The Art of Seduction (8 page)

sweet as to triumph over
also the quality—not only marchionesses would fall at his feet, but great
the Resistance of a
artists, such as the actress Eleanor Duse, who helped him become a re
beautiful Person; and in
spected dramatist and literary celebrity. The dancer Isadora Duncan, an
that I have the Ambition
of Conquerors, who fly
other who eventually fell under his spell, explained his magic: "Perhaps the
perpetually from Victory to
most remarkable lover of our time is Gabriele D'Annunzio. And this
Victory and can never
notwithstanding that he is small, bald, and, except when his face lights up
prevail with themselves to

put a bound to their
with enthusiasm, ugly But when he speaks to a woman he likes, his face is
Wishes. Nothing can
transfigured, so that he suddenly becomes Apollo. . . . His effect on women
restrain the Impetuosity of
is remarkable. The lady he is talking to suddenly feels that her very soul and
my Desires; I have an
being are lifted."

Heart for the whole Earth;

and like Alexander, I could

At the outbreak of World War I, the fifty-two-year-old D'Annunzio

wish for New Worlds
joined the army. Although he had no military experience, he had a flair for
wherein to extend my
the dramatic and a burning desire to prove his bravery. He learned to fly
Amorous Conquests.

and led dangerous but highly effective missions. By the end of the war, he

—MOLIÈRE,
DON JOHN OR

THE LIBERTINE,
TRANSLATED BY

was Italy's most decorated hero. His exploits made him a beloved national

figure, and after the war, crowds would gather outside his hotel wherever in Italy he went. He would address them from a balcony, discussing politics, railing against the current Italian government. A witness of one of these speeches, the American writer Walter Starkie, was initially disappointed at the appearance of the famous D'Annunzio on a balcony in Venice; he was short, and looked grotesque. "Little by little, however, I began to sink under the fascination of the voice, which penetrated into my consciousness. . . .
The Rake
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Never a hurried, jerky gesture. . . . He played upon the emotions of the
Among the many modes of
crowd as a supreme violinist does upon a Stradivarius. The eyes of the
handling Don Juan's effect
on women, the motif of the

thousands were fixed upon him as though hypnotized by his power." Once
irresistible hero is worth
again, it was the sound of the voice and the poetic connotations of the
singling out, for it
words that seduced the masses. Arguing that modern Italy should reclaim
illustrates a curious change
in our sensibility. Don

the greatness of the Roman Empire, D'Annunzio would craft slogans for
Juan did not become
the audience to repeat, or would ask emotionally loaded questions for them
irresistible to women until
to answer. He flattered the crowd, made them feel they were part of some
the Romantic age, and I
drama. Everything was vague and suggestive.

am disposed to think that

it is a trait of the female

The issue of the day was the ownership of the city of Fiume, just across
imagination to make him
the border in neighboring Yugoslavia. Many Italians believed that Italy's re-
so. When the female voice
ward for siding with the Allies in the recent war should be the annexation
began to assert itself and
even, perhaps, to dominate

of Fiume. D'Annunzio championed this cause, and because of his status as
in literature, Don Juan
a war hero the army was ready to side with him, although the government
evolved to become the
opposed any action. In September of 1919, with soldiers rallying around
women's rather than the
man's ideal. . . . Don

him, D'Annunzio led his infamous march on Fiume. When an Italian gen-
Juan is now the woman's
eral stopped him along the way, and threatened to shoot him, D'Annunzio
dream of the perfect lover,
opened his coat to show his medals, and said in his magnetic voice, "If you
fugitive, passionate, daring.
must kill me, fire first on this!" The general stood there stunned, then
He gives her the one
unforgettable moment, the

broke into tears. He joined up with D'Annunzio.

magnificent exaltation of

When D'Annunzio entered Fiume, he was greeted as a liberator. The
the flesh which is too often
next day he was declared leader of the Free State of Fiume. Soon he was
denied her by the real
husband, who thinks that

giving daily speeches from a balcony overlooking the town's main square,
men are gross and women
holding tens of thousands of people spellbound without benefit of loud-
spiritual. To be the fatal
speakers. He initiated all kinds of celebrations and rituals harking back to
Don Juan may be the
dream of a few men; but to

the Roman Empire. The citizens of Fiume began to imitate him, particu-
meet him is the dream of
larly his sexual exploits; the city became like a giant bordello. His popu-
many women.
larity was so high that the Italian government feared a march on Rome, —OSCAR MANDEL,"THE

which at that point, had D'Annunzio decided to do it—and he had the LEGEND OF DON JUAN,"
THE

support of a large part of the military—might actually have succeeded;
THEATRE OF DON JUAN

D'Annunzio could have beaten Mussolini to the punch and changed the course of history. (He was not a Fascist, but a kind of aesthetic socialist.) He decided to stay in Fiume, however, and ruled there for sixteen months before the Italian government finally bombed him out of the city.

