Those white Christmas lights with the plastic covers shaped like cactii and flamingos and whatnot. Called sex lights because they're so effective for setting the mood. They're dim enough to disguise physical imperfections, but you can still discern the shape of your lover quite clearly. Also, they give off colored, not white light, which makes everything look a little more exotic. White light has the effect of making things look sterile and yellow light can make one's bedroom (or kitchen, or under the desk of one's cubicle..) resemble a library, living room, or other place people go to concentrate on non-sexual matters.

Candlelight is god. It is a hard light, so it creates the most interesting and defined shadows of the human form. The subtlety of candlelight is beautiful. That's all there is to it.

Firelight is nice as well. It is not as hard, so the shadows aren't as defined, but it is more colorful and warm, and fire usually isn't in a place that would produce much shadow anyway.

Oh my god. I should never have taken that lighting class. In film, they'd call me a cinematographer.

Way back, before Everything, heck, before the Internet for me (coincidence or correlation?) when I was engaging in "sex", my girlfriend had, in her possession, a single red lightbulb.

Infra-red burns be damned, whatever room that mighty piece of glasswork was installed in underwent a magical and seamy transformation to a seedy den of wet smells and conspicuous bulges.

I was skeptical myself, but she converted me soon enough.

First person to make the "missionary" joke gets a whack in the kisser.