Tail-Pieces — Physiognomy of Female Bottoms

By Richard Manton from Janus 64

No one doubts that character can be told by face and expression. A good many people believe personality can be deduced by close examination of the palm. A girl’s figure may not tell you all about her mind and morals but the way she moves her body seems to reveal something of them. In the most general way, perhaps there are also distinctive types of female legs, hips and bottoms, which correspond to particular types of girl.

The idea has limits. A palmist might prefer girls bending with knickers round their knees to have their ‘fortunes’ told. But the palmist is unlikely to be that lucky. The rest of us can dream of female types, many of them popular in erotic fiction, with characteristic shapes and manners.

What is the erotic significance of a young woman’s bottom? Is it just an alluring and seductive cheek-swell, inviting a caress or a tickle, a pat or a kiss? Is it something more? Does its general shape and condition, the manner in which it is paraded, reveal character and type?

A girl’s bottom may suggest that its owner is a ‘Nymph’ or a ‘Tomboy’, a ‘Soubrette’ or a ‘Wanton’, a ‘Vamp’ or a ‘Trollop’, an ‘Elf’ or a ‘Young Amazon’. Her face or her bottom may define her character and conduct. The phrase ‘tomboy bottom’ or ‘the strapping young cheeks of the trollop’s bare backside’ has a characteristic ring.

Judith, the demure

What, for example, is a NYMPH? One imagines her typically as a debutante, a Judith of erotic fantasy. She is demure and well-behaved, cautious and apprehensive with the male sex. What does Judith look like? Quite tall and slim with a soft veil of nut-brown hair sweeping from a high crown to her shoulders. It frames the pale oval of her serene young face, her regular features and wide-set hazel eyes, her calm and cautious glances. A nymph is not ‘an insolent girl’ like Elaine Cox even when the two are of an age. Nor could she be ‘a sturdy young trollop’ like Noreen. Judith is too well-behaved. She has a calm and dignified beauty. And even her bottom would not fit the categories of Noreen or Elaine.

Imagine Judith in a mini-skirted outfit with blouse or cardigan. An admirer following her progress would yearn at the sight of her lithe young legs moving before him, so long and graceful, sinuous and willowy. As she walks, the soft veil of hair rises and falls lightly with the movement of each step. This nymph shows every sign of a strictly brought-up maiden. Her mentors know from occasional discipline that Judith’s bottom has trimly alluring oval cheeks. In her blossoming, these cheeks of Judith’s backside lose nothing of their taut resilience. Her buttocks are cool and smooth, with the pallor that a nymph should have.

The nymph receives reprimands in surroundings of boudoir elegance. No reformatory trestle for her. How does one deal with Judith? Picture a sunlit afternoon, a spacious bedroom of pastel silks and pale wood. Heavy fragrance from a perfume-atomiser sweetens the air before she is summoned. Judith lies on her belly over silk bed-cushions. Her short skirt gone and her white cotton panties off, she is costumed with appropriate elegance. The tail of the blouse is pulled up well above her hips, revealing the white suspender-belt. Elastic straps pull the sheer nylon stockings tight and sleek up her calves and lower thighs. As a final submissive touch, the veil of brown hair is in a pair of ribboned plaits on slim bare shoulder-blades.

Framed by the elastic arch of the white suspender-belt and the stocking-tops at mid-thigh, the trim and resilient cheeks’ of Judith’s backside would be the envy of most young nymphs in mythology. Certainly a bamboo willow-pattern across the taut elegant ovals of Judith’s bottom-cheeks. Unfortunately for her, the sight of our nymph curving over the bed like this tempts some disciplinarians to try in secret the effect of a sinuous tail-tickler across her delectable young buttocks. Exemplary conduct is expected of such a young beauty. When she falls short, the lessons Judith must learn are exceptionally long and repeated.

But however severely reprimanded, Judith rouses affection and admiration as well as wistful thoughts. She inspires such feelings by her calm facial beauty, her demure manner, and by presenting for correction an elegant bottom that is clearly the seat of a young lady in the making. Such is the appearance and conduct of the nymph. Men and women will deal with her implacably when need arises but they will respect her dignity and endeavour not to add the grosser incidents of humiliation to the discipline imposed on Judith.

