'Babe,' he said. 'I punched him straight in the face'

Kelly Brook has a new autobiography out.

While you contain your excitement, I'll share with you what the publicity surrounding it caused me to ponder: Why is domestic violence towards men still accepted and what does this mean for the proposed UK law on "emotional abuse"?

The British supermodel has admitted to assaulting two of her former beaux: former England rugby player Danny Cipriani and actor Jason Statham, of Transporter fame.

"As I headed back towards the table I saw Danny walking towards me. 'Babe' he said, 'I've been looking for you'. I punched him straight in the face."

A pretty unequivocal confession there, quoted direct from the book in the weekend's tabloids, amid numerous pics of Brook, 35, in her undercrackers, just in case you had a fleeting temptation to reproach her.

"I smacked him for giving a stripper his number in a club," she boasted in the Sun on Sunday.

Brook also describes how she became angry when she heard Statham talking to Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow at Madonna's wedding to Guy Ritchie in 2000.

The Daily Mail quoted her as saying: ''Jason started to swing his hips from side to side and do a little jive with his arms, saying: 'Gywnnie, Gwynnie, Gwynnie. Sexy, sexy, sexy!' He turned round, only to be met with my fist in his face.''

Oh, how we chortled. Or at least were invited to.

It was the same reaction we were invited to have when footage emerged of Solange Knowles attacking Jay-Z in a lift. Condemnation was scant.

According to the charity Mankind Initiative, one in six men will experience domestic violence. It's already incredibly difficult for men to admit they have been abused by their partner without the media reinforcing the idea that women beating up men is actually rather funny.

The new law will permit victims to take action when they are subjected to "any incident of threatening behaviour, violence or abuse, whether psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional".

In the past two months, two of my close male friends have found the courage to walk away from toxic relationships in which they were bullied by their female partner.

The treatment they were subjected to would almost certainly have been defined as emotional abuse under the proposed law.

Their girlfriends constantly demanded to know their whereabouts, became obsessively jealous and often used emotional blackmail to get their way.

When I expressed my concerns to mutual friends they were met with one of two reactions: either "We don't know both sides of the story" or "She must be fantastic in bed. Tee-hee."

I cannot imagine the responses would be anywhere near as casual if we had been discussing a woman we knew.