Desire:

The thing at the heart of all human endeavors is, well, the heart. Or, to be more specific, a desire. Simplest of all emotions and the cause of most of the great ones, desire is central to love, lust, longing, hunger, and passion. Desire is the catalyst for thought, the giver of destinies, and the inspiration for vision. Simply, without desire there would be no movement in our universe.

Desire (or attraction) as a concept is second only to Awareness, which is necessary in order to desire. The central question after "what am I aware of?" must be "what do I want?" Thus, by existing we have an answer to the first question and need not discuss it further here, but only by wanting, the painful experience of lacking, do we know the answer to the second. Desire, "what do I want?" is the central question and concept in living a happy life.

Sexual desire, then, can be said to be the central concept in all of sex, second only to sexual awareness. Desire is tantamount and more important then any other thing. Paradoxically, it is not the orgasm during sex that is most important, but the desire for it (which requires the orgasm to be most important). In essence, without the desire, there can be no orgasm, no passion, no love, no intimacy, no sharing and filling of hunger, no sex. Thus it seems to me that the most central concept in a sexual experience, or in a sex story, or in life in general is desire.

From the concept of desire being central I have drafted the following concepts to aid me in writing erotica. These are of course only manifestations of the concept of desire, and as such are not solid categories by any means. Truthfully, any experience which can cause sexual desire would be a good topic for a piece of erotic literature. These are just some musings by myself that sometimes help me write (by focusing on a concept, and then writing an example of it, a story grows it's self).

Other then these concepts and a short plotline, that is hot enough to turn me on, my only preparation before I write is to be extremely turned on so that I write what I feel. Likewise, I use a similar system for planning hot situations on special occasions.

All of that said, in the spirit of sex articles written in magazines such as Cosmo or Maxim, here are my principals of a good sex story (all quotes are purely made up, I'm to lazy to actually ask enough people to get good examples lol).

Anticipation:

There is a very old story about a king who got lost in the desert and went for days without food before stumbling into a small village where an old woman offers him some pea soup. The king proclaims that it is the best thing he has ever tasted and upon returning to his palace commands that pea soup be served at his next feast. He tries it and it isn't as good, so he fires his cook. Months go by and he can't seem to get a good pea soup anywhere, he even manages to find the woman who made it in the first place, and she can't seem to make a good pea soup any more. The moral of the story? When you're starving, anything tastes like the best thing you have ever eaten.

The same principal applies to sex in the form of anticipation:

"There was this one time my girl friend sent me an e-mail while I was at work. It was only one line long: "I'm waiting for you." and below it there was a picture of her naked on my bed. I swear I had a hard on for the next four hours at work. All I could think about was what she was doing at the moment, what she would be doing when I got home, what she had planned. By the time I got home I was so wild with passion that we didn't even say "hi," we just went straight to the bedroom."

Any situation that allows for a person to know that pleasure is waiting for them is going to be hot. From the anticipation of lovers who haven't seen each other in a while, to the simple anticipation of Role Playing a story that is read by both people before hand, anticipation can make the desired experience longer and stronger by causing a person to think about it for hours before hand.

The same principal applies to the moment when a long time crush suddenly returns the interest, or when a person off limits is suddenly available:

"I was at a club once and there was this guy that I had seen off and on all night. Every time I saw him dance I got butterflies in my stomach from the way he moved. At some times it was so bad that I found myself fantasizing that I was the girl he was dancing with. I lost him in the crowd but kept thinking about him and then suddenly someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and there he was. I swear I got so hot and melted in the look from his eyes that all I could manage was a breathless, 'hi. . . '"

Overflow:

Self control is a funny thing. We all want our partners to have it, but we all want our partners to loose it when we want them to. There is a moment in some sexual situations where a person who has been fighting for control finally looses it, when all the pent up sexual frustration of an entire lifetime bursts forth in a single moment. This is the principal of overflow.

