The driving force behind modern feminism is not women. It's men.

I recently had a chance to learn this for myself when I submitted the picture above to a room full of the employees of a small manufacturer of marine products, which has employed me to create the graphics for a video game to promote their website and products online. The room contained both men and women.

Before I give you their reactions, let me explain that I included a beautiful woman in the picture because part of the game involves rescuing a shipwrecked survivor from an island with buried treasure. I posed her on the title screen in the fashion of a game show model directing our attention to the game's attractions. It was not my intention to create an overtly sexual woman, merely a very attractive one.

Yet as far as the men in the room were concerned, I'd done the former. These guys were clearly enamoured of Amy's breasts and curvy shape, and several made enthusiasticly lude comments about Amy and the suction of the whirlpool which appears in the game.

The women stayed quiet through the chorus of verbal testosterone. Then, almost in response to this silence, some of the guys began to suggest that perhaps Amy's 'sexual' pose and voluptuous proportions should be toned down in consideration of the women and children who might play the game. Some even thought it might be best to remove her completely.

These were the very same guys who only moments earlier were ready to have sex with a computer screen, thanks to my Amy.

It was the women in the room who quixotically came to my defence. One suggested that the girl should stay, but that perhaps a male hunk could be added to the scene. I wouldn't want to rescue a guy, replied another, I'd want him to rescue me. She reminded everyone that Amy was just a cartoon, and that I shouldn't change a thing. She was beautiful, she said, and she invited men to rescue her. She served her purpose well.

We've all encountered the kind of woman who covers her children's eyes when a beautiful woman walks by or appears on tv. The kind who believe that sexy women - or pictures of sexy women - will corrupt their children. We call them feminists, religious conservatives, or even concerned parents. Happily, these days this type of woman seems to be becoming rarer and rarer, at least in real life.

But, unfortunately, she has a modern male equivalent; one who is becoming more and more common; one who is advocating in their absence everything feminists used to. He's the kind of guy who is keeping modern feminism alive.

I'm talking about the kind of guy who lusts for every sexy woman he sees then turns around and denounces sexy women, and depictions of them. For example, one of the guys in that room - the one who had originally come up with the suggestion to get rid of Amy - later had this to say about a beautiful woman in a bikini who appeared in the local paper: "Can you imagine the twat on that thing?"

For years feminists have been revealing how they see beautiful women by telling us that beautiful and sexy women are nothing but boobs and bums bouncing around for the pleasure of men. In spite of the fact that this is how feminists see beautiful women, since the only direct knowledge anyone has of others' feelings is by introspection, there are men out there who do see women as pieces of meat, or, to be more exact, who see beautiful women as pieces of meat.

But it's important for women who want to find a man they can trust to realize that the men who see women as mere body parts or pieces of meat are NOT the guys who openly enjoy beautiful women or even pornography. The guys women have to watch out for are the guys who enjoy female beauty and sexuality only as a guilty secret - the guys who denounce images of beautiful women in the name of women and children. They are male feminists. And these days, they seem like the only feminists.

To the guys out there who do want to defend beautiful women but are afraid: C'mon guys, it's time to drop the guilt feminists have instilled in you about sex and beautiful women. As my wife Leanne said, Amy is not a sexist insult to women. She is an invitation to chivalry. So, in fact, is every beautiful woman. You should consider yourselves invited to defend them, from all feminists, female or male.