I usually pride myself on being able to put myself into the heads of my characters. I like to think it makes me more able to make them real people, even those who appear for a brief sentence or paragraph. Yet I have some areas that apparently I'm blind to.

For example, in my current WIP, I have a male character. I try to make him think the way I think a man thinks, but apparently men think of sex more than I do. At least, that's what a couple of my (female) beta readers tell me. Now, I realize that men and women do, to some extent, have differing priorities, but surely not so much as all that. I can understand the adolescent fixation on sex, what with having to deal with newly raging hormones, but surely eventually even men outgrow that particular thought process?

This particular story isn't about sex. This particular story is about exploration, about one's past catching up with one, and about growth. I don't particularly want to put in gratuitous sex scenes. I don't like reading them in other authors' works; I certainly don't want them in mine. Sexual tension, perhaps, but not the act.

Ah well, I'll work it out. Eventually. Maybe. Meh.