I’m going to be blunt here: I am an ass man. Always have been (since puberty anyway), and probably always will be.

I can’t explain why any better than saying that I am an indentured servant to my constantly raging hormones, and as such find the female hindquarters to be extremely exciting to look at for no reason beyond why kids claim to like Apple Jacks: they just do. Same reason boob guys are boob guys. (Don’t get me wrong. I love breasts, too. It’s just that people always try to pigeonhole guys into one or the other. I also love faces. Honestly, I even get excited about red nail polish for some reason.)

During my daily travels throughout New York City, I attempt not to be caught gazing longingly at something in the area of three million or so butts, one-third of which are covered only by yoga pants or tights.*

And I’m not alone in this. One of the more comical things I see with regularity in my Brooklyn neighborhood are dudes who pass a woman walking the other direction and pull off a blatant and garish Booty Lookback.

It’s like they’re not even trying to do it clandestinely. It’s embarrassing! The Booty Lookback is an artform forged in decency—the decency to prevent offense to women without compromising our natural hormonal instincts, which demand that we find out if a lady’s pretty face is matched up with a rump that looks like two perfectly formed crescent moons facing in opposing directions.

Now, if you’re going to execute a Booty Lookback here and there—and if you maintain you aren’t, you’re lying to yourself—then you should do it with as much tact as can be mustered for an act considered vulgar by some.

I’m here to help you with that. My qualification by residences:

• Four years at Penn State University (college town where all women wear tights to class)
• One-and-a-half years in Ocean City, Maryland (trollops from all over the east coast flock to this place in the summer months)
• One-and-a-half years in New York, New York (big city saturated with butts)

So, yeah. I’ve had ample apple bottom-gazing training. Through rigorous trial and error experimentation, I’ve picked up some best practices.

A Booty Lookback is, of course, different than having the good fortune to find yourself walking behind a woman with a phenomenal tail. In the latter scenario, all you have to do is to sense if she is about to turn any part of her body around, and to not stare too long without breaking your gaze, lest other people to be repulsed or amused by your actions.

First thing you’re going to want to do is, obviously, check the woman’s front out. You can’t go checking out every ass you walk past. That’d be exhausting and weirder than sporadic Booty Lookbacks already admittedly are. If there’s attraction to the front, your next step is to make an attempt at eye contact. This is because if her gaze meets yours and she turns around to give you a lookback of her own, you can track her down and hand her your business card or whatever your method is.

Once you’re past her, DO NOT immediately turn your head around to stare in admiration. Everyone coming your way will see you doing this, and with all the crazy out there you never know when some lady is going to straight up scold you and tell you you need some God in your life. Be patient. You almost always have at least a few seconds before she disappears into a crowd, never to be seen again, and then you’re doomed to wonder for eternity what her moneymaker looks like.

While you’re waiting for your right moment to glance, you should be pulling your phone out of your pocket and slowing your pace, or you should step to the side, stop completely, and begin fiddling with your shoes. In either scenario you’re able to turn your body so that you can look back with your periphery while appearing to bystanders that you’re doing something else.

If it appears that the woman is also looking back your way, stop everything and bore a hole into her soul with your gorgeous stare.

And that’s how you execute a perfect Booty Lookback.

*These are especially worrisome because I always find myself playing against myself in the internal game I call “Thong, G-String, Conventional Underroos, or Nothing At All?” This necessitates more than just a cursory glance, and one I’m not particularly ashamed of because if you’re going to wear yoga pants in public you can’t really get hacked off when people check out your booty.