Though the nymph may be only a year or so older than the tomboy, it is easy to imagine that a man who begins as Judith’s chastiser will end as her lover. Indeed, it is easy to believe that her dignified beauty, the willowy grace of her stockinged legs, the oval elegance of her bottom-cheeks would seduce him even as he wove her a bamboo seat of exceptional complexity. The beauty of the nymph raises a moral dilemma by her bottom’s seductive potential during such training.

By contrast, the TOMBOY gets a bad press. One can well understand why she rouses the disciplinarian zeal of the Moral Majority, the holders of Victorian Values and the believers in cleaning-up the public life of England.

When Goering heard the word ‘culture’ he reached for his revolver. When the Moral Majority hears of tomboy rebellion, it reaches for its birch-rods. And who shall deny that its instincts are right?

The ‘good’ girl

The words ‘insolent’ and ‘impudent’ easily attach to such a girl. But the tomboy, no matter how old she may be, is a creature of adolescent mentality rather than moral maturity, making rebellion and disobedience natural to her. She is probably the most punished species of all. But even among tomboy rebels, there is always Sandra, the ‘good’ girl. Imagine her rather straight brown hair trimmed round at her collar, an eager and helpful attitude, a slightly muddy pallor. Her blue eyes smile easily or grow thoughtful and apprehensive as a puppy’s when scolded. She skips forward, straightening her seams, when asked to give an account of herself. Her conduct is no worse than that of Judith. But when the elastic arch of the suspender-belt and the black uniform stocking-tops frame the full round cheeks of Sandra’s bare bottom, the lesson is taught with tight-lipped enthusiasm.

In the better-known and more typical example of Elaine Cox, the tomboy’s conduct is openly insolent and defiant. The nymph is graceful and beautiful. Yet one feels the disciplinarian has more satisfaction, even enjoyment, in practising his art upon Elaine. The nymph makes a more alluring bride. The tomboy is a more desirable subject for training. Does the tomboy herself subconsciously or deliberately invite it?

Consider the case in point. Her mentor sits at the desk in his study window while the girls garden. Elaine has the task of weeding the flower-bed immediately outside, not six feet from his eyes. Her lank fair hair is worn plain and straight from its central parting to lie loose upon her shoulders, framing the broad oval of her face. Her narrowed eyes and thin mouth complete a portrait of snub-nosed insolence. Her trousers of smooth lavender-blue cloth fit very tight, drawn into a narrow waist by a broad leather belt, strained harder still over her hips and seat. Her back to the window, the tight cloth gives a fuller and heavier look to the cheeks of Elaine Cox’s bottom. Stooping sullenly to weed the bed, the cheeks of her young backside fatten and broaden suggestively in the smooth cloth. Does a tomboy lack female modesty, not caring about the view she offers? Or does Elaine Cox offer her bottom like this in a posture of symbolic insolence?

The young rebel

In this case, the offender was well aware of the onlooker sitting at his desk. She tossed back her lank fair hair from time to time and looked round as she bent. He made little progress with the paperwork on his desk! He leant forward a little and spent the whole morning gazing at the fuller and fatter swell of Elaine Cox’s bottom-cheeks in tight trousers as she bent to her labours. His eyes moved this way and that, always seeking the fullest view as the girl shifted her posture or bent tighter and showed a more suggestive rear shape. No one should reprove him for this. After all, he had been put in a position of authority. It was therefore to his credit that he devoted so much time to familiarising himself with the anatomy of Elaine Cox’s marvellous backside in all its postures. The young rebel herself, however, offered this display with calculated insolence. She incurred the consequences by her idleness, after being twice warned.

That afternoon, Elaine had spent some time kneeling forward over the sofa-arm, tossing back her hair again to face her instructor. Below her white blouse, the pleated grey skirt, scandalously short, bared robust pale thighs. The seat of Elaine Cox’s knickers, a pair of stretch-briefs in white elasticated cotton, was presented as she knelt tightly over. A tomboy is apt to be careless or slovenly in her dress. The elastic seat-hem of the knickers had worked up on one side of the seat, laying bare the lower half of that smooth pale bottom-cheek, as if Elaine deliberately intended to incite the disciplinarian with such a suggestive rear view.

