gays tend to exaggerate
their social sex roles. Moreover, in accordance with the
above analysis, because procreating females are normally
forced to adopt a feminine social sex role, lesbians tend to
adopt a masculine rather than feminine social role. (The
complex subject of homosexuality is addressed more fully in
Chapter Seven.)
On our way to understanding Nature’s reasons for the
Twinkle Theory, we should now consider what inclines a
man towards either a masculine or feminine social role. The
answer is that men are not born one way or the other, but
are moulded by changing social pressures and
circumstances.
To behave in a masculine fashion (to be generally
assertive, dissenting, and authoritative) feels right to every
individual man in certain circumstances—in particular,
when social conditions appear to him to be favourable or
improving. Behaviour in a feminine fashion (to be generally
compassionate, receptive, and accommodating) also feels
right to every man in other circumstances—especially when
it seems to him that conditions are difficult or declining.
(Many historians have indeed noticed that social dissent is
far more likely to occur in periods of rising expectations
than in periods of continuing oppression.) In the context of
individual survival and success, this behaviour pattern makes
good sense: when there is opportunity, be masculine in
order to take personal advantage; when there is scarcity, be
15
feminine in order to share and pool resources.

The problem for natural selection is that an individual
man’s instinctive reaction to his perceived circumstances
may be helpful to his personal viability, but it is precisely the
opposite of what is needed for the viability of the social
group. To put it simply, when things are looking up, the
social group actually needs feminine behaviour—so that the
existing prosperity is spread around in aid of social
cohesion. And when things are looking down, the social
group needs masculine behaviour—that is, as a group it
needs assertiveness and initiative to improve its fortunes.
Nature has provided two solutions to this conflict
between the needs of individual males and the needs of their
social group.
First, Nature provides child-bearing females. Their
constant, biologically-encouraged femininity creates an
underlying social cohesiveness that helps to cement the
group through both thick and thin.
Secondly, Nature provides the phenomenon described
by the Twinkle Theory. To every individual male who
behaves in a masculine way, Nature gives an immediate
feminine presence—ie, an offspring in the form of a little
girl, who will tend to balance her father’s assertive self-
interest with gentle, social cohesiveness. And to every
individual male who behaves in a feminine way, Nature
gives the offspring who has the best chance of being
masculine—ie, a little boy, who will tend to balance his
father’s lack of inertia with his own energetic assertiveness.
This complementing of sex roles that goes on at the
level of individual families is the most basic expression of
the aforementioned need to balance masculine and feminine
in every social group. The balance prevents an overly
assertive or overly accommodating behaviour pattern
16
putting the family group at risk—and indeed, putting at risk

the larger social group of which the family is a part. At the
level of society in general, there is again a need to balance
masculine and feminine. Thus according to the Twinkle
Theory: for every masculine man, the social group at large
gains an individual with the best chance of behaving in a
feminine way—a girl. And for every feminine man, the
social group at large gains an individual with the best chance
of behaving in a masculine way—a boy.
All this is very neat and logical, but do not forget that
the Twinkle Theory is indeed just a theory. The above
rationale of Nature’s needs does not prove its truth. A good
rationale only makes it a better theory. But to those who feel
they must have empirical evidence with their theories, I
offer a polite caution.
Like many aspects of human nature, the Twinkle
Theory probably made most evolutionary sense in the
formative, pre-technological era of human pre-history
(from, say 1,000,000 BC to about 50,000 BC), when ‘social
group’ meant extended family, tribe, or, at most, small
village settlement. It is easy to imagine how relative shifts in
the balance of masculine and feminine behaviour could
affect the fortunes of small groups of inter-dependent and
inter-related people pitted against harsh wilderness and
mortal enemies.
Consequently, it is probably very difficult to find
empirical evidence of the Twinkle Theory in modern
society. For instance, an empiricist may be tempted to
wonder whether, as the fortunes of cities or nations rise and
fall, there is an obvious swing one way or the other in the
sex of newborns. But cities and nations are not really social
groups with a meaningful effect on individuals—in respect
of individual lives, nations are virtually mythical entities.
17
There probably are, in modern societies, the equivalent of

tribes—for example, close colleagues in small enterprises,
remote rural communities, and tight social circles in urban
settings—but these groupings are more subtle and complex
than any in pre-historic times. To complicate matters
further, the fortunes of these sub-groups do not necessarily
mirror that of society at large. One can only surmise that if
it were possible to see these modern social groups as
isolated entities, one would undoubtedly observe the
Twinkle Theory in collective action.
Another reason that it would be difficult to find
empirical evidence of the Twinkle Theory is that most men
tend to exaggerate the extent of their hardships and good
fortunes. A man who has had one bad day at the office will
tell you that his career is doomed, that he has always hated
that stupid organisation, and that he should chuck it all in
and open his own business. Similarly, a man with a simple
cold or flu (which any young mother would simply take in
her stride) behaves as though he’s on the ‘critical’ list in
intensive care. Conversely, it doesn’t take much good
fortune to boost a man’s ego through the roof. A modest
rise is pay is taken as a sign of imminent promotion to Vice
President. And a smile from a pretty bank teller reminds
him that he’s irresistible and that his wife is extraordinarily
lucky. This tendency to turn non-events into either busts or
boons makes it difficult to link his feminine or masculine
behaviour to empirically-observable causes.
Empiricism aside, let us now summarise Nature’s
reasons for the Twinkle Theory. Because both individual
success and social success are necessary to the survival of the
human species, Nature provides both what is best for
individuals instincts for self-promotion—and what is best
for society—constant femininity, as well as offspring whose
18
inherited traits are most likely to balance their fathers’

behaviour and meet the sex role needs of the larger social
group.
More specifically, when a social group’s fortunes fall
and individual men respond with feminine behaviour,
Nature gives us sons, since they have the best chance of
bearing the masculine traits that will complement their
fathers and improve the group’s fortunes. And when a social
group’s fortunes rise, and individual men respond with
masculine behaviour, Nature gives us daughters, since they
have the best chance of bearing the feminine traits that will
complement their fathers and build the prevailing
prosperity into social cohesion.
In brief, by attaching to every man a child who is his
natural complement, Nature strives towards its ultimate and
eternal goal—a balance.
19
Chapter Three
The Temperament That Makes Girls
What are men like when they are producing female

offspring? How can you spot such a man? Or, to be rather
ruthless about it, how can a woman who definitely wants a
baby girl be sure that her partner has the correct
disposition?
I have two acquaintances with daughters. One is a
musician in a well-known rock band; the other is a
photographer and director of his own successful studio.
Now, both these professions are rather arty. Rock musicians
are renowned for their spontaneous creativity and
sociability; photographers for their responsiveness to such
subtleties as atmosphere and composition. Surely, in terms
of social sex roles, these seem to be feminine, rather than
masculine, occupations. So why, in light of the Twinkle
Theory, do these men have daughters?
Well, the first point to recognise is this: knowing a
man’s occupation is not at all sufficient to know the social
sex role he is playing.
There are of course professions which encourage one
of the social sex roles at the expense of the other. In other
words, a person whose behaviour is either masculine or
feminine is more likely to succeed at certain jobs.
Predominantly masculine behaviour—which can come from
either a man or a woman—might be helpful in a job such as,
for example, commodity trading, investigative reporting, or
running a small business. Predominantly feminine
20
behaviour—which again can come from either a man or a

woman—might make it easier to perform a job such as
consulting, teaching, or engineering. But few people are so
lucky as to have exactly the right job for their personality.
There are also other factors, apart from masculinity or
femininity, that determine success at work—skills, training,
and determination, for instance. To repeat: a man’s job is in
itself no clue as to whether he presently has a masculine or
feminine temperament—whether he will yield a son or a
daughter.
I have two other acquaintances with daughters. One is
a young man very interested in restaurants, fashion, and
consumer trends. He spends most of his waking hours
thinking about what he will eat, wear, and buy. The other
man is very religious. He attends church regularly, prays
fervently, gets involved in parish duties, and immerses
himself in religious philosophy. As with the rock star and
photographer, these interests would seem rather typically
feminine. Fashion and trendiness involve a slavish devotion
to a collective lifestyle. And organised religion is based on
compassion and acceptance. Again why, in light of the
Twinkle Theory, do these men have daughters?
The second point to be aware of is this: the subject of
a man’s interests or hobbies is also in no way indicative of
his social sex role.
As with professions, there are of course certain fields
of interest that tend to attract people with either feminine
or masculine behaviour. But again, as with professions,
people do not always do in their spare time what is best for
their personalities. They pursue avocations for many
different reasons—because of an intellectual interest,
because their friends or spouses do it, because it is
convenient, or because they were encouraged to get
21
involved as children. To repeat (and please take note, any

woman consulting a dating agency), a man’s current
interests or hobbies are not indicative of whether he will
produce sons or daughters.
The true indicators of a man’s prevailing social sex role
lie in a different direction altogether. To put it succinctly, it
is not what a man does, but how he goes about it, and his
attitude towards it, that tells you whether he is being
feminine or masculine. This is of course much more
difficult to ascertain, especially in a casual acquaintance.
So men who produce only girls have a decidedly
masculine way of doing things. Let’s consider each of the
three basic features of masculine behaviour—assertiveness,
dissent, and authoritativeness—so that you can spot this
kind of behaviour amongst your acquaintances.
What is assertiveness? Simply put, an assertive man is
out for himself. He thinks of Number One first ... and last.
When he does come to think of other people, it is usually in
relation to himself: how they can be useful to him, what
they may think of him, whether making them happy will
make him happy. In other words, he sees the world mainly
from his own perspective, and has difficulty seeing it from
anyone else’s. In consequence of this, the assertive man
thinks he is usually, if not always, right. If he is caught
making an obvious mistake, he will deny it or belittle its
importance. He finds it painful, if not impossible, to admit
to being wrong.
There are many women who would say that this most
fundamental of masculine traits is there in virtually all the
men they meet—and indeed it is, but to varying degrees.
Almost all males, and increasingly many females in
advanced Western societies, are trained (by their mothers, it
happens) to be assertive from very early childhood. Many
22
men later develop their assertiveness into an art form, and

this is the trait that makes them appear masculine, or even
macho. Women in Western cultures are also trained to
respect and prefer men—and increasingly to prefer the
company of other women—who are unequivocally assertive.
Like all human traits, assertiveness has both a positive
and negative side. On the plus side, assertive people can be
very focused in their work and personal pursuits. Because
they are determined to get what they want, they tend to be
energetic achievers, who make things happen while others
languish in uncertainty. Assertive people have high self-
esteem—a sense of self-worth and purpose—and this
certainly enhances their experience of life. On the down
side, assertiveness can blind a person to the needs and
feelings of those around them, leading to widespread
resentments, private ridicule, and occasional enmity. Their
sheer vanity can also offend, particularly those who are not
assertive. Assertive people also rarely improve themselves,
because they cannot perceive their deficiencies.
Secondly, masculinity means dissent. This is when a
man says, like Frank Sinatra, ‘I did it my way’. The
dissenting man believes that the means he has devised to
achieve any end are the best of all possible means. He never
follows instructions or manuals (and as a result often
botches up home repairs and other routine chores). He
believes that all guidelines and directions, as well as all rules
and laws, are pertinent only to other people—people who
are too weak-minded to work things out for themselves. You
could say, in essence, that the dissenting man believes he is
more capable than ordinary people.
Where rules may be to his disadvantage, he will take
risks in order to ignore them. Thus an excellent
environment in which to identify the dissenting man is on
23
the road. The dissenting driver ignores yield and give-way

signs, forces his way into busy traffic by intimidation, and
exceeds the speed limit whenever possible, constantly
changing lanes and overtaking other cars. Nothing angers
the dissenting driver more than careful drivers, whom he
considers to be the greatest menace to general road safety.
He believes that his free-spirited, highly-dexterous mode of
driving achieves far greater efficiency than law-abiding
driving, and poses no additional danger.
Another environment is which to identify dissent is
the world of accounting and taxes. A dissenting man will
happily bend tax rules, for example, and will risk fines and
imprisonment for even a modest gain. Again, it is partly of
matter of believing he simply has the superior ability.
(Unfortunately for him, dissenting types also make good tax
inspectors).
There are benefits to dissent—both for the individual
and the social group. Dissenters are innovators; they have
the vision to see beyond routine and tradition to new ways
to doing things. Their new ways are sometimes genuinely
better ways, and can ultimately benefit society. Dissenters
are also suspicious of people in power, and so they help
society to keep the powerful in check. And dissenters make
us all think, forcing us to examine our world, our values, and
our actions. The great heroes and sages of society are
usually dissenters. On the negative side, the difficulty with
dissent is that it tends to be socially isolating. The
dissenting man’s sheer contrariness is obnoxious to live with.
Moreover, everyday life without comfortable routines can
be awkward and anxious. Few dissenters actually become
heroes; many are just lonely outsiders.
Lastly we consider the masculine trait of
authoritativeness. In brief, an authoritative man is an
24
authority on everything. He believes he has more

experience, more knowledge, and more understanding than
everyone else. Consequently, he makes rules for other
people to live by. The corollary to being authoritative is to
lack sympathy for the predicaments of others, especially
people in difficulty. An authoritative man believes that such
people have only themselves to blame for misfortune,
because their difficulties could have been avoided if only
they knew this or that, or had done this or that. Whether he
is truly knowledgeable about a subject or not, the
authoritative man is comfortable pretending that he is a
world-class expert.
An authoritative man is obviously happiest in a
position of professional authority—as a manager or co-
ordinator of other people at work. At his best, he may be a
natural or even charismatic leader. Alternatively, he may
privately fume about his lack of authority and responsibility
at work, and will therefore play the dictator at home. The
authoritative man enjoys delegating and organising
—ordering other people around and setting standards for
them to meet. His self-assuredness sometimes inspires
loyalty. But because he ultimately trusts only his own
judgement, he eventually undermines the loyalty of all his
subordinates.
The potential social benefits of authoritative
behaviour are then same as the benefits of management
generally. And the benefits of good management to social
cohesiveness cannot be overstated; an organised social
group can achieve infinitely more than any number of
individuals. The main risk of authoritativeness is its
presence in people who in fact have no authority, for they
will work to undermine existing management and diminish
its effectiveness.
25
Does this broad picture of masculine behaviour

