sensuous / sensual
Sensuous, pleasing to the senses, versus sensual, of bodily appetite and especially sexual desire.
Use sensuous when something delights the eye, ear, hand, or palate and nothing sexual is meant: Her walnut bowls are sensuous: smooth, heavy, and warm in the hand. Use sensual for bodily appetite and its gratification, especially sexual desire and sexual appeal: His letters to her grew more sensual, and she kept them locked in a drawer.
Sensuous is often used for sexual appeal, as in sensuous lips or a sensuous dance. Dictionaries record this sense, and in published American books sensuous lips is nearly as common as sensual lips. Use sensual when the appeal is sexual. If sensuous carries both meanings, a phrase such as a sensuous portrait cannot tell the reader whether the portrait is erotic, and many people judge the sexual use of sensuous an error.
Do not use sensual for beauty that has nothing to do with appetite. Because sensual usually implies sexual desire, it brings a sexual reading into a context that rules one out.
When the meaning is only “perceived through the senses,” with no pleasure implied, use sensory: Some airports now offer low-light rooms for travelers prone to sensory overload.
Examples
Use Her photographs of wet sand and driftwood are quiet and sensuous. (Sensuous fits: the photographs please the eye and evoke texture, with nothing erotic about them.)
Use The perfume ads relied on sensual close-ups of bare shoulders. (Sensual fits because the images are meant to arouse.)
Avoid The choreographer added a sensuous duet that ends in a kiss. (Sensuous is the error. The duet is meant to be erotic, and sensual is the word for that; sensuous in its standard sense would say only that the duet pleases the eye. Write The choreographer added a sensual duet that ends in a kiss.)
Avoid The picture book’s sensual watercolors of rain on moss won a medal. (Sensual is the error. It implies sexual desire, which a picture book rules out; the watercolors please the eye. Write The picture book’s sensuous watercolors of rain on moss won a medal.)
Avoid The memoir workshop teaches writers to add sensual details to every chapter. (Sensual is the error. The workshop means details of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, which is what sensory means; sensual suggests erotic content. Write The memoir workshop teaches writers to add sensory details to every chapter.)