One thing I desire the most in a woman is softness. Femininity is an essential element in attractiveness. Often on the old Roissy site the discussion would focus around the hardness of many modern women, as opposed to a more feminine ideal of past generations. I think this is generally true, although there were certainly hard women in the past, and there are certainly feminine women today. But I think the trend has generally been towards a more masculine image of womanhood in the past few decades. The extremely thin, almost boyish looking models found in most fashion magazines are reflective of this general trend.

One of my criticisms of porn and the subsequent hook up culture is that it has made the sexual world too harsh. The pleasures of seduction are lost in a world where sex has become an easy commodity. Not that is impossible to engage in seduction, it is still out there, but the easy hook up culture has lessened the importance of the old art of seduction. Seduction, as an art form, seems more attune to that pleasant softness of femininity, in that the man, the harder element, is somehow catering to the softness inherent in the female sex. He is the pursuer, she the pursued, but she in the end really holds all the power of whether or not he will end up in bed with her. Practicing such an art develops social and psychological skills that the quick hook up culture circumvents. Yes, in the hook up culture the immediate sex might be easier, and in a sense harder, tougher, more masculine; but the long term delicacies of talk, banter, skilled conversation, and the imaginary wonder of a drawn out erotic relationship, first in words and looks and thoughts and then finally consummated in true physical love making, is lost.

Now as much as I love easy sex and have certainly pursued that in my life, and as much as the thought of easy sex is a turn on, and it is, I still believe that eroticism, the deeper form of sexual expressions, are better served by the slower, more nuanced dance of seductive engagements. How many have known the thrill of knowing someone for weeks, months, perhaps even years, and wondering about that person, perhaps even enjoying a flirtatious and seductive verbal relationship with that person, but never actually falling into bed with them? And if it does come to that point of sex, after so much of a build up, the erotic and physical pleasures are usually quite intense. The most powerful storms are the ones that have been building for a bit of time before their chaotic explosions.

As in the image above, I enjoy a bit of softness in my erotica as well. I want good erotica to reflect at least what I find attractive in a woman, and part of that is a kind of feminine softness. In my superficial and cursory exploration of erotic images, I have found that many of the older images, such as the one above, tended to capture this side of womanhood in a better way than many more recent images, which tend towards a more masculine depiction of female sexuality. Even the models themselves seem less curvy, less soft and delicate than models of the past. In the image above, which was most likely taken in the Seventies, the lighting, her hair, the overall natural curviness of her form, the flowers in the foreground, convey a sweet softness that is attractive and alluring. I find there is something beautiful, even artistic about this photo. It seems, in the end, natural. I admit others may feel different though, since these are merely my own subjective observations. But whatever the case, for me, good erotic art captures the deeper elements of are human experiences, and one of those important elements is the softness inherent in most women, a softness which most men find extremely attractive.