—assertive, dissenting, authoritative—fit the current
behaviour of any of the men you know? This portrait of
masculinity happens to fit very well the four acquaintances I
mentioned earlier.
The rock musician is assertive in his financial dealings
(which have made him a wealthier man than the others with
whom he performs), truly dissenting in his appearance and
style of music, and unusually authoritative in organising and
motivating the band. In his personal habits he knows what
he likes and insists on it. The photographer is more a
successful businessman than an artist. He is assertive in his
business transactions, dissenting in his innovations and
improvisations, and his every employee will attest to his
constant authoritativeness.
The stylish young gadabout is very assertive about his
chosen fashion of the moment, dissenting to all those who
wish he’d just get a steady job, and authoritative in all
matters of good taste and ‘avant garde’ lifestyle. His general
air of superiority is embodied in his view that few other
people are sufficiently stylish to be acceptable company.
Similarly, my religious friend is no less holy a man for being
assertive and sometimes downright evangelical in his beliefs,
for being a true dissenter amongst his mainly agnostic peers
and colleagues, and for being authoritative in the way he
elevates even the humblest church duty to the status of an
appointment from Rome. He manages to be righteous and
self-righteous at the same time.
All this sounds rather critical, but these four men are
all fine persons, in my opinion. They are simply
unambiguously masculine. They prefer the company of
other masculine men, and have all chosen very feminine
women as spouses. And they have only female children.
26
What is also interesting, in light of the Twinkle

Theory, is that since having daughters, their common
tendency to ultra-masculine or macho behaviour—to be not
only assertive, but aggressive; to be not only dissenting, but
contrary; and to be not only authoritative, but arrogant
—has been noticeably tempered by the novel presence of
little girls in their lives. Through the effect of the Twinkle
Theory, Nature gives their masculinity its check and
balance.
27
Chapter Four
The Temperament That Makes Boys
There is a scene in the movie called ‘Sleepless in Seattle’

where two male characters mock the tendency of women to
get tearful during classic sentimental films like ‘Casablanca’.
They laugh at how ridiculous it would be if men sobbed and
spluttered during westerns or war films every time one of
the actors is wounded or blown away.
Yet many men frequently get a bit teary-eyed at the
movies—and at the same time feel socially-pressured to
suppress sentimental feelings. I certainly felt my eyes
welling up during the more soppy scenes in ‘Sleepless in
Seattle’. But as usual I swallowed hard and fought it back. It
is precisely the uncomfortableness of this emotional conflict
that makes me—and many men I know—avoid the average
tear-jerker at all costs. Women quite enjoy a good soppy
love story, and the inevitable tears, because they feel
comfortable expressing their feminine feelings. Men who
are exhibiting masculine behaviour at the time will have
little sympathy with such melodramatic goings on, and will
therefore be indifferent to these films. And men who are
exhibiting feminine behaviour at the time will be
uncomfortable with the strong feelings that these films
arouse.
Men who would cry at the movies—if they felt they
could—are the men whose children will be male. For this is
a behaviour that is feminine in every sense. Femininity,
whether in men or women, is basically sensitivity to other
28
people. Feminine people are sensitive to other people’s

feelings, which makes them compassionate. They are
sensitive to other people’s preferences, which makes them
culturally receptive. And they are sensitive to other people’s
needs, which makes them accommodating. Thus to be
feminine or sensitive, is to be compassionate, receptive, and
accommodating. All men have the capacity to be feminine
(although, to many women, the idea of a compassionate,
receptive, and accommodating man is a contradiction in
terms). At any one time, roughly half of all men actually are
feminine—and you can tell, because they produce sons.
Let’s look at each of the features of femininity in turn,
so that you can detect them in the behaviour of men you
meet.
The feminine man—or as most will prefer, the
‘sensitive’ man—is first of all compassionate. He feels he is
able to intuit the emotions, attitudes, and aspirations of
other people, and therefore thinks he can see the world
through their eyes. (This does not mean he really can;
indeed, he is often wrong about people’s feelings.) This
intuition gives him heart-felt sympathy with those who
appear to be disadvantaged, vulnerable, or suffering some
misfortune. When this compassion poses no threat, it makes
a sensitive man want to help those at risk. But when their
problems feel threatening, his sensitivity is bothersome and
makes him want to banish the very thought of them.
The social benefits of compassion are obvious. It helps
bind people together with common sentiments and
interests—people who would otherwise have no reason to
act in unison. It ensures that the disadvantaged members of
a social group are given opportunities, that the more
vulnerable members are protected, and that the suffering
are helped. Compassion also creates a common set of values,
29
or morals, which may help to form an underlying ethical

framework for the group. The compassion of the Golden
Rule—‘do unto others as you would have them do unto
you’—is the basis for Judeo-Christian morality.
But compassion also has a dark side. People who
attend to and perceive the feelings of others are able to use
this insight against them. Compassionate people intuitively
know what makes others feel better—and what makes them
feel worse. They can therefore become manipulative,
inspiring guilt, anxiety, or resentment to achieve their ends.
Sometime they manipulate people’s feeings simply because
it is entertaining to do so. Compassion is basically
knowledge, and so it can serve both good and bad ends.
An acquaintance of mine, a professor of psychology,
has long behaved as a particularly compassionate male. In
his courses on humanistic psychology, he shows an
exceptional ability to read the thoughts, feelings, attitudes,
and anxieties of his students and therapy clients. This makes
it a little scary to talk to him—he seems to see right through
you. This ability has helped to make him an authority in
psychology and an inspiring therapist from whom to learn.
But according to his students, he also has occasion to use his
insights self-servingly—for example, to embarrass the
colleagues with whom he competes, and to seduce an
endless stream of pretty co-eds. As well as being
compassionate, he also happens to be receptive to the
campus lifestyle in which he is immersed, and is a charming,
accommodating social companion. In brief, he is a classic, if
flawed, ‘sensitive’ male. And naturally, he is the father of
boys (who live with their mother in another State).
A second feature of femininity, or sensitivity, is to be
receptive to local customs, beliefs, and fashions. Sensitive
people—both male and female—take the way of life they see
30
around them exactly as it comes, and embrace it

wholeheartedly. This means taking on, without question or
prejudice, the local language and vocabulary (including
accents and intonations), styles of dress, aesthetic values,
social etiquette, customs and beliefs, common knowledge
and myths, and general world view, of their peers.
Receptive behaviour is an essential part of the glue
that holds any social group together—and this is its great
benefit. In order for a collection of individuals to have an
identity as a group, the majority must obviously share
common behaviour. And it is feminine receptivity that
makes behaviour common. Absorbing the received culture
without resistance is so important to social cohesion, that
this behaviour can be observed in most of the females in any
society—and in around half the males.
Because the essence of receptive behaviour is the
repeated observance of particular rules and customs, there is
also a negative side to this aspect of femininity. As easily as
the sensitive male or female absorbs the culture around
them, they can also fall into the observance of rules and
customs that have no social significance—thus turning
conformist behaviour into obsessive behaviour. Rituals that
have no common cultural meaning, superstitions that do not
derive from common beliefs, and habits that are never
conducted in public, are all typical examples of this
obsessiveness—and, unfortunately, are typical features of
femininity.
A fellow immigrant to England—perhaps because the
need to conform is highlighted in the immigrant
experience—to me seems to embody both the strengths and
weaknesses of receptive behaviour. He has managed to
absorb in only a few years not only the accent, look, and
manners of an English gentleman—but also many of the
31
requisite inner qualities, such as a sense of humble civility.

At the same time, however, he has become obsessive about
points of detail that he feels may give away his origins, but
which in fact have no social significance. For example, he
insists on blandness in foods (whereas most British enjoy
spicy cooking), well shined shoes in perfect repair
(genuinely wealthy Englishmen want to appear ‘down at
heel’), and extreme neatness in arranging his possessions
(not a famous British trait). This last point is a particular
source of contention with his two young children—both of
them boys.
To be accommodating to other people in the social
group is the third typical characteristic of femininity. To be
accommodating means, for example, letting others who are
in a hurry go ahead of you in a line. It means volunteering
for duties in an organisation simply because no one else has
volunteered. To be accommodating is to want to satisfy the
needs of the group, before satisfying one’s own needs.
Accommodating people therefore make much better
followers than leaders. They are followers who are so good
at following that they inspire other less-accommodating
people to follow too. They feel and exhibit extreme loyalty
to their group, and will defend it from any insults or attack,
with great pride.
Accommodating people, because they are such loyal
followers, are clearly essential to the cohesion and viability
of every social group. They are the ones who toil tirelessly,
man the barricades, sing the anthems, and even lay down
their lives for the group. In a purely practical sense, they are
necessary to have around, because they do the bulk of
society’s work—in supporting the group, protecting the
group, and promoting the group to its members and others.
They help to maintain the group’s very identity, by believing
32
in its vision of itself and expressing this vision faithfully.

But because accommodating people refuse to take
precedence over their peers, they can be annoyingly passive.
People should stand up for their rights and needs—for their
own sakes, and because the power of the group must be
softened by the power of individuals. Accommodating
people not only refuse to be dissenting themselves—they
frown on anyone else dissenting either. They are typically
upset by scenes of confrontation, and want things to return
as quickly as possible to innocuous harmony. This tendency
to suppress the individual can be more than annoying—it
can be harmful to individuals and dangerous for the group.
Many women, forced into generally feminine behaviour by
their biological and economic circumstances, can become
overly accommodating to the particular social group that is
their family. In the words of a recent best-seller, they ‘love
too much’. But overly-accommodating behaviour is not
really love; it springs from a selfish desire to excel in giving
service. Men who are overly-accommodating are simply
seen as wimps.
I have an acquaintance in the English upper classes
—with inherited wealth and a minor title—who to me is
rather too accommodating. Loyalty to his upper-crust social
group, which is attended by many honours and privileges, is
natural enough. But he also has excessive loyalty to the
smaller social group comprising his friends and colleagues.
He will do anything for this small circle of people—endless
favours, organising events, helping them when they are in
trouble, or covering up their mistakes—all at his own
expense. If you say but one disparaging word against any
member of his circle, he will be at your throat. His loyalty
to them knows no bounds, and he is utterly charming when
in their midst.
33
But in himself, he is frequently indecisive. He has

opinions, but where they risk being at odds with the group’s
consensus, they go unspoken. He refuses to engage in
debate, deferring instead to the views of the group. His
spinelessness encourages people to take advantage of his
money, position, and influence—and deeply embarrasses his
son and heir.
The three characteristics of feminine behaviour that
we have been describing—compassion, receptiveness, and
accommodation—are familiar cliches of womanhood. But
they are behaviours rarely acknowledged in the male.
Perhaps because of political correctness, women these days
are noted for their virtues, and men are basically pigs.
Except, that is, for the new man, the ‘sensitive’ man—who,
we are told, is a novel phenomenon of the late 20th
Century. I say sensitive male behaviour has always been with
us—observable, at any one time, in roughly half of the male
population. It’s just that the ‘sensitive’ man has been
portrayed of late, mainly by feminists, in a wholly positive
light.
Feminists, whose increased masculine behaviour has
happily brought them so much more social freedom, want
to believe there are men with a complementary increase in
feminine behaviour. In seeking out these new, sensitive
males, feminist women understandably think they are
getting partners who can be compassionate, receptive, and
accommodating. They fantasise that this new type of man
will make a supportive father for their liberated daughters.
Now divorced and disillusioned, many women are realising
that new, sensitive men can also be manipulative, obsessive,
wimps. And ironically, far from being supportive fathers for
their liberated daughters, their sensitive men have given
them only sons.
34
Chapter Five
All Men Can Have Both
It occurs to everyone who begins to consider the Twinkle

Theory that there is a simple fact that would appear to
disprove it: there are many fathers who produce both sons
and daughters, and these men are obviously neither the
feminine type nor the masculine type.
The reason that this does not disprove the Twinkle
Theory is that it ignores the theory’s most fundamental
principle: namely, that men are born neither masculine nor
feminine, but are changeable in temperament. At any one
time, they are inclined to one or the other behaviour pattern
by the prevailing conditions in their immediate social group.
Thus the phenomenon of mixed-sex siblings—far
from disproving the theory—is proof-positive that the
Twinkle Theory works. The father who at one stage in his
life produces sons, and at another stage produces daughters,
is living evidence of the effect of a social group’s changing
needs on the inherited traits of its newest members. These
fathers most clearly illustrate Nature’s reasons for the
Twinkle Theory—to create more of the kind of individuals
that will both balance the father’s current behaviour and
meet the larger, long-term needs of the social group.
What causes some fathers to have both sons and
daughters, while others produce only one or the other, is
that the former’s social sex role changes between
conceptions, while the latter’s sex role stays the same.
Whether this happens is in turn dependent upon several
35
factors: the length of time over which a man’s conceptions

take place, the stability of his personal circumstances and
those of his immediate social group, and the degree to
which his temperament is settled or unsettled.
What do I mean by ‘settled’ and ‘unsettled’? Unsettled
men, viewed in the extreme, are basically not comfortable
with who they are, what they are doing with their lives, or
where they are going—and their behaviour patterns are
equally uncertain. They may well have at their disposal a
stable career, but under the surface they are unsure of their
total commitment to it. Some of these men will change jobs
for no apparent reason, and to no avail. Other unsettled
men wish they lived somewhere else—in another town,
region, or even country—and they will go on idolising the
desired place (unless they actually move there). Or an
unsettled man may secretly harbour an impractical
ambition—to become an artist, a private investigator, or an
entrepreneur, for example. Men in this state may acutely
feel the passage of time, because they believe they are
largely wasting it. They fear the future, not because it may
be bleak, but because it may reveal that they have not
changed, leaving their ambitions unrealised.
Some men, of course, do not wish themselves into
instability, but are subject to involuntary changes in
circumstances—for example, they are unable to find work,
forced to change work locations, or handed an opportunity
they can’t sensibly refuse. And it is not necessarily a younger
man who faces these kinds of changes. Older men can be
just as unsettled in themselves, and just as affected by
changing circumstances.
The upshot of this flux in a man’s life is that neither a
masculine nor a feminine social sex role will work for him
all the time, in all his various circumstances. Sometimes he
36
will need to be assertive; at other times, willing to give in.

