Jilly Cooper has said men and women can’t flirt any more (PA)
Jilly Cooper has said the #MeToo era means men and women can no longer flirt with each other.
The author – known for racy reads such as Riders, Rivals and Polo – said the movement has changed the way people interact.
She told the Sunday Times: “You can’t flirt any more. We used to have so much more fun!”
Cooper, 81, said her lothario character Rupert Campbell-Black, who features in many of her books and is known for his sexual exploits, “would be locked up in prison” in the current climate.
The writer said she feels for those speaking out about sexual abuse and harassment, and that it was “horrible, horrible, horrible”.
“But what worries me is that some poor man at the end of his life will be hauled out and told that he jumped on somebody in the year BC,” she added.
Cooper, whose husband Leo died in 2013, said she had not suffered assault in her own life.
“Men on the whole have been very nice to me,” she said.
“I love being wolf-whistled. I know men shouldn’t jump on everybody. But I do think men have stronger libidos than women.”
