I'm quite a fan of Sex and the City. Not in the yes-I-too-have-slept-with-a-man-who-was-a-dildo-model kind of way, but in the essays-hurt-ooh-pretty- clothes-no-brain-activity-required kind of way. It might not say very much to me about being a modern woman (I buy my shoes from Oxfam rather than Manolo Blahnik, for a start). But, if I want to procrastinate, it's a pleasant and often hilarious way to do it. After all, don't we need reminding every now and then that sex is actually pretty funny? And that we are allowed to enjoy a bit of cultural fluff once in a while? After all, Carrie's tacked-on attempts at philosophising, legs artfully folded under her chin, Marlboro Light smoking gently, work in a glossy way. It amuses me, however, that Carrie Bradshaw has never turned her wonderfully trite trademark "I couldn't help but wonder..." to the serious issues that sex raises with respect to the swathes of tailor cut fabrics that cover it.

The way we dress is something with which we are both overly preoccupied, yet simultaneously try to dismiss as being too ‘superficial' for consideration. Clothes are the tool of the angry feminist determined to tell us that we wear make-up and skirts because all men are trying to misogynistically dominate us (thank you, Sheila Jeffreys). But we spend too much time worrying about the importance of clothes, and not enough time questioning why we worry about them.

Since the Fall, sex and clothes have been trapped in a perpetually unfulfilled courtship. Adam and Eve's embarrassed desire to cover up their fleshly sins is still a hangover in a culture in which, as Brits in particular, we don't seem quite sure what we should make of sex. Should we feel all post-lapsarian and shy about it? Should we sing it from the rooftops? Should we do it because we have to? In some ways, we have a lot to thank those biblical fig-leaves for. Along with the weather, and well, thousands of years of civilised culture, they are one of the main reasons that getting dressed is still the most important thing we do before facing the world.

I can't decide if we take clothes too seriously or not seriously enough, but we definitely still have problems with them, all of which seem to have a lot to do with sex. Sheila Jeffreys, intimidating feminist theorist behind books like Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West (which a little too dangerously equates female genital mutilation with cosmetic surgery and waxing), somehow implies that whether all women are aware of it or not, they dress to a reductive, misogynist male ideal. But, in many ways, it is Jeffreys who is being a little reductive here; most of the women I know and admire are individuals who dress creatively, blithely, uniquely - not politically. Surely it is OK to wear something because it makes you feel good? Isn't it alright, in a day when all that lies ahead of you is laboriously typing in front of a computer screen, to do something creative with the way you look? I don't think we dress for sex; if a woman wears a short skirt, she isn't asking men to rip it off her. And what would you class as men ‘dressing for sex'? I mean, what would they wear - lycra? Can anyone here comfortably say that a man in Speedos/tights/(dare I say it) rowing lycras screams ‘bed me now you lusty wench'? Clothes are never going to deny sex simply by partially covering up the body. Are those breasts underneath that high-necked sweater? Gracious, no! Does anything lie beneath your voluminous skirts other than a chastity belt and plastic Barbie smoothness? Heaven forbid!

Maybe I haven't read enough feminist critiques to properly comment on this. But then, why the hell should I? I don't need intellectuals telling me how to dress. Sex is there, somewhere, whether it is buried in a cassock or not. But that doesn't mean it's everywhere. There is nothing wrong with dressing up, with wearing what you like. And, with that in mind, it's not wrong to look good. You don't decorate your room to look like a hovel. The Mona Lisa wasn't supposed to look shit? We need to stop paying attention to the Bradshaw, Marlboro-fumed philosophising that surrounds getting dressed, and just enjoy it instead. The more we theorise about these things, the worse they become. I can see feel Carrie trite-ism coming on now: "I can't help but wonder if we're doing too much wondering..."