We never see articles questioning if a woman has a 'fancy lingerie body' – so if a woman's body is good enough for that, why not bikinis?

You wrote last week about one-piece bathing suits versus bikinis. But what about "the bikini body"?

Olivia, by email

Ah yes, the bikini body, otherwise known as "bikini-ready", which one can only attain by eating nothing but chia seeds and goji berries since March and going to something my local gym calls "bikini boot camp", a term I can never read without visualising a bunch of women in bikinis and Dr Martens boots camping out together and toasting marshmallows around a campfire.

I appreciate that it is not the bikini's fault that its name has been thus abused, but it is yet another reason for my scepticism of bikinis: they are used as yet another stick with which to beat women about the state of their bodies. "Is your body as taut as a Barbie doll's, as burnished as a penny loafer and as perfectly proportioned as a comic book heroine's? No? Then you, missy, do not deserve to wear a bikini! Be off with you to the sarong rail in Monsoon, and try not to traumatise any small children on the beach with your Jabba the Hut-like figure, yes?"

It is worth stressing that it is not the fashion industry that bandies this term about, but rather the celeb magazine market and the gym industry. For all the fashion industry's weirdness about female bodyshape, the fact is, it does – despite occasional behaviours suggesting the contrary – want as many as people as possible to wear its clothes. Not out of the generosity of its collective heart but because it wants money, which may not be the most spiritual of reasons but it is a reason.

So to say that only those with a 36-24-30 (or whatever the measurements are, I was never any cop at maths) figure can wear a bikini does not, to all intents, fit its purpose. Rather, this nonsense comes from that modern-day Hellmouth: women's magazine editorial meetings. These appear to consist of desperate hacks trying to come up with ways to berate female celebrities and to make their female readers hate themselves. Why? This stuff seems to sell magazines and papers so there is some kind of practical motor behind it. But it's hard not to suspect that the reason these magazines and women's sections in tabloids stuff their pages with bonkers diets and features about how to achieve "a bikini diet" has more to do with a dearth of creativity than any practical considerations.

It doesn't even make any sense, this "bikini body" bollocks (that's not offensive – that's just alliteration). After all, we never see articles questioning if a woman has a "fancy lingerie body" and while I get that most women cover their bra and knickers body with something called "clothes" in the outside world (except if they're in The Caddy episode of Seinfeld), the fact is that a lot of lingerie is marketed to women, especially around Valentine's Day, to appeal to their partners. Yet if women's bodies are good enough for that, why not bikinis? Are the opinions of strangers really more important than that of a woman's own true love? Possibly yes, in this era when a couple can go out to lunch together and spend the whole time on their smartphones, more concerned with how many strangers retweeted their last witticism than what their partner is up to. But this, I feel, is the dark side of the modern world and not one that should be encouraged.

But I am a fashion columnist and it is spring and, as such, it is my legal and God-given duty to instruct you how to get a bikini body. So here goes:

1. Take one body, probably yours.

2. Take one bikini, probably yours.

3. Put bikini on body.

4. Go to pool, beach or other bikini-meriting place. (No, the park does not count. To be discussed another week.)

6. The end.

PS A few weeks ago I discussed the stupidity of fashion advertising, but have since realised that I left out the most irritating fashion advertising campaign of all. You know the one, it's for that new-ish French high-street brand with prices slightly above its station and has apparently plastered the UK with photos of miserable but beautiful-looking couples, all telling us how long they have been a couple. What? Why? Who knows, but it's annoying and has successfully stopped me from ever buying anything from that brand. Which is a result of some kind, I guess.

Post your questions to Hadley Freeman, Ask Hadley, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Email ask.hadley@theguardian.com