Although the breaking of a taboo is the most common, overflow can manifest it's self in a great many ways. From the greatest to the least, the moment of overflow can be a stunning moment, both for the person who's inhibitions break under the weight and for the person observing their overflowing desire. From the experience of a touchless orgasm, to a simple breath that escapes the mouth of a restrained figure, that moment is tantamount to the moment of orgasm in sex.

"One time while out on a date my boyfriend and I were talking and mid sentence he gets this really confused look on his face. When I asked him what he was thinking he blushed and smiled, 'That dress looks incredible on you, I have been trying not to stare all night. My eyes drifted and my thoughts followed. You are so beautiful that I can't even remember what I was saying.' Watching him become honestly overwhelmed by the way I looked made me want him right there."

Of course, the most intense version of overflow is the touchless orgasm. . . "One time, on a long airplane flight my boyfriend handed me a book to read. It was a collection of erotica, and as I had never really read anything like that before I figured it would be interesting to say the least. Well, over the course of the next five hours I found myself getting hotter and hotter until I told him I couldn't read any more or we would have to have sex right there on the plane. He smiled at me and began to whisper things in my ear that were already very much on my mind while massaging my sholders. He then told me to keep reading. After a while I found myself throbbing and having trouble restraining my hands, as he kept telling me what he was going to do to me in the hotel room when we landed. It got so overwhelming that when he started talking about the hotel room I had to cover my mouth and bite my tongue to stop the moans from an unexpected orgasm."

The best sex stories are written to cause overflow in the reader.

Intensity:

Most people believe that an intense experience can only be achieved by some kind of ground shattering event like the first orgasm ever, or the first multiple orgasm. Most people think that in order to share an intense moment with their lover they have to do something new, or better then it has ever been done before (men think like this a lot actually, myself included). While this is one route to intensity, it isn't the only one, luckily, or it might be near impossible to ever top coming until passing out.

The other road to intensity (and the easier one) is contrast. If you are in broad daylight a spotlight just isn't going to be that impressive. Comparatively, in pitch black, the lighting of a match can be blindingly bright. And after the match, a candle, then a flashlight. Each step up a blindingly powerful one compared to the one before. This is, in essence, the nature of a tease, and the nature of intensity.

If a person is blindfolded, deprived of their sense of sight, their other senses compensate by becoming more acute. Waiting, and not allowing the blindfolded person to know where, how, by what, and when, they are going to be touched, makes every touch seem more intense then the last.

One of our readers relates: "There was this one time my boyfriend blindfolded and tied me down naked then turned on a porn. I couldn't see anything or move, and after a while I found myself picturing the sounds I was hearing. I kept picturing what must be happening to make her moan like that, hearing the sound of him moving in and out of her, I soon found myself fantasizing that it was being done to me. Each little gasp I heard sending chills down my spine and the sound of them having sex making me picture him going in and out of me. I almost forgot my boyfriend was there as I felt my hips beginning to rock on their own. This seemed to go on for a long time, but I was totally into it. And then, out of the blue I feel his breath on my chest. It was the most amazing thing, it was like that breath was my whole world for a moment. And then he kept slowly turning up the intensity, after his breath, his lips then tongue. You get the idea."

Another reader relates: "There was this one time my boy friend and I were playing with a vibrator and he told me to tell him whenever I was getting close to coming. He would turn it all the way up until I screamed to him that I was going to come, and then he would turn it off entirely, watching me squirm to try and get the sensation back, so close, but not quite going over, then, when I moaned a desperate "why" he turned it back on again until I screamed I was going to come and he turned it off again. . .

Seduction

The should actually read "Irresistible Control via Cognitive Association", but for the sake of easy reference and avoiding sounding like a medical dictionary "Seduction" will do just fine.

The central principal of seduction is the concept of an action, event, sight, sound, or smell that is irresistible to the opposite sex. The idea that, "If I do this one thing, I will be irresistible, and they will want me more then anything in the world." Women have been doing this for centuries in the form of the association of their bodies with sex.

