God knows we need an antidote to all the lousy men in the news – and I think I’ve found one | Emma Brockes

A lovable goofball who is happy to cheerlead for his wife, the vice-president of the US? Thank God for Doug Emhoff

For the past month, every woman I know has been having versions of the same conversation, roughly opening with: for the love of God, how rapey is the news? No period of history has been free from accounts of male sex-offending. But the present roll call of alleged offenders - Diddy, Fayed, the French rapist and his endless accomplices, various scandals in broadcasting, and last week, new charges for the man who keeps giving on this subject, Harvey Weinstein - is particularly grim. For just one day, I would like to turn on the news without having to hear a presenter struggling to find a way to say lube" in a BBC voice. So let's talk about something else: Doug Emhoff.

Doug Emhoff! Kamala Harris's husband and consort, a man very possibly in line to be the first first gentleman of the United States and, as far as we can tell, an antidote to lousy men everywhere. This week, I heard Emhoff referred to as a wife guy", which made me smile - wife guy being simultaneously a nice term of affection for men who unreservedly support their wives, and also a reminder that no word for a female equivalent can exist. (What use the tautology of being a husband chick" when, for straight women, embedded in the definition of the word wife" is total, unwavering support of your husband).

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist