Men must not be seen touching a lady's bottom



When Jilly Cooper’s seminal “bonkbuster” novel Riders was re-released earlier this year with a “sanitised” cover, it was decried as a symbol of political correctness gone too far.

Now, however, the best-selling author has disclosed that she ordered it to be sent back for a re-print – featuring the male hand touching the female rider’s bottom once more.

The original 1985 book cover of Riders, the first in a series of romance novels about show jumpers, featured a hand resting seductively on the bottom of a woman wearing tight white jodhpurs.

However, the 30th anniversary edition of the book, released in June, was criticised for depicting a “toned down” version, with the hand placed higher up on the woman’s hip.

“The supermarkets were very shocked by the old cover,” Cooper told the Cheltenham Literature Festival. “They also said it demeaned women and that it was not politically correct. I was very cross. It was awful. The hand’s going back now for the re-print.”

Earlier this year, Cooper, who has an OBE for services to literature, decried her publishers for changing the cover.
“They moved Rupert’s hand, which is much smaller and less suntanned, by at least a centimetre,” she said.

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