They eat steak – lots of bloody, delicious cow meat.

It seems women don’t like vegetarian men – they want their men to eat meat, even if they themselves don’t. This brings us back to nature over nurture, survival of the species, and all that other great stuff that my creationist friends are uncomfortable with.

Here’s the thing: Not eating meat is a choice; eating meat is an instinct. I learned that from the great philosopher and human studies professor Dennis Leary. What Leary didn’t know when he recorded his brilliant No Cure for Cancer album was that soy products, which make up the bulk of protein consumed by vegetarians, is teaming with an estrogen-like chemical. Basically, too much of it will turn a man into his Aunt Ida.

In fact, many of the reasons men give for abstaining from meat – hormones in the cattle leading to man boobs, for example – will happen to them anyway if they eat too much soy.

Plus, it lowers sperm count. So if a woman is of child-bearing years, even if she doesn’t particularly want children, she is more likely to turn to a virile partner as opposed to a flaccid sprout-muncher.

My own gentleman friend lives on red meat. He’s Atkins but with beer (lots and lots of beer). Getting him to eat any vegetable beyond a french fry is impossible. He takes the whole meat-eating thing a little too far. That said, a healthy woman can smell fertility on him, and that makes him more attractive than his so-called “healthy” peers. On the plus side, he’ll also be dead in a few years, and he’s promised I can have his comfy bed.

Goodwill trumps common sense