The writer's craft: sex scenes

Sailor Jim discusses the difficulty of writing about the penis in sex scenes (caution: NSFW):

"There are some literary subjects that have become total clichés and attempting to describe an erect penis is one.

"I am writing a sex scene and my hero is now crossing the room while fully erect. So, basically, his stiff dick is bobbing lik e a demented conductors baton as he crosses the room . . . however, one cannot simply write, 'He crossed the room, his stiff dick bobbing like . . .' and so forth. Well, one could if one was writing that sort of scene (and one was half plastered), but this one cannot.

"To write anything referring to his 'turgid manhood' is also somewhat tacky. Hell, just the term 'manhood' to describe the penis strikes me as idiotic. A dick is no more one's 'manhood' than a hymen is one's 'maidenhood.' 'He strutted across the bedroom, his hard manhood pointing the way' sounds somewhat he owns a badly named seeing-eye dog. 'Sit, Hard Manhood . . . good boy.'