The gardener was several canes short next day. The stable-lad noticed a pony-whip missing. Normally vexed by such implements being mislaid, he smiled quietly instead. He had heard Elaine summoned to judgement and followed cautiously. Cracks in the wooden partition gave glimpses of the study from an adjoining room with chair-rows, where the hand-pumped organ stood. A youthful male eye fitted every chink. One lucky fellow, a few feet behind the girl, made the sturdy bare cheeks of Elaine Cox’s bottom the subject of a whole afternoon’s intense private study. Had Elaine Cox’s rear prospect been an examination subject, he could have answered each question minutely and passed with distinction. The master’s words were uttered with a pistol-crack sharpness of bamboo and leather.

The tomboy, it seems, gets everything she asks for. Confronted by Elaine over the sofa scroll, the broad pale oval of her face, the snub-nosed insolence, the toss of lank fair hair, the full pale cheeks of her sturdy young bottom, most men and women are assumed to want to bring her to obedience by regular lessons in willow-pattern and leather-art. Accounts of her story sometimes misrepresent the reaction of those who heard of her. Few of them took up the girl’s cause. The overwhelming majority supported the master and envied him the chance to deal with such a rebellious youngster. His supporters were numerous. Some no doubt caught a glimpse of the girl striding back from building to building. A few were lucky enough to witness her kneeling over, ‘the bare sturdy swell of Elaine Cox’s tomboy bottom-cheeks’ presenting ‘a complete rear view’. Perhaps it was from these well-wishers that the master received presents of ingenious canes or birches that officials hardly dared to use. Or there might be a rod with a devastating ‘tickler’ of some sort at its tip that would make Elaine’s fists clench and her toes curl with its wicked cunning as it searched her tomboy ‘cheek-target’. She would ‘remember every stroke individually for years to come.’

Few observers at that time doubted that Elaine Cox deserved to be tanned. But though she deserved it, there seems little she could do about the appearance of her firmly-fleshed bottom, especially when bare and over the chastising block. Yet what intensifies the punishment is the effect on men and women of ‘the bare tomboy cheeks of Elaine Cox’s bottom’ or the ‘full pallor of this tomboy’s bum-cheeks’, or the ‘impudently fattened swell of Elaine Cox’s backside’. Having a tomboy bottom seals her fate, as it does Sandra’s, though Sandra seems to be the best behaved of all the girls. Why this type of bottom inspires extreme severity is a question for private consideration.

An intriguing combination of the nymph and the tomboy is the SOUBRETTE, whom one always thinks of as being much the age of the nymph. The soubrette has the cheeky provoking quality of the tomboy without the hard edge of insolence. She has the feminine allure of the nymph without being as demure or ladylike.

How do we picture the soubrette? She is probably Louise, for the name has just the right balance of dignity and skittishness. And what does she look like?

The hair may be cropped and slicked back to show a round, attractive face with a soft look and bold features. The fluttering eyelashes should be well-darkened to give a round saucer-eyed cheekiness. A soubrette is a natural plaything in the traditions of erotica. She is not too tall and, while never fat, there is a slight delicious shimmer of fair-skinned flesh at hips, thighs and breasts. Louise’s skin has the voluptuous sheen of sensual well-being.

Her dress is chosen to provoke — and then possibly to deny. Black stiletto heels and sheer black nylons. A black bra with pink roses and a black suspender-belt whose elastic straps keep the nylon stockings straight and sleek. Louise’s knickers are bound to be of a frivolous kind, unlike the regulation uniform of Elaine or the plain anti-sexist cotton briefs of feminism. They are sleek translucent black with lace leg-hems. They cling suggestively to the slight plumpness of Louise’s pearly bottom-cheeks. The quick shimmer of bare pale thighs as she jumps or runs is visible between the hem of these panties and the tops of her shiny black stockings.

Keeping such a soubrette in order is not easy. Louise may not have to be treated with the respect due to a nymph nor subject to the stricter punishments of a tomboy. But once let a soubrette get the upper hand and life becomes impossible. The right word is important here. The Moral Majority thrashes a tomboy. The domestic disciplinarian chastises a nymph. Surely her admirer spanks a soubrette. Little but often, as they say. Catch Louise bending, the soft spread of pale bottom-cheeks mistily seen in tight translucent black panties. Is there a slight touch of punk contempt in the side-slicked hair and the bold saucer-eyed stare that looks back at you?

