“I never expected any of this when I posted those pictures of my bum on the web – I only did it for a laugh,” bemoans twenty-two year old office worker Kerry McTarrant, who has found herself at the centre of a bizarre religious cult. “I just did it as a dare, to go one better than that slapper from accounts who photocopied her arse at the Christmas party and faxed it to the whole company! I didn’t think I’d find High Priests from remote South Sea islands turning up on my doorstep to worship my buttocks – I didn’t even know they had the internet there!” Little did McTarrant suspect the bizarre world she’d find herself plunged into, when she drunkenly posted several photographs of her bottom on an internet message board. “It was something to do with underwear – I posted them in a thread about which panties best suited which shaped backside – I didn’t think anyone would read it,” she wails. “How was I to know that site was frequented by bum-fetishers from all over the world?” An unexpected knock on the door one Tuesday evening first alerted Miss McTarrant to the scale of her problems. On opening the door of her parents’ West London home, she found herself confronted by two large men wearing sarongs and feathered ceremonial headresses. “I thought they were salesmen trying to get me to change my energy supplier,” McTarrant claims. “But when we got into the living room, they asked me to turn around and drop my skirt – when I looked over my shoulder, they were prostrate on the floor, mumbling prayers at my bum!”

There followed a bizarre bottom worshipping ceremony, during which McTarrant lost her underwear. “I’ll tell you, my mum was more than a bit surprised when she walked in to find me bent across the dining room table with my bare backside being spanked with a ceremonial paddle,” she says. “They paddled my cheeks until I farted – this caused them great jubilation! According to them it was some kind of prophecy – they’re experts at interpreting sacred farts!” The priests departed – excitedly clutching a plaster cast of McTarrant’s backside – as abruptly as they had arrived, leaving a baffled McTarrant wondering how they had come to fixate upon her posterior as an object of worship. However, a quick perusal of the world wide web quickly clarified matters. “When I put ‘sacred arse’ into Google, it came up with hundreds of sites dedicated to my bum,” reveals a shocked McTarrant. “All these sad little pervs living in bedsits had used the pics I’d posted to set up fan sites for my bottom – some had badly written poetry extolling its virtues, while others had comparisons with other famous bums! It was really gross – and so over the top! I mean, I know my bum is OK – lots of blokes ogle it and that guy in accounts keeps dropping stuff to get me to bend over and pick it up – but it isn’t so great it needs a cult devoted to it, let alone a religion!”

McTarrant soon found that the cult wasn’t confined to just web sites showing pictures of her arse. “I discovered that there was an on-line trade in so-called ‘holy relics’ going on as well,” an appalled McTarrant confides. “People were selling what they claimed were my underwear on e-bay for huge amounts of money!” Indeed, a thong which had allegedly graced her posterior was recently sold to a ‘collector’ for over a thousand pounds on the internet auction site. “As if I’d wear something as slutty as that,” asserts McTarrant. “Honestly, most of the stuff they were selling was in really disgusting condition – covered in stains and skid marks! Some of them had the arse worm out of them, as well! I’d never wear underwear in that state, let alone sell it!” McTarrant tracked some of the buyers back to their web sites, and was astonished by what she saw. “One saddo who described himself as a ‘High Priest’ had pictures on his site showing him wearing what were supposedly a pair of my knickers on his head as he led his congregation in prayers to a huge blow-up of my bum,” she reveals. “Another creep has photos of him sniffing another pair of allegedly ‘sacred’ panties – he’s shown writhing on the floor in some kind of trance brought on by their aroma! He reckons he has visions while he’s like that! It’s all so totally sick!”

Hoping that it was all a passing craze, McTarrant decided to simply try and ignore the on-line furore surrounding her behind. However, just as it seemed that the fad had blown over, events took a sinister turn. “I was standing at the bus stop one evening after work, when I suddenly felt an excruciating pain in my left buttock,” she explains. “When I looked round, standing behind me was another of those High Priest weirdos, but this one was armed with a long sharpened stick, with which he had just stabbed me!” Before a shocked McTarrant could react further, the High Priest made another lunge for her behind, tearing down her trousers and stabbing her again, this time in her right buttock. Terrified, she attempted to escape, but, with her trousers now around her ankles, she tripped and fell. Luckily, the High Priest was overpowered by a group of passing accountants and taken to the nearest police station. “It turned out that although he came from the same island as the other priests, this one represented a rival arse cult, one which worships Jennifer Lopez’ fat butt,” relates a still astonished McTarrant. “He came here to destroy what he saw as a false idol – my bottom!”

Top anthropologist Daniel Botsie of Fulham University, an expert on bottom worshipping cults, explains that such religions are well established amongst South Sea Islanders. “According to their creation myths, the world , planets and sun were blown out of the arses of the gods,” he explains. “Consequently, they see the bottom as sacred – the bringer of life! To this day their priests teach that thunder is the sound of the Gods breaking wind, and that lightning is when they set fire to their divine farts to destroy sinners!” Botsie has visited the island in question – Bahakas – and reports that the faction worshipping McTarrant’s arse has constructed a huge stone effigy of it, using the plaster cast the priests had taken of her buttocks as a model. “Having seen her bottom on the internet, they decided that it was the perfect reincarnation of their most sacred holy arse – that of their earth-mother goddess; Nockandro,” he says. “They regularly hold ceremonies where their priests beat the effigy’s cheeks until they glow red and huge flames belch forth from between them! These emissions are considered portents and interpreted according to their length, duration and sound!”

However, this faction has come into conflict with a more orthodox faction of their faith which claims Jennifer Lopez’ buttocks to be the true reincarnation of the holy arse. “They believe her fuller buttocks are more befitting an earth goddess than Miss McTarrant’s more petite posterior,” Botsie opines. “The last time such a schism took place, a splinter group took to worshipping Kylie Minogue’s tiny bottom – the stone effigy of it was struck by lightning and completely destroyed!” McTarrant is understandably shocked and perturbed by these revelations. “The police say they can’t rule out further attacks,” she bawls. “Apparently they’re going to have to mount a twenty four hour guard on my bum! It’s just so humiliating! I wish I’d never visited that bloody forum!”