Many of you will know I am easily confused.

It happened again the other day when I picked up the paper and read that Liberal senator Bill Heffernan had won an award for the sexiest remark.

“Good old Bill,” I thought.

“Ï wouldn’t have thought of him as a smooth sort of guy.

“I wonder what he said that was so darned sexy?”

I kept reading, to learn that he was being recognised for referring to fellow politician Julia Gillard as being “deliberately barren”.

“There’s hope for me yet if women reckon that’s a sexy line,” I said to my wife.

“I’ve got at least a dozen better come-ons than that.”

My wife grabbed the newspaper and read the article.

“That’s sexist, you idiot,” she said.

“He’s made a sexist remark – not the sexiest remark.”

It turns out good old Bill had taken out the annual Ernie award for the most sexist comment by an Australian man.

And it seems he is in fairly select company.

The women behind the awards this year reckoned Joe Hockey, when he was workplace and employment minister, deserved a jersey for saying he found his wife’s pregnancy exhausting.

“I don’t know why, during the birth process, they only focus on women,” he said.

Now how could he be in trouble for that?

I’m sure he was referring to the belief held in some cultures that we men could play a far better role in the birthing process if we were more relaxed.

Therefore, neck and shoulder rubs from a qualified masseuse would be a great help.

How is that selfish?

It’s all about being there for our women folk, isn’t it?

I sat through four births and, let me tell you, it wasn’t all beer and skittles.

Well, it wasn’t all skittles.

I did manage to sneak a few beers into the delivery room the last time.

Got myself a lifetime ban for that little episode, didn’t I.

But I digress.

I was talking about sexist comments.

There are some comments worthy of Ernie Awards that I could not possibly condone.

For instance, there is no way I could support the likes of Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali, the mufti who infamously described Australian women as “uncovered meat”.

Nor could I condone Rene Rivkin’s driver, Gordon Wood, who allegedly asked a morgue attendant, “do you mind if I look at her tits?” when he was identifying his dead girlfriend.

I’m not sure if he was just being a sexist pig or he honestly couldn’t recognise her with a top on.

But I have to be honest, some of the Ernie winners over the years have been funny.

Oh come on, sure they have.

How about NSW politician Charlie Lynn, who dug himself into a hole when he said he wasn’t happy about giving his credit card details to someone else – it was bad enough that his wife had them.

Apparently, the Ernies were named after a union official who was famous for sexist comments.

Probably his best known was: “Women aren’t welcome in the shearing sheds. They’re only after sex.”

Even I can see the problem with that one.

Of course, I’m well known as a big supporter of equality.

You hardly ever hear me complain about giving women the right to vote, do you?

No! I rest my case.

But a man has to have limits and the one place I draw the line is women’s boxing.

Stay with me now, I’m heading off on a tangent.

Women’s boxing is just not natural, if you ask me.

How about that girl from Byron Bay? The one who used to be a high-flying lawyer in London but gave it away to take up professional boxing.

She’s doing all right, apparently. A whole lot better than one of her opponents who, on taking a solid punch to the body, started crying and refused to carry on.

I’m sure I could come up with a sexist comment on that one if I tried hard enough.