Perhaps it would reinforce a conduct-lesson if the soubrette met her smarting Waterloo in a plain boarded room with a padded trestle. The pale softness of Louise’s bottom-cheeks jumping and quivering under the scorching impacts of the tailed spanking-strap — and her own vibrant shrillness — might gain something from the more institutional surroundings. But not necessarily. A more intimate and affectionate approach may have just as good an effect. After a night of passionate engagement, she trots from boudoir to bathroom of the honeymoon suite for her long soak after breakfast in bed. A glimpse of the soft young cheeks of Louise’s bottom suggests that she must have spent the night sitting bare in a pool of spilt rouge on a hard cane chair.

The soubrette is in some ways the most controversial subject. Is she to be treated more as nymph or tomboy? Louise obviously asks for something. But what is it? For certain admirers, it will be the lover’s affectionate command in the honeymoon hotel, as in Judith’s case. For others, Louise is little different to Elaine. She must be answerable for her faults of ‘boldness’ and ‘flirtation’ twenty-four hours a day.

Take the second choice. A peep through a partition-chink into the study will show the filmy black nylon of Louise’s panties discarded on a chair. A straining ear would catch her gasping, the sofa springs shifting, and the sharp rhythm of a crack-shot at all-afternoon target practice. The gardener will be short of canes for the soft fruit. One or two of the riding-club’s treasures will be unaccounted for. Louise will emerge walking cautiously and a little awkwardly, her mascara running. A desperate print of pretty teeth may be detected on the sofa leather. During supper, as an example, Louise may bend and display to the others the bare truth of impudence and its reward.

To which type is the soubrette allied? The nymph or the tomboy? To decide that, it would be necessary to catch Louise bending while dressing, the translucent black panties tight on the soft swell of her bum-cheeks, the bold saucer-eyed face turned to the intruder. And then, the lucky visitor must make up his own mind whether the silk-covered bed of the honeymoon suite or the padded trestle in the bare-boarded room makes the better display-stand for this particular soubrette.

The secret of the vamp

There is a certain point at which behaviour rather than figure makes the difference between these female types. What precisely is the difference between Judith the Nymph and Tracey the VAMP?

Tracey, the heroine of an erotic epic, School for Scandal, is often encountered in her early twenties and is in some ways very similar to Judith. It seems that Tracey works in a boutique, or some establishment whose windows display her, and that she is a flesh-and-blood sales gimmick. Her hair is golden blonde, worn loose in a come-hither slant across her forehead and spilling loose on her shoulders. Her firm fair-skinned face is finely modelled and her blue eyes look steadily ahead of her as she walks. The secret of the vamp is to have this feminine allure, perhaps a self-loving stroking of her silky blonde tresses, and yet to combine it with a bogus dignity. Itching with eagerness, she will nonetheless catch her breath, as if in fright, at the first gentle bottom-pat of a playful lover.

Her figure alone might qualify her as a nymph, tall and graceful, trimly proportioned. Her shoulders have an elegant feminine slope and her breasts rise and fall with youthful resilience at every step. Her belly is flat and taut, her lower back having just the right inward curve that causes a delectable swelling out of her hips. Unlike the nymph, the vamp prefers tight cream trousers and a short matching jacket that ends at her waist. Her movements have a knowingness that is quite unlike the natural grace of Judith the Nymph.

From the rear, as she walks, Tracey’s long legs have a fine branching slimness, matching a lithe and sensuous sway of her svelte hips. Tracey’s bottom offers a pair of cheeks that are demure and ripely curved ovals in skin-tight cream jeans. She walks with a rhythm that is seductive and assured, pausing from time to time to sweep the slant of her silkily heavy blonde hair into place.