Sometimes he will want to ignore the rules; at other times,
he will want to fit into a new situation. Sometimes he will
feel like a leader; at other times, like a follower.
Settled men, by contrast, are largely comfortable with
who they are, what they are doing, and where they are
going. They attend to their jobs with little fuss, return
home at a regular time, meet their friends in the same
places, plod along with the same hobbies, look forward to
vacations at the same spot every year, and thoughtfully plan
their futures. Indeed, they are upset by change, and not at
all perturbed by the prospect of sameness. Men in this
condition loathe surprises, cannot be shifted from old
habits, are generally uninterested in the comings, goings,
and ambitions of the people around them. Instead, they plan
and consider, look at the pros and cons, and if possible, put
off any new commitment. A few men will have been settled
in this way since they were boys, and are unlikely to become
unsettled later without tremendous upheaval in their
personal circumstances.
The upshot of all this stability is that the social sex
role such a man has settled into—sometimes decided at an
early stage in his life to complement the social sex roles of
the other members of his immediate family—continues to
suit all the various situations he allows himself to encounter.
He will have chosen a wife who is the ideal counterpart to
his settled social sex role, a profession that well suits his
settled assertiveness or sensitivity, hobbies or interests that
make best use of his settled inclinations, and friends who are
accustomed to dealing with him exactly as he is.
Men are rarely either completely settled or unsettled
for their entire lives. Rather they exhibit these tendencies to
varying degrees at different points in their lives. When men
37
actually conceive their children determines whether they

will be mixed or of the same sex. In respect of men who
have all their children within the space of a few years: if the
man is quite ‘settled’ during those years, he will probably
have children of the same sex; and if he is unsettled during
those years, he will probably have mixed offspring. For men
who continue to conceive children over many decades, it is
obviously more likely they will have mixed-sex offspring.
The point to remember is that all men can have
mixed-sex offspring. If a man conceives only one sex, there
is usually a good reason—either the conceptions were very
close together, or throughout his conceiving years, either
the man was highly ‘settled’ or his social circumstances were
consistently favourable or difficult.
If men who have mixed offspring do so because their
social sex role behaviour is masculine during some
conceptions and feminine during others, the next obvious
question to ask is: What makes a man change social sex
roles?
Examining the experiences of my friends and
acquaintances, I have identified at least three factors that are
sufficiently powerful to cause them to switch social sex
roles. These factors are: the man’s perception of his
vocational success; the sex role behaviour of his female
partner; and the sex role balance of behaviour in his
immediate social group. Let’s look at these influences one at
a time, to see how they work.
First, to assess the influence of a man’s vocational
prospects on his social sex role behaviour, let’s consider the
professional experiences of a man I’ve known for some time.
He currently works as a foreign correspondent, based in
London, for a major national newspaper in another country.
Unlike the calm, clean-cut types who appear in exotic
38
locations on the evening news, this journalist looks the part

of an ‘unsettled man’. Slightly rebellious in his attitudes,
and still flirting with the trappings and pastimes of his
youth—for example, still wearing 60s-style hair and clothes,
playing the guitar, and occasionally smoking dope—this is a
man in a prolonged post-adolescent search for meaning and
fulfilment.
Led into journalism by the idealistic prospect of
benefitting mankind through investigative reporting, he
found himself, in his first appointment on a national
newspaper, in the less-than-profound position of trainee
reporter for the ‘city desk’. His job was to monitor the
rather slow-breaking stories that emanated from City
Hall—planning disputes, tax issues, and minor scandals
involving the profligate waste of public funds. This offered
reasonable potential for muck-raking, but very few of my
friend’s early attempts at investigative journalism got past
the city editor.
It was during this rather oppressive and disillusioning
period of his career that he and his wife conceived their first
child. His unsettled, changeable behaviour had naturally
been much affected by his circumstances. With a new wife
keen to start a family, and no other realistic prospects, he
had adopted a decidedly feminine demeanour in order to
cope—both at home and at work. In the office, he behaved
sympathetically towards all his colleagues (to help win
sympathy for himself), he accepted his daily grind of
mundane assignments with humour and dignity, and he
went out of his way to accommodate the individuals who
could most benefit him. The struggling young couple had a
son.
But within a year, all that feminine grovelling began to
pay off. The foreign desk editor took a liking to him, and
39
gave him a shot at a difficult overseas assignment that was

out of the paper’s normal range of coverage. The young
man rose to the occasion admirably, and was soon assigned
to the foreign desk full-time. By chance, when the paper’s
North European correspondent decided to retire early, my
friend was the bright young spark chosen to replace him.
Within a month, he, his wife, and baby son were on a plane
bound for London.
These next couple of years were very heady stuff for
the young family. Installed in his predecessor’s superb
duplex overlooking the park, with a sizable spending
allowance, a live-in nanny for the baby, social invitations
arranged by the embassy, and exciting stories breaking daily
across the European continent, my friend’s unsettled
behaviour pattern was quickly altered. His new prosperity
and position swelled his pride and all the other masculine
traits that go with it.
These new masculine traits proved useful. He began
to get a lot more assertive in his interviewing technique, in
order to produce the brilliant insights his editor expected
back home. Faced with European officials—masters of
obfuscation—he found it was essential to use devious means
of obtaining information. And whereas he had started by
taking orders from his editor, he soon began to insist on his
own priorities and agenda. It was after about a year in
London that the couple conceived their second child. And it
was just after they were invited to attend the Queen’s garden
party, the following spring, that their daughter was born.
A second potential cause of change in an unsettled
man’s social sex role is the social sex role behaviour of his
female companion. This is not to say that women
themselves change their social sex roles. Indeed, because it
is rare for women spontaneously to change their behaviour
40
patterns, it is usually the contrast between living with one

woman, and then living with a different woman, that
produces the relevant change in a man. For example, the
contrast between living with a mother or as a bachelor, and
then suddenly living with a female partner—in old-
fashioned terms, getting married—can also cause a man to
switch his social sex role.
I have a close acquaintance whose experiences (and
offspring) well illustrate the latter cause and effect. This
good fellow, until his marriage at the age of 37, had only
ever lived at home, where he was much loved and coddled
by a rather overpowering mother. A hot evening meal was
always waiting for him on the table when he returned home,
at the same time each evening, from the quiet local drug
store where he worked as an assistant pharmacist.
Afterwards, the two of them watched TV until a few
minutes before nine, when she was sure to switch it off
before the potentially-upsetting evening news came on. In
the morning, no matter how early he got up, she was always
up before him. His breakfast would be waiting, and she
would already be busy with some other chore on his
behalf—ironing the last hairline creases out of his bleached
white shirt, reinforcing the buttons, or adding a lick of black
polish to his shoes.
“She does everything for me,” he would say, “but only
on her own terms.” She heartily disapproved of him trying
anything new. She openly resented anyone, particularly any
female, whom he might wish to befriend. Mostly he
acquiesced to his mother, making excuses for her as a lonely
old widow, accepting her rules, and accommodating her
eccentricities. But he secretly yearned to break free of her,
and every so often he rebelled with expressions of
frustration or anger. She was quick to forgive him these
41
‘fits’, as she called them, attributing them in her mind to

indigestion, which caused her to revise her recipes.
So this chap carried on living at home for nearly
twenty years—unsettled in his inner life, wishing for what
he could not have, and afraid to break his mother’s heart. In
social sex role terms, although he was clearly unsettled, his
behaviour had to be, of course, largely feminine. To avoid
upsetting his mother, he had not dated at all since his mid-
twenties. Until, that is, he met at the drug store a
particularly clever young lady, who could see in him a
potentially good catch.
It was after only four months of courtship (during
which the mother feigned illnesses, repeatedly sabotaged
their messages to one another, showed up unexpectedly at
their rendezvous, and even openly questioned her son’s
sanity) that the enterprising young lady had the mother
packed off to a Florida condominium—where, to be fair, she
was soon quite happy amongst her many friends who had
already moved there. Within weeks the couple were
married—in Florida, to pacify the mother—and within a
few more weeks the new wife was pregnant. This first child
was, of course, a boy.
But the longer he was married to this pretty, clever
lass, the more masculine my friend became. When an
opportunity came up, she encouraged him—with pleasant,
wifely cajoling—to buy his own pharmaceutical practice.
And she helped him, ever so surreptitiously, build it into a
thriving business. They soon bought an ambitiously large
house, took to vacationing abroad twice a year (in addition
to the annual visit to Florida), and enrolled the boy in
private school. All the while she remained a happy and
dutiful wife. When she became pregnant again, it was,
surprise, surprise—a girl.
42
The third factor that I believe is sufficiently powerful

to change an unsettled man’s social sex role is a change in
the balance of other sex roles in his immediate social group.
An older gentlemen I recently met happened to tell me the
story of his family, which I’ll relate now as an excellent
example of this kind of influence.
This gentleman had been married previously, and had
a daughter by his first wife. Many years passed since he was
widowed, and his daughter was grown and had left home by
the time he met his second wife-to-be. This new lady, also a
widow, but only in her early thirties, also had daughters
from a previous marriage. She had three daughters, in fact,
all very pretty girls, but the youngest one was strikingly
beautiful. They were all a bit spoiled by their looks, and like
most sisters bickered incessantly over clothes, make-up,
jewellery, and the bathroom. The elder ones were also
somewhat jealous of the younger one’s beauty, and she knew
it. All in their adolescence at the time (the eldest was
sixteen, the youngest a precocious twelve), the last thing
these girls wanted in their lives was a new father to dampen
their style.
Yet this is precisely what they got. As soon as the
marriage took place and he moved in with them, there was
serious trouble. The girls deeply resented his being there:
he was, first, a strange man in their house; secondly,
someone to take their real father’s place; and thirdly, a man
with unfamiliar morals, expectations, and standards.
Although obviously a pleasant man, he was used to old-
fashioned ways—no stereos after dark, strict bed-times,
proper introductions to boy-friends, and bans on
provocative clothing. He would tell them, in the nicest
possible way, that he had already raised a daughter, quite
successfully, and what was good enough for her was good
43
enough for them.

Their response, naturally enough, was to go behind
his back. They lied, schemed, and deceived—both their
mother and their step-father. They were always found out
and punished, which only reinforced their rebelliousness.
Things got worse and worse, until it seemed the group had
reached a breaking point. The bewildered step-father, now
thoroughly depressed, nearly gave up his new family.
Then a little miracle happened. The mother, after all
those years, became pregnant again, and was blessed with a
sweet-faced little boy. I say ‘blessed’ because, as concerned
this little social group’s cohesiveness, he couldn’t have been
a greater blessing. The three girls fell completely in love
with their baby step-brother. They vied with one another to
cuddle him, care for him, and look after him. He became
not only a blood link with their step-father, but an actual
restraint on their behaviour—it was clear that they now
needed to be quiet after dark, and generally that their help
was truly needed. Moreover, their mothering instincts made
them feel grown-up and responsible.
If the baby had been a girl, the daughters may well
have felt the new child to be an even deeper intrusion than
the step-father—another girl to compete with, only half-
related to them. But because the baby was a boy, with a little
boy’s special loving temperament and vulnerability, he was
clearly different, and no threat.
Thus the little boy saved the family group from self-
destruction. In terms of the Twinkle Theory, because the
family group’s sex roles had been way out of balance, with
too much femininity all round, Nature gave the group—
through the father’s despair—what it needed most: a boy.
44
Chapter Six
Bettering Your Chances
Whenever expectant parents are asked whether they want a

boy or a girl, they invariably reply (if they don’t already
know from the ultrasound scan or amniocentesis) that they
really don’t mind. It is true that a few people genuinely do
not mind. But the vast majority have a preference. Those
with the strongest preference are those who already have a
child, or several of the same sex, and want the new child to
be the other sex. (This is an instinctive version of Nature’s
drive for a balance of social sex roles.) In some cultures,
there is a general preference for a particular sex; in many
developing countries, for economic reasons, parents tend to
want boys.
Therefore it is inevitable that people who hear about
the Twinkle Theory will want to apply its principles to
select the sex of their child. Let me make my position on
this matter perfectly clear and unambiguous. I strongly
advise against it. I advise against it not because the Twinkle
Theory may be unreliable, but for a very good reason that is
pertinent to the theory itself.
The reason, to be rather philosophical about it, is this:
Nature, as a force of fate, is far stronger and wiser than the
will of any individual person. And it is Nature, through the
action of the Twinkle Theory, that determines the sex of
your child—for your own good and the good of the child.
What is Nature’s goal in selecting sex? As I’ve said
before, and will say again, Nature’s ubiquitous goal,
45
apparent in every natural phenomenon, is to achieve a

balance. (As discussed in Chapter Two,) Nature determines
the sex of your child in order to create a balance of social
sex roles in your immediate social group—for example, in a
family group that lives together. If you somehow manage to
trick or manipulate the natural operation of the Twinkle
Theory, you could end up with an unnatural balance of
social sex roles in your family, which could in turn work
against the group’s long-term cohesiveness.
To make the warning more blatant: if you try to select
the sex of your child—and your selection happens to be the
opposite of what Nature would have intended—you could
unwittingly ruin your marriage, perhaps drive your other
children away, impose emotional hardship on the new child,
or plunge you all into unending conflict and misery. I realise
the pressures, in Western societies, for nuclear families to
try to have at least one boy and one girl. But manipulating
Nature is simply not worth the risk.
The balance of social sex roles in a family is so
important that Nature literally moulds personalities and
behaviour—beyond the conscious control of the individuals
concerned—in order to promote family cohesiveness. An
illustration of this mechanism that comes to mind is the
story of a relatively happy, harmonious family that I have
known for some years, comprising a mother, father, and two
daughters.
The mother is a go-ahead achiever, educated to a post-
graduate level, very well read, and active in her profession.
Appropriately, her socio-politics are unreservedly feminist,
and she carries through these values into her home life and
her work. Her modern-style husband concurs, at least in
principle, in her feminist values, and goes along with her
desire for economic independence. As much as his own
46
travel-based career allows, he shares in the housework

