Desire

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  He did not bribe the duke with offers of money or power—he aimed at is elderly, and this dumb the childlike part of him that never grew up. A child has little power to re- gardener of ours. Yet I have sist. It wants everything, now, and rarely thinks of the consequences. A often heard it said, by child lies lurking in everyone—a pleasure that was denied them, a desire several of the ladies who have come to visit us, that that was repressed. Hit at that point, tempt them with the proper toy (ad- all other pleasures in the venture, money, fun), and they will slough off their normal adult reason- world are mere trifles by ableness. Recognize their weakness by whatever childlike behavior they comparison with the one experienced by a woman reveal in daily life—it is the tip of the iceberg. when she goes with a man. Napoleon Bonaparte was appointed the supreme general of the French I have thus been thinking, army in 1796. His commission was to defeat the Austrian forces that had since I have nobody else to hand, that I would like to taken over northern Italy. The obstacles were immense: Napoleon was only discover with the aid of this twenty-six at the time; the generals below him were envious of his position dumb fellow whether they and doubtful of his abilities. His soldiers were tired, underfed, underpaid, are telling the truth. As it happens, there couldn't be and grumpy. How could he motivate this group to fight the highly experia better man for the enced Austrian army? As he prepared to cross the Alps into Italy, Napoleon purpose, because even if he gave a speech to his troops that may have been the turning point in his ca-wanted to let the cat out of reer, and in his life: "Soldiers, you are half starved and half naked. The gov-the bag, he wouldn't be able to. He wouldn't even ernment owes you much, but can do nothing for you. Your patience, your know how to explain, for courage, do you honor, but give you no glory. . . . I will lead you into the you can see for yourself most fertile plains of the world. There you will find flourishing cities, what a mentally retarded, dim-witted hulk of a youth teeming provinces. There you will reap honor, glory, and wealth." The 236 • The Art of Seduction the fellow is. I would be speech had a powerful effect. Days later these same soldiers, after a rough glad to know what you climb over the mountains, gazed down on the Piedmont valley. Napoleon s think of the idea." • words echoed in their ears, and a ragged, grumbling gang became an "Dear me!" said the other. "Don't you realize that we inspired army that would sweep across northern Italy in pursuit of the have promised God to Austrians. preserve our virginity?" •

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  to make it obvious, not to announce that you are ready (to pounce or be fingers: good table manners pounced upon). Everything should be geared, not to the conscious mind, matter: \ Don't besmear your whole face with a but to the senses. You want your target to read cues not from your words or greasy paw. \ Don't cat actions but from your body. You must make your body glow with desire— first at home, and nibble— for the target. Your desire should be read in your eyes, in a trembling in but equally, don't indulge your \ Appetite to the full, your voice, in your reaction when your bodies draw near. leave something in hand. \ You cannot train your body to act this way, but by choosing a victim If Paris saw Helen stuffing (see chapter 1) who has this effect on you, it will all flow naturally. During herself to the eyeballs \ He'd detest her, he'd feel the seduction, you will have had to hold yourself back, to intrigue and her abduction had been \ A frustrate the victim. You will have frustrated yourself in the process, and stupid mistake. . . . \ Each will already be champing at the bit. Once you sense that the target has woman should know fallen for you and cannot turn back, let those frustrated desires course herself, pick methods \ To suit her body: one fashion . through your blood and warm you up. You do not need to touch your tar- won't do for all. \ Let the gets, or become physical. As La Belle Otero understood, sexual desire is girl with a pretty face lie contagious. They will catch your heat and glow in return. Let them make supine, let the lady \ Who boasts a good back be the first move. It will cover your tracks. The second and third moves are viewed \ From behind. yours. Milanion bore Atalanta's legs on \ His shoulders: nice legs should always be Spell SEX with capital letters when you talk about Otero. used this way \ The petite She exuded it. should ride a horse (Andromache, Hector's —MAURICE CHEVALIER Theban \ Bride, was too tall for these games: no jockey she); \ If you 're Lowering Inhibitions built like a fashion model, with a willowy figure, \ Then kneel on the bed, One day in 1931, in a village in New Guinea, a young girl named Tu- your neck \ A little arched; perselai heard some happy news: her father, Allaman, who had left the girl who has perfect legs some months before to work on a tobacco plantation, had returned for a and bosom \ Should lie sideways on, and make her

