Eric Wilkins is one of the UK's foremost photographers of the primary act of what is least innocuously called 'erotic discipline', in which the open hand is applied briskly to the nether regions of another's body, purely in furtherance of the enhancement of erotic stimulus. He is to be congratulated on this volume, and the publishers must also be praised for venturing into one of the less approved activities by which couples (predominantly M/F and F/F) reach the pinnacle of arousal. Whereas most photographic depictions of the practice concentrate exclusively on the impacts themselves, in suitably provocative poses, neglecting what is (for most people, at least) the subsequent activities that lead to the climactic conclusion of the arousal, this volume does these activities superb justice. The principal human parts needed for consummation are well exhibited in all their glorious detail, whether normally connected or otherwise caressed. As Wilkins suggests, the use of the hand in castigation, with its obvious intimacy makes the act the most erotic in the adult disciplinary canon, and this comes over with charming beauty in the illustrations. Wilkins includes brief comments (a few from Lynn Paula Russell) which nicely focus the mind on this charm. The format used is large enough to allow crisp detail to emerge, and the book is without doubt the best essay into its subject there has been putting the illustrations included in the magazines of the seventies firmly into the shade. A unique and most welcome book.