What I value most about an erotic author is his or hers ability to use human imagination to the advantage of the story. The mind will fill in "holes" in the story with what it finds to be most fitting, or in our case, more sexually stimulating. If the story becomes way too descriptive, the author will leave few "holes" for the mind to "fill in" and the entire story gets a feel of rigidness. I more often than not dislike such stories because the contents will have to excactly match my own unique sexual preferences for me to find it stimulating. If, on the other hand, the author is skilled in not becoming too descriptive, the mind of the reader will fill in the holes in a way that is pleasing to each particular reader, and the story will appeal to a much broader selection of readers, because the "feel" of the story matches each and every ones personal sexual preferences.

This is a technique often seen in horror movies, where the camera often films right up in the face of the actor, refusing the audience to show what happens around. The viewer will let his or hers imagination fill in the remains. The result can be really creepy.

This is a really difficult thing to master, because it's terribly easy to get too descriptive or too non-descriptive. It's an extremely thin line, but some people get it going really good. Although I've read none of his books, I imagine Stephen King does this really well. As I mentioned, this technique is vital in the horror genre. And maybe - if not vital - then useful, also in the erotica genre as well?