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Ellington was an Aesthetic Rake, a type whose obsession with women the nurturer of love. In fact even if the lover is can only be satisfied by endless variety. A normal man's tomcatting will oppressed not by genuine eventually land him in hot water, but the Aesthetic Rake rarely stirs up ugly jealousy but by base emotions. After he seduces a woman, there is neither an integration nor a suspicion, love always increases because of it, and sacrifice. He keeps them hanging and hoping. The spell is not broken the becomes more powerful by next day, because the Aesthetic Rake makes the separation a pleasant, even its own strength. elegant experience. The spell Ellington cast on a woman never went away. — ANDREAS CAPELLANUS The lesson is simple: keep the moments after the seduction and the ON LOVE, TRANSLATED separation in the same key as before, heightened, aesthetic, and pleasant. If BY P. G. WALSH you do not act guilty for your feckless behavior, it is hard for the other person to feel angry or resentful. Seduction is a lighthearted game, in which you invest all of your energy in the moment. The separation should be You've seen the fire that lighthearted and stylish as well: it is work, travel, some dreaded responsi- smolders \ Down to nothing, grows a crown of bility that calls you away. Create a memorable experience and then move pale ash \ Over its hidden on, and your victim will most likely remember the delightful seduction, embers (yet a sprinkling of not the separation. You will have made no enemies, and will have a lifelong sulphur \ Will suffice to rekindle the flame)? \ So harem of lovers to whom you can always return when you feel so inclined. with the heart. It grows torpid from lack of worry, \ Needs a sharp stimulus to 4. In 1899, twenty-year-old Baroness Frieda von Richthofen married an elicit love. \ Get her anxious about you, reheat Englishman named Ernest Weekley, a professor at the University of Nother tepid passions, \ Tell tingham, and soon settled into the role of the professor's wife. Weekley her your guilty secrets, treated her well, but she grew bored with their quiet life and his tepid love-watch her blanch. \ Thrice fortunate that man, lucky making. On trips home to Germany she had a few love affairs, but this past calculation, \ Who can wasn't what she wanted either, and so she returned to being faithful and make some poor injured caring for their three children. girl \ Torture herself over him, lose voice, go pale, One day in 1912, a former student of Weekley's, David Herbert pass out when \ The Lawrence, paid a visit to the couple's house. A struggling writer, Lawrence unwelcome news reaches wanted the professor's professional advice. He was not home yet so Frieda her. Ah, may I \ Be the

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  It is pointless to try to argue against such power, to imagine that you are thenceforth to count among not interested in it, or that it is evil and ugly. The harder you try to resist the most tremendous of the world's forces and at the lure of seduction—as an idea, as a form of power—the more you will moments to have power find yourself fascinated. The reason is simple: most of us have known the even over life and death. . . . power of having someone fall in love with us. Our actions, gestures, the • The deliberate spellbinding of man's senses things we say, all have positive effects on this person; we may not com- was to have a magical effect pletely understand what we have done right, but this feeling of power is in- upon him, opening up an toxicating. It gives us confidence, which makes us more seductive. We may infinitely wider range of also experience this in a social or work setting—one day we are in an ele- sensation and spurring him on as if impelled by an vated mood and people seem more responsive, more charmed by us. These inspired dream. moments of power are fleeting, but they resonate in the memory with —ALEXANDER VON GLEICHEN-great intensity. We want them back. Nobody likes to feel awkward or timid RUSSWURM, THE WORLD'S or unable to reach people. The siren call of seduction is irresistible because LURE, TRANSLATED BY HANNAH WALLER power is irresistible, and nothing will bring you more power in the modern world than the ability to seduce. Repressing the desire to seduce is a kind of xxii • Preface The first thing to get in hysterical reaction, revealing your deep-down fascination with the process; your head is that every you are only making your desires stronger. Some day they will come to the single \ Girl can be surface. caught—a nd that you'll catch her if \ You set your To have such power does not require a total transformation in your toils right. Birds will character or any kind of physical improvement in your looks. Seduction is a sooner fall dumb in \ game of psychology, not beauty, and it is within the grasp of any person to Springtime, \ Cicadas in summer, or a hunting-dog \ become a master at the game. All that is required is that you look at the Turn his back on a hare, world differently, through the eyes of a seducer. than a lover's bland A seducer does not turn the power off and on—every social and per-inducements \ Can fail sonal interaction is seen as a potential seduction. There is never a moment with a woman, Even one you suppose \ Reluctant to waste. This is so for several reasons. The power seducers have over a man will want it. or woman works in social environments because they have learned how to —OVID, THE ART OF LOVE,

