Et Tu, Cynthia?

Want to know about a day in the life if your Playboy Men columnist? Hey, it's a breeze. I go into the office and take a sauna, get a massage from one of the Playmates, drink some champagne from the water cooler. It makes for a tough morning, but I survive.

Christie often asks me out for lunch. Hef calls to say hello. We laugh a lot. Then, along about three in the afternoon, I go back to the office and write my column. True, it's hard to type while the centerfold feeds me grapes, but I suffer through it.

If you believe any of the above, I've got some ocean-front property in Arizona that I'll sell you for a song.

No, writing the Men column isn't one big party. I'd say it's more like walking point in the jungle. There are a lot of ambushers out there--mostly women--and they take their shots and throw their darts.

Here are some recent hits I've stumbled into during my walk in the sun:

• "I'm going to take karate and then I'm going to break your neck, Baber."• "You're trashing the sisterhood. You're trashing my revolution and everything I've worked for."• "Your entire life is a lie."• "Why do you think nobody talks to you? Because nobody wants to be quoted in your shitty column."• "Antifeminist propaganda has reached an alarming high. Even my erstwhile pal Asa Baber has joined the band wagon in his recent Men columns. This depresses me."That last quote is from Cynthia Heimel's August Women column ("Holiday Healing"). I checked the dictionary to make sure I got it right. Erstwhile means former. The dictionary says it's an archaic-word, but I think it's very contemporary.

I've got a lot of erstwhile pals who have rejected me on the basis of what I've written and published, among them cocaine dealers in Hollywood, certain real-estate developers, a few commodities traders, the leadership of the Contras, executives of Korean Air Lines, bankers and boozers, spooks and spies.

I've pissed a lot of people off with my writing, and I'll tell you a secret: I've never felt ashamed of or apologetic about my work. I know it makes some people angry, but I also know I have to write it as I see it.

But there's another secret that lies deeper: I really dislike being disliked. Underneath it all, I'm just another jerk on the highway of life who craves love and affection. Especially from women.

Especially from Cynthia.

Until now, Cynthia and I have done a good job of giving each other room, of living and letting live. I don't think columnists should bicker. It's amusing for a short time, but then it sours. So I'm not here to start a "Point Counterpoint." We all have better things to do. But a woman I like a lot has just iced me out of her life and called me a propagandist. I'd like to tell you a couple of things about her.

For several years now, I've toyed with the idea of a column called "My Dinner with Cynthia." It would be a humorous column about our one evening together in Chicago--the only time we've really talked. We went to an Armenian restaurant that's a favorite of mine. Arsen, the proprietor, serves a mean kabob and lets you sit at your table for hours.

Cynthia and I hit it off immediately. We laughed and chortled and shared. She kidded me, I kidded her. She fluffed her long, tousled hair and I sucked in my gut to prove that the beer hadn't bloated it. We talked about writing, about our divorces, about our children, about Playboy. I thought that there was great affection and respect between us, a strong camaraderie.

"My Dinner with Cynthia" was going to be a report on that evening. It was going to start in a way that I hoped would amuse and infuriate the stunning Heimel. I was going to claim that Cynthia had been all over me, a lust-crazed columnist, a woman who threw herself at me, crawled under the tablecloth to get to it, moaned and groaned and carried on like a nymphomaniac. "Please, Cynthia, not now!" I would claim I'd kept saying. Then, at the end, I'd admit that it was my fantasy, not hers.

I can't do that now, of course. Cynthia, like not a few women I know, has written me out of her life because of some of the things I've written. I write antifeminist propaganda. I'm her erstwhile pal.

I can't retract what I've written, and I don't think it's antifeminist propaganda. I've said something very simple, really: The empress of feminism has no clothes. She's as naked as Cynthia in the Caribbean, but all of her subjects are intentionally blind to that fact and claim that she's robed and sceptered and on her throne. I've seen through her pose. I understand that feminism has a strong tinge of sexism, a sexism that locks out men and creates even greater divisions in our culture. We can all do better than that. Sexism of all persuasions is the enemy.

Cynthia, my erstwhile sister, what's so wrong with that thought? And why have you taken such a shot at me as a writer? We're not even pals anymore because of what I've written? Sounds familiar, Cyn. You'll hate me for this, but I've got to say it: Sounds just like a woman.

Want to know why so many men are uncomfortable challenging feminism today? They see through it. They understand that it's a form of sexism, that it argues not for equality but for superiority, not for rights but for privileges. But Cynthia, my dear kabob nibbler, men are very frightened of being frozen out by women. You've proved once again that such fears are justified. You've erased our friendship with a stroke of the key. Sort of a bitchy thing to do, isn't it?

I learned long ago that it's both risky and fun to walk point. You see more from that vantage and, unless you get badly dinged, you get to your destination first. And at some moment during each journey, you have the sense that you're walking through unexplored territory, that you're living by your wits. Honestly, it's a ball.

OK, Cynthia, my dearest darling, I'm going to give you a chance to take me back. What do you say, huh? Want some paklava? I can't promise I'll write what you want, but I'll let you be on top for a while, the way you like it. Promise.