The Art of Seduction (73 page)

adultery, and mayhem that goes on in our dreams, until we realize no one
Paradise, except for only
needs to know about it but ourselves. But give a person the sense that with
one, which he forbade
you they will have a chance to explore the outer reaches of acceptable, po-
her to touch on pain of
death. . . . She look the

lite behavior, that with you they can vent some of their closeted person-
fruit and broke God's
ality, and you create the ingredients for a deep and powerful seduction.
commandment . . . but it

You will have to go beyond the point of merely teasing them with an
is my firm belief now that

Eve would never have done

elusive fantasy. The shock and seductive power will come from the reality
this, if she had not been
of what you are offering them. Like Byron, at a certain point you can even
forbidden to.
press it further than they may want to go. If they have followed you merely —GOTTFRIED VON STRASSBURG, out of curiosity, they may feel some fear and hesitation, but once they are
TRISTAN UND ISOLDE,
QUOTED

hooked, they will fond you hard to resist, for it is hard to return to a limit IN ANDREA HOPKINS,
THE

BOOK OF COURTLY LOVE

once you have transgressed and gone past it. The human cries out for more, and does not know when to stop. You will determine for them when it is time to stop.

One of Monsieur Leopold

The moment people feel that something is prohibited, a part of them
Stern's friends rented a
will want it. That is what makes a married man or woman such a delicious
bachelor's pied-à-terre
target—the more someone is prohibited, the greater the desire. George Vil-
where he received his wife
as a mistress, served her

liers, the Earl of Buckingham, was the favorite first of King James I, then of
with port and petits-fours
James's son, King Charles I. Nothing was ever denied him. In 1625, on a
and "experienced all the
visit to France, he met the beautiful Queen Anne and fell hopelessly in
tingling excitement of

adultery." He told Stern

love. What could be more impossible, more out of reach, than the queen of
that it was a delightful
a rival power? He could have had almost any other woman, but the prohib-
sensation to cuckold
ited nature of the queen completely enflamed him, until he embarrassed
himself.
himself and his country by trying to kiss her in public.

— N I N A E P T O N ,

Since what is forbidden is desired, somehow you must make yourself
LOVE AND THE FRENCH

seem forbidden. The most blatant way to do this is to engage in behavior that gives you a dark and forbidden aura. Theoretically you are someone to avoid; in fact you are too seductive to resist. That was the allure of the actor Errol Flynn, who, like Byron, often found himself the pursued rather than the pursuer. Flynn was devilishly handsome, but he also had something else: a definite criminal streak. In his wild youth he engaged in all kinds of shady activities. In the 1950s he was charged with rape, a permanent stain on his reputation even though he was acquitted; but his popularity among women only increased. Play up your dark side and you will have a similar effect. For your targets to be involved with you means going beyond their limits, doing something naughty and unacceptable—to society, to their peers. For many that is reason to bite the bait.

356
•
The Art of Seduction

In Junichiro Tanazaki's 1928 novel
Quicksand,
Sonoko Kakiuchi, the wife of a respectable lawyer, is bored and decides to take art classes to wile away the time. There, she finds herself fascinated with a fellow female student, the beautiful Mitsuko, who befriends her, then seduces her. Kakiuchi is forced to tell endless lies to her husband about her involvement with Mitsuko and their frequent trysts. Mitsuko slowly involves her in all kinds of nefarious activities, including a love triangle with a bizarre young man. Each time Kakiuchi is made to explore some forbidden pleasure, Mitsuko challenges her to go further and further. Kakiuchi hesitates, feels remorse—

she knows she is in the clutches of a devilish young seductress who has played on her boredom to lead her astray. But in the end, she cannot help following Mitsuko's lead—each transgressive act makes her want more. Once your targets are drawn by the lure of the forbidden, dare them to match you in transgressive behavior. Any kind of challenge is seductive. Take it slowly heightening the challenge only after they show signs of yielding to you. Once they are under your spell, they may not even notice how far out on a limb you have taken them.

The great eighteenth-century rake Duc de Richelieu had a prediliction for young girls and he would often heighten the seduction by enveloping them in transgressive behavior, to which the young are particularly susceptible. For instance, he would find a way into the young girl's house and lure her into her bed; the parents would be just down the hall, adding the proper spice. Sometimes he would act as if they were about to be discovered, the momentary fright sharpening the overall thrill. In all cases, he would try to turn the young girl against her parents, ridiculing their religious zeal or prudery or pious behavior. The duke's stategy was to attack the values that his targets held dearest—precisely the values that represent a limit. In a young person, family ties, religious ties, and the like are useful to the seducer; young people barely need a reason to rebel against them. The strategy, though, can be applied to a person of any age: for every deeply held value there is a shadow side, a doubt, a desire to explore what those values forbid.

In Renaissance Italy, a prostitute would dress as a lady and go to

church. Nothing was more exciting to a man than to exchange glances with a woman whom he knew to be a whore as he was surrounded by his wife, family, peers, and church officials. Every religion or value system creates a dark side, the shadow realm of everything it prohibits. Tease your targets, get them to flirt with whatever transgresses their family values, which are often emotional yet superficial, since they are imposed from the outside.