(except doing laundry; men seem to be incapable of this)
and child-rearing, and enjoys the same kind of art-house
films, experimental novels, and improvisational jazz music
that she does. In himself, he is a cocky, assertive man, with
strong opinions and a tendency to argue his position in a
shrill banter.
Their firstborn child, naturally a girl, is, like her Dad,
a wiry, energetic, and assertive sort of person, easily
over-excited. When the father and elder daughter are in the
same room, there is a perceptible nervous tension in the air,
as though their similarly rocket-fired personalities risk
collision when they come too close.
It is the younger child, the second daughter, who is
interesting in the context of Nature’s need to balance a
family’s social sex roles. Both parents, being pro-actively
feminist in their parental ethics, were especially careful to
treat both girls in a non-sexist way—almost as generic,
ungendered children. For instance, as toddlers, they wore
strictly unadorned jeans and T-shirts, and their hair was
always neatly cropped. Whenever relations or acquaintances
offered the girls dolls as gifts, these were exchanged at the
toyshop (before the girls saw them) for building blocks or
non-sexist picture books. The girls were encouraged,
especially by their Dad, to play traditionally-masculine
pretend games, such as superheroes, cops and robbers, and
fire fighters—and always to play the heroine, never the
victim. Even their bedroom furnishings were chosen for
their gender-neutrality—green furniture rather than either
pink or blue, striped curtains rather than either polka dots
or plaids, and animal posters rather than either ballerinas or
spacecraft.
Then, when the younger daughter was around age
47
three, just as she started to assert her budding feminist will

and to express her unbiased mind, it happened—spontan-
eously and with no warning. The poor child went feminine.
Very feminine. It started, innocently enough, with an animal
toy—a plastic fantasy world of cutesy, pastel-coloured pony
dolls. Her parents didn’t worry at first: horses are OK; after
all, cowboys like horses. But that was only the beginning.
Next it was Barbie. Then it was dolls of any kind. Then
came make-up, with lots of lipstick and rouge. Then she
refused to wear anything but dresses, preferably dresses with
frilly hems, then with lacy petticoats underneath. She
demanded and wore the ‘Belle’ costume from Disney’s
‘Beauty and the Beast’ with a passion, every day for weeks
—before she ever saw the video or knew who the character
was. She began to prefer as friends only feminine little girls
with bows in their hair, to eschew all boys, and when she
role-played, to insist on being either a ballerina or a
princess. The odd thing is that she and her sister still get
along brilliantly; now when they play ‘fire fighter’, there’s
someone to be rescued.
Her parents are baffled. Her father thinks it’s ironic,
but cute, while her mother is both shocked and bemused. To
her, it seems like sheer rebelliousness. But, she wonders, if it
were natural for a girl to rebel against a non-sexist
environment, why did the elder sister, who was treated the
same, not rebel as well?
In light of the Twinkle Theory, the younger girl’s
behaviour makes perfect sense. With a feminist (ie,
masculine) mother, a masculine father, and a distinctly
unfeminine first daughter, the family was in a state of severe
sex role imbalance. The second child was naturally a girl, as
she was the best hope of redressing the balance. And indeed,
despite her parents’ intentions, Nature gave the second
48
child a powerful inclination to femininity, which came out

as soon as she was old enough to express a preference.
All this simply goes to show: there’s no getting round
Nature, and no getting round the Twinkle Theory. It’s just
as well that her parents did not try to trick Nature into
giving them a boy. Would the feminist mother have been as
happy dealing with a male child? Would this son have felt
pressured to adopt feminine behaviour, despite a father who
would have preferred a masculine son? The answer, in the
end, is that it’s best to let Nature decide.
Despite the fact that people manipulate Nature at
their peril, manipulate it they will. So I am inclined to offer,
as a further deterrent to readers, a discussion of the
difficulties inherent in using the Twinkle Theory to choose
your child’s sex.
To start with, I am sorry to inform any man who
imagines he can change his social sex role voluntarily, that
this is simply not possible. Behaviour is an effect, not a
cause; it cannot change itself. For example, if a man is now
masculine and intends to act feminine, he will only be
exercising his masculine assertiveness by trying to master his
behaviour. If he is now feminine and intends to act
masculine, he will only be indulging his feminine sensitivity
by perceiving the need to change. The only thing that can
change a man’s social sex role behaviour is a change in his
social environment.
A woman, if she is able to consider herself part of the
man’s social environment, has a better chance of influencing
the sex of her child. I can think of three ways a woman
might try to achieve it.
First, if she doesn’t yet have a partner, she could try to
find an unattached man who in her judgement is
appropriately masculine or feminine, depending on whether
49
she wants him to father, respectively, a girl or a boy. One

problem with this approach is that it is much more difficult
than it would seem to be certain of a man’s social sex role.
Men are expert at disguising or hiding their real feelings,
aspirations, and motivations. (Their well-known dishonesty
with women is discussed in more detail in Chapter Ten.)
Anyway, it would be ridiculous to choose a spouse on the
relatively trivial basis that his social sex role is appropriate to
one’s gender preferences in children. Mutual love and
respect, necessary for any successful relationship, are far
more important to family happiness than the genders of the
children. Moreover, it may be that Nature, in addition to
creating the kind of child that’s right for its parents, also
creates attraction between partners who are right for each
other. In other words, the kind of man a woman is attracted
to, by Nature, may also be the kind of man who is right for
her (see the discussion on sexual attraction in Chapter
Seven).
Secondly, if a woman already has a partner who she
believes is playing the wrong social sex role to give her the
child she wants, she could try conceiving with a man playing
the other role—without entering into a long-term
relationship. In other words, she could have an affair. There
is again the risk of misreading this new man’s behaviour. But
the key risk here—apart from the obvious dangers of
sexually-transmitted diseases, of being found out by her
usual partner, and of later disputes about paternal rights—is
that because the new father is not someone with whom she
lives, the sex (and perhaps other characteristics) of the child
that he fathers will have nothing to do with the natural
requirements of her own family. She may well find herself
with a child who simply does not fit into her family group,
and who therefore contributes to its dissolution.
50
Thirdly, a woman can try changing, or at least

influencing, her partner’s sex role behaviour. This is
probably the only feasible route to using the Twinkle
Theory to determine the sex of a child. Again, for reasons
already noted, I strongly advise against it. Nevertheless,
there is no doubt in my mind that many women reading this
book will consider having a go. The rest of this chapter is
addressed to those women.
Like most people, every so often I read the back of
cereal boxes. The best cereal box headline I ever saw was on
the back of Kellogg’s Special K, apparently a favourite of
women on diets. The box read: ‘CHANGE YOUR MAN.
Would you like a brand new man? Here’s how. Just send
three box top tokens to this address ...’ It went on to explain
that this was promoting not a match-making service but an
exercise programme that will ‘re-make your man from head-
to-toe’. The person who wrote that advertising copy knew it
would appeal to every adult female who might see it. From
the Wife of Bath to Hillary Clinton, women have forever
wanted to manipulate and control their men.
The trick to changing your man’s social sex role, in
particular, is to concentrate not on him, but on the social
environment that he encounters day-to-day. In light of the
Twinkle Theory, it is this environment that determines his
social sex role. Your man’s social environment includes your
kids (if any yet), his male friends, other couples you see, his
colleagues at work, and any regular contacts he may have.
But in most cases, the key part of his social environment is
you.
If you want a son from an assertive, dissenting, and
authoritative man, who would ordinarily produce daughters,
you must simply try to be even more assertive than he is. In
every situation where you’re together, assert your views
51
before he does, disagree with his views when he states them,

and ignore his attempts to persuade you. For example, if
you’re planning an evening out, get in first with your ideas
on where to eat, and refuse to consider at all any of his
suggestions. Then if he has lined up some film he’s been
wanting to see, say that you’re certain it will be awful, and
anyway that you’ve always hated the actress in the lead part.
Lastly, after whatever film you do end up seeing, insist that
you were absolutely right to choose it, and expound on how
brilliant the film was, down to the last detail. (It’s hard work
being masculine, isn’t it?)
In other words, set your will against his so strongly,
that the consequences of his disagreeing with you are simply
too trying to face. Henceforth, make all the social decisions,
in every area of his life, except one—his work—since, being
a man, he will still need at least one exclusive domain.
This probably sounds like a prescription for getting a
divorce, not for influencing the sex of your child. Naturally,
it’s risky behaviour, and if carried on too long and hard,
could easily drive your man into someone else’s arms, or
simply make him apathetic or depressed. But if your man
and your relationship can stand it, then he will probably
perceive that his social condition has taken a turn for the
worse. He will respond to this downturn in fortune by
becoming more feminine, and more likely to give you a boy.
By contrast, if you would like a daughter from a man
who is already to some degree compassionate, accepting,
and accommodating—a man who would ordinarily produce
sons—it is no use just being feminine like him. His
sensitivity and insecurity will simply be reinforced. On the
contrary, you again need to make decisions for him,
decisions which help him to improve himself, so that it
seems his fortune is improving. But you need to build him
52
up in such a way that he thinks he’s doing it himself. Slyly

encourage him to face challenges that you know he can rise
to, and to take on projects at which you are certain he will
succeed. Do this by always stating the positive, your
complete faith in his ability, and the benefits of his achieving
success. Create an impression of your own humble awe at
each challenge, and of your loving admiration, and
gratefulness, for his abilities.
For example, present him with some small difficulty
around the house that you know he can solve—say, a
squeaky door—expressing your doubt that it can ever be
fixed, that getting a new door is bound to cost a fortune, but
how wonderful your life would be without that constant
annoyance. Then, after he touches it with oil, be absolutely
jubilant that it could be fixed so simply, and for no cost.
Hug him and tell him you simply wouldn’t know what to do
without him. Then, every time you walk through the door,
remind him of how fabulous it is that you don’t have to
listen to that awful squeak. (I know this sounds ridiculously
over the top, but any man will think such admiration
perfectly reasonable.)
If you can do all this, consistently, with a straight face
(some women, just imagine, act this way all the time, with
every man they meet), then your feminine man will begin to
think that he’s not such a dimwit after all, that perhaps there
are a few things he’s good at, and that the world is really a
pretty fine place. There is a risk, of course, that he will leave
you because he thinks he deserves better. But if you can
keep his arrogance from running amok, he will perceive that
his social condition has considerably improved, and will
respond to this upturn in fortune by becoming more
masculine, and more likely to father a girl.
As tempting as it is, and as easy as it would be to try
53
the above approaches, nevertheless please heed my

warnings, and resist trying to manipulate Nature to choose
the sex of your child. Instead, I humbly suggest, try to see
the Twinkle Theory as an insight into your existing
situation, whatever it is. Use the theory to examine your
partner, yourself, your relationship with each other, and
your relationship with your children. Use it to understand
otherwise inexplicable behaviour in your family. And use it
to appreciate Nature’s good reasons, that the sexes of your
children, exactly as they are or will be, are probably for the
best.
54
Chapter Seven
Sex and The Twinkle Theory
This chapter sounds rather titillating. Indeed, the subject of

sex is never boring. But like everything else having to do
with the Twinkle Theory, sexuality should be seen as yet
another instance of Nature’s ambition to achieve a balance.
Most everyone finds out sooner or later that men
perceive their sexual experiences quite differently from
women. For the male, sex is primarily an instinctive
biological drive, like hunger, that simply craves satisfaction.
Women, sexually (and probably otherwise), are much higher
up the evolutionary ladder. There are hereditary remnants,
like wisdom teeth, of sexual craving in some females. But for
most women, sex has evolved to a largely social behaviour,
and thus it is used to fulfil any number of social functions.
For example, it can be an expression of love or
commitment; a utilitarian means to security, sustenance, or
power; a consolation for loneliness; a psychological tool for
manipulating rivals or opponents; an indulgence in risk-
taking and intrigue; or even a kind of social entertainment.
Of course it is possible, and quite common, for men also to
attach social functions to sex. But men can make sex a social
event only as a sideline to their gratification of the
instinctive drive. As proof of the difference between them,
there is one thing that women can happily do with sex that
men cannot do: ignore it.
This is all as it should be, in light of the Twinkle
Theory. A man, whose reproductive job it is to
55
communicate biologically to his offspring the urgent needs