Splittingly-tight teasing

The particular pleasure of the vamp is in teasing the male sex with what they cannot have. A gentleman passing the boutique, for example, may suddenly notice Tracey with her back to him bending over to pick up a pile of jeans or skirts. No hurry about it, she gives him a full long view through the glass. The silky golden hair spills forward and the cream pants are splittingly-tight on her fluted thighs and especially on the trimly rounded cheeks of Tracey’s bottom. Not only do the cheeks of Tracey’s bottom form a pair of perfectly oval half-moon globes, but her posture separates them most suggestively. And still she is in no hurry, showing the passer-by what he would love to have and… His eyes bulge a little. Tracey’s bottom angles this way towards him. Tracey’s bottom angles that way at him. Tracey’s bottom straining at him in the skin-smooth pants — and no knickers underneath. Blood pressure threatens to blow his skull clean off and his trousers seem to have shrunk several sizes.

He could wait for Tracey after work and chat her up. Oh, yes? The vamp emerges with one arm round her boyfriend and his round her. The admirer’s eye bombards with death-rays the awful little yob who stands between him and what he imagines about Tracey’s backside. To make matters worse, as the pair walk slowly past the shops, the boyfriend’s hand keeps sliding down, feeling and stroking the cheeks of Tracey’s bum in her tight pants. Patting quite hard from time to time, as if to remind her of what she had last night and what she’ll get presently back at her place. And Tracey squirms her superb bottom-cheeks against his hand and loves him doing it to her in front of the rush-hour bus-queue. That is the difference between the nymph and the vamp.

In the skull of the frantic admirer, vindictive scenarios compose themselves. Tracey the Vamp in his villa on a remote island where all the natives are subject to his command. Tracey bending over a brass rail, the heavy silk of her blonde veil hanging down as she looks back at the room through the arch of her own parted legs. The white pants and jacket discarded on the chair. Tracey’s bare bottom-cheeks enough to make all those pouting little starlets of the Hollywood glamour-school die of envy. A slim correcting switch, whose devastating effects a century before caused the whole island to rise in rebellion against colonial rule. No institution would dare. But Tracey’s bottom an hour or two later is a sight for sore eyes, its cheeks having assumed postures that she would have blushed to think of before, her bare legs having performed a frenzied and hopeless dance.

After that particular fantasy, indulged each time he glimpses Tracey through the window, her admirer feels much much better. And that is why the vamp is not an innocent nymph. To some conscious degree, she not only inspires his vivid fantasies, but wishes him to have them.

The fantasies of the Moral Majority in respect of the vamp would be a little different. But the moralists and the cleaners-up are all agreed in one thing. If there is one girl who presents a greater danger to the security of the moral order, the political future, and safety in the streets, it is the TROLLOP. In some ways, the trollop is almost the tomboy’s big sister. But she is worse than that. She is defiant, contemptuous, and has not a vestige of shame about her. Perhaps her worst fault, for the moralists, is that she belongs to a lower class than they — and she won’t admit it.

The figure of the trollop — in both senses — is summed up in Noreen. No one with a belief in the decency of Victorian Values would mistake Noreen at 19 or 20 for a young lady. Rough, vulgar, contemptuous of her social superiors, the strapping young wench deserves everything she gets from them. Just like the tomboy.

Her fans will possibly recall the sight of Noreen with her lank dark hair at collar-length, worn in a level fringe on her forehead, her firm fair-skinned features, the resolute jaw-line, the wide points of her cheekbones and the disdain in her brown eyes. The point about Noreen — as about Elaine — is that her type is so blatant you can tell it from her bottom alone. Elaine Cox bending to weed the flowerbed in tight trousers can be seen for what she is. How about Noreen?

Sturdy-bottomed trollop

The first cameo displays her at her menial task, polishing a waxed floor with spray and duster. Perhaps the lips tighten a little as you sight Noreen polishing on all fours. The leather waist-belt draws the Falmer jeans skin-tight on her well-made hips and backside. Noreen’s buttocks are firmly broadened and rounded, the jeans-seam suggestively deep and tight between them. Noreen’s knickers, the usual pair of stretch-briefs, are clearly outlined under the tight denim seat. As the inspector watches her, she remains in position but shakes back the lank collar-length of dark hair and stares round at him contemptuously as if to send him on his way. Noreen does not like being examined in this way. The lazy insolence of the brown eyes under the level fringe and the firm resolve of mouth and chin inform him of that.

