James Bond will be monogamous. He’ll also be an altar boy and a trade unionist – why not?

We are prepared to do anything to please the next generations, but the news is that James Bond is set to become monogamous, and I am not feeling too good about it. The call came from Trina Parks, formerly Thumper in "A Waterfall of Diamonds" and the first actress of African descent to play a Bond girl, who is leading the crusade for a new, less womanising 007. The lengths people go to for a few likes from younger followers: “He should be the one who has to prove to a woman that he’s worthy of becoming her partner in bed. Of course, the audience wants to see the seduction and that old-fashioned atmosphere, but women must be treated as equals.” We need equality and, above all, we need girls who don’t just fall for it even without any bait.

Again, this isn’t exactly news; it’s just another example of that dreadful category: ‘here’s the next release that offers a magnificent glimpse into the great moral edifice of the present’ – and I’ve had enough of it. The penultimate one was Lupita Nyong’o – Elena in Nolan’s “Ulysses” – who complained about the limited roles given to the female characters in the “Odyssey”; they needed to be given more to say. What a sinister turn this millennium has taken: here, instead of talking about liberation, people – especially the younger generation – are tirelessly busy imposing stricter, more detailed and harder-to-follow rules.

A monogamous Bond, as we were saying. At that point, however, I’d suggest a complete overhaul of the character (though the actor has yet to be chosen). He could even be made approachable – someone who always replies to messages within a quarter of an hour, just like proper, decent people. An upright and attentive altar boy – a ‘green flag’, as they say these days. Loyal and clear in his communication. Why not go all out: let’s make him married and a master at keeping the spark alive with his wife, the film’s sole diva. Perhaps a Pina Fantozzi, for a plot twist. Inner beauty! Bond heroically resists all the others; Eva Green appears with a sign saying ‘lie on top of me or I’ll die’, and he refuses, insisting that he loves Pina too much, and that in life one must never, ever betray one’s partner. Licence to kill, yes; licence to disappoint? Let’s see – perhaps not.

To respect the new audience’s right to unicorns, we could even do that with James Bond – a bit of a work-life balance advocate. Someone in crisis over his identity, someone who rejects this facile (toxic!) identification of the ‘self-as-person’ with the ‘self-as-worker’. I am James, not just Bond; I deserve attention and a bit of self-respect. And in the end, in my opinion, we should also take away his Aston Martin. It’s far too polluting. James Bond will take the tram, just like I do. The new, monogamous version of James Bond pops down to the hotel bar at night and orders a tonic water with a slice of lemon (because now it’s all about ‘lookmaxxing’: we may well be body-positive, but we still want to be beautiful and slim!). After that, he goes to bed early, alone, with his phone in his hand to watch silly videos.

If we really wanted to be nasty, we could point out the serious paradox: the very same new sensibility that demands extreme fidelity from James Bond will, in another Instagram post, claim that polyamory and ‘friends with benefits’ are perfectly normal. The rejection of exclusivity as a possessive relic of the old boomer gods and patriarchy (us). Even the ‘situationship’ – the imaginary relationship – has become the norm. Some people refer to three months of messaging each other without ever meeting as ‘true love’. All in the name of the rule: if the word exists, then it’s the real deal, something that actually exists.

Bond, poor chap, was born in a cruder era; I spent a fair bit of time there myself, in that twentieth century. Unfortunate years, certainly, but with the advantage of not being subjected to a psychological analysis every minute, even over a basket of bread. Private life was much the same for everyone; relationships were almost all non-monogamous and nobody died; there were plenty of diplomatic incidents and a moderate work-life imbalance – except for those born into wealth. There were a series of primitive impulses – let’s call them that – quite capable of governing us: ambition, money, rivalry, sex; and now that I look at them all lined up like this, they no longer seem quite as dreadful as they once did.