Those of you who knew me in the mid-70s might be forgiven for believing it would have taken a Polaroid with a wide angle lens to get a naked shot of me then.
I trust that will not stop you believing I am the "Pauline" who featured in those photos last week which gullible news outlets snapped up with glee.
True, I am a year younger than misunderstood Aussie battler Pauline Hanson, but since the pics were not of her, age is not really an issue, is it?
Family members can confirm I was in Australia at that time. They may be surprised to hear I was working at a grocery store under a pseudonym, but they need to remember that in recent years I have been compared with that famous grocer's daughter, Margaret Thatcher.
I changed my name when I applied for the job because checks with those who knew me would reveal I was hopeless at reading scales and wrapping parcels of any kind (remember, it was the '70s when the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag had yet to become ubiquitous).
Heck, looking at those photos, why was I worried about that? You can see I was so darned sexy any employer would have jumped at the chance to have me on the payroll.
At first glance there may be little resemblance between me and those photographs, but I am sure I could scour the globe to produce an expert to learnedly study my features and pronounce a more than 50% chance I am the woman in question.
The only reason I did not come forward earlier is that I did not want to embarrass the offspring. Every child is entitled to believe their arrival was the product of an immaculate conception. It is so much more appealing than the thought the parents may once have been naked and capable of doing the wild thing (note my careful use of euphemism).
The thought of a parent doing the wild thing with someone other than the other parent long before they were conceived, and that the someone else might have photos of the afterglow, are distressing enough to warrant at least a year in therapy.
No news outlet has bothered to track me down to find out the true story or offer to pay for such therapy for my sons. It is disappointing, but I am not surprised.
I am not famous, nor was I contesting the Queensland State seat of Beaudesert (the convenience of that name should have rung alarm bells a supposed former beau deserting poor Pauline).
What does slightly surprise me is that anyone thought these pictures, even if they believed they were Pauline Hanson, were worth publishing.
Pauline, who was unsuccessful last weekend in yet another bid to enter politics, has been a larger-than-life controversial figure with severe shortcomings in the rational thinking department.
These photos, even if they had been of her, were taken well before her foray into politics. I am not aware that any of her campaigns has been against sex. She does not seem to have encouraged the idea she is Miss Prim and Proper either.
Remember the furore over the claim in her autobiography Untamed and Unashamed that she had a two-week affair with a former adviser? He denied it, including the part which said he wooed her by cooking a meal, wriggling out of it by saying Pauline was a steak and chips girl and he didn't cook that sort of food. (I hope she was the one who called it off. Who needs a man who can't cook a decent feed?)
If newspapers had been given similar photos taken of some bloke standing in the same election would they have done anything with them? What they have been forced to do is apologise to Pauline.
The Sunday Herald Sun apology began by saying that Pauline was right all along and they were wrong, and then went on to say that fresh questions had emerged about the credibility of Jack Johnson, the man who sold the offending pics.
He had also offered similar photographs of another prominent Australian woman in exchange for cash, but his claim that he had photographs of the woman in lingerie with the sultan of Brunei were "plainly ridiculous". So what?
Perhaps they should be grateful Hawaiian-born singer Jack Johnson isn't threatening to sue them as well.
The whole silly incident will stir up arguments about privacy and public interest, which some media outlets would probably prefer to ignore, choosing to believe that public interest is anything the public might find interesting.
It could all have been avoided if only they had bothered to track me down. Like Pauline, I am prepared to bare my belly button for the cause - I'll just have to find it first.
- Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