But the moralist’s eyes, surveying the ‘strapping young trollop’, turn from her face to Noreen’s backside. Impossible to contemplate it without seeing a threat to political and social order. Strongly made and firmly broadened, provocatively clad in tight jeans with a broad leather waist-belt, Noreen uses it to challenge the world of the Moral Majority. Small wonder that the vigilantes imagine her facing retribution in nothing but the waist-length singlet and the broad leather waist-belt. Sleeping lightly on her belly over the pillows, she makes an exciting prospect for those who come to summon her. The cool moon-smoothness of Noreen’s swelling bottom-cheeks, relaxed and lightly parted in her slumber.

Returning to reality the images that pass through the mind of the onlooker as he watches her at work are all of discipline behind high walls and closed doors. Noreen’s bottom always bare. Noreen’s bottom presented over the kneeling-stool. Noreen’s bottom offered over the trestle. Noreen bottom-upwards over the study sofa. And in his palm he can almost feel the presence of the handle of the cane or the birch-rod, the ivory butt of the training-lash, the slim cool leather of the quivering switch. At a word of command, the tail of the singlet is drawn up to the small of the girl’s back so that nothing shall interfere with his aim. The pistol-crack smack of the supple leather across the full-swelling pallor of Noreen’s bottom-cheeks.

Anyone who imagines that Noreen would learn her lesson among wild grins and eager touchings has a lot to learn about English morality. The place would be discreetly far away from public hearing and well concealed from prying eyes, the time chosen being the dead of night. Those responsible for the penalty would inflict it with the dispassionate and pitiless determination of experts. The stiffening of their resolve at the prospect of Noreen’s bare and big-bottomed posture over the trestle is only to be expected. Of those whose duty or privilege it is to witness such things, the women seem the most eager to catch Noreen’s eye with quiet amusement as she awaits retribution.

But when the walls ring to the first sharp impacts, men and women alike watch keenly, eager to catch any pretext for adding to Noreen’s correction. Noreen is sturdily built and a sturdy-bottomed girl in such a posture. This makes her well able to take as much as a trollop deserves. She is insolent and that is also thought to qualify her for extra severity. It will be far into the night before they have taken her well beyond what she believed she could bear. But that is their destination. The moral lesson — or the fun — will not be over too quickly.

Presented with their bottoms alone, one might mistake the nymph for the vamp perhaps. In Noreen’s case, as in Elaine’s, the type and shape of the bottom shows the girl for what she is. Who is the trollop’s other neighbour? Among such feminine types, there is a clear division between the amiable soubrette or nymph and the grasping or cynical vamp or trollop. Though not physically very different to the trollop, the young AMAZON often presents a more eager and good-natured display.

By this time, of course, we are talking about young women in their middle twenties. Whatever their characters, they enjoy regular loving and marital exercise, perhaps even have a small child or two to ‘steady’ them. Mandy the young Amazon combines the playful brown-eyed appeal of the young housewife and working-girl with an air of animal energy.

An energetic exhibitionist

Mandy makes herself more pleasant to her admirers and is probably something of an exhibitionist. The brown tresses cluster down to her shoulders, framing a firm pale face that might be a match for Noreen. But Mandy is a girl who smiles more easily, full of energy and looking pleased with herself. Physical labour and vigorous exercise come naturally to her. Mandy practising gymnastics in singlet and tights is an object-lesson. But a good many of those who see her then might drift off into a dream of a six-week cycling holiday on the sunlit roads of France, pedalling on the rear saddle of a tandem with Mandy in front.

Those long swooping hills on the straight roads of Normandy require some resolute pedalling when the climb begins. The double cheek-swell of Mandy’s bottom broadened and rounded in damply clinging briefs must rise from the saddle in such labour. But unlike the trollop’s resentment or the tomboy’s insolence, Mandy visibly enjoys giving her partner on the rear saddle a view of what he covets. She glances back, her open and honest young face showing her pleasure at his attention and her brown eyes smiling and teasing a little. The nickname ‘Randy Mandy’ is unfair, because she is doing what comes naturally to her. She keeps her hips well-raised from the saddle for his benefit. The hem of the little cycling pants works up until Mandy’s rear cheeks are no longer covered entirely. The gasping of her partner in his exertions makes her feel his breath upon the cool bare swell.

