Deborah Orr: Wimbledon's 'tennis totty' serves up a tabloid treat

'It is the men who commission the pictures and women in the media who tut-tut about it all'

Goodness! A telephone call from the media pages of The Independent. I haven't had one of those for, ooooh, must be a year. Yup! Last June I was asked to contribute some words of wisdom re the phenomenon whereby the male British press had gone, during Wimbledom fortnight, Kournikova Krazy, and why the female British press were being so bitchy about her moment in The Sun.

This June, with Kournikova lame, limp and out of the tournament, the emphasis has changed. This year, lighthearted analysis is needed on the coverage of sexy women tennis players, and how they are covered in the press more generally.

David is keen, Richard is keen, and Simon is keen. David, Richard and Simon are respectively The Independent's media editor, executive editor, and editor. All are most interested in women tennis players. All are men. I'm no more interested in women tennis players than I am in women cricketers – apart from Georgia, who is the 11-year-old daughter of a good friend, and playing for the Middlesex girls' team. We're all very proud of her.

But while Georgia is an exception, tittivating stories about Wimbledon women have become a rule. As far as I can see, the reason why healthy, attractive women get splattered all over the papers when the great grass fortnight comes, is because Wimbledon is a big thing. If there are big things to be covered by the media which offer the opportunity of printing pictures of healthy attractive girls, then those are the shots that get printed. (Although it's only fair to point out that at the time of writing The Independent's two front-page pictures of Wimbledon players have both been of mere men).

In the absence of real stunnas, say in politics, the media will drop its standards a little and pretend that Ffion Hague is remarkably good-looking, when actually she's just got a slim figure, tinted blonde hair and lipstick on. My mother always told me that the real secret of beauty is bones, and Mrs Hague's jaw bone doesn't quite work. Perhaps that's why no one could get a quote out of her during the election campaign.

But for some reason, this trio of chaps are all agreed that this surely largely male interest is best covered in a national broadsheet under a female byline. I explain that I already did exactly this sort of thing last year, and anyway I don't follow tennis, and anyway isn't it all just about pants and getting to see them a lot?

Whoops! Apparently, in my attempts to belittle and denigrate the entire subject, I have hit the nail incisively on the head. Yes, it is all about pants and getting to see them a lot. Or even not at all.

Discussion moves to last Thursday's picture of someone called Emmanuelle Gagliardi in the Daily Mail. She was flashing a cheek as she "reached for a carefully stored tennis ball", in an exciting re-enactment of the Athena poster of the girl rubbing her bottom while playing tennis. Which is exciting, because we haven't seen that since, oooh, last year, when Kylie Minogue posed in the same spirit of paean for the cover of GQ, then complained that she'd had her pants air-brushed out, and thereby secured GQ enough "coverage" to achieve their biggest-selling issue ever.

Ms Gagliardi hadn't had her pants airbrushed out though. David Lister, the media editor, who is at all other times of the year a man with his sights set firmly on the more meaningful aspects of life, asked me to explain what was going on.

Gently I revealed to him the fashion for thong-style underwear, and when this still wasn't making any sense to him, ventured to suggest that the "bulk" of Ms Gagliardi's back pants would probably have been resting invisibly in the dark place between Ms Gagliardi's buttocks. Mr Lister opined that this would seem most uncomfortable, and expressed some disbelief that women did such things to themselves.

But of course women do do such things to themselves, and men, the suckers, are fascinated by it.

No wonder David, Simon and Richard felt they needed a woman to explain to them (again) why professional sportspeople were so keen to pander to the British media's desire to see them as sexy rather than sporty.

For while it is true it is largely men in the media who commission the pictures, and women in the media who tut-tut about how pathetic it all is, it's hard to get round the fact that in this situation, and other similar ones, there are always plenty of women keen to play the game, get their kit half-off and smile nicely for the camera, and others willing to write about it (such as myself).

The truth is that lots of women enjoy being seen as sex objects by men, not only because they like it to be confirmed that they are attractive to the opposite sex, but also, sometimes, because it intimidates and discomfits other women. This might not be what being a woman is about, but it is largely what being "feminine" is about.

Further, the admitting by a woman of this self-evident truth reassures the men that they cannot, in benefitting from women's little insecurities and their need to validate themselves in this manner, be doing anything perverted, exploitative or wrong.

So there we have it. Women playing in Wimbledon get to appear on the sports pages, paradoxically, because they're prepared to be feminine. There used to be room for gymnasts, too, but they're mainly children now so that's a bit dodgy.

The reason why the British go so crazy over women during Wimbledon is class-based, what with Wimbledon being the most widely covered bash of the English Season. So, somehow, whatever nationality a goodish-looking woman is, for Wimbledon fortnight she's an honorary specimen of that most feminine of creatures, the English rose, an It-girl with balls.

Or, as Piers Morgan, the editor of The Mirror puts it, "top tennis totty". Is this a cause for concern? Well, yes, but no more than usual... After all, when it's over, it's back to Lady Victoria Hervey. Few men are interested in women's sport per se, and hardly any women are either.

Both men and women, however, are interested in seeing how well a lass can buff up for the camera; they'll notice a little bit of actual skill, too, if it comes their way.

This year, the female champion of Wimbledon will win nearly as much money as the male, regardless of her looks. It pays handsomely to be a jolly good sport, on and off the court. Ms Kournikova has no smaller chance of winning Wimbledon this year than last year. But golly, she's done her bit for gender equality in international tennis. Funny old world.