Magic Knickers for men? I don't like the idea, I really don't like it at all.

It's all right for us women to hide our lumps, bumps and bulges - but blokes? Oh dear, no. When we meet a man - especially if we're looking for romance - we want to know what we're getting up front.

We wouldn't want to find out, a few weeks into a relationship (or whenever it becomes more intimate, which is day one for some) that the man we were dating was less like Brad Pitt and more like Jim Royle. That his stomach was more dolly tub than washboard, and his buttocks more pulpy than pert. And - more disturbingly - that his trousers only fitted with the aid of special pants.

The very idea of overweight men being able to stuff all their excess flab into their underwear and pass themselves off as svelte is, quite frankly, unacceptable.

Yet soon that very thing will be happening across Britain, as Marks & Spencer plans to launch a men's version of its best-selling Magic Knickers. The company has also developed a pair of seamless undies for men, using material created for women's lingerie that will eliminate the dreaded VPL (visible panty line, for those who have never dwelled on such issues).

Soon, beer-bellied men will be squeezing their bulky frames into pieces of elastic and pulling on trousers two, or maybe even three sizes too small. They will spend hours in front of mirrors, craning their necks to get a glimpse of their rear. And, horror of horrors, they may even start asking their wives, girlfriends and even best mates "Does my bum look big in this?" Who wants a man who bothers about such things? It is the beginning of the end.

Of course, the opposite applies to us women. It is okay for us to be masters of the art of deception. For centuries we have pushed and pummelled our frames into all manner of undergarments designed to hold our stomachs in and make us look slimmer than we actually are. Corsets, girdles, support tights and, more recently, the revolutionary Magic Knickers.

When a man takes a woman out, he half expects her to be swaddled in some sort of weird underwear. Think of the number of films that have featured men struggling with women's undies. Hugh Grant wasn't the least bit alarmed to come across those giant knickers in Bridget Jones. But imagine the scene if he too had been wearing big knickers. It would go beyond funny to plain ridiculous.

It is sort of expected that women's undies - who wears uncomfortable sexy knickers these days? - will be hiding a multitude of sins. Even supermodels wear stuff that sculpts their bums and tums.

But men should stick to basics.

Updated: 08:39 Tuesday, December 20, 2005