A day of this, Mandy’s backside rounding and squeezing, swelling and tensing in her labour, ends at the remotest camp-site that her partner can find. The corner of a field with no other tent visible and the farmhouse half a mile distant. As he watches her, it seems that Mandy bends over for longer than is really necessary when adjusting the tent-pegs. And she always does it in such a way that her behind is towards him. Even the cooking seems to require that she stoops over the little stove. No surprise then that Mandy ends up bending to the frying-pan in only her singlet and shoes.

A certain tightness and excitement pervades the twilight. The first pat becomes a smack. Mandy’s response is a smile and a gentle suggestion that they should wait until afterwards. The singing flies, drawn by the light and the humid warmth of the double-cheeked prospect, perch and explore the landscape of Mandy’s bottom with an audacity and intimacy that almost takes the breath away.

Afterwards, as if fearing that her partner may have forgotten, Mandy spreads the sleeping-bags in the tent, kneeling on all fours with her rear framed by the canvas flap. She works slowly and hopefully. A sound like the report of a starting-pistol signals the beginning of the night’s festivities. The wary flies, sensing the danger of being swatted, keep well clear. Only much later, when Mandy sprawls sleeping on her belly, do the daring insects alight, testing the extreme sensitivity and smarting glow of the double cheek-swell. But even they must be aware that Mandy has earned a reward of another kind as well, and that she sleeps contentedly, dreaming of the days ahead.

The good-nature of the young Amazon, and the ease with which she takes such things in her stride, make her one of the luckiest and happiest female types.

Perhaps the hardest type to define is the WANTON. She varies from age to age, country to country. In contemporary England, she is emancipated or liberated, a figure of women’s movements and trendy causes. Often not much less than 30, she has done her bit in the marriage bed, produced one or two kids, and now leaves all that to do her own thing. She may fancy a new man but, increasingly, a pretentious young creature of her kind may choose a female partner.

The French would see her as a gamine or a garçonne. Only the French would have a fashion house called ‘Comme des Garçons’ and encourage emancipated young women to lure men by their boyish appeal. The English have no words quite like that. But when the urchin-cropped wanton of 27 or 28 deserts her duties to have fun with a new partner, the English are certainly not lost for words at her promiscuity. ‘She needs a damn good spanking… Someone should tan her bottom hard for her… I’d put the young whore over my knee and teach her a lesson!’ No denying that most of the outraged moralists would rather like to take on the job.

Promiscuous, spoilt and disdainful

The image of the wanton is seen in the prototype of Lesley. The fair hair is straight and trimmed at the jawline with a long parted fringe. The fair-skinned features are firm and clear, the blue eyes disdainful of casual admirers. A sulky line to the mouth and chin suggests a spoilt daughter of the middle class. Promiscuous on her own terms, the modern wanton is not generally available and often sullenly dismissive of mere males who fancy her.

Sexual maturity and well-controlled child-rearing give her particular qualities of seduction. Her breasts, back and belly will be pale and sleek in their erotic maturity. Her legs are quite long, thighs still trim from casual exercise. See her gardening in trouser-suit of thin black cotton, pants quite tight-fitting. Her hips show a marginal broadening. The cheeks of Lesley’s bottom have a slight firming-out from the labours of loving and bearing.

Hard to overstate the degree of social and sexual vindictiveness felt by ordinary men and (particularly) women towards such an arrogantly emancipated young wife. The extreme severity of punishment wished on her seems in part a decision that she is well able to bear it. Unlike Judith and her kind, she is experienced in the labours of love and rearing. ‘The firm full-moon pallor of Lesley’s bottom-cheeks’ or ‘the sleek pale maturity of Lesley’s buttocks’ seal her fate as much as her conduct. Lesley needs to be put under the command of a man who will tolerate no leniency, such is the general view.

This moral overseer is imagined as standing over her while she stoops to wholesome labour. He is, no doubt, tight-lipped and vindictive. The least arrogance in her backward glance, the slightest look of resentment from the blue eyes and firm features under the parted fringe of her boyish crop — and she is in deep trouble. As if she were a mere field-girl, this sullen and pretentious daughter of the middle-class is marched to a remote shed on the property, where accounts of all kind can be settled.

