titillate

A good newspaper seeks scoops that illuminate reality and don’t merely titillate.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 7, 2025

There's little doubt that his mass of executive orders on day one will feature some eye-catching actions designed to titillate his base.

From BBC ● Jan. 19, 2025

“Harry’s House” is pleasant and mild and distinctly unadventurous, calculated to occasionally titillate but never offend.

From Washington Post ● May 23, 2022

Stories about crime that merely titillate can strike readers, viewers and listeners as voyeurism, with all the attraction and revulsion that implies.

From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2020

Today, when everything that I do has an urgency, I would not spend one hour in the preparation of a book which had the ambition to perhaps titillate some readers.

From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey

Ironically, the film mirrors the callow cinematic dynamics it critiques: It titillates, even as it scolds.

From New York Times ● Feb. 2, 2023

Verhoeven’s world is the exception that titillates not to challenge the rule but to sucker viewers into overlooking it, ignoring it, and dismissing it.

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 15, 2016

The title Hot Feminist titillates, and the content is controversial in a bland sort of way, if you’ve never read anything about feminism except what its detractors purport that it’s about.

From The Guardian ● May 20, 2015

The chemistry between these two groups isn’t always perfect, but the combination still titillates — more, at any rate, than Jeff Koons’s recently exhibited “Made in Heaven” series of the early 1990s.

From New York Times ● Feb. 10, 2011

It would kill us to drink Cologne water, but the perfume titillates the sense, and so we sprinkle it upon our handkerchiefs.

From Lessons in Life A Series of Familiar Essays by Timothy Titcomb

It was once the job of “sleazy” tabloids to destroy lives with lurid gossip that titillated the public but lacked public interest in the high-minded sense.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025

It allowed them to feel self-righteous and titillated at the same time, an intoxicating combination that no fact can compete with.

From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2023

But while he is often titillated by watching how much attention he can command, and loves to try to manipulate the press, the reality behind the spectacle this time was unpleasant to him.

From New York Times ● Apr. 4, 2023

Far from being titillated, I found I was unexpectedly saddened by this book.

From Slate ● Nov. 27, 2019

The prosecution of Marsha Colbey eventually caught the attention of the press, which was titillated by another “dangerous mother” story.

From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson

In fact, in the hoo-hah over the Lakers, titillating to the media on both coasts, Mr. Trump has been a non-factor.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026

Gay kisses and scenes of queer physical affection aren’t exactly titillating, or worse, made into inspiring coming-out vignettes perfectly primed for Pride season watchlists.

From Salon ● Mar. 1, 2026

What would “White Lotus” be without its titillating score and those warbled “ooh-loo-loo-loo’s?”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2025

This conceit, too, is recycled — either from the nearest Madame Tussauds, or from West’s 2016 “Famous” video, a far more titillating and genuine transgression.

From New York Times ● Jan. 17, 2024

It was titillating to brush up against the enigma of mortality, to steal a glimpse across its forbidden frontier.

From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer