My View: Toy boys should stay in the cupboard if

Amanda says she feels "inspired" by the relationship, which I don't think is healthy talk from a respectable, married mother-of-three. She points out that she too is 42, as if this is an excuse. Her husband is slightly older than she is, approaching 50, and she doesn't want to see herself in the same age bracket any more. "People our age ..." he says. But I am not his age, she points out.

Cougars – older women on the lookout for younger men – are fashionable at the moment. It used to be that we had just Joan Collins and Samantha from Sex and the City to "inspire" us, but currently it's so on-trend, it feels almost obligatory to view younger men as fair game.

Now we have revelations that 60-year-old Mrs Robinson (you couldn't make it up), wife of Northern Ireland's First Minister, carried on with a rather cute young man a whopping 40 years her junior. "What I want to know," says Amanda, "is how she did it? She should write a how-to guide ... when it's all blown over."

Men might not like it, but there is anecdotal evidence at least that mature women are actively seeking out younger men. I know of women who deliberately employ building companies with good-looking young men on the team, and only yesterday, I heard about a young, rather handsome estate agent who is often greeted at the door by older female clients (bored housewives, I should think) wearing little more than La Perla lingerie and a smile.

It seems that Amanda is not the only woman to feel inspired by this new breed of Mrs Robinsons. Presumably, this is how some men have felt all along, inspired by decrepit old croakers like Ronnie Wood, 62, who left his 23-year marriage to Jo for 21-year-old Ekaterina, and 65-year-old Rod Stewart, currently married to 38-year-old Penny Lancaster. Paul McCartney, 67, has a girlfriend, Nancy Shevell, who at 48 is still young enough to be his daughter (incidentally, why is it that once a woman hits 35, even 65-year-old men seem to consider themselves to be of the same generation?).

I suppose, as women see increasing levels of success and independence, like Sam Taylor-Wood, we can expect to see more relationships like hers with young Aaron. In many ways, it makes sense: women live longer than men, and they may well find it easier to get pregnant, as she has at 42, by a younger, more potent man.

But is this really progress? Sam Taylor-Wood was in a position of power when she cast Aaron Johnson in her film Nowhere Boy.

It's alleged that politician Mrs Iris Robinson used her influence to help set the young Kirk McCambley up in business. Same old story, but shouldn't women seek to improve the story, rather than simply copy men?