Arousal/stimulation: Images, or the written word?

What best gets you sexually aroused, images or written eroctica/pornography?
Please don't respond your spouse/SO/partner, hopefully that goes without saying.

I appreciate images (which I'll refer to as photos), but well written erotica really does it for me.

1. What kind of photos do you prefer? I'm intentionally excluding videos, at least for now.

Photos can be anything from very artistic to extremely graphic. Different people have different definitions of which is what, and that should help this thread.

I like artistic photos well enough. I certainly appreciate good photogrpahic skills, but sometimes they can seem too posed. My preference is what I call real life, people doing things they do in real life. That could something as mundane as a woman with 'morning hair' starting a pot of coffee, a man shaving his face, etc. The amount of clothing worn or not worn isn't that important to me as long as there is some sexual suggestiveness that isn't overt.

I guess that erotic photos are a sub-category of artistic photos. I consider erotic photos to be intentionally suggestive without being too graphic. Partial clothing or angles that don't show too much work for me, they let the imagination work.

Extremely graphic photos (EGPs) can get me going at times, but they're not at the top of my list. With artistic and erotic photos I prefer individuals (that is certainly not a rule set in stone), and prefer couples in EGPs. With that said, female masturbations does fascinate me. I don't mean the looking-at-the-camera-ooh-look-at-what-I'm-doing! photos.

2. What kind of writing do you prefer?

Some people want it to get right to the point, other people prefer a buildup. There can be a thin line between erotica and pornography. I'll take good erotica over straight porn anytime, but down-and-dirty porn can be fun to read. I consider good erotica to be as much about the settings, the people involved, etc., as about the sex. Some writers are good at setting the mood, but lousy at writing about sex, while other writers make the sex totally hot, but fail miserably at setting the mood.


I'll stop here because what constitutes good erotic writing could/should be a separate thread. This is about what we like and why we prefers it.

 

You provided some of the motivation behind me starting this thread .


Hopefully this thread will do well. I'm really interested what folks like and why they like it.

 

Writing just don't do it for me. I'm more of a visual kind of guy.

 

Make mine visual.
But make it real.
No silicone Barbies. No airbrushing.

 

Writing gets to me. Writing sets up the fantasy much more effectively. With a picture, I have to work out a fantasy to go with it.

 

It honestly depends on my mood.

There are some days where I just want to see an attractive lady and an attractive man doing what attractive people do. Like @fflowley I prefer the 'real' stuff for the most part; it just seems more raw, less defined, more carnal. People who are doing this because they genuinely care about each other and/or enjoy what they're doing, not because they genuinely care about their paychecks and enjoy thinking about what body part they're going to get enlarged next.

There are other days where I want to work out the fantasy for myself. Days where I want my mind to go wherever it goes, with body going along for the ride (usually). A story or two really help to get the brain juices flowing, which is really nice sometimes.

 

I like both but what really sends me are erotic self-portraits. Self shots of both guys and gals are bold and brave; done artistically or raw, with a DSLR or a phone, it's all good for me.
Check out: Browsing Self-Portraits on deviantART
There is a mature content filter so you'll have to register to see the good stuff.

 

I like both images/video and written erotica. I tend to prefer them at different times-- according to mood, not anything more.

I like homemade stuff. Naughty/naked selfies, captures from private webcam convos, people's home fuck movies/stills, etc. I also like flashing/exhibition pics, public sex, etc. If it looks at all professional-- too HQ, too well lit, too posed, etc.-- I lose interest. Not generally a fan of BJ pics, or, for some reason, pics/videos of Russians or Germans, either. But mostly, the harder core the better, when it comes to images/video. Fucking, hard, and lots of it. Anal. B&D. Interracial. And especially lesbian stuff. Nothing lights my fire quite like girls getting it on. And no matter what kind of image/video, I want to be able to see the expression on a woman's face as she's coming. That really does it for me.

I like long stories, well-written, that have a lot of build-up. I need to have a sense of the reality of the characters, a sense of investment in their choices and passions. Otherwise, the story does nothing for me. Nothing is less arousing than a couple of pages of contextless fuck talk, full of spelling mistakes and bad porn stereotypes. So, well-written and involved is key. Other than that, I like naughty fan fiction, especially of sci-fi/fantasy shows (I've written some myself, actually). I like stories of forbidden loves-- cheating, boss/employee, teacher/student, and so forth. Basically, I like stories about the stuff I would never actually do in real life: probably because this is part of my way of sublimating inappropriate desires, gratifying them just enough without actually doing anything immoral or unethical myself.

 

It depends on my mood.
Just like with sex I can like stories that have long build ups with lots of details that set the place and create characters who make the scene all that more erotic.
Or I can go for porn tropes that as long every thing is spelled right and the grammar is correct, it will serve the purpose.

Pictures and movies work pretty much the same way.

I love me a movie that creates people I really care about and whose yearning for each other makes the scene give me goose bumps.
Sometimes though I want porn where the plumber drops by to do the housewife.
I'm really fond of classic porn from the seventies and eighties sad to say.
It's hard to escape your early influences.
But I have developed a taste for the super hero parodies of Axel Braun.

For pictures I really like the classics, Bettie Page is a particular favorite.
Really not a fan of photoshop or fake boobs (though as we all know it's getting harder to tell as time goes by).

I guess what this comes down to is that at one time I would have given a bunch of hard and fast answers but as I've gotten older I discovered that my tastes have gotten much more fluid.

 

When I'm reading porn or erotica, I get tired of the descriptions of the perfect bodies. It's nice to find an author that can make it hot without going into too much detail describing the character's bodies. I know that it's fantasy, but I'd rather be turned-on by what the characters do rather than unrealistic looks. It has something to do with my age, and my overall ideas about what makes a person attractive.

I'm pretty much the same with images in that the people don't have to be perfect. I can certainly appreciate eye candy, but not all of the time, and it isn't necessary.

 

I retract my previous statement after reading another thread. Didn't think it was possible for me to get turned on by words, boy was I wrong....

 

The first real "porn" I found was a stack of my dad's Penthouse letters. As a direct result, I believe, I get more turned on my words than images. I'm not into the flouncy romance novel stuff, usually, although it has been known to do the trick.

 

The first written porn for me was also Penthouse Letters; I was in erection heaven when I later discovered Penthouse Variations. My wife also enjoys Variations, and it has lead us to do many pretty wild things. I'll never forget our vacation drive, that was incredibly hot even though we didn't touch each other.

 

I'm now having mental images of an IRL book club dedicated to erotica & porn (cynthetiq, we really need a horny face emoticon).

 

All I could find.
Its Suposto be a gif, but its not gifing

 

A lusty face would be good.

I'd love to see something indicating wetness for the ladies, but I'm just being a guy.

And the TFP ladies would never use such an emoticon .