Despite his moral firmness, the overseer has an excited air. For Lesley, the pants of her trouser-suit removed, there is the indignity of being face-down on her bare belly over the roll of a discoloured and discarded mattress, now part of the shed lumber. What does she wear underneath her cotton trousers? Not frilly or provocative panties. Those are for women prepared to be sex-objects. Lesley’s knickers are black stretch-briefs in plain elasticated cotton. Down they come. The overseer takes a careful survey of the pale full moon-swell of Lesley’s bottom, the bare cheeks sleek but firm. A faint pink elastic imprint from the briefs arches high over each cheek of her behind. Unlike the nymph or the soubrette, Lesley is permitted to conceal nothing. Reticence in the case of an emancipated wanton would be absurd. No leniency is contemplated. Nor must she flinch from examination.

A wand quivering finely at its tip is all that her disciplinarian needs. Softer interludes take place from time to time but the sound of a crack-shot at cheek-smacking target practice continues on and off until twilight. A passer-by might be forgiven for thinking it all a charade. Lesley sounds as if she is auditioning for the soundtrack of The Brides of Dracula. Later on, under much closer attention, she emits no more than a repressed and urgent mewing.

Time and again the arrogant young wanton tries to end the proceedings by ingratiation or sulky reproach. Consider the provocation Lesley offers and her failure is not surprising. The face that looks back is sullen and self-pitying, the blue eyes under the parted fringe of her plain crop are still resentful of a moral reprimand. The sleek pearly swell of Lesley’s bottom-cheeks receive whatever is given. There can be no question of limiting the overseer’s scope.

But the firm erotic swell of Lesley’s backside as much as her arrogant promiscuity seems to determine her fate. We catch her alone, lying on her side, her back to the reader, easing a natural itch. ‘The firm pearly swellings of Lesley’s bottom-cheeks tensed and slackened in a slow languorous rhythm. Her taut thighs whispered together.’ The viewer is offered ‘the fattened swelling and writhing, the ecstatic tightening, the tremors and vulgar roundings of the full-moon cheeks of Lesley’s bottom.’

A chastiser spying on her then would be unlikely to mellow. Lying there later, clad in honey-toned panty-tights that are shining wet from her renewed exertions, she gets a taste of things to come. As the urchin-cropped wanton twists and squirms, ‘Lesley’s pale buttocks in the translucent water-gloss of her tights swelled and rounded in the most vulgar shapes of feminine temptation.’

The boyish married woman’s fate

The moralists who advocated retribution are satisfied. Yet the severity of it seems inspired by the firm young maturity of Lesley’s bottom. The emancipated wife with kids of her own who cuts her hair to make herself look more like a boy is a sexual curiosity. The fantasists imagine the delight of the overseer presented with such an inmate, a very feminine subject with the erotic backside of a married woman who chooses a boyish crop. Her mentor urges Lesley to forget married life, kids, even her femininity. The young wife’s boyish ambitions will be fulfilled in ways she never imagined. At regular intervals, Lesley must consider being bare-bottomed over the study sofa or store-room mattress, like a delinquent lad. But this charade of the boyish wanton is spiced by the knowledge that she is well able to endure the toils of love and child-bearing. The contortings of her buttocks over sofa or mattress suggest to her mentors, ‘Lesley surging bottom-upwards over the pillows in a labour of honeymoon passion’. This reminds them of her regular amorous exercise and that erotic maturity which shows her experience of labour and bearing. This, in turn, causes them to smile and decide that she can undergo a good deal more than any delinquent lad. The overseer now reaches for his bamboo. Lesley’s clear soprano from the study is an audition-piece that a diva of the Metropolitan Opera would envy for its range and intensity.

The WANTON is a far cry from the NYMPH or the SOUBRETTE and even the TOMBOY in the thoughts she inspires. But her downfall is a combination of moral attitude and physical appeal. And though she is a far cry, hers is not a solo cry. From every ‘tanning-factory’ in the land, it is accompanied by the soprano wildness of JUDITH the NYMPH, ELAINE the TOMBOY, LOUISE the SOUBRETTE, NOREEN the TROLLOP, TRACEY the VAMP, and MANDY the YOUNG AMAZON. And any gentleman of taste will, no doubt, add a few special categories of his own.