soft-core

softcore

1. Depicting erotic sexual content or activity without containing explicit or graphic images or descriptions, especially of penetration or genitalia (i.e. "hardcore"). The magazine has been accused of being little more than softcore pornography. It's being described as an art film depicting the true nature of an adult relationship, but it's just softcore porn, if you ask me.
2. Not particularly extreme in one's dedication to something. I still love playing video games, but I'm just a softcore gamer these days. We're all pretty softcore fans of football. We love watching it when it's on, but we don't follow it religiously or anything.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

soft-core

1. mod. [of pornography] less revealing or realistic than real life; not showing genitals. They are showing a lot of soft-core stuff on cable and most of the soap operas.
2. mod. less intense or extreme than hard-core. She had a soft-core approach to portraying suffering.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • soft core
  • softcore
  • private parts
  • flasher
  • family jewels
  • the family jewels
  • randy
  • be near the knuckle
  • near the knuckle
  • kinky
References in periodicals archive
Some soft-core baseballs can actually increase the risk of injury because they weigh more; the greater the mass, the greater the force of impact and risk of injury.
And although the sound was predominantly the soft-core R&B they have made their trademark, there was a distinct rock feel at times, notably on Work It Out (from the upcoming Austin Powers 3 soundtrack) and a snatch of Proud Mary that suggested Beyonce is more likely to emerge as the new Tina Turner than the new Diana Ross if she does ultimately decide to strike out on her own.
Conning their way into some cash, the duo check into the Amsterdam Hilton to live it up, but just when everything is perfect, Thera dumps him for a soft-core photographer, precipitating a violent ending.
These days Fitzgerald is sharing a small downtown Halifax office with filmmaker Shandi Mitchell, with whom he is developing two projects: hers, a feature called Still; his, a film entitled Beefcake, which he describes as "a feature entertainment." It's an homage to the soft-core muscle magazines that were many men's first secretive contact with gay culture in the 1950s and '60s, and will be produced again with Channel Four and its French and German partners in ARTE.
He advocates a return to a simplified and modified version of the common law--judicial decisions applying "a set of simple rules capable of handling the most complex set of social relations imaginable, whether in the United States or anywhere else." In the wrong hands--say legislators or judges--this book could make Takings look positively soft-core.
Penthouse said the station will broadcast full 3D in high definition, streaming 30 hours of programming monthly, and the network's original, adult-oriented programming will include "both soft-core and hard-core feeds".
Investor Marc Bell said he will clean up the magazine and do soft-core video and licensing deals.
TWO MOON JUNCTION (1988): A voyeuristic Madonna clone whose carpet is seven shades darker than the drapes (Twin Peaks's Sherilyn Fenn) has a fling with a mulleted midway worker (the delectably cheesy Richard Tyson) in this Southern-fried soft-core scream.
The work's companion piece features representational but low-resolution halftone images of subjects: soft-core spanking girls, a cartoonish Oktoberfest scene, sci-fi aliens, two people lying on a beach, a man sitting, a family, a man walking (after Millet's Sower?), another man bending over (after Courbet's Stonebreakers?), and a couple of Afghanis on horseback shown three times (seen clearly from a middle distance, from a bird's -eye view, and then wildly enlarged, brought too close, so that the men become abstract information).
The negative reactions to postmodernism are unfortunate for another reason, too: Although there are important differences, a good deal of postmodern thought accords very well with the hard- and soft-core libertarian writings of people such as F.
LaBute probably empathizes with Byatt's 19th-century poet Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam), a tortured fool for love who is able to soft-soap intelligent women despite the "soft-core misogyny" of his poetry.
A soft-core art film as soporific as it is serious, "The Mechanics of Women" attempts to illustrate burning female desire via frequent nudity and endless monologues peppered with dirty words.
The exhibition's title, "Naked Came the Stranger," was taken from an extremely successful soft-core novel by an anonymous group of journalists at the end of the '60s.
Whatever they are payingBruce Weber to shoot those soft-core Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs, it's not enough.
With plenty of soft-core sex on view, and a pleasantly casual approach, pic will have its supporters, and though unlikely to find theatrical bookings outside Japan, should have a bouncy career in ancillary.