and as I already have a husband who I can have sex with any time I want, I thought perhaps I should just gradually retire them from the public eye.

However, it seems that my aspiration to cover up is 'bizarre' . . .

certainly if the social pages are anything to go by. Celebrities, most especially of the reality television variety, seem to make a very good living out of it. Some of us write columns, nurse dying people, and teach children for a living. Others have job descriptions that read "Go about in a bikini". Fair enough . . .

showing off in their knickers is how they feed their families and keep themselves in skimpy frocks.

What I cannot understand is how professional, intelligent women have allowed themselves to be drawn into this alarmingly antifeminist theory that displaying a pair of bouncy breasts in a string top is somehow 'sexually liberating'.

Just who exactly is being sexually liberated here? Is it the fortysomething public relations executive letting it all hang out in a leopard print Versace hanky/dress at Punchestown? Or is it the teenage boy who has discovered there's more porn to be had in some of his mum's society magazines than the top shelf 'tut-tut' material. By all means, young single women . . .

knock yourselves out. Get on the glitter and the glamour and get out there and compete. But wives at charity functions, mums at school fetes and the 40-plus female market in general, let's all try and get a grip on this pressure to expose ourselves. Let's just get honest with ourselves and accept that there comes a time when an older lady must retire her bits and bobs and file them away behind a nice blouse and a bit of classy tailoring.

There will be black tie balls when the call of the once-magnificent cleavage may be answered but please . . . invest in a chiffon shrug.

Because there is no amount of buffing, and bronzing, polishing or pruning that will disguise a billowing bingo wing or that most unfortunate of phenomenons . . . the five pronged armpit wrinkle. I'm not advocating full burka although I am not entirely averse to the idea.

On a trip to Morocco a few years ago, I tried dressing myself neck to ankle in black. I found great freedom in being able to interview and communicate nicely with the local men. It is not that Arab men leer more than Irish men, they are just more open about it. Arab men also believe that if you show them your breasts . . . even a bit of them . . . it is because you want them to leer at you. Irish men leer behind our backs, sputtering into their pints in corners. Local men also understand this insane western rule we have that it's okay to show the whole breast apart from the nipple. The nipple is pornography, all the rest of the breast is fine. Our own men also generously go along with our pretence that excessive cleavage is either a fashion-statement or caused by the 'accidental' droop of an ill-fitting top.

There is a saying that if a western woman gets caught naked she covers her breasts and her groin with her hands. An Arab woman covers her face, because your face is what identifies you as an individual.

It is the most significant part of us because it is our tool for communicating, the place that illustrates our personality. Older women should have the confidence to use it to attract and maintain interest from men, women, colleagues . . . without needing the distraction of great tracts of bare flesh. I've dusted off my black polo necks but then it's easy with winter drawing in to get all judgemental about bare chests. Come spring, I'll probably be out frightening workmen in a halter neck top again.