of the social group (see Chapter Two), must not mess about
when it comes to sex. He needs to get on with sex, as
quickly and as often as possible, in order to transmit his
urgent genetic message to the next generation. A woman,
on the other hand, must balance the male’s fickleness with
her own hereditary stability. It is therefore appropriate that
she lacks the male’s frantic biological drive. To protect her
genetic heritage, a woman uses her instinctive and generally
level-headed discretion to select with whom to mate, and
when. And she tends to use the social functions of sex to
help her in her complex process of selection.
I realise that some women will object that they, like
men, are also sexual creatures, fully capable of lascivious
cravings, lustful ambitions, and purely sensual gratification.
Of course it is impossible for me to know, categorically, that
a woman’s sex drive is not the same as a man’s. But I would
challenge any mentally-stable female, no matter how much
of a voluptuary she is, to say honestly that she wants to
make love to any and every handsome man she sees,
regardless of the social context or consequences. By
contrast, put any attractive girl in front of almost any
heterosexual man, and he will indeed want to have sex with
her if the opportunity were to arise. Many men, in all walks
of life, risk virtually everything they value socially
—marriage, family, job, friends—just for the sake of casual
sex with a pretty girl. The only comparable female
phenomenon I can think of is that if you put fresh cream
chocolates in front of almost any woman, she will want to
eat them, regardless of whether she should.
The Twinkle Theory’s notion of the enforced
femininity of women, and the variable femininity or
masculinity of men, also makes sense in terms of this sexual
56
division of labour. A woman, when she does consent to

heterosexual sex, is being wholly feminine: receptive,
anatomically and in every other sense; compassionate, in
order to arouse her own passions; and accommodating, to
her partner’s instincts for stimulation and gratification.
Men, however, vary considerably in their sexual behaviour.
And as I will explain, a man’s approach to sex directly
correlates to his prevailing social sex role.
More specifically, a man’s sexual behaviour is based on
the difference between his prevailing social sex role and that
of his partner. This is a rather technical way of phrasing the
old adage, that when it comes to romance, opposites attract.
If a heterosexual man’s social sex role is masculine, he
will be attracted by, and be physiologically complemented
by, the femininity of his female partner. Thus his approach
to sex will be rather straightforward. Being masculine, he
will be more self-absorbed, and thus sexually self-pleasing.
In other words, he will generally focus mostly on his own
pleasure, and will expect his female partner to focus on his
pleasure as well.
On the other hand, if a heterosexual man’s social sex
role is feminine, he has quite a job to do to create a
difference between his own social sex role and that of his
female partner. This paradox typically yields two types of
male sexual behaviour. First, he may encourage her to
behave in a more masculine way, in order to make her seem
more masculine than he is. This means, for example, he may
encourage her to take the lead in foreplay, or to position
herself on top. Secondly, he may himself try to be more
feminine than she is. This means, for example, he may take
his own sexual delight in her femaleness—in every feminine
aspect of her body—and derive considerable enjoyment
from her pleasure.
57
Both these types of male sexual behaviour—masculine

male self-pleasuring and feminine female-worshipping—are
very common, and most women can see one or the other
tendency in their partners. (Changeable men in the throes
of change may exhibit both types of behaviour, even in the
same sexual encounter.) As mentioned at the outset,
conventional heterosexual sexuality is thus a direct
expression of the balance Nature seeks between masculinity
and femininity, where the female is feminine and the male
can be either.
But as every woman knows, often to her regret,
conventional heterosexuality is not all there is to male sexual
behaviour. Because of the sheer force of the male’s
instinctive drive, his sexual impulses—whether masculine or
feminine—can easily get distorted and rather out-of-hand,
especially if too often frustrated.
Frustrated heterosexual men with a masculine social
sex role can get rather too assertive, dissenting, or
authoritative in their sexual behaviour. Their assertiveness
can turn to sexual aggression, or in extreme cases, to
violence. Their dissenting nature can lure them into
socially-unacceptable behaviours such as exhibitionism,
voyeurism and pornography, and the addictive use of
sexually-enhancing drugs or paraphernalia. And their
authoritativeness, or sense of superiority, can translate
sexually into various forms of neurotic sexual dominance
such as paedophilia or sadism.
Frustrated heterosexual men with a feminine social sex
role can similarly get rather too receptive, compassionate,
or accommodating in their sexual behaviour. Excessive
feelings of receptiveness can lead them to want to behave
and feel like a woman themselves. So they may experiment
with transvestitism, or in extreme cases be tempted by
58
transsexual surgery. Tendencies to be overly-compassionate

and sensitive may be manifested as sexual obsessions such as
fetishisms or other obscure sexual rituals. And to be too
accommodating can lead to a whole range of regressive
behaviours such as baby/nurse role playing, self-punishment
and other discipline games, slave/master routines, bondage,
and other masochisms.
And frustrated heterosexual men with changeable
social sex roles can exhibit any combination of these sexual
deviations: for example, transvestitism with the use of sex
drugs and paraphernalia, or sadism combined with bondage.
Aren’t men charming? Of course, it is not unknown
for women to go along with deviant sexual behaviours. But
unless women themselves have a tendency to neurotic excess
in their own social sex role, they are likely to be
participating in these things out of blind devotion,
loneliness, a need for money, or some other social reason
—rather than because of an instinctive sexual compulsion.
The good news for women is that because of the
relationship between sexuality and the Twinkle Theory’s
social sex roles, there are things that can be done to
manipulate a man’s sexual behaviour through the
manipulation of his social sex role environment. In other
words, women can (and in the sex-for-hire business often
do) use these principles to manage a frustrated man’s deviant
sexual behaviour. (It happens that the principles here are
exactly the same as for the woman who is trying to change
her man’s social sex role [as described in Chapter Six] in
order to influence the sex of her offspring.)
Specifically, a man who is indulging in too much
masculine aggressiveness in sex can generally be calmed by
his female partner’s own efforts at domination. In other
words, she should grab him where it hurts, scratch him, get
59
on top and stay there, and always keep in control. In this

socially oppressed state, the man’s masculinity will surely
‘soften’. Conversely, any man who is falling into too much
feminine passivity can be coaxed back into machismo
through female admiration and gratefulness for his
supposed sexual prowess. For example, beg him to do
something to you, scream with delight, and virtually
worship him afterwards. Such behaviour will never fail to
arouse the ‘real man’ in him.
All of the above describes heterosexual behaviour. But
what about homosexuality?
As mentioned earlier, when it comes to romance,
‘opposites attract’ is the well-worn cliche. But if you were to
observe this phenomenon more closely, you would find that
sexual attraction actually occurs between two people who
are different enough that they complement one another
—but not so different that they threaten one another’s
‘status quo’. In terms of the Twinkle Theory, this means that
sexual attraction is most likely to occur when there is a
significant difference between one person’s social sex role
and another person’s social sex role, but not so extreme a
difference that it threatens either party’s identity in their
existing role.
Most homosexual males prefer men as partners
because—for any of a variety of reasons—they feel driven to
play a very exaggerated social sex role. When gay men are
masculine, they tend to revel in masculinity, whether
playing the part of a bodybuilder or a suave sophisticate.
They become so masculine, in fact, that most women are
simply too far distant on the masculine-feminine scale to be
attractive to them. Only other men can sexually
complement them without threatening their identity.
Similarly, when gay men are feminine, they tend to be very
60
overtly feminine, whether playing the part of a doting carer

or a ‘femme fatale’. They become so feminine, in fact, that
most heterosexual women are too close on the masculine-
feminine scale to be attractive. Again, only other men can
sexually complement them without threatening their
identity.
How does a homosexual man come to exaggerate his
social sex role to such an extreme? In answer I can only
offer a couple of relevant observations. First, in terms of
social sex roles, masculinity and femininity in the male is
much more vulnerable to external influence—including
possible exaggeration—during his socially-formative
teenage years, than in either childhood or adulthood. And
homosexual behaviour can often start in a boy’s teenage
years, when same-sex experiences—which sometimes occur
because there is simply no opportunity for heterosexual
sex—become an easy, familiar, and comfortable pattern that
is then carried through to adulthood. Secondly, the impulse
to adopt an exaggerated social sex role may be prompted by
an extreme imbalance in a boy’s immediate family or other
early social group. Because Nature’s need for balance is
paramount, a far-too-masculine or far-too-feminine social
group may lead a teenage boy to want to stress the opposite
role rather too much, and again, he may grow comfortable
with this exaggerated disposition.
Female homosexuality, like female heterosexuality, is a
largely social affair, and lesbian sexual encounters occur
mainly to satisfy social or affectionate, rather than sexual,
impulses. In social sex role terms, it is relevant to note that
whereas gay men can be either extremely masculine or
extremely feminine, lesbians tend to adopt a masculine
social role—they all tend to act more assertive, dissenting,
and authoritative. Many lesbians adopt masculine attitudes
61
as an expression of their liberation, that is, to create a

contrast between themselves and straight women, who are
generally coerced into femininity by heterosexual sex and
child-bearing. The social or even political rejection of
heterosexual femininity—including its values, constraints,
standards, and oppressive expectations (for example, the
high value placed on long legs, lithe figures, and delicate
features)—makes lesbianism a rational social alternative for
some women. Many gay women are also simply repelled or
disgusted by men, particularly if they have fallen victim to
the excesses of frustrated ones.
Because women, uniquely, can reject sexuality
altogether, there are a lot of happily asexual or celibate
women. And there are hundreds of different reasons for
female celibacy, ranging from fear of pregnancy (a very
reasonable fear, given that it is still a life-threatening
condition in much of the world) to an intelligent pre-
occupation with more interesting pastimes.
In summary, what is sex all about, in terms of the
Twinkle Theory?
First, we should regard sex as the most distilled,
intense expression of a heterosexual man’s masculinity or
femininity, and of a heterosexual woman’s femininity. It
makes sense that it is, because from Nature’s point of view,
the act of sex—the combining of our genes to perpetuate
and improve the species—is the single most important thing
we do as social creatures. Secondly, sexual behaviour itself is
primarily a manifestation of Nature’s drive to create a stable
balance between opposing social sex roles. The converse of
this principle is that sexual deviations and exaggerations,
which may themselves be driven by external pressures to
correct social sex role imbalances, are neatly placed outside
the process of procreation—they are, quite literally, external
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to Nature.
More practically speaking, a man’s social sex role, as a
determination of the gender of his future offspring, is highly
visible in his sexual behaviour. Moreover, sexual behaviour
as a sign of a man’s social sex role happens to arise at the
very moment when an offspring would be conceived. Thus,
sexual encounters are a good opportunity for judging which
role a man is playing. And if the woman is trying to
conceive, they are a useful tool for observing the Twinkle
Theory in action.
Since, as discussed above, it is quite easy for a woman
to manipulate a man’s sexual tendencies, a woman may again
be wondering whether this is a good way for her to
influence the sex of her child. In other words, if a woman
wants a boy, should she be dominant and on top, and if she
wants a girl, should she scream with delight? The answer is
no. Sexual behaviour is only an effect of, not the cause of, a
man’s social sex role. And according to the Twinkle Theory,
it is a man’s social sex role—not his sexual behaviour—that
links the prevailing needs of the social group with the
gender of his offspring.
For me, the interesting implication of this analysis of
sexuality is that the Twinkle Theory, with its constant
counterpoint of interacting social sex roles, clearly has
something say about more than the gender of babies. It
seems to pervade every aspect of procreation—the very
continuity of the species.
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Chapter Eight
Evidence, Such As It Is
There is no empirical evidence, at least none that I know of,

to support the Twinkle Theory. More importantly, I think,
there is in everyone’s life, if only they care to look, a lot of
rather obvious anecdotal evidence. When I consider the
new fathers I happen to know personally, or read in
magazines about the rich and famous who show off their
newborns, each man’s present personality—as predicted by
the theory—indeed appears to contrast in masculinity or
femininity with the sex of his newborn child. If he has
previous children, the circumstances in his life at the time of
each birth again seem to correlate with their genders in
accordance with the Twinkle Theory. In each case, the
theory helps to confirm my suspicions or beliefs about the
man himself, and by implication his partner, and helps to
inform my expectations of their behaviour in future.
The Twinkle Theory also helps me to understand
myself as a husband and father. As other people discover the
theory, it may help them too, particularly to understand the
nature of their own marriage and family. But this
understanding should not be seen as a means to some end,
such as determining the sex of your next child (see Chapter
Six), or moulding your partner’s personality. I believe that
change, and the desire for change, is far too ingrained in
modern Western society, and it causes endless, fruitless
frustration for everyone. So rather than incite people to
change, I hope that the deeper understanding brought by
64
the Twinkle Theory will be used to help people reconcile

themselves to things exactly as they happen to be.
Thus it matters not a whit that there is no scientific
evidence for the theory. The important thing to decide
about the Twinkle Theory, and indeed any theory, is not its
experimental, technocratic, or scholarly validity, but its
meaningfulness or lack thereof, to humanity.
In the category ‘humanity’ I do not include the
blinkered academics who would, if they deigned to read it,
reject the Twinkle Theory because it may not fit in with
their obscure researches. Nor am I referring to the moral
crusaders who would either cite the theory to substantiate
their prejudices, or torch it as politically incorrect. Nor do I
mean the sly opportunists who would somehow profit by
the Twinkle Theory (printing up ‘My Dad is You-Know-
What’ T-shirts). Rather, by ‘humanity’, I mean the millions
of ordinary people, like you and me, who coast through life
in a bemused state of perpetual confusion.
Ordinary beings such as us, in order to judge the
usefulness of any theory, rarely defer to scientific research
—which as we all know, in most cases, turns out to be
ambiguous and self-contradictory. Instead, we listen as
carefully as we can to a theory’s core idea, and then simply
let it echo through the mundane and familiar in our lives
—our personal experiences, half-remembered hearsay, and
received wisdom. If the echo comes back fairly intact, we say
the theory rings true, and later we are likely to repeat it to
others. If it doesn’t come resounding back, we just let the
theory go, and allow it to fade into inaudibility.
That is all I aim to do in this chapter on evidence: to
let the Twinkle Theory’s core idea echo through some of the
personalities in contemporary society with whom we are all
familiar.
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In thinking about which kinds of famous personalities

