AND VENUS WAS HER NAME
In a 2012 Times Magazine profile of Venus and Serena Williams, acclaimed essayist John Jeremiah Sullivan wrote this about meeting Venus for the first time: “it’s easy to find yourself unprepared for her sheer prettiness." Reading that made me want to scream. Grown men have never been shy about admiring the looks of female tennis professionals. Virtually all of the women on the WTA tour acquire sex symbol status, and for some it even eclipses their game. So why the surprise that Venus is pretty? Is it her ferocious, unfeminine sportsmanship? Our narrow ideals of beauty? Or that she’s rarely photographed with the intention of making her pretty?
Right now Venus is on the cover of ESPN Magazine’s Body Issue, naked, perched tastefully and somewhat ridiculously against chalky white hills and a cloudy blue sky. The photos show off her enviable, classical proportions; she’s long and lean, almost like a Botticelli figure. Her body is lithe, curvy and muscular all at once. She’s smiling easily, entirely comfortable in herself. Typically when we see her she’s sporting a warrior-like grimace, on court, or extravagant hair and makeup, at public appearances. Here she’s flat-out pretty.