Man pr0n

That's right: Harlequin makes smut for men, too.

While editing books from Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan universe, I realized just how subversively porntacular these stories are. Not in the hot and heavy engorged member kind of way: most of the time, there's never any explicit sex scenes.

In fact, most of these stories deal with international crises that a quasi-official mercenary group from Stony Man farm is usually assigned to clean up. So where's the porn, you ask?

It's in the guns. Lots of them. Big ones, little ones, and everything in between.

That's right, every shootout becomes phallusfest. The heroes barge into a heated situation, stroking their triggers to spray bullets at their enemies. They grunt and cry and groan as bursts of light and sound and force explode all around them. The ensuing orgiastic shower of shrapnel and blood always ends with the triumphant heroes standing over their litterally dozens of vanquished foes who lie twitching (post-orgasm) in pools of their own bodily fluids, dying little and big deaths.

And how do the heroes react to the death they've brought upon these nameless souls?

With a smile, of course.

I know, the gun/knife/sword/weapon as a phallic symbol is pretty old news. But if ever you need to write an essay about it, and you don't want to ready Tom Clancy, Mack is your man.