I seem to have taken my eye off the ball when it comes to dating etiquette.

It’s been so long since I’ve been “on the pull” (by which I mean, of course, becoming increasingly gobby, clumsy and silly with the passing of each drink) that I’m out of the loop.

Until, that is, I tuned into Stand By Your Man (Fridays, 10pm) by mistake.

Dear god, this new Channel Five show has hit a bum note. And that’s quite an achievement for a channel owned by Richard “Dirty Digger” Desmond that pumps out programmes about as tasteful as an arse sandwich (exhibit one: Autopsy: Anna Nicole-Smith’s Last Hours).

“What kind of girl are you looking for?” asks renowned love guru (well, he did bag Kerry Katona as a wife) and presenter Brian McFadden. “Tits. Fanny. Definitely,” answers contestant. This is the romantic high point.

Now, I’m the last person to diss telly that crosses to the wrong side of “classy”.

I like people when they are so unedited, normal and simple that they are sometimes genius. This is what makes Gogglebox great. British, specifically low-end, northern humour is one of this country’s finest exports.

We are world class when it comes to willy jokes. (Insert your favourite willy joke here and enjoy.) I like telly most when it is a convenient portal into antibull at the end of a long day. Stand By Your Man certainly has realism.

Yes, in this dizzying neon-flashing C5 set, the alcopops are flowing. The music is pumping. Forty women have zipped themselves into Spanx and polyester boob tubes (“I do have a plan,” says singleton Lizzie. “To show lots of cleavage”).

It could be any night of the week in a nightclub in Bigg Market, Newcastle. So far, so fun.

But, as we are told repeatedly, the girls want one thing: “action”. Not “friendship and maybe more”, not “GSOH”, not even a two-for-one dinner date at KFC.

I don’t want to sound like one of the green-pen brigade or Sinead O’Connor writing a private open letter to Miley Cyrus, but girls: you deserve better than this.

That is not a bold feminist statement, really. Everyone deserves better than being asked to woop and cheer like a seagull after a chip when a series of “four frisky fellas” shake their feeble bits.

I thought Take Me Out was bad, with its cheesy sub-Cilla innuendoes, Paddy McGuiness and holidays to the isle of Fernando’s “where the gardens have got more roses than Cheryl Cole’s bum tattoo”.

I now feel oddly fond of it. At least Paddy’s willy gags had a bit of cheeky charm as foreplay. Brian’s don’t. The effect is similar to being violated at a Wetherspoons. In terms of feminism, Stand By Me makes Take Me Out look like a Hillary Clinton biopic.

Luckily, after Dolly Parton’s belting performance at Glasto, there is a rallying cry for the sisterhood elsewhere on the screen. Girls Will Be Girls on BBC2 (Monday) where frontwoman of The Slits Viv Albertine talks to Miranda Sawyer about punk from the perspective of the only person at the party without a penis.

Forty years ago, Viv and her mates Poly Styrene, Siouxie Sioux and Chrissie Hynde forced their way into the music scene, marking their territory.

These trailblazers perfected the noble art of not giving a toss what anyone thought and bending men’s minds out of shape.

I’d love to see the girls on Stand By Me crank up a bit of that attitude and storm out, perhaps flashing their bums. But I won’t be darkening C5’s doorstep tonight to find out if they do.

Good luck, girls.