26 years of joy. (my perspective).

The publication of The Joy of Gay Sex in its "fully revised and expanded third edition" caps a 26-year period during which not only gay sexuality but also the attitudes and customs surrounding gay sexuality have changed--at times subtly and at times momentously. Of course, the actual mechanics of men engaging in sex probably haven't changed in several thousand years, so more than once I've been asked why The Joy of Gay Sex needs periodic updating. The fact of its continuing importance to gay men is itself the answer to that question. Hundreds of thousands--from teens to retirees, from Boise to Brisbane, from Kyoto to Tel Aviv--have bought or borrowed or, yes, stolen this book. (It's the second most stolen book in American libraries.)

They read and reread it to learn how to kiss, caress, nibble, and fellate their lover or sex partner for increased mutual pleasure. They read it to learn why they are alone, jealous, can't find a lover, or can't hold on to a partner, to learn why they have issues about drugs or effeminacy, why they engage in dangerous sex, why they're homophobic, even why they're gay. Others, yearning to learn more about gay culture, read it to know how this entire "gay" business developed. History is included.

Every boy and girl is born into a heterosexual world and taught how to grow up straight. For gays and lesbians, constant realignment is required. The Joy of Gay Sex speaks directly to gay men's needs. As coauthor of two of the book's editions, I've been gratified whenever a young man tells me how crucial it was to his coming-out, to his settling into gay life. But the most poignant kudos were unexpected: from a 55-year-old Marine captain who read it and left the armed services; from a married man with three grown children who read it and realized he was missing out on his real life.

Arriving eight years after the Stonewall rebellion, the first edition of The Joy of Gay Sex--for which I was a source and early reader--pictured the sunny, sensual, try-anything attitudes of its time. Used too many drugs? Go with the flow. Being raped? Lie back, relax, try to enjoy.

By the time Dr. Charles Silverstein asked me to help update that version in 1990, much had changed. AIDS was at its height. Both our life partners were ill as we wrote the book. I was wrangling over the contract from a pay phone in a hospital corridor outside my companion's intensive care unit. Charles had to abandon our book tour to care for his lover.

In The New Joy of Gay Sex, Charles and I wrote about domestic violence, racism, health insurance, wills, and suicide. Some critics asked where the joy of gay sex had gone. But we believed (and we still believe) the gay community has matured. We had to grow up, become responsible for ourselves and others. Plenty of pleasure was still available.

And if entries like "homophobia" and "puritanism" seem expanded in the third edition, it's a result of how many attempts have been made across America to ban The New Joy of Gay Sex since it was published in 1992. Blinded by personal morals, the censors are keeping people, possibly their own children, from knowing how not to die as a result of having sex.

Living in a more gay-assimilated, Internet-drenched age is the focus of the third edition. When to use the Internet--and precisely how--is now required information. Changed social attitudes toward role playing and gender are other new foci, as are how to be gay on the job and how to behave in foreign lands.

Some readers have asked why an author with my literary credentials--acclaim, prize nominations, awards, etc.--"lowers" himself by coauthoring The Joy of Gay Sex. "It must be for the money," they invariably conclude. The money is OK, but half of my novels have earned more. I do it because of what occurred at my partner's bedside a few weeks before he died. He'd finally had his intubation tube removed and could talk a little. Of all possible questions, he asked if I'd signed the deal for The New Joy of Gay Sex--he knew I'd been wavering. "Do it!" he commanded. "So others can live."

Picano's most recent novel is Onyx.