We'd be happier if we were winners

It is time to be very brave. We must venture deep and down into the cultural world to reach a dark and secret place that is rarely discussed in the pages of a family newspaper. We are about to visit the perineum of Martin Amis.

Not so long ago the idea of sharing thoughts on the state of one's pelvic floor would have seemed inappropriate outside a doctor's surgery, but now, we discover, a literary personage can open every bit of himself to the public without the slightest risk of any, or much, loss of seriousness.

Martin has opened his legs. Photographed for a newspaper profile, he has appeared in a series of hilariously intimate poses – lying, with his feet up in a pair of medical stirrups as if he were awaiting a proctological examination; kneeling on a couch, smiling at the camera, with one leg cocked lamp-post style, in a rather sweet ballet pose, his left arm lifted in a delicate arc over his head.

The point of the feature was to draw attention to the work of Dreas Reyneke, an exercise guru who, using a system called Pilates, has tugged and stretched a number of fashionable bodies, including those of Juliet Binoche, Miranda Richardson, Helena Bonham Carter and Ruby Wax. Apparently, the perineum, which Reyneke describes as "a little hammock" which "supports the lower back from the inside", is an important focal point for the Pilates technique and working on it has helped Martin in all sorts of other areas. "If I am on the beach and a pretty girl walks past, I don't suck in my stomach as I used to – I just engage the perineum."

This exercise certainly seemed to have worked a treat so far as Amis's interviewer is concerned. Having gurgled appreciatively about the author's "long lashes and magnificent hair, which is salt and pepper and streaked with gold", she moves shamelessly on to what she terms his "peaches". This, she says, is "the best bottom in books. Kylie would look at these peaches in awe."

No writer should, under normal circumstances, be snapped cocking his leg in public, but I suspect that this public celebration of his peaches – confirming their superiority to those of Jeanette Winterson, DJ Taylor or even Zadie Smith – will have made the exercise worthwhile. For Amis and his competitive nature offer a lesson to us all. Famously, he hates losing at tennis. His memoirs are propelled by a hard, jaunty rivalry towards virtually everyone – even while accompanying his father in an ambulance, he is unable to resist pointing out that the driver had heard of his novels, but not Kingsley's. "To be any good, you have to think you're the best," he once told an interviewer.

Of course, he is right – the important thing is to win. You need to look no further than this summer's great sporting occasions to see that one of life's great divisions is between those who need at all costs to come first and those would simply rather like to, if that's all right with everyone else.

So the Ferrari team lifted two fingers to all concepts of sportsmanship and the idea that performers have a responsibility to spectators by fixing the Austrian Grand Prix, ensuring that Michael Schumacher received maximum points. The German football team – with a couple of exceptions, a journeyman outfit – have progressed further in the World Cup than many more talented teams, England included.

Our own national reaction to the miserable, anti-climactic end to the World Cup campaign has been illuminating. There have been excuses – an important midfielder was injured before the tournament, our main striker was only half-fit, it was terribly hot and tiring out there. Already (and this is a sure sign of the loser mentality) the talk is of future cups, of a moment when our luck will change. So low are our expectations that it has already been decided in some quarters that this failure was a sort of success, that we did well to get at least halfway through the competition before being eliminated. Our brave losers are to be given a reception in Downing Street.

Tactlessly, the great German footballer and coach Franz Beckenbauer identified the source of our problem: the team lacked not the ability, but the mental toughness to win. And who could seriously deny that he is right? There is something in the English character that feels easier with honourable defeat, with the bonding together that disappointment brings, with the satisfaction of being a good runner-up, rather than the rigours and pressures of being the best.

It would be good to think that there was a personality pay-off in not grabbing the prizes – a more interesting philosophical take on the nature of competition, a talent to enjoy the success of others, a mature comfort in our own mediocrity – but that somehow seems unconvincing.

Whether it be for our writing, our football or simply our peaches, we would be happier if we were up there with the winners.

terblacker@aol.com