Chickie, sex bomb, babe:men know how to describe an exciting woman. But it only really gets exciting when it's dangerous, that attraction.
At the end of the nineteenth century, it was all the rage among male artists:they painted and wrote en masse about the 'fatal woman'. That woman is so irresistibly beautiful that a man cannot control himself and surrenders to his lust without thinking. And then it quickly happened to him:when the fatal woman is done with him, he is left broken, sick or even dead.
The artists had great fun portraying the femme fatale. For example, you see a couple making love in the surf, where the man is slowly pulled into the water by the woman. He hasn't figured it out yet, but he's sure to drown. Or they drew a knight who is accosted by a small, delicate girl in a swamp. She begs him to lie down with her for a while, while the bottom is much too soft for someone in a heavy armor.
The reason for painting this kind of depiction was that sexual morality was very strict in the nineteenth century. Sex was something for marriage, and you didn't talk about sexual pleasure. Also, sex could be quite dangerous at times. Sexual diseases such as syphilis could kill you, and condoms were not yet widely available. Sex with unmarried women was therefore not only exciting because of the adventure, but also because of the chance of getting sick. Flirting with a fatal woman was like flirting with death.