would make good examples, I realised that although we feel
we know many famous men quite well by their
accomplishments—for example, authors, artists, architects,
fashion designers, sportsmen, and business leaders—we
generally know very little about their personal
temperaments. Thus very few people could say offhand
whether Stephen King, Ralph Lauren, or Jack Nicklaus, for
example, are more assertive than accommodating, or more
receptive than dissenting. We simply don’t see enough of
their behaviour in enough different situations to know what
they’re really like.
I came to the conclusion that there are only two kinds
of public figures whose personal temperaments we feel we
really know: first, show biz personalities, and secondly,
heads of state. We have the opportunity to see both these
kinds of men in all kinds of situations—actors in their
various roles on stage and screen (and in awards
ceremonies), and leaders in their various political and social
predicaments. Although actors read scripts and leaders read
prepared speeches, they both necessarily have a personal
style that shines through such formalities—and indeed
partly determines the words they are given to say. Observing
them as individuals over many years, we accumulate
innumerable impressions of their behaviour, which we add
up to a personal assessment of their temperament.
There are two provisos I must make before I start
naming names of actors and world leaders.
First, as explained in Chapter Five: the vast majority of
men, if they have enough children, will probably have some
of each sex. This is as it should be, and fully supports the
Twinkle Theory—since it is by men’s changeability that they
embody the changing sex role needs of their social group.
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Thus, as we would expect, the vast majority of actors and

world leaders, most of whose lives have had various ups and
downs, are indeed found to have mixed-sex offspring. And if
one cares to look into the changing circumstances of their
lives when their children were conceived, it becomes
evident why they produced which sex when they did. Also as
predicted by the theory, there is a significant number of
actors and world leaders who have children of only one
sex—sometimes because they have had fewer children, but
in many cases because when they conceived them all, they
had ‘settled’ temperaments or because the circumstances of
their lives were stable. The point is that the evidence should
include both mixed and single-sex producing fathers.
Secondly, as will be discussed in Chapter Ten: most
men, and not least actors and world leaders, are excellent
liars, and so there are bound to be some surprises—men
who do not have the offspring we would expect. These
surprise offspring do not disprove the Twinkle Theory;
rather, they prove that the public persona of the man in
question may well be the opposite of his private
temperament.
Now then, who are the contemporary show business
types who, by virtue of their immutable masculine
behaviour—assertive (achieving or selfish), authoritative
(managerial or bossy), and/or dissenting (creative or
devious) behaviour—have produced only girls?
Well, there’s square-jawed Robert Redford, self-
centered Warren Beatty, heartbreaker Paul Newman,
cocksure Michael Caine, man’s man Clint Eastwood,
lifeguard David Hasselhoff, blunt Danny De Vito, and that
most obnoxiously aggressive of all Hollywood men, Bruce
Willis. Fathers of daughters also include stiff-upper-lipped
Robert Wagner, delinquent Kiefer Sutherland, bounder Ted
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Danson, ham comic Chevy Chase, pushy Billy Crystal,

sporty Woody Harrelson, persistent Peter Falk, ‘the fonz’
Henry Winkler, man-mountain John Goodman, and that
classic Hollywood hero, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Leading men
Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart had just daughters. So did
Elvis. On the high-culture side, there’s the over-achieving
ballet-master Baryshnikov, and the opera impresario,
Pavarotti—both these fixedly-masculine men, as one would
expect, have daughters and no sons.
By contrast, who are the entertainers who, because of
their persistently feminine (ie, sensitive) behaviour
—compassionate (charitable or manipulative),
accommodating (sociable or wimpish), and/or receptive
(cultured or obsessive) behaviour—have produced only
boys?
To start with, there’s the affable Bill Murray, smoothie
Sean Connery, manipulative Michael Douglas, ideal ‘new
man’ Tom Hanks, and that ultimate urban neurotic, Woody
Allen. There’s also panty-bedecked Tom Jones, mysterious
Michael Keaton, boyish Michael J Fox, chinless Anthony
Perkins, and acquiescent Alan Arkin. John Lennon—the
introspective, sensitive Beatle—had only sons. So did kindly,
soft-spoken personalities of yore like Merv Griffin and Burl
Ives. Kid-at-heart Steven Spielberg has sons by both his
wives. Amongst cultured types, in direct contrast to the
masculine Pavarotti, who is famous for being bossy and
gregarious, is another great tenor, Placido Domingo, whom
female opera-buffs adore for his compassion and
romanticism. As predicted by the Twinkle Theory, while
Pavoratti has three lovely daughters, Domingo has four
charming sons.
A surprise amongst masculine fathers is Tom Conti,
who one would have thought is soft and sensitive. His
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daughters belie his secret pushiness. And a surprise member

of the feminine ranks is Jack Klugman, whom you may
remember as the slobbish, manly half of the Odd Couple,
opposite the uptight, effeminate Tony Randall. But if you
think about it, it was always the Tony Randall character who
was aggressively getting his way, and the Jack Klugman
character who was forced to compromise. Jack’s real-life
sons are the proof of his more accommodating nature.
Men who produce both sexes are, by definition,
unsettled, changeable men. In the world of acting, settled
men roughly translates to ‘character’ actors, who embody a
particular type, and unsettled men translates to ‘dramatic’
actors, who adapt themselves to every role. Thus the one-
sex-producing actors listed above—for example, Warren
Beatty, Bruce Willis, Billy Crystal, Bill Murray, and Michael
J Fox—are usually hired for character roles. And among
those who have a mixture of boys and girls are some
prominent dramatic actors.
The classic example is Dustin Hoffman, who after
producing two girls from his first marriage, when he was
aggressively rising through the ranks, in his second marriage
conceived a boy, then a girl, then a boy, then a girl—
illustrating perfect ‘method acting’ changeability. Other
truly dramatic types who have had kids of both sexes
include: evil/charming Robert DeNiro, tragic/sardonic
Harrison Ford, moody Richard Dreyfuss, versatile Gerard
Depardieu, and the ubiquitous Gene Hackman. There’s also
good guy/bad guy James Caan, epic/disaster master
Charlton Heston, seducer/monster Jack Nicholson, flexible
Kevin Costner, lord/lush Peter O’Toole, chameleon-like
Donald Sutherland, and respectable/laughable Lloyd
Bridges. Roger Moore had sons before becoming 007, and a
daughter afterwards. Likewise, Don Johnson had a son early
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on and a daughter with Melanie, after Miami Vice. In the

high-culture arena, in contrast to the theatrical Pavarotti
and the romantic Domingo is the world’s other great tenor,
José Carreras—who, being by turns theatrical and romantic,
has naturally produced one girl and one boy.
Now let’s turn to the other group of men whose
personalities we all believe we know: heads of state. In most
countries, men at the top simply have to be masculine—
assertive, authoritative, and devious—in order to get there
and stay there. Fidel Castro and Boris Yeltsin, for example,
have daughters; feminine compassion or accommodation
would be their undoing. But the U.S. Presidency is an
exception to the rule of ‘macho rules’. Luckily for us, the
world’s foremost free market democracy revels in the
varying personalities of its leaders. This obsession with
Presidential personality is largely a phenomenon of post-
war America, and so we will restrict our analysis to recent
Presidents.
First, consider the recent Presidents who had
daughters and no sons—meaning, in light of the Twinkle
Theory, that they were primarily selfish, bossy, and devious,
or in a word, solidly masculine. Clinton qualifies here, with
one daughter. Nixon had two daughters, as did Johnson
before him. And Harry Truman had one daughter. There
was only one recent President with an only son—and that
was Eisenhower, who was probably rather wimpish as world
leaders go. Interestingly, several recent presidents had a
string of sons, followed by a daughter—as though they were
long oppressed by their political ambition, until it was
finally realised. This category includes George Bush (four
sons then a daughter), Jimmy Carter (three sons then a
daughter), Gerald Ford (three sons then a daughter), and
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (four sons then a daughter).
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Only two recent presidents were evenly balanced in their

offspring, and as we shall see in Chapter Nine, these sorts of
men make the very best leaders: John Kennedy (one
daughter, one surviving son) and Ronald Reagan (two
daughters, two sons). Indeed, Kennedy and Reagan are
probably the only presidents in the latter half of the
twentieth century who will be remembered in the history
books as great, and not just competent, politicians.
Lastly, in terms of anecdotal evidence to support the
Twinkle Theory, I must take you from the sublime back
down to the ridiculous. My favourite evidence of the
theory’s veracity is not Fidel Castro, Luciano Pavarotti,
Elvis Presley, or even Bruce Willis. It is that most
prominent assertive male in every recent American
childhood: Fred Flintstone. I am certain it was no accident
that Hanna-Barbera gave the loud-mouthed, bragging, hot-
headed Fred a sweet little daughter, Pebbles. It was also
quite natural that they gave Barney, Fred’s thoughtful,
compliant, considerate neighbour, a very macho young son,
Bam-Bam. I realise that cartoons seem rather trivial
evidence, since they are not real people. But what’s striking
about the pairing of Fred and Pebbles, and Barney and
Bam-Bam, is that you simply cannot imagine the fathers
matched to the offspring the other way round.
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Chapter Nine
A Rigorous Analysis
If I were reading The Twinkle Theory, and not writing it,

I’d want to object after reading Chapter Eight that all
anecdotal evidence suffers from the same weakness—it is by
definition selective. When looking at movie stars, or heads
of state, it is all too easy to mention only those cases which
seem to support the theory, and ignore all those cases which
don’t. As author, I must assent to this sensible objection, and
hereby offer the reader an attempt at a more rigorous
analysis.
Speaking of heads of state, there is another particular
group of leaders whose temperaments and offspring over
many centuries are extremely well-documented. The group
to which I refer is the British monarchy, which stretches
some 900 years, from William the Conqueror to Britain’s
future king, His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales. The
royal line includes a few women (Mary, Elizabeth I, Mary II,
Anne, Victoria, and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II), but
on the whole the British monarchy has been male. This
group of men is a particularly useful test case for the
Twinkle Theory, for three reasons. First, the deeds and
behaviour of these men are well-known to historians, so
anyone can make their own informed judgements about
their personalities. Secondly, the circumstances of their lives
are largely comparable with one another (in terms of
breeding, privileges, social environment, and vocation), so
the gender of their offspring can be attributed directly to
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their only unique characteristic—their temperament. Lastly,

the intrigues of succession make all patriarchal monarchs
very keen to produce sons, which creates an intense social
dynamic between their temperament and their children.
The English royal line of fathers comprises, as would
any group of men, mainly the most common type—that is,
one who produces a mixture of male and female offspring. I
have mentioned before that if most men are allowed to
father enough children, most will eventually have some of
each sex. The British kings indeed tended to have many
children—sometimes ten or more—and that’s just counting
the legitimate ones, since they also had numerous
mistresses. For the purposes of this chapter, there is no
point dwelling on the circumstances of those kings who had
a fairly even mixture of offspring. It can be assumed that the
life of any king is one of constant ups and downs, and that
this would naturally cause fluctuating masculine or feminine
tendencies. Thus the following fleeting history will skip
rather rapidly through the clearly changeable,
heterogeneous fathers, in order to dwell briefly on those
whose offspring were mainly of one or the other gender.
But let us at least start the analysis with an ideal
example of the most common type of father—the mixed
male, who can exhibit either social sex role depending on
the circumstances he faces. On his masculine side, William
the Conqueror, or William I, was a descendant of Vikings, a
courageous soldier, and a ruthless ruler, who early on in his
youth had to struggle for his rights, in the first instance for
his family inheritance. On his feminine side, he was the son
of a trademan’s daughter, level-headed and an able
administrator, pious, and clean-living. This combination of
aggression and accommodation moulded his military
campaigns into what was described as a calculated mixture
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of terror and mercy; he would literally destroy one village so

as to elicit surrender by the next. His legacies, which
included England’s entire feudal system as well as the
impressive Domesday Book, testify to the political
effectiveness of a balanced social temperament. William I
had five daughters and four sons, including the future
William II and Henry I.
The red-haired William II was a short-lived tyrant
who inherited only his father’s greed and ruthlessness,
imposed harsh taxes, was universally disliked, and produced
no heirs at all. He was succeeded by his brother Henry I,
who was more like their father. Henry’s able, balanced
administration again brought stability and prosperity to
England. He had one son, tragically drowned at sea, and
one daughter, Matilda, who made up for her lost brother by
growing into a very strong-willed woman.
To avoid making Matilda queen, Henry’s nephew
Stephen, grandson of William I, was chosen as the
successor. Stephen was noble, generous, and chivalrous
—strictly feminine traits that were poorly suited to the
harsh realities of medieval politics. Matilda willfully insisted
on her claim to the throne, and led nine years of baronial
civil war against Stephen. During this difficult time,
Stephen naturally had two sons, but neither survived him.
(Meanwhile, Matilda’s rather cowed husband, Geoffrey of
Anjou, also gave her a son, who was named Henry after his
grandfather.)
Stephen was succeeded by this Henry II, a vigorous,
long-reigning king, who represented a welcome return to
the mixed social sex role type of father. He produced three
daughters and five sons, including Richard and John. His
successor, Richard I, called the Lion Heart, was known in
his time as a greedy, arrogant, and cruel man. He died of a
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battle wound, married but childless. His brother and

