How Explicit is too Explicit?

[scott_m_baker]

My opinion is that no matter how you write it, the scene must not be erotic.  Anything that even sounds like it's a pleasant experience will turn your readers off. 

I had a  consensual rape scene in one of my books that the publisher asked me to get rid of.  By consensual rape I mean the woman character was so filled with self-loathing that she let the male character do whatever he wanted to her, and he vented his anger with life on her.  When I did the scene, which was from the man's POV, rather than concentrate on the sexual act, I concentrated on his thinking and how he violated the woman as a means to get back at the world around him that he could not control.