Wetlook World Forum

theory to explain why:

In a story, there is enough left to the imagination so that you can picture yourself as the protagonist, fully participating in the action.  Even a balding, overweight pensioner (not that I am one, of course :-) ) can remember what it was like to be a strapping, eager 20-year-old with hypercharged hormones.  There may be a few discrepancies in some of the details, but in a narrative they generally don't intrude and can easily be ignored.  

Photographs, on the other hand, are very concrete and specific.  Most of us can suspend credulity enough to imagine a drop-dead gorgeous female having the hots for us, but no matter how active our imaginations, we cannot ignore the fact that we just don't look like the hunk in the picture.  Instead of seeing him as ourselves, we see him as a competitor - and if the picture is at all erotic, an apparently rather successful competitor.  Thus many (most?) of us gravitate toward pictures of women in which there are no annoying rivals present to spoil our fantasies.

Just my 2 cents.

- Nonny Mouse