Youp gets hot flushes from an encounter with a menopausal woman this week. Oh, and he has a book out.

Sometimes you think a taboo should remain exactly that: a taboo. This week was menopause week. Apparently there’s a documentary about it on Monday with the maker as the main protagonist.

I got the impression it is more about her menopause than the menopause in general. We heard all about it in countless interviews. The headaches, the hot flushes, the depression, a front bottom as dry as the Sahara, rivers of sweat, no libido whatsoever, her not-unintelligent husband who doesn’t want to f*** her anymore and the not-so-intelligent stud who does.

No longer the siren who screamed the chandelier from the ceiling six times a night, she now emits the odd grunt of contentment. It seems the men are interviewed as well. I wish both gentlemen all the best at work and in the supermarket on Tuesday.

I also saw her on oldie tv station Max where she was being interviewed by an understanding presenter who gave her a pocket ventilator at the end of her lamentations.

She kept repeating that the menopause is a taboo and no one wants to talk about it. Is that true? I remember my parents talking about it in the Sixties. And people still talk about. Perhaps they leave out the grisly details this woman was so keen on sharing with the media but maybe that is just as well.

I had had it with the menopause after all the interviews, especially when I read she’d bought a little menopause dog and wanted to hug babies all day long.  I was tired of her hormonologue. But I was in for a surprise. Last Wednesday I was invited by the Pauw & Witteman tv talk show to tell them about a big book of mine that was published recently. One of my fellow guests was none other than Mrs Menopause, and we had the whole story all over again. She only left out the unwilling husband and the stud.

As she was talking, I cast a meaningful glance at the other guest of the evening. It was Bennie Jolink, the rocker from the Achterhoek, a man who has been covered in gallons of beer during his career. He has been soaked more times than many a menopausal woman. He returned the meaningful glance. It seems the director zoomed in on our glances. My wife, who went through the menopause with a song on her lips, saw this and laughed.

‘You’ll get in trouble over this Youpie’, she told me. And she was right. The next morning my mailbox filled with hundreds of steaming hot missives from furious females, sweaty fingers slipping off the keys: Those disparaging looks were outrageous! I was a dickhead! I feel sorry for your wife! Did I know what it was like to be menopausal? Well, not very jolly judging from the reactions. One woman pointed out there was such a thing as a menopause nurse. Seriously.

I don’t know if I’ll watch on Monday. I’ve had all the estrogen I can take. But I’m sort of curious about those two men. The clever non-performing one and the stud. Maybe I’ll invite Bennie Jolink round to my house.

Youp van het Hek is a popular comedian and columnist.

This article originally appeared in the NRC.