I adore Nell McCafferty, OK? I just love her. Always have. Love the reckless passion of her. Love the great writing she can produce. Love how she makes a complete muck of a TV or radio appearance yet induces forgiving laughter at the middle of the meltdown.

The very mention of her name has always created a head-shaking, shoulder-shrugging smile from most people: Ah, Nell. Where would we be without her? The minute the first name is spoken, we see the mad curly tangle of grey hair, the cheeky, "I'll take ya" chin poked out, the fun behind the forceful beliefs.

Correction. That's how most of us used to see her. This weekend, whenever her name was mentioned, the mental filing cabinet snapped open and out fell Nell, naked. For some newspaper readers, out fell Nell, naked except for a black decency strip at upper thigh level.

It's all part of the latest body (pardon the expression) of work from Professor Daniel Mark Duffy, which showcases older women in an exhibition which, he says, invites "people to share with the world the reality, the power, the truth and the beauty of their legitimacy".

Academic

You can tell he's a professor. Nobody but an academic could find so many emotive words to dress up the fact that his exhibition is about older women (one of them in her 90s) prepared to take their kit off, or most of their kit off, for the rest of us to view, murmuring reverential twaddle about how real, how powerful, how truthful and how beautiful is their legitimacy.

Nell herself, fair dues to her, is chuffed to death to have been photographed.

"I thought it was absolutely lovely," she says. "For some people, the dream lives on. For me, the illusion lives on. I think I'm gorgeous."

She is, too. Always has been. That marvellous mixture of aggression, ideology, argumentation and vulnerability is as endearing as the big-eyed face of a baby seal: makes you want to protect her against the clubs she draws on herself.

But a baby seal creates that response in us -- that atavistic, unchosen response -- for a good reason. It sends a message to that instinctive bit at the back of our brains. The message is: "Don't kill me. I'm the future of the species."

It's the same with humans. Babies are beautiful and their first giggle turns your heart over, because if they weren't beautiful and cuddly, many parents would make like polar bears and kill them off in moments of pressure.

At every point in our lives, our bodies and faces send messages beyond our control. The perky breasts and rounded bottoms of teenage girls send a message of sex and child-bearing capacity.

That's why, going back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, the young body has been the focus of sculptors and painters. The professor who has showcased the Naked Nell portrays himself as challenging this tradition. Yeah, right. In fact, he is confirming it.

Feminism

The mystifying bit is Nell's rationale. Here's a woman who, for 40 years, has been on the frontline of feminism, with her rallying cry of "Sisters!"

Feminism, in the 60s and 70s, was about moving women away from being sex objects and forcing society to see them as equal citizens, not represented by half-naked models draped across car bonnets or fully naked Playboy bunnies photographed in an artful way to make money for Hugh Hefner.

It didn't succeed, of course. This week alone, Kate Winslet appeared, starkers and slender, amid lush furs. God be with the days when she stood for bangers and mash authenticity and to hell with the extra pounds. Same situation with Lily Allen, announcing she's gone from a size 12 to an eight. Never mind the talent, look at the body.

Nakedness gives Nell another go on the media roundabout. That's good. But open people's minds to the wondrous beauty of age, "as nature intended"?

Forget it.