Marriage Diaries: My husband wants me to go topless on holiday
It started six months into our relationship, when we booked a fortnight on the French Riviera. Scrolling through my Instagram profile, he'd stop at past pictures of me on the beach, then point to my bikini top, declaring: 'You won't need that in Cap Ferrat!'
As I got dressed in the morning, between putting on my knickers and putting on my bra, he'd gesture to my bust and say happily: 'You'll be able to walk around like that on the Riviera!'
When it came to packing our cases, he held up the bikini tops I'd laid out with their bottoms, and told me: 'Oh, you won't need those!'
I laughed it off – for what felt like the millionth time – and said: 'I'll sunbathe topless when we're married!'
At this stage, we hadn't even discussed marriage, so it was just a light-hearted way of brushing off the idea. Then it ballooned, next time he raised the topic, as I told him that doing anything that racy had to be sanctioned by a wedding ring.
This was on the first day of the holiday, when he'd tried to get me to take off my bikini top. I explained that I was wary of being perceived as a cheap tart, but being a wife would make it more respectable, and if we were both wearing wedding rings, no one would mistake me for a PA he'd taken away for a dirty weekend.
If I'm really honest, it crossed my mind that it might spur him on to pop the question – and who knows, maybe it played a part, because four months later he did.
Now we're married, and our first beach holiday as a married couple is approaching. My husband is so excited about me going topless for the first time, he might as well be rubbing his hands on his thighs in the deranged manner of Vic Reeves perving over female contestants on Shooting Stars.
I, however, have freezing cold feet because I never wanted to sunbathe topless in the first place.
It's not that I'm shy about my body. I have a great figure and I've always had fabulous breasts – even more so now, thanks to a boob job my husband paid for before the wedding.
Now he can't wait to show me off, in the same way he hopes to impress people with his Porsche and our white stucco-fronted townhouse in a sought after street in SW1.
For me though, the prospect of sunbathing topless is anxiety-inducing. Aside from a fear of burning my nipples, which have never seen the sun, I don't want other men looking at, and possibly leching over, my bare breasts!
My husband waves away my concerns, reassuring me that we'll be on a private beach which is expensive enough to keep the riff-raff out. As he keeps reminding me, it works out at about £300 per person, per day – including lunch – so there's little chance of us encountering 'the great unwashed'.
In his eyes, the exclusivity means it's perfectly acceptable for me to be semi-naked, because we'll be only around 'PLU' (aka 'people like us').
I don't see it this way at all, and actually I think it's degrading for men I'd never be intimate with to see such a private part of my body.
In particular, I think it's inappropriate for the waiters at the beach to see my breasts, and worst of all I think it's awkward for our houseguests who'll be staying with us in the apartment we've rented.
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