Derrière by Julius Culdrose is a memoir expressing “the height of bottom adoration” under the Nexus imprint. If there is any question as to what sort of bottom being adored, it is most definitely the female one at endless lengths and with the widest possible variety of approaches from ogling to patting proceeding onward to spanking and enemas not to omit group buggering and fondling.

Mr. Culdrose is an unabashed roué who has willingly spent his life by his own admission as a “lazy, irresponsible pervert.” It is a description that early on he accepted as his due given his relentless passion for female fannies and his ardent pursuit of them. In many cases, the protest was feigned according to his narrative, so that the femme would not lose face as she offered up her rear for their mutual pleasures. What is more he bases his behavior on the principle that those who have inhibitions about sex should keep them to themselves.

Whatever fantasy or curiosity about technique you may harbor about the wonders of the female bottom and anus, the full details are discussed here with a careful exposition of technique replete with anecdotes of every sort. One might feel that would become redundant at some point but there are two things that mitigate that.

First and foremost, Mr. Culdrose can actually write a fluid and engaging complex sentence in English which is very nearly impossible to find elsewhere these days. As a painter, he is an able imagist so the subject of girls’ bottoms -- while I suppose not completely inexhaustible -- holds up very nicely. I think he should be eligible for some sort of award given the variety and creativity of his descriptions of the texture, color, contours, and accessibility of the female anus. That circuitous route, oddly enough, brings us to his second virtue, which sustains the vitality of his book.

The truth is that Mr. Culdrose – though I am sure many feminists would clench with fierce objections here – truly likes women. What’s more, he likes them as they are. He has a rather odd take on their personalities as he always starts a relationship at the base of their spine. That may not be at all PC, but it’s where he starts, and given his passion that’s to be expected.

However, he never objectifies them (unless they want that sort of thing), demeans them, or regards them as anything but his most adored equals. He is not much for fidelity, but to hear him tell it, neither are his lovers. They stay until the thrill has dimmed and then brighten the world by backing into the lives of other men. Women are also presented as being different than men in the way they think and pursue sexual pleasure, which seems a simple truth. He does not present them as either victims or paragons of conventional virtue, which in this case is a form of respect.

His lovers come in all sizes, shapes and colors from as many cultures as he can seduce. And they come in every variety of individual from charming to cunning, conniving to clever, pleasant to pusillanimous, brilliant to just plain crazy. And while they all come to his attention on the strength of their rear ends, they are all regarded as individuals. So there is none of the Victorian hand-rubbing as the old lecher seduces yet another hapless maiden. These maidens all drop their knickers knowing full well where and how he intends to engage with them.

As an Englishman of the old style, both Culdrose’s prose and his languid Tory outlook are driven by the mental habits of another era. He writes like an Edwardian pornographer, in long and delightfully circuitous sentences as he describes his participation in the Swinging Sixties and hence to the present. You might not necessarily want him in your home, especially if your lady friend has a charming bottom and is growing tired of you. However, he is the sort of fellow you might very well enjoy – regardless of your gender – sharing a weekend of callipygian debauch. I suspect he has excellent taste in food and wine as well.

He narrowly avoids adopting the tone of Frank and I with no steamy references to creating a ‘snuggery’ and various methods of birching bouncy behinds. He certainly enjoys administering a sound spanking to a dainty darling, but he really likes their bottoms very much and has no intention of doing them any harm. What is more, they have all apparently asked for the spankings they receive.

Even if you find Mr. Culdrose an incorrigible rake, you have to admit that his book is upbeat, positive about his subject and life in general as well as guilt free. He believes that life is meant to be lived and, as he says, life to him is synonymous with pleasure. Such sybaritic sentiments may seem either out of date or immoral given the wretched state of the world. However, the moralizers do seem to make it ever more wretched by the day. So this epicurean attitude is refreshing in Derrière precisely because it is so unique.