Taste in general is very subjective and reading tastes even more so. It’s impossible to please all readers but the goal – I assume – is to please most readers. In this m/m genre, there is a lot of explicit erotica. It makes up a huge portion of the genre, although not the entire genre. Yet as all those dicks rub against each other and enter various orifices in increasingly kinky and outrageous ways…the language used to describe such is always extremely important.

Whether you call it an ass, a rosebud, channel, anus, chute, hole, crack, cleft, bunghole (really? *shudder*), butthole, rectum, arse, pooper, starfish, dock, back door or anything else your wild imagination comes with each reader will have a preference.

This extends to ALL details of the sex scene. From the cocks to the ass to the cum, if the words aren’t right the readers will cringe. Some may cringe anyway and others find it hotter than ever. Once again, taste is so subjective.

Since the colorful purple prose invention, language has become much more direct and graphic when speaking about sex. Books no longer have to hide their bushels under artful and rather obvious euphemisms and the throbbing rod of steaming man love is no longer the status de jour.

Yet the erotica industry just comes up with new and more inventive ways of explaining and describing sex. Definitely far, far more creativity than visual porn, which sticks to the basics.  So in this new era of brazen sex scenes, some terms are still laughable and some are just flat out hot hot hot.

So which is which for you?

I personally like the obvious ones. A dick’s a dick – not a pole, a rod, a bat. A hard-on’s ok but if I ever see “purple-headed yogurt slinger” again I’m going on a witch hunt.

I don’t mind any term for the asshole but stay away from the obvious references: rectum, chute, channel. And anything that says “shit-eating” during a sex scene. Doesn’t matter if it’s a grin or a literal interpretation of salad-tossing, it doesn’t belong please!

These are just a few of my personal choices and that doesn’t mean it suits everyone. Some readers can’t stand the term dick (I assume those don’t read m/m) but I definitely don’t speak for everyone.

So what do YOU like dear readers? Which terms turn you on and which make you throw the book?

Do you like your cum or do you prefer watery essence of love’s true devotion?
What about the pretty rosebud just waiting to be eaten?