The Redoubtable Ms. Maggi

Models do it, flaunt their bodies, wearing the latest fashions and occasionally fashions meant to shock by their body-revealing attributes.

Many young women whom nature and genetics have blessed with bodily conformations held to be sumptuously attractive aspire to the profession. Those who succeed reap enormous public acclaim, admiration and certainly not least, wealth. They become celebrities in their own right because of the pay-per-view they are able to demand as a result of their celebrity status.

So, why not a bar owner, a young, attractive, curvaceous woman who is obviously imbued not only with a graceful appearance but an admirable business sense. Italian bar owner, Laura Maggi has been able to turn quite a profit in her business by displaying herself as a public relations hit to advance her business interests.

And, it would appear, the men of Banolo Mella near Lombardy, where Ms. Maggi has her pub,named Le Cafe, appreciate her business sense of eight years' standing. Their wives do not.

"It is outrageous and should not be allowed. This town is quiet and respectable. Now we are known across the whole country because of the little amount of clothing this barmaid is wearing to serve drinks. The women in town are not very happy and we have complained to the council."

The bemused Ms. Maggi is herself not amused, professing to have been left "open mouthed" by the resulting coverage. So, evidently, have been the area men who have flocked to her establishment. They arrive in avid droves, eager to experience the pleasure of witnessing the impressive performance of a scantily-clad young woman pulling a draft of beer and presenting it personally for their double delectation:

Causing controversy: Laura Maggi, 34, who runs a bar called Le Cafe, has dominated newspapers and TV chat shows, after pictures of her dressed in barely anything appeared on the Internet

Pulling more than a pint: The women folk of Bagnolo Mella, near Brescia, which is where Manchester City ace Mario Balotelli is from, are up in arms and said that they had banned their partners from going to Le Cafe

Main attraction: On the walls of Le Cafe there are pictures of Laura, dressed in a bikini on holiday - while in other snaps she is wrapped in an American Stars and Stripes flag. Yet more pictures of her, semi-naked, have been turned into a calendar

The outrage of local women expressed against this enterprising entrepreneur who knows what sells and takes advantage of her charms to sell it, is understandable. But it is, actually, aimed at the wrong target. If the women are alarmed and affronted with the situation they should take it up with their husbands, not Ms. Maggi. "What am I doing wrong? It's not like I'm nude. Sure, I wear short skirts and bra-tops but nothing worse than that."

She is, in fact, doing nothing very much wrong, given her attributes and the general loosening of society's dress codes. It is merely that the combination of her physical endowments and the more relaxed social mores with respect to women's garb constitute a winning combination for her sales of alcoholic beverages.

Italian men love to leer, to comment and to generally demonstrate their state of sexual arrested adolescence. Witness their tolerance for the escapades - now there's fodder for social outrage - of their former President, Silvio Berlusconi.

If anyone was instrumental in lowering the bar for degrading behaviour, surely it is this man who brazenly and contemptuously descended into the most hedonistic excesses while purporting to serve his country well both domestically and on the international stage.

If these women, critical of Ms. Maggi, that she has been responsible for making her little town known across the country, where were they when they might have been campaigning against the female-insulting, nationally embarrassing behaviour of a man who was elected and re-elected to lead their country - leading it as an international embarrassment?

It is telling that an online poll the results of which were published in the local newspaper revealed that 46% of respondents commented that women should be "asking themselves why their partners prefer Laura to them", defending Ms. Maggi's business enterprise.

Doubtless the respondents were preponderately male - giving the opposite gender ample reason for introspection.