The next day I thought about him constantly, and when he came over that night it was wonderful. After dinner I put on the music to A Star Is Born, being the romantic nut that I am, and so there we were, dancing to this music in my living room; he’s holding me so close and the world is just spinning around me. Here’s this man who really likes me, who’s strong, who’s willing to work on a relationship. All this stuff is flashing through my mind while I’m floating away with him, feeling so terrific. It was the most romantic thing that ever happened to me.

Plenty, but not all. There’s an unpleasant sneering quality to Bon Scott’s assertion on Carry Me Home: “You ain’t no lady but you sure got taste in men/That head of yours has got you by time and time again.” In Let Me Put My Love Into You, Johnson sings: “Don’t you struggle, don’t you fight/Don’t worry cause it’s your turn tonight”, a grim rape fantasy with the payoff: “Let me cut your cake with my knife.” AC/DC are the worst. This much I know. They are preposterously smutty, hopelessly unsophisticated, and pretty much every one of their songs sounds the same. As well as big riffs, they are defined by casual sexism and oafish double entendres. When not extolling the delights of fighting, gambling, drinking and fast cars, their songs are about getting laid or hoping to get laid. Their songs are populated by strippers, prostitutes and young men with apparently unvanquishable erections. They really are appalling. Man, I love AC/DC. Very important and much needed...This how-to book could be a lifesaver." -- Abigail Van Buren, "Dear Abby" In this superb self-help guide, Dr. Susan Forward draws on case histories and the voices of men ad women trapped in these relationships to help you understand you man's destructive pattern, the part you play in it, how to break the pattern, heal the hurt, regain your self-respect, and either rebuild your relationship or find the courage to love a truly loving man. These matters came to a head when the band announced a new tour and my daughter asked if we could go to see them together. It would be her first stadium gig and I couldn’t have been more delighted. And then I started to panic.

A few years ago, while my daughter was playing with a group of girls at a friend’s house, I overheard one of them prancing around in front of a mirror and wondering out loud if she looked fat. It was just role-play, an imitation of something seen on television or perhaps said by a parent, but it was chilling to hear; an unsettling fantasy of future anxiety. She was beautiful and had a figure that wouldn’t quit. She had her own business and was making a go of it by herself. She’d raised her son and seemed to have done a good job of that. I’d never met anyone like her. She was outgoing and bubbly and enthusiastic about everything I was doing with my life, even about my kids. She was perfect. I started calling all my friends to tell them about her. I even called my mother. I tell you, I never felt like that before. I never thought about anyone so much or dreamed about them all the time like I dreamed about her. I mean, this was really different.

Damaging male behaviour has for a while been called “toxic masculinity”, but the problem with accusing people like Johnson of toxic masculinity is that what they will choose to hear is a) that they are very masculine (jolly good!), and b) that masculinity itself is fundamentally poisonous (which proves that the speaker must be a crazed man-hater).Interesting read, but some of the ideas and opinions expressed are outdated at best and potentially dangerous at worst. We were having dinner with John, who had introduced us, and his wife. She turned to me and said, “I know you two have just met but I’ve never seen two people look so right together.” Then she took my hand and said, “You are going to marry this man.” Mark nodded and said to me, “Pay attention to what she’s saying. She’s a very smart girl.” Then he whispered to me, “You’ve got a problem and his name is Mark.” I laughed and replied “Why, are you going to be around for a while?”“I certainly am,” he said. Then, when he took me home that night, we were sitting in the car in front of my house and he kissed me and said, “I know this sounds crazy, but I’m in love with you.” Now that’s romantic. It’s this context that, in the case of AC/DC, renders their lyrics daft as opposed to damaging. In seeing the band for what they really are – a bunch of archly sex-obsessed idiots with sharp tunes and some seriously killer riffs – she might just grow up to love them critically, but love them all the same. Jim was 36 when he met Rosalind. He was as carried away as she was by their romance; she was the woman he’d been looking for all his life. As he later told me:

Bob’s deceptiveness should have been a warning to Laura that she needed to take a closer look at him, but she didn’t want to see. She wanted to believe that Bob was the man of her dreams. The fantasy, of course, is that we’re going to feel like that forever. We’ve been told all our lives that romantic love has magical powers to make us whole and happy as women. Literature, TV, and movies help to reinforce this belief. The paradox is that even the most destructive misogynistic relationship starts out filled with just this kind of excitement and expectation. My client Laura’s whirlwind courtship started out literally “across a crowded room.” At the time, she was a successful account executive for a major cosmetics firm, a very pretty woman with light brown hair, dark almond-shaped eyes, and a slender figure. She was 34 when she and Bob first met. She was out one evening with a woman friend at a restaurant:I had gone to make a phone call and when I returned to our table there was this very handsome man sitting there talking to my friend. He had noticed me and was waiting for my return. There was electricity between us from that first moment. I don’t think I was ever so attracted to anyone before in my life. He had those flashing eyes that I just can’t resist. I was so turned on by him that I couldn’t wait to go to bed with him.