successor, John, was again the mixed type of father, but
exhibiting mainly the bad traits of each sex role—selfishness
and deviousness on the masculine side, and
manipulativeness and obsessiveness on the feminine side.
He had three daughters and two sons, including another
Henry. Henry III was, in turns, encouraged in his
ambitions, and roundly defeated. These shifting fortunes
gave him three daughters and two sons, the eldest named
Edward.
Edward I was a truly masculine young man, and he
came to the throne, at age 33, in his prime. He was tall,
handsome, athletic, cunning, authoritative, and
commanding—an effective soldier and leader who was to
preside over the true flowering of medieval England. A
cunning military man, he led successful attacks in the
Crusades and on the Continent, but is best remembered for
his campaigns in Britain. Edward’s defeat of the Welsh led
to use of the title ‘Prince of Wales’ for the king’s son. But
later in his reign, he failed to subjugate the more
determined Scots, despite several key victories. His first,
beloved wife Eleanor bore him nine daughters, as would be
expected, and one surviving son, Edward. He was deeply
saddened by her premature death, and therefore, after re-
marriage, had two further sons.
The sole surviving son from Edward I’s happy first
marriage turned out to be much less of a leader. Edward II
was probably bisexual, shunned his royal responsibilities,
and showed an impetuous temper. His wife, before she left
him and plotted his destruction, bore him two daughters
and two sons, including another Edward. Edward III started
the Hundred Years War with France. Although he led
successful attacks, victory was elusive, as England was
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burdened with serious problems at home. Accordingly he

produced a mix: five daughters, and nine sons, including
Edward, the famous Black Prince. The crown went to this
prince’s son, Richard II, who was an ambiguous historical
figure, but of little importance to us since he had no
children. Richard was deposed by Henry IV, another
grandson of Edward III in the line of the Duke of Lancaster.
Henry was a capable, intelligent ruler, but he was hampered
by constant rebellions, due to his imperfect claim of
succession. He had two daughters and four sons, the eldest
being another Henry.
Henry V was probably the first English king to be
thoroughly dedicated to his national social identity—a key
feature of feminine behaviour. He began his reign by
reconciliation with his father’s enemies, and declarations of
allegiance to the Church. To strengthen his rule at home,
Henry staked a claim to the French throne and proceeded
to enforce it in a series of brilliantly strategic battles, which
included his famous victory near Agincourt—which nearly
repaid the Normans for their conquest. (Here is a clear
illustration that ‘feminine’ by no means equals ‘submissive’.)
He again sought reconciliation rather than subjugation,
allowing the mad French king Charles VI to reign on.
Henry became regent and heir—rather than conqueror—of
France, and married the king’s daughter. She bore him, of
course, a son, again named Henry.
Whereas his father epitomised the beneficial effects of
feminine traits, Henry VI showed only the drawbacks. An
infant when he ascended the throne, he soon faced the
revival of France, led by Joan of Arc, and later lost the
Continental empire his father had so boldly won. At home,
jealousies and rivalries started the dynastic War of the
Roses. Sad Henry, who much preferred religion and high
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learning to affairs of state and conquest, was tossed about by

the conflict, and fell prey to periodic fits of madness. His
charming wife, Margaret of Anjou, bore Henry one son. But
so weak was Henry VI that he virtually promised the throne
to his cousin the Duke of York’s son, Edward IV, rather than
his own.
Tall, suave, and good-looking, Edward IV fought early
battles for his crown, and later ruled England firmly and
prosperously. He had five daughters and two sons, the eldest
another Edward. Edward V, at age 12, with his younger
brother Richard of York, became one of the ‘Princes in the
Tower’, and reigned for only three months.
His cousin, Richard III, is variously portrayed (as in
Shakespeare) as the obsessed usurper and murderer of the
two princes, or (by recent historians) as a manipulating but
forthright master of a very unstable dynasty. In any case, the
end of his two-year reign signalled the end of the medieval
period in England. His claim to the crown was weak and
resented by many, and inspired an uprising of discontents
who joined with French soldiers across the channel.
Oppressed by guilt, suspicions, and popular opposition, he
had one son, who did not survive him. Richard himself was
killed in the Battle of Bosworth by a force led by his
successor, the Welshman, Henry Tudor.
As has been suggested, men with an even balance of
offspring, like William I, have the most potential for great
leadership. Henry VII, who had two daughters and two
sons, was to lead England out of the Middle Ages and into
the Renaissance. A descendant of the Duke of Lancaster, he
resolved the War of the Roses by marrying Elizabeth of
York. By clever reforms, he revived respect for the law,
raised considerable finance, and set the old enemy France
against Spain. The younger of Henry’s sons was the next,
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more infamous Henry.

Henry VIII inherited a secure monarchy, well-
financed, and highly respected abroad. In his youth Henry
was tall, handsome, athletic, musical, and scholarly—a true
Renaissance man. He was masculine in all the best senses:
an assertive achiever, an authoritative manager, and
intellectually creative. It was the tragic conflict—as could
have been predicted by the Twinkle Theory—between his
undeniable masculinity, and his desire for a son as royal heir
(to avoid the fate of Richard III, for example), that was to be
his eventual undoing.
The only surviving child of Henry’s first marriage, to
Catherine of Aragon, the popular widow of his older
brother, was naturally a girl, Mary. Hoping to secure a more
fertile wife, less prone to miscarriage, Henry sought a
divorce. But he was unlikely to get one from Rome, where
the Holy Roman Emperor happened to be Catherine’s
nephew. However, with Church reforms abroad, its
unpopularity at home, and progressive Renaissance ideas,
Henry’s masculine tendency to dissent was sorely tempted.
He broke with Rome, set himself up as Supreme Head of
the Church of England, and invalidated his marriage. He
then hurriedly married Anne Boleyn, in secret, but within
three years had executed her for giving birth to—as we
might have predicted—another daughter, Elizabeth.
By now obsessed with producing a male heir, Henry
became fat, insecure, foul-tempered, and manipulative.
Ironically, his increasingly feminine disposition, and his
being surrounded by females, at last yielded the longed-for
son and heir—Edward, by his next wife, Jane Seymour.
Henry’s new temper succeeded in giving him a son, but it
also condemned many good men and women to death, and
inflicted serious damage on the spirit of the nation. Jane
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died soon after Edward’s birth, and Henry tried to get more
male heirs out of three further wives: Anne of Cleeves, to
whom he soon took a dislike; Catherine Howard, who
deceived him and was executed for it; and Catherine Parr,
who outlived him. There were no further children. By the
time of Henry’s death, he was probably the most despised
ruler England ever had. If only he had known about the
Twinkle Theory!
Henry VIII’s precious son and heir, Edward VI, sadly
reigned for only six years, succumbing to illness at the age
of 15. His elder step-sister, Mary, succeeded him, and
restored Catholicism to England, persecuted and executed
Protestants such as Lady Jane Grey (hence ‘Bloody Mary’),
and married Philip II of Spain, but had no children. Her
step-sister, Elizabeth I, then ruled brilliantly for the entire
latter half of the 16th Century, returning the country to
High Anglicanism, surpressing rivals in Scotland, defeating
the Spanish Armada, and sponsoring a profusion of English
literature, art, and exploration. Elizabeth never married.
Her successor, the last of the Tudor line, descended from
Henry VIII’s sister, was James I, King of Scotland. Lacking
the common touch of his predecessors, unable to cope with
the English Parliament, profligate with royal finances, and
probably bisexual, his reign was unsuccessful. He had a
daughter and two sons; the daughter initiated what was to
be the Hanover line of kings; the second son was Charles.
Charles I was a cultivated man, but an inadequate monarch.
He offended Parliament, married a Catholic, and over-taxed
powerful men—which led to an exodus of Puritans, the
English Civil War, and ultimately his execution. His ups and
downs gave him three daughters and three sons, including
another Charles and James. The Restoration of the
Monarchy after Cromwell brought Charles II back from a
79
decadent life of exile in France, to rule alongside a powerful

English Parliament. The new king was affable, witty, and
merry. He took many mistresses, but he married a Catholic
who bore him no heirs.
Charles II’s younger brother James II, an avowed
Catholic, succeeded him. A overly serious, industrious man,
and a courageous soldier, he repelled his illegitimate
nephew’s claim to the throne, and then pressed for the
restoration of Catholicism and the suppression of
parliament. The rather masculine James had two daughters
by an earlier marriage, Mary and Anne, who became
Protestants. But James’ ambitions brought great uncertainty
into his life, as well as open opposition. So when his second
wife, the Queen, became pregnant, it was to be a son, James.
This deepened the country’s fears of a Catholic dynasty, and
when William of Orange, James’ Dutch brother-in-law, was
invited to invade and overthrow the king, James fled abroad
with his wife and son.
A convention then offered the throne jointly to
William of Orange’s son, William III and his wife, Mary II,
elder daughter of James II. Both were solid Protestants.
William and Mary accepted a Bill of Rights that excluded
Catholics from succession, established civil liberties, and
assured an elected parliament of its supremacy. Mary, who
died after only five years as queen, bore no children. They
were succeeded by Mary’s younger sister, Anne, a virtuous
and rather dull monarch, who was married to Prince
George of Denmark but, despite 18 pregnancies, had no
long-surviving children.
James I’s eldest daughter had married a Teuton of the
Rhine, and his German great-grandson George I was the
most direct Protestant heir to England’s parliamentary
throne. This unattractive monarch, who spent little time in
80
England, had imprisoned his wife in a castle for alleged

infidelity. She never again saw their daughter or their son,
George. The reign of George II was notable for victories
over other European powers, colonisation further abroad,
and bitter quarrels at home. He had five daughters and
three sons, including one Frederick. George III, Frederick’s
son, loved England and was loved in turn by his subjects for
his humble tastes, which contrasted with the general
excesses of his court. He managed to hold on to his crown
while revolutions in America and France transformed the
world around him. But in later life he suffered illness and
fits of madness. His mixed experiences gave him six
daughters and nine sons, including another George.
Where his father had been frugal, George IV was
renowned for his voluptuary excesses, especially in later life.
During his father’s long final illness, George the Prince
Regent outraged the king with his drinking and carousing.
But his taste for extravagance also made him the patron of
some of England’s finest creative works, including superb
painting, Regency architecture, and novels. His most
magnificent legacy is perhaps the Brighton pavilion, on
which no expense was spared. But as king, he was also
ostentatious, self-indulgent, boisterous, and wholly
indifferent to the widespread poverty and suffering of his
subjects after the Napoleonic war and at the start of the
industrial revolution. In sum he was wholly masculine:
selfish, arrogant, but creative. His second wife bore him one
child—a daughter, of course, who herself died in childbirth.
The crown went George IV’s brother, William IV, an
Admiral-Prince who, to put it kindly, had not been
promoted for his abilities. He had a mistress who bore him
ten children (sexes unrecorded), but his wife Adelaide bore
none that survived infancy. His niece, the great Victoria,
81
followed him, reigning brilliantly for the rest of the 19th

Century, presiding majestically over the rise of a global
empire and a period of profound social change. She had
nine children, including one Edward.
Before becoming king, Edward VII had been Prince of
Wales for decades, dominated by his forceful mother. As
both prince and king he was known for his genial
demeanour and many self-indulgences, including amorous
liaisons, many race-horses, and gastronomical excesses. But
the king was also a popular monarch, and skillful as an
international diplomat. He had three daughters and two
sons, one called George. A 19th Century man faced with
20th Century problems, George V was a likeable monarch
whose dignity and keen awareness bridged the two eras. He
helped to steer a troubled nation through World War I, the
triumph of socialism in Russia, and the rise of fascism, and
yet he embodied solid family values and lofty ideals.
Determined, yet sensitive and sympathetic to his subjects at
home and abroad, George had one daughter and five sons,
including Edward and another George. Edward VIII was a
man of great promise, but fell in love with a divorced
American, Mrs Simpson, and in order to marry her,
abdicated the throne. They had no children.
Edward’s brother, George VI, succeeded him.
Outwardly shy and nervous as the Duke of York, George
‘had greatness thrust upon him’ and admirably lived up to
the nation’s expectations all through its ‘darkest hours’. He
had fought in the Great War, and was the first royal to
qualify as a pilot. As king, he presided with statesmanship
over a huge empire, became a focus of national pride
through the horrors of the Second World War, and set the
tone for Britain’s graceful, post-war diminishment of its
imperial powers. One can only assume he had ‘greatness’ in
82
him all along. This deeply masculine king naturally had two
daughters, including the present monarch, Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II.
Lastly in England’s royal line, we should note the
temperaments of the two princes who now have children,
the heir apparent Prince Charles and his next younger
brother, Prince Andrew. As it happens, the contrast between
them couldn’t be more poignant in terms of the Twinkle
Theory.
In private, Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, is
quiet, reflective, and sensitive; in public, he is a charming
and sociable royal. He is a firm traditionalist and
conformist—for example, in his manners, speech, and
architectural tastes. Charles also dabbles a bit in domestic
handiwork such as watercolours, storywriting, and
gardening. He is most comfortable with close female
friends, and spends his time supporting liberal social causes
such as environmentalism and youth programmes, having
set up his own social charity, The Prince’s Trust. By Princess
Diana (who in her extreme femininity was rather too similar
to Charles to make a happy marriage), he naturally
produced two sons, Princes William and Harry.
Charles’ brother, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, is
virtually his opposite. Trained as a helicopter pilot, Andrew
saw—and by all accounts enjoyed—fierce action in the
Falkland Islands War. He has since made a career out of the
Navy. Although a good commander on board ship, he is
awkward in mixed civilian society, exhibiting both naivete
and a rude, schoolboy humour. He is very sporty,
uninvolved in society and charities. Not at all taken with the
splendour and romance of royal abodes, he built himself a
crass, suburban mansion for (his equally-masculine and
therefore incompatible wife) Fergie and their two
83
children—daughters, of course—the Princesses Beatrice and

Eugenie.
This concludes my attempt at an ‘objective’ analysis. I
was not at all sure what I would find when I embarked on it.
And even I am a little surprised—especially when one
considers such vivid examples as Edward I, Henry V, Henry
VIII, George VI, and Prince Charles—just how accurate
and relevant the Twinkle Theory turns out to be.
84
Chapter Ten
What Men Are For
In women’s eyes, most men—whether masculine or

feminine in social sex role—are total ego-maniacs. They act
like they are the centre of the universe, that their personal
desires and needs are paramount, and that is it perfectly
reasonable that everyone should be concerned with them at
all times. The truth, as any amateur psychologist will tell
you, is that men act this way because they are deeply
insecure. They are uncertain of their place in the world, of
their own importance, and of other people’s feelings towards
them. Their overblown egoism is a cover—a kind of
bravado that they adopt to ward off their deep-seated
insecurity.
Most women naturally realise that men’s overblown
egos are just a cover for their feelings of insecurity. But
women have a harder time seeing just what it is that makes
men feel so insecure. After all, they still hold most of the
power in virtually every society, and certainly most of the
money. Compared with women, men have a relatively easy
life, with ample time and resources to devote to recreation
and leisure. Their bodies are much easier to maintain and to
dress flatteringly. Men also experience more social and
physical freedom, make friends readily, and stay socially
desirable for their entire adult life. What exactly is their
problem?
Rather than ask what makes a man feel so insecure
about his place in the world, perhaps it would be better to
85
consider what makes a woman feel so secure.

