So, let's talk about sex. And no more of that snickering and whispering in the corners, okay? I mean, we're all perverts here together, right?

Men who love men. Guys who do guys. Boys who chase men. Fellows who follow fellows. Oh, yeah--and women who want women. Slash. Some of us are hooked on men on men. Some of us are lusting after women with women. Whatever your preferred flavor - it's the one thing that binds us all together. No matter what else we might disagree on, this is one thing we can all agree on.

We want to watch 'em Do It.

Twice, if we're lucky.

In the water. On the beach. In a car. Under a tree. In a bed. On the table. In a bathroom. Against the wall. In a plane On the couch. At the library.. There's just no end to the ways and places where we've already seen them Doing It. And we want more.

(Oh, yeah, and you want to know what makes a sex scene work for the reader? Well, I can promise you it isn't that breath-by-breath description of the physical action that you're sweating over. You can get three times the impact out of your sex scenes if you use one-third the physical description and describe, instead of all of that thrusting and moaning, the characters' emotions during the scene. Yeah, their physical sensations are good, too, but emotions are the most important.)

At this point, the urge to burst into tears and beg all of you to avoid using phrases like "pulsating manhood" and "rod of love" is almost overwhelming, but I'm fighting it. If you intend to write explicit physical descriptions, please know what you're talking about, okay?  

A few notes, for those of you who know less about male sexual response than you need to in order to write slash:

Men do not scream when they are penetrated, unless perhaps they are being raped. If it hurt so much they screamed in agony every time, they wouldn't do it.

If an orgasm was intense enough to make a guy pass out, he'd be most likely to pass out the instant before the most intense physical sensation - just as it peaks, so he wouldn't really be there to enjoy the best part of the orgasm. Every time someone writes a guy passing out from orgasm, I feel sorry for the character. All that work, and they missed the payoff.

Most men are able to think during sex. Their minds even wander sometimes. And a lot of the time, it takes the combination of physical sex AND mental fantasies to get them off. Even if they are with someone they love. (Ditto for women.)

Penetration - most men lose their own erections while they're being penetrated and it takes a few minutes and direct stimulation to revive them. Some men cannot maintain an erection at all while being penetrated. Which doesn't mean they don't enjoy the sex. Prostate (notice, the word is PROSTATE, not "prostRate") massage is (I understand) intensely pleasurable, even though it isn't necessarily going to lead to orgasm.

Penetration is difficult for a man to accomplish without a complete erection, and keeping his erection completely hard takes concentration and stimulation.

After those awkward teenage years when erections come and go, a man learns to control his body. Feeling arousal at the sight, touch of a lover does NOT mean he reaches full erection. There is a semi-erect state that is much more likely, with full erection only being achieved after direct stimulation.

Guys over the age of 20 rarely become fully erect in an instant. Arousal has to build for them just as it does for a woman. It can take as little as a couple of minutes, with direct stimulation, or as long as an hour, for a grown man to become fully erect.

Anal sex, unless the participants are face-to-face, doesn't really allow them to kiss each other with any ease. A quick peck, or a kiss on the cheek is about all they're going to be able to manage. None of the guys in fandom, to the best of my knowledge, are contortionists.

Anal sex is NOT the only way for men to have sex. Frottage (rubbing their erections together between their bodies), manual stimulation, and oral stimulation are as common as anal sex. Some gay men go their entire lives without having anal sex. There is MORE to sex than penetration is what I'm saying.

Oh, yeah. One more really important note.

Rape is not sex.