Seduction is a psychological process that transcends gender, except in a few key areas where each gender has its own weakness. The male is traditionally vulnerable to the visual. The Siren who can concoct the right physical appearance will seduce in large numbers. For women the weakness is language and words: as was written by one of D'Annunzio's victims, the French actress Simone, "How can one explain his conquests except by his extraordinary verbal power, and the musical timbre of his voice, put to the service of exceptional eloquence? For my sex is susceptible to words, bewitched by them, longing to be dominated by them." The Rake is as promiscuous with words as he is with women. He

chooses words for their ability to suggest, insinuate, hypnotize, elevate, in-
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The Art of Seduction
feet. The words of the Rake are the equivalent of the bodily adornment of the Siren: a powerful sensual distraction, a narcotic. The Rake's use of language is demonic because it is designed not to communicate or convey information but to persuade, flatter, stir emotional turmoil, much as the serpent in the Garden of Eden used words to lead Eve into temptation. The example of D'Annunzio reveals the link between the erotic Rake, who seduces women, and the political Rake, who seduces the masses. Both depend on words. Adapt the character of the Rake and you will find that the use of words as a subtle poison has infinite applications. Remember: it is the form that matters, not the content. The less your targets focus on what you say, and the more on how it makes them feel, the more seductive your effect. Give your words a lofty, spiritual, literary flavor the better to insinuate desire in your unwitting victims.
But what is this force, then, by which Don Juan seduces?

It is desire, the energy of sensuous desire. He desires in

every woman the whole of womanhood. The reaction to

this gigantic passion beautifies and develops the one de-

sired, who flushes in enhanced beauty by his reflection. As

the enthusiast's fire with seductive splendor illumines even

those who stand in a casual relation to him, so Don Juan

transfigures in a far deeper sense every girl.

—SØREN KIERKEGAARD,
EITHER/OR

Keys to the Character

At first it may seem strange that a man who is clearly dishonest, disloyal, and has no interest in marriage would have any appeal to a woman.

But throughout all of history, and in all cultures, this type has had a fatal effect. What the Rake offers is what society normally does not allow women: an affair of pure pleasure, an exciting brush with danger. A woman is often deeply oppressed by the role she is expected to play She is supposed to be the tender, civilizing force in society, and to want commitment and lifelong loyalty. But often her marriages and relationships give her not romance and devotion but routine and an endlessly distracted mate. It remains an abiding female fantasy to meet a man who gives totally of himself, who lives for her, even if only for a while.

This dark, repressed side of female desire found expression in the legend of Don Juan. At first the legend was a male fantasy: the adventurous knight who could have any woman he wanted. But in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Don Juan slowly evolved from the masculine adventurer to a more feminized version: a man who lived only for women. This evolution came from women's interest in the story, and was a result of their frustrated desires. Marriage for them was a form of indentured servitude; but Don Juan offered pleasure for its own sake, desire with no strings at-
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tached. For the time he crossed your path, you were all he thought about. His desire for you was so powerful that he gave you no time to think or to worry about the consequences. He would come in the night, give you an unforgettable moment, and then vanish. He might have conquered a thousand women before you, but that only made him more interesting; better to be abandoned than undesired by such a man.

The great seducers do not offer the mild pleasures that society condones. They touch a person's unconscious, those repressed desires that cry out for liberation. Do not imagine that women are the tender creatures that some people would like them to be. Like men, they are deeply attracted to the forbidden, the dangerous, even the slightly evil. (Don Juan ends by going to hell, and the word "rake" comes from "rakehell," a man who rakes the coals of hell; the devilish component, clearly, is an important part of the fantasy.) Always remember: if you are to play the Rake, you must convey a sense of risk and darkness, suggesting to your victim that she is participating in something rare and thrilling—a chance to play out her own rakish desires.

