I'm going to scribble down some notes on my idea for an article tenatively entitled, "How to Successfully be #2, The Etiquette of Carrying on an Affair." This article will primarily be for men who want to have sex with women who have boyfriends or husbands. This will not be a manual on sexual technique, nor will it be a course on how to convince a married/attached woman to go to bed with you. You should already be reasonably competant in both of those things. This will be a set of guidelines on how to conduct yourself in an affair.

Before you intend to bed someone else's chosen mate, you need to make sure you have a few things straight.

For starters, it is best that you do this with a person who either holds little or no romantic interest to you. I will be crude and cruel at this point and suggest that one way of going about this is to engage in this activity with someone for whom you have a strong sexual desire (possibly even a fetish), but that you are too shallow to want to be seen with her in public or amongst friends. While you obviously find this person physically attractive (otherwise, why are you doing it?), if you would have designs on this person to be your girlfriend, this will cause problems if you cannot control your emotions. It is far better to engage in this sort of activity with someone whom you feel either you would not want to be in a relationship with or someone you have fully accepted will never be yours. In other words, you CANNOT enter into this with ANY hopes (no matter how miniscule) that you'll end up with this person as your girlfriend; not even in the back of your mind. In fact, regardless of your sexual skill, do *not* expect that this will happen more than once.
And this brings us to our first point. You are the man. Not only that, you're The Other Man. You are not allowed to expect *anything*. This woman has no commitment to you whatsoever beyond common courtesy. This brings me to my next, and probably most important part, The Rules. You MUST set down ground rules. The most important is Communication. If one of you begins feeling uncomfortable in the current situation for any reason, it MUST be communicated. If she's feeling guilty, she needs to tell you. If there's a particular sexual treat that either of you happen to like, make sure it's out in the open. Make certain you lay down EXACTLY what IS NOT allowed, that way she doesn't try and stick a finger up your ass while giving you head and you don't try and shoot your load on her face. Now, granted, in a certain sense this is more or less standard relationship etiquette. However, in this situation you have the benefit of being able to have this discussion without it being weird or uncomfortable. Your "image", as it were, isn't really an issue.
Now, more often than not, this sort of thing occurs between friends. Now, regardless of how you two have come to this decision, most people pledge to "remain friends" and make sure "nothing changes." More often than not, this fails. Why? Because much of the above gets ignored. So, seriously, if you feel there is even an average chance that you're going to become attached to this girl and that you'll feel rejected when the sexual relationship ends (and it *will* end, don't kid yourself), don't start. And while this guide makes reference to being "#2," don't take that to heart. More than a few men have felt secure (and somewhat possessive) in the fact that they were The Other Man, only to find out that their part-time sex partner has other part-time sex partners. If you are one of those people that can't be in the same room with someone you used to fuck without it being weird, DON'T start.
You must be able to firmly separate sex and friendship. If you find that, at some point, you feel as if you are developing romantic feelings for your partner, you need to seriously consider ending the sexual relationship. Be realistic. If you can keep them to yourself and maintain your current behaviour with *no* changes, you might be able to continue. However, if you find yourself dropping hints, wondering "how she feels about you" or other such nonsense, you're no longer competant to continue. Stop yourself before you not only end the affair, but destroy the friendship. Your romantic advances will *not* be appreciated. Simply state what your feeling, apologize, and tell her that you intend to continue being her friend. At this point, your responsibility is to NOT get weird from this point onward and keep your feelings under wraps. The idea behind this is that you've recognized your feelings early enough so that they don't become a problem. If they've become a problem, you've waited too long, fucked it up and become yet another statistic. This is what we're trying to avoid.
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To be continued...