One of the most seductive men of the twentieth century, Rudolph

Valentino, was known as the Sex Menace. His appeal for women was

twofold: he could be tender and attentive, but he also hinted of cruelty. At any moment he could become dangerously bold, perhaps even a little violent. The studios played up this double image as much as possible—when it was reported that he had been abusive to his wife, for example, they ex-
Stir Up the Transgressive and Taboo
•
357

ploited the story. A mix of the masculine and the feminine, the violent and the tender, will always seem transgressive and appealing. Love is supposed to be tender and delicate, but in fact it can release violent and destructive emotions; and the possible violence of love, the way it breaks down our normal reasonableness, is just what attracts us. Approach romance's violent side by mixing a cruel streak into your tender attentions, particularly in the latter stages of the seduction, when the target is in your clutches. The courtesan Lola Montez was known to turn to violence, using a whip now and then, and Lou Andreas-Salomé could be exceptionally cruel to her men, playing coquettish games, turning alternately icy and demanding. Her cruelty only kept her targets coming back for more. A masochistic involvement can represent a great transgressive release. The more illicit your seduction feels, the more powerful its effect. Give your targets the feeling that they are committing a kind of crime, a deed whose guilt they share with you. Create public moments in which the two of you know something that those around you do not. It could be phrases and looks that only you recognize, a secret. Byron's seductive appeal to Lady Frances was connected to the nearness of her husband—in his company, for example, she had a love letter of Byron's hidden in her bosom. Johannes, the protagonist of Søren Kierkegaard's
The Seducer's Diary,
sent a message to his target, the young Cordelia, in the middle of a dinner party they were both attending; she could not reveal to the other guests that it was from him, for then she would have to do some explaining. He might also say something in public that would have a special meaning for her, since it referred to something in one of his letters. All of this added spice to the affair by giving it a feeling of a shared secret, even a guilty crime. It is critical to play on tensions like these in public, creating a sense of complicity and collusion against the world. In the Tristan and Isolde legend, the famous lovers reach the heights of bliss and exhilaration exactly
because
of the taboos they break. Isolde is engaged to King Mark; she will soon be a married woman. Tristan is a loyal subject and warrior in the service of King Mark, who is his father's age. The whole affair has a feeling of stealing away the bride from the father. Epitomizing the concept of love in the Western world, the legend has had immense influence over the ages, and a crucial part of it is the idea that without obstacles, without a feeling of transgression, love is weak and flavorless.

People may be straining to remove restrictions on private behavior, to make everything freer, in the world today, but that only makes seduction more difficult and less exciting. Do what you can to reintroduce a feeling of transgression and crime, even if it is only psychological or illusory. There must be obstacles to overcome, social norms to flout, laws to break, before the seduction can be consummated. It might seem that a permissive society imposes few limits; find some. There will always be limits, sacred cows, behavioral standards—endless ammunition for stirring up the transgressive and taboo.
358 • The Art of Seduction

Symbol:
The Forest. The children are told not to go into the
forest that lies just beyond the safe confines of their home.

There is no law there, only wilderness, wild animals, and

criminals. But the chance to explore, the alluring dark-

ness, and the fact that it is prohibited are impossi-

ble to resist. And once inside, they want

to go farther and farther.

Reversal

The reversal of stirring up taboos would be to stay within the limits of acceptable behavior. That would make for a very tepid seduction. Which is not to say that only evil or wild behavior is seductive; goodness, kindness, and an aura of spirituality can be tremendously attractive, since they are rare qualities. But notice that the game is the same. A person who is kind or good or spiritual within the limits that society prescribes has a weak appeal. It is those who go to the extreme—the Gandhis, the Krishnamurtis—who seduce us. They do not merely expound a spiritual lifestyle, they do away with all personal material comfort to live out their ascetic ideals. They too go beyond the limits, transgressing acceptable behavior, because societies would find it hard to function if everyone went to such lengths. In seduction, there is absolutely no power in respecting boundaries and limits.

Use Spiritual Lures

Every-

one has doubts and in-

securities
—
about their body,

their self-worth, their sexuality. If

your seduction appeals exclusively to the

physical, you will stir up these doubts and

make your targets self-conscious. Instead, lure

them out of their insecurities by making them fo-

cus on something sublime and spiritual: a religious

experience, a lofty work of art, the occult. Play up

your divine qualities; affect an air of discontent with

worldly things; speak of the stars, destiny, the hidden

threads that unite you and the object of the seduc-

tion. Lost in a spiritual mist, the target will feel

light and uninhibited. Deepen the effect of

your seduction by making its sexual cul-

mination seem like the spiritual

union of two souls.

Object of Worship

Liane de Pougy was the reigning courtesan of 1890s Paris. Slender and androgynous, she was a novelty, and the wealthiest men in Europe vied to possess her. By late in the decade, however, she had grown tired of it all.

"What a sterile life," she wrote a friend. "Always the same routine: the
Bois,
the races, fittings; and to end an insipid day: dinner!" What wearied the courtesan most was the constant attention of her male admirers, who sought to monopolize her physical charms.

Ah! always to be able to

freely love the one whom

One spring day in 1899, Liane was riding in an open carriage through
one loves! To spend my life
the Bois de Boulogne. As usual, men tipped their hats at her as she passed
at your feet like our last
by. But one of these admirers caught her by surprise: a young woman with
days together. To protect
long blond hair, who gave her an intense, worshipful stare. Liane smiled at
you against imaginary
satyrs so that I can be the