Is it a triumph for women that Martha Stewart, 81, is a swimsuit star? | Nancy Jo Sales

Our sense of whether women are attractive as they age is so influenced by the media that I'm not sure we're always in full possession of our feelings about it

My daughter graduated from college last week, so for fun we watched The Graduate, Mike Nichols's 1967 classic about an alienated young man and his affair with an older woman.

I remember seeing it when I was in college and identifying with Benjamin, the main character played by Dustin Hoffman. Like every other rebellious kid, I resonated with Benjamin's disdain for the bourgeois mentality of his parents' generation - the absurdity of the man who urges Benjamin to go into plastics"! But now, at 58, I realized that Benjamin was actually an entitled creep for wanting to date his lover's daughter, and it was Mrs Robinson who deserved our sympathy - and how did I not notice how hot she was?