Former St Trinian's head girl Gemma Arterton is MI6 Agent Fields in "Bond 22", alongside Ukraine model-turned-actress Olga Kurylenko, as the "dangerously alluring Camille".

It's a far cry from winning an Oscar but on a purely super-ficial note, you know if you're asked to be a Bond Girl you're officially gorgeous.

And beautiful women are as integral to all the Bond movies as gadgets and guns.

Anyone who's never heard of 007 (surely that's not possible) might wonder why he needs TWO love interests.

Maybe it's for the double "oh". But, as we know from past experience of Bond, The World is Not Enough – and neither is one woman.

Plenty of the films serve up three to five for his delectation, although strictly speaking that depends on your definition of Bond Girl.

Essentially she's a love interest – or more accurately, a sex object – with or without a double entendre for a name, like Pussy Galore and Xenia Onatopp. And often they had over-the-top professions like astro-physicist, Oxford professor and pilot.

Clearly this is just another in-joke for the boys along the lines of: "Ha, ha. As if a woman that looked this good would have brains as well".

But hardcore fans (Bondies?) furiously debate the criteria involved in attaining the title Bond Girl. Does he have to bed her or can she just be a glamorous sidekick? Can she be a villain?

Clearly the only issue on the directors' minds, at least in the past, was whether she looked good in the buff and would get all the male viewers shaken and stirred. In terms of looks and personality, they ensured there was something to suit every man's fantasy – from a feisty fighter like Honor Blackman's Pussy Galore, to striking villainess May Day played by Grace Jones and vacuous blonde Mary Goodnight, played by Britt Eckland.

Yet despite the doomed-to-act-in-instantly-forgettable-movies-hereafter curse that has befallen so many after smooching the infamous spy, I imagine actresses around the world are now dusting off their bikinis in the hope of romping with Daniel Craig.

While the Bond of yesteryear epitomised chauvinism, Craig's incarnation and the award-winning performance of Eva Green as Vesper Lynd seems to herald a new era in which women are allowed depth and intelligence, as well as the obligatory model looks.

The tide truly turned when the hunk in trunks revealed his muscle-bound bod as he strode out of the sea – Ursula Andress style – in Casino Royale.

Finally, after decades of the objectification of the female form, here was something for the ladies.

I know two wrongs don't usually make a right but I believe this is the exception to that rule – this was very right.

And if Barbara Broccoli wants women to swoon over Bond the movie as much as they now do over Bond the man, I don't see any harm in recruiting some dishier Bond baddies next time round – I'd go for Benicio del Toro, Joaquin Phoenix, Antonio Banderas and Clive Owen for starters.

Stick them all in those pale blue miniscule swim shorts and you've got a slice of double oh heaven.