The idea that "no man can resist a naked woman," permeates our sexual subconscious. Women love the thought that all they would have to do to seduce a man is to strip, and men, love the idea of surrendering to such a display. In our current culture the association of nudity and sex is ingrained in all of us strong enough that the truth is, the sight of a naked woman will make a lot of men hard, even against their will. Whereas tribal communities who do not wear as much clothing, do not have this same sexual trigger (or at least not as strong).

So, for women, all of the hard work on this one has been done for you: guys associate your naked body with pleasure, and as such, a well done strip tease will leave most of us throbbing. Men, things are a bit harder for you because there isn't so much pressure in the media to associate our naked bodies with their pleasure. So while some women may look at a penis and get butterflies, a good deal probably won't.

So, in order for a seduction to work, it must be possible to make someone desperately turned on by a simple act. It must be possible to gain sexual control of them through something they associate with pleasure. Effective use of this includes all fetishes, and a lot of role playing, and is responsible for the archetypes: Seductress, Enchantress, Dark Mysterious Stranger, Irresistible Man, Vampires, etc. (Side note: Hypnotism as a fetish is sometimes a control of this concept.)

"One time while making out, my boyfriend decided to rub and kiss my feat for some reason. Up until that day I had never realized that my feet are actually one of my biggest erogenous zones. I can't even tell you what happened entirely. I felt as if my whole body melted into a haze of relaxation and tingles and by the time he came back up to kiss my lips again I was shaking and moaning. I swear I would have done anything in the world for him at that moment. Now, whenever he really wants me, he just lays me down and plays with my feet like that and I can't resist him."

"Every time my girlfriend and I have sex she lights a specific type of incense. It's not something I really noticed at first, but after about six months I became all to aware of something: any time she lights that incense I find myself terribly turned on and thinking about sex. So if she wants me any time all she has to do is strike a match and I can't resist her."

Sex From Strange Places:

This concept is well illustrated by the idea of "sex IN strange places" or by the "discovery of the kinky side" of an otherwise non-sexual yet attractive person.

Simply, normal life can be pretty non-sexual. Mowing your lawn isn't sexy. Up tight librarians aren't sexy. Stuck in rush hour traffic isn't arousing. You aren't usually thinking about sex at work except in terms of "I wish I was having sex instead of working."

On the other hand, your neighbor mowing their lawn in a bathing suit, might be sexy. A hot, uptight librarian who keeps shushing everyone yet is blatantly reading erotica at work makes you wander what she does outside of work. The person in the car next to you wearing tight leather might make your thoughts wander. And the "sex at work" fetish exists for a reason.

There are a lot of places and people that allow a person to focus on something other then sex, which is good, because otherwise society might be a little unstable. But at the same time, this opens up a whole world of kinkiness.

From taboos of when and where and with whom sex can be had, to people who are sexually repressed in one place yet sexual overwhelming in another, there is always the possibility that sex can come from a strange place.

The power of this is two fold: by being unexpected and out of the ordinary the situation forces a person to confront their own sexuality head on without warning or preparation. Trapped in an elevator for six hours with a nymphomaniac secretary who has appeared to be a prude for years, leaves a person in a situation of unprecedented heat.

The second power of this principal is in the fact that from that day on, a person has to wonder, can sex happen at any moment?

"My last girl friend was a catholic school girl that I met at a dinner with both of our parents. She was terribly attractive, but also terribly polite, knew the bible well, and around her parents came across as the most innocent, non-sexual person I have ever seen. I was almost afraid of corrupting her when she invited me up to her room to help her with her physics homework (I'm a physics major.) When I found out later that night that she had a vibrator and erotica stashed under her bed, as well as being able to teach me everything I ever needed to know about women and sex, I just about passed out. At that moment, she became the hottest woman I had ever met."

"One time my boyfriend and I went to see a movie in the afternoon, only to discover that we were the only ones in the theatre for that showing. The movie was rated R and had quite a lot of well done sex scenes in it and about half way through the movie my boyfriend reaches over and touches my breasts. I asked him what he thought he was doing. He asked me if I saw anyone else in the room. I won't get into what happened next, but it was surprisingly hot. And what's worse, now I can't even go into a theatre without getting wet."