In contrast to a man, the average woman does feel she
knows her place in the world, her importance to the people
who depend upon her, and the nature of her relationships.
Most women of course have some insecurities—about their
bodies and their mothers, for example—but women rarely
question their fundamental reason for being. (There is not,
nor has there ever been, a female following for
metaphysics.) From where does a woman derive her basic
human dignity? My guess is that it comes to her sometime
at the end of adolescence, when she finally becomes deeply
aware of her potential role in procreation.
Whereas a boy’s adolescence is just an awakening of
sexual desire, a girl’s adolescence means much more. Her
sex and fertility become a source of real vulnerability and
susceptibility to the powers of Nature—sex appeal,
pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. Compounding this
fatefulness is a profound connectedness to the continuity of
time (back through her mother and forward through her
future children) and an empathy with other women. In
response to these realisations, an adolescent girl begins to
build in her unconscious an inner self-reliance, and a
confidence to face up to Nature and move on with her life.
After adolescence, if she chooses not to devote herself
immediately to baby-making, the option is not discarded,
but is set squarely into the background of her consciousness.
By pursuing an early career, vocation, or art, she by no
means frees herself from Nature’s calling, but willfully and
constantly makes a choice to keep it at bay. Throughout her
youth, until middle age, a woman derives comfort and
security from the ever-present knowledge that there is
another kind of life she could at any time enter into. (This is
of course why some women, regardless of what they are
86
doing, start to panic when they haven’t found a reliable

partner by their mid-thirties.) In brief, a woman’s potential
or actual motherhood is a kind of existential safety net,
which bestows on her a profound inner peace and dignity.
This dignity is also upheld and reinforced by female friends
and relations, whose own confidence allows them to be
sympathetic and honest in their dealings with her.
It may be hard for women to imagine not having it,
but men simply do not have this existential safety net. They
have no natural ‘raison d’etre’. As a result, they are in a
permanent state of existential crisis. Beneath their
education, career, pleasures, family, buddies, sports, politics,
and obsessions—is a yawning, infinite canyon of
nothingness. To calm the vertigo and stop themselves falling
literally into meaninglessness, men are constantly having to
invent an aim, a direction, and values on which to build
their lives. They struggle to create meaning in their work,
to hear evidence of their own importance, to gain attention
for their needs and wants, and to be re-assured of their place
in relationships and in the world around them. This is the
attitude that appears—especially to women—to be sheer
ego-mania. Most of the time, men are unfortunately
grasping at straws to create a semblance of purpose in their
lives. They sometimes fail, turning to drink, philandering,
apathy, hopelessness, or wandering. Those who don’t
obviously fail—regardless of their superficial successes
—would agree, if they thought about it, that they are
ultimately only fooling themselves.
This is also the reason that the vast majority of men
are not honest and forthright with women, why they do not
behave naturally around them, and why most husbands’
inner feelings, fears, and fantasies go unspoken. Quite
simply, men dare not risk having their intricately woven web
87
of self-delusion torn to shreds by the scurrilous attacks of

more confident creatures. And women are all too quick to
ridicule men and humiliate them, unaware that they are
cruelly dangling a fellow human being on the precipice of
nothingness. Men, for their part, defend themselves against
attack by continuous private murmurings of misogyny and
displays of disrespect. Hence the war of the sexes: one sex
which feels it must conceal its true inner life from the other;
and another sex which feels oppressed by and lives partly in
fear of emotional or even physical abuse by the former.
I hope that the Twinkle Theory, if widely accepted,
may help put an end to this tragic and debilitating conflict.
For acceptance of the theory is tantamount to an
acknowledgement of the crucial role of the male in
procreation and in the broader viability of the species. This
feeling of being useful and necessary is, I believe, the
existential basis for any thinking creature’s self-respect and
dignity.
The Twinkle Theory identifies several ways in which
the character of the father—’who’ he is, and not just ‘what’
he is—is a necessary contributor to the future viability of his
progeny, his family, his larger social group, and indeed the
species.
First and foremost, a father’s temperament, in
determining his child’s sex, directly helps his immediate
social group get what it needs for survival—a new masculine
member when its fortunes need improving, or a new
feminine member when its social cohesion is under threat.
Secondly, the father’s production of a gender opposite to his
current temperament enables the social group to maintain
its necessary and delicate balance of social sex role
behaviour. Thirdly, the father’s temperamental changeability
is itself a key ingredient in his family’s and progeny’s
88
survival—helping them to take advantage in times of

prosperity and to build bridges in times of adversity.
Without the chameleon-like temperament of fathers,
neither families nor the social group at large could so easily
adapt to a changing world.
The Twinkle Theory also suggests another, broader
sense in which fathers may play a role in procreation. If it is
the father who determines the gender of his child, it is not
unlikely that he also determines other key characteristics of
the child—features which likewise satisfy the changing
needs of the social group. To aid its viability or
cohesiveness, a social group may at times need—in addition
to a balance of masculinity or femininity—varying degrees
of, for example: exploration, orderliness, gregariousness,
communication, abstraction, curiosity, calculation, hard
work, perfection, creativity, and independence. How
individuals vary in these traits is the essence of who they are,
and what they can contribute to the social group. Since
men, with their inherent changeability, reflect the changing
needs of the social group, it makes sense that it is men who
determine all these many features of an offspring’s
character—not only whether the child is a boy or a girl, but
also how bold, sociable, inquisitive, hard working, and
inventive that person is likely to be: in a word, his or her
potential personality.
This rather profound assessment of the father’s
contribution to procreation is by no means intended to
belittle that of the mother. Whereas the father may largely
determine the offspring’s unique potential, the mother
determines the actual development and fruition of that
special potential—and of the child’s generic potential as a
human being. For this purpose, whereas the father
represents changeability, the mother represents constancy,
89
since this is what any growing being needs most.

A female’s eggs are fully formed even before she is
born, and stay the same throughout her life. Then, at
conception, in the same way that she always contributes the
‘X’ chromosome, while her partner may contribute either an
‘X’ or a ‘Y’, the mother imbues the child with the very
essence of the species—the precious genetic heritage that
defines it as a human being. As the foetus develops, the
mother’s own body becomes a secure and stable
environment for its growth. Then after the birth, the
developing child benefits from the constancy of a mother’s
presence—not only for care and nourishment, but also for
familiarity and routine. And as the child grows and learns
independence, it builds its entire world view on the
foundation of that early, unchanging maternal order. All this
is reinforced by the mother’s intuitive, and socially
encouraged, femininity: unwavering compassion, the
unconscious inculcation of her received culture in the child,
and—as every mother knows—constant accommodation to
the child’s needs and wants.
The mother and father are equally important to the
viability of the family, society, and the species.
Unfortunately, at least in the Western world of the late 20th
Century, it is only women who seem able to take their
importance for granted—and to live contentedly, day-by-
day, secure in the knowledge of their underlying purpose on
earth, whether or not they wish to fulfil it. Now I believe it
is time for men to come to that same realisation, and to
possess the same security and contentment in their lives. I
believe this would benefit not only them, but also their
relationships and society at large.
What are men for? In light of the Twinkle Theory, the
90
answer is clear: men exist to embody the social condition, to

give voice to the Zeitgeist, to act out the spirit of their age.
Responding to their perceived social condition in their
every thought and action, men consciously engage in a
Darwinian competition for the viability of their social
group. And by their effect on the gender and character of
their offspring, men unconsciously maximise the next
generation’s ability to carry on the struggle.
The essence of Darwin’s theory of evolution is that
helpful new characteristics in a species are naturally selected
by the pressures of a changing environment. Whereas all
living things inherit physical characteristics, the human
being also evolves—more quickly and effectively—on the
higher plane of cultural adaptation. And just as changes in
the natural environment drive the evolution of a species, so
do changing social conditions drive the progress of every
culture. It is a man’s role to witness, absorb, communicate,
and assimilate social change—and ultimately to respond to
those changes—through his direct behaviour and through
its indirect effect on the gender and character of his
offspring.
Every aspect of culture that appeals naturally to
men—for example, politics, sports, war, economics, science,
technology, or engineering—does so because it both mimics
and reflects changing social conditions. The world of
spectator sports, for example, is a Darwinian microcosm,
involving competition, rankings, new players, and
impending struggles. Men are equally obsessed with
political news and commentary, itself a microcosm of
natural selection with direct causal links to social climates
and trends.
Without men playing their part, most great social
change would go unnoticed. Societies would carry on as
91
they are for a while, but cultures would soon stagnate and
fail to adapt. The uniquely cultural evolution of humanity
would virtually cease, and the species would soon be ousted
from the peak of the evolutionary tree. Thus men, far from
being redundant to human society, are essential to its long-
term viability. Just as every woman is profoundly connected
to the biological continuity of the species, every man is
profoundly connected to the cultural progress of his
society—in a word, to history. When men record the story
of cultural progress, they naturally see themselves in the
central role. In the most general sense: women make life;
men make history.
It is up to men to make the future as well. By their
actions they shape their society for greater and greater
viability and competitiveness. And by determining the
character of their offspring, they shape the success of every
subsequent generation. The ‘twinkle in a father’s eye’ is
literally a reflection of his social condition, which will soon
mould itself into a new, more effective member of that
society. Every twinkle in a man’s eye is a tiny, magical
glimmer of the world to come.
92
If you enjoyed this work, try these other Online Originals:
Being and Becoming by Christopher Macann

Egoism and the Crisis in Western Values by Elton O’Keeffe
Green Grass and Stones by Dorothy K Fraser
Beyond the Wilderness by Kenneth Robinson
On the Web at www.onlineoriginals.com
Online Originals
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The Twinkle Theory

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One evening in spring, my wife, young son, and I went to a

and a muscle shirt.”

little if any significance in child bearing or rearing. In terms

To put it succinctly, the Twinkle Theory holds that a child’s

Why should it be the case that psychology affects

does not re-open the nature/nurture debate. Rather, it

Theory than it is for, say, the theory of evolution, or for

Nature does not work by accident, and there are good

through its accumulated knowledge, complex technology,

Although the above will sound like sexist cliché to any

pregnancy and infant care—which may not be desirable in

feminine in order to share and pool resources.

putting the family group at risk—and indeed, putting at risk

There probably are, in modern societies, the equivalent of

inherited traits are most likely to balance their fathers’

What are men like when they are producing female

behaviour—which again can come from either a man or a

involved as children. To repeat (and please take note, any

men later develop their assertiveness into an art form, and

the road. The dissenting driver ignores yield and give-way

authority on everything. He believes he has more

Does this broad picture of masculine behaviour

What is also interesting, in light of the Twinkle

There is a scene in the movie called ‘Sleepless in Seattle’

people. Feminine people are sensitive to other people’s

or morals, which may help to form an underlying ethical

around them exactly as it comes, and embrace it

requisite inner qualities, such as a sense of humble civility.

in its vision of itself and expressing this vision faithfully.

But in himself, he is frequently indecisive. He has

It occurs to everyone who begins to consider the Twinkle

factors: the length of time over which a man’s conceptions

will need to be assertive; at other times, willing to give in.

actually conceive their children determines whether they

locations on the evening news, this journalist looks the part

gave him a shot at a difficult overseas assignment that was

patterns, it is usually the contrast between living with one

‘fits’, as she called them, attributing them in her mind to

The third factor that I believe is sufficiently powerful

enough for them.

Whenever expectant parents are asked whether they want a

apparent in every natural phenomenon, is to achieve a

travel-based career allows, he shares in the housework

three, just as she started to assert her budding feminist will

child a powerful inclination to femininity, which came out

she wants him to father, respectively, a girl or a boy. One

Thirdly, a woman can try changing, or at least

before he does, disagree with his views when he states them,

up in such a way that he thinks he’s doing it himself. Slyly

the above approaches, nevertheless please heed my

This chapter sounds rather titillating. Indeed, the subject of

communicate biologically to his offspring the urgent needs

division of labour. A woman, when she does consent to

Both these types of male sexual behaviour—masculine

transsexual surgery. Tendencies to be overly-compassionate

on top and stay there, and always keep in control. In this

overtly feminine, whether playing the part of a doting carer

as an expression of their liberation, that is, to create a

There is no empirical evidence, at least none that I know of,

the Twinkle Theory will be used to help people reconcile