To play the Rake, the most obvious requirement is the ability to let yourself go, to draw a woman into the kind of purely sensual moment in which past and future lose meaning. You must be able to abandon yourself to the moment. (When the Rake Valmont—a character modeled after the Duke de Richelieu—in Laclos' eighteenth-century novel
Dangerous Liaisons
writes letters that are obviously calculated to have a certain effect on his chosen victim, Madame de Tourvel, she sees right through them; but when his letters really do burn with passion, she begins to relent.) An added benefit of this quality is that it makes you seem unable to control yourself, a display of weakness that a woman enjoys. By abandoning yourself to the seduced, you make them feel that you exist for them alone—a feeling reflecting a truth, though a temporary one. Of the hundreds of women that Pablo Picasso, consummate rake, seduced over the years, most of them had the feeling that they were the only one he truly loved.

The Rake never worries about a woman's resistance to him, or for that matter about any other obstacle in his path—a husband, a physical barrier. Resistance is only the spur to his desire, enflaming him all the more. When Picasso was seducing Françoise Gilot, in fact, he begged her to resist; he needed resistance to add to the thrill. In any case, an obstacle in your way gives you the opportunity to prove yourself, and the creativity you bring to matters of love. In the eleventh-century Japanese novel
The Tale of Genji,
by the court lady Murasaki Shikibu, the Rake Prince Niou is not disturbed by the sudden disappearance of Ukifune, the woman he loves. She has fled because although she is interested in the prince, she is in love with another man; but her absence allows the prince to go to extreme lengths to track her down. His sudden appearance to whisk her away to a house deep in the woods, and the gallantry he displays in doing so, overwhelm her. Remember: if no resistances or obstacles face you, you must create them. No seduction can proceed without them.
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The Rake is an extreme personality. Impudent, sarcastic, and bitingly witty, he cares nothing for what anyone thinks. Paradoxically, this only makes him more seductive. In the courtlike atmosphere of studio-era Hollywood, when most of the actors behaved like dutiful sheep, the great Rake Errol Flynn stood out in his insolence. He defied the studio chiefs, engaged in the most extreme pranks, reveled in his reputation as Hollywood's supreme seducer—all of which enhanced his popularity. The Rake needs a backdrop of convention—a stultified court, a humdrum marriage, a conservative culture—to shine, to be appreciated for the breath of fresh air he provides. Never worry about going too far: the Rake's essence is that he goes further than anyone else.

When the Earl of Rochester, seventeenth-century England's most notorious Rake and poet, abducted Elizabeth Malet, one of the most soughtafter young ladies of the court, he was duly punished. But lo and behold, a few years later young Elizabeth, though wooed by the most eligible bachelors in the country, chose Rochester to be her husband. In demonstrating his audacious desire, he made himself stand out from the crowd.

Related to the Rake's extremism is the sense of danger, taboo, perhaps even the hint of cruelty about him. This was the appeal of another poet Rake, one of the greatest in history: Lord Byron. Byron disliked any kind of convention, and happily played this up. When he had an affair with his half sister, who bore a child by him, he made sure that all of England knew about it. He could be uncommonly cruel, as he was to his wife. But all of this only made him that much more desirable. Danger and taboo appeal to a repressed side in women, who are supposed to represent a civilizing, moralizing force in culture. Just as a man may fall victim to the Siren through his desire to be free of his sense of masculine responsibility, a woman may succumb to the Rake through her yearning to be free of the constraints of virtue and decency. Indeed it is often the most virtuous woman who falls most deeply in love with the Rake.

Among the Rake's most seductive qualities is his ability to make women want to reform him. How many thought they would be the one to tame

Lord Byron; how many of Picasso's women thought they would finally be the one with whom he would spend the rest of his life. You must exploit this tendency to the fullest. When caught red-handed in rakishness, fall back on your weakness—your desire to change, and your inability to do so. With so many women at your feet, what can you do? You are the one who is the victim. You need help. Women will jump at this opportunity; they are uncommonly indulgent of the Rake, for he is such a pleasant, dashing figure. The desire to reform him disguises the true nature of their desire, the secret thrill they get from him. When President Bill Clinton was clearly caught out as a Rake, it was women who rushed to his defense, finding every possible excuse for him. The fact that the Rake is so devoted to women, in his own strange way, makes him lovable and seductive to them. Finally, a Rake's greatest asset is his reputation. Never downplay your bad name, or seem to apologize for it. Instead, embrace it, enhance it. It is
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