Guiltless Pleasure:

Inhibitions are the most difficult thing to deal with in both life and in sex. One worries about performance, weather or not their pleasure should come before that of their lover, weather or not their pleasure is important enough to go after, weather or not they look ok, etc. . . For a person to truly have no inhibitions is a rare and fantastic sight.

In sex, the absence of inhibitions can mean the release of a sexual awareness and desire that has never been free before. For a person to truly be focused on the moment and their feelings and be consumed by the bliss of what is happening to the exclusion of weather or not the kids need picked up from school is difficult but important to the passion of the act.

Any person who is capable of indulging in their own guiltless pleasure to the point of beautiful movement is attractive. From the artist consumed in his work, to the athlete in the midst of his art. From the woman who stands on the beach enjoying the way her hair is tossed about by the wind, to the sensual enjoyment of good food. People dancing to people doing intricate work with their hands. If a person can become immersed in life, sensuality, their task at hand, then they can become immersed in sex and it's attractive.

Any person capable of drawing someone else into surrendering to their guiltless pleasure, is seductive. So either way, a person with no inhibitions or a person able to make you loose your own, can be incredibly sexy.

"The first time I made love to my current boyfriend he noticed that I was nervous, so he suggested we just cuddle naked. While we were close together and he was massaging me he began to whisper things in my ear about just enjoying how I felt at that moment and not worrying if we did anything else, just to be there and enjoy what was happening. I slowly began to focus on my body and on how wonderful it was to be in his arms and naked and before I knew what had happened it was me who was pinning him down and initiating sex."

"One time while my girl and I were making out she slid her hand down her own pants and started touching herself. It was the most amazingly seductive thing I have ever seen the way she moved and just let herself enjoy what she was feeling. When she came it made me want desperately to be the cause of the next one and quickly we were both totally caught up in the pleasure of her body."

Suspense:

In a lot of cases it is actually suspense and uncertainty that is at the heart of romance: Does he love me? What is he planning tonight? Who are these flowers from? What will happen when we go back to his apartment? What does that mischievous look in his eyes mean? In that same way that suspense and uncertainty get your heart racing in a good film, suspense and uncertainty can get it racing in bed.

"One time my boyfriend told me to pack my sexiest cloths and to be ready to go on a trip for the weekend. I asked him where we were going and what we were doing and he told me that I wasn't allowed to ask those questions and that I would find out when we got there. For the rest of the week leading up to the trip my mind couldn't stop wondering what he was planning. I kept getting lost in fantasies of what might happen and by the time we were ready to leave I knew I was really going to need my sexiest clothing when we got there."

Dominance/Submission Relation

To be honest, given the BDSM community that exists I doubt I will do this justice, it deserves it's own article. The simplified version is that the Dominant person is in position to truly control and move the submissive in exactly the fashion described in "Seduction." They are able to trigger very strong arousal, as well as other feelings in the person who has put themselves in their control. They are in a position to tease, to command loss of inhibitions, and to inspire overflow. Put simply, they are in a position to move a person however they wish by using their own desire.

The submissive person gets to do what a great many of us never do: let go. They don't have to worry because they are being watched over. They don't have to be distracted from what they are doing because the dominant person is their distraction from everything else in the world. Their focus is complete and they no longer are in control of how far they will go, how much they can take, or how they will act. They have true freedom to experience without barriers.

Thus the Dom/Sub relation in any form can be utilized to be incredibly hot so long as the Dominant person really does watch out for the Submissive in such a way that the submissive enjoys their submission. In stories it is sometimes beneficial to treat the reader as a sub (they are getting their reality from you at the moment). In real sex one can give themselves to the other person in such a way as to temporarily be a submissive. This kind of power play is indicative of all relationships, though it may switch directions, remain in a balance of power, or stay steadily in one configuration and vary by degree.

"One time I came home to find my girl friend naked on my bed. She said that she was mine to do with as I pleased for the night and that she would move and act any way I wanted her to. We had sex five times before the night was over because she kept asking "would you like more my love?" and it drove me wild."