Revealing (not for the first time, mind) that she herself had been forced into sex she didn't want on several occasions, she told GQ magazine she thought the date rape issue was "a tricky one".

That a woman couldn't expect the law to prosecute a date rapist if she had voluntarily gone to his bedroom, undressed and indulged in foreplay.

And, to be honest, I don't think that was quite the way she wanted it to sound.

I assume that what Mirren thought she was saying was that if a woman gets herself into such a situation, it's going to be hard for anyone to prove that the rest of what happened wasn't consensual. That it all becomes a grey area.

Which is all too true. So why the hoo-hah?

Because what police, the courts and women's rights groups having been trying to do for far too long now is to make it very clear that women always have the right to say no to sex - whatever the circumstances. And that men who don't accept no and carry on regardless can and will be sent to prison.

I can't imagine Mirren disagrees. But hers were the mixed up comments of a woman born into a different era.

Times, and our rights, have changed a great deal since Mirren was a shy young thing all alone in Sixties London.

As she herself said in the rest of that fateful interview: "I love the fierceness of young girls nowadays and the way they just say, "F*** off".

"I didn't have the courage to say that to men who wouldn't take no for an answer. I was very innocent when I went to college in London. I was looking for love and for someone who just liked me, made me laugh and was nice to me. And instead I just met all these creeps."

I'd say her latest comments indicate she still carries much of that naivety.

Nowadays, women vehemently believe that, if at any time during the dating/snogging/fondling process they decide they don't want their body invaded any further, then it shouldn't be.

And the vast majority of modern men know that, too. They HAVE acknowledged that they are not animals; that they can rein in their raging impulses even if a woman is naked and under the sheets with them.

There are pathetic ones who sneer that women in short skirts and low-cut tops are "asking for it" and label women teasers. Their own insecurities turn what they see as a rebuttal from embarrassment to anger and bitterness. And it is always directed at the woman.

I don't think there's much chance of enlightening the sad (and potentially dangerous) men who can't think beyond animalistic. Far better to get our point across to the women of Mirren's era.

What do you think? Add your comment below.

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