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  He felt his old power returning—it was as if he were charming her. A few days later she dropped in on him at one of his weekend homes. Harriman was one of the wealthiest men in the world, but was no lavish spender; he and Marie had lived a Spartan life. Pamela made no comment, but when she invited him to her own home, he could not help but notice the brightness and vibrancy of her life—flowers everywhere, beautiful linens on the bed, wonderful meals (she seemed to know all of his favorite foods). He had heard of her reputation as a courtesan and understood the lure of his wealth, yet being around her was invigorating, and eight weeks after that party, he married her. Pamela did not stop there. She persuaded her husband to donate the art that Marie had collected to the National Gallery. She got him to part with some of his money—a trust fund for her son Winston, new houses, constant redecorations. Her approach was subtle and patient; she made him somehow feel good about giving her what she wanted. Within a few years, hardly any traces of Marie remained in their life. Harriman spent less time with his children and grandchildren. He seemed to be going through a second youth. In Washington, politicians and their wives viewed Pamela with suspicion. They saw through her, and were immune to her charm, or so they thought. Yet they always came to the frequent parties she hosted, justify-ing themselves with the thought that powerful people would be there. Everything at these parties was calibrated to create a relaxed, intimate atmosphere. No one felt ignored: the least important people would find themselves talking to Pamela, opening up to that attentive look of hers. She made them feel powerful and respected. Afterward she would send them a The Charmer • 87 personal note or gift, often referring to something they had mentioned in conversation. The wives who had called her a courtesan and worse slowly changed their minds. The men found her not only beguiling but useful— her worldwide contacts were invaluable. She could put them in touch with exactly the right person without them even having to ask. The Harrimans' parties soon evolved into fundraising events for the Democratic Party. Put at their ease, feeling elevated by the aristocratic atmosphere Pamela created and the sense of importance she gave them, visitors would empty their wal-lets without realizing quite why. This, of course, was exactly what all the men in her life had done. In 1986, Averell Harriman died. By then Pamela was powerful and wealthy enough that she no longer needed a man. In 1993, she was named the U.S. ambassador to France, and easily transferred her personal and social charm into the world of political diplomacy. She was still working when she died, in 1997.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Birds will sooner fall dumb in \ Springtime, \ Cicadas in summer, or a hunting-dog \ Turn his back on a hare, than a lover's bland inducements \ Can fail with a woman, Even one you suppose \ Reluctant will want it. —OVID, THE ART OF LOVE, TRANSLATED BY PETER GREEN The combination of these two elements, enchantment and surrender, is, then, essential to the love which we are discussing. . . . What exists in love is surrender due to enchantment. —JOSÉ ORTEGA Y GASSET, ON LOVE, TRANSLATED BY TOBY TALBOT What is good?—All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. • What is bad?—All that proceeds from weakness. • What is happiness?—The feeling that power increases—that a resistance is overcome. —FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, THE ANTI—CHRIST, TRANSLATED BY R. J. HOLLINGDALE Preface • xxiii son's skin, to see the world through their eyes. The reasons for this are sev- eral. First, self-absorption is a sign of insecurity; it is anti-seductive. Every- one has insecurities, but seducers manage to ignore them, finding therapy for moments of self-doubt by being absorbed in the world. This gives them a buoyant spirit—we want to be around them. Second, getting into some- one's skin, imagining what it is like to be them, helps the seducer gather valuable information, learn what makes that person tick, what will make them lose their ability to think straight and fall into a trap. Armed with such information, they can provide focused and individualized attention—a rare commodity in a world in which most people see us only from behind the screen of their own prejudices. Getting into the targets' skin is the first important tactical move in the war of penetration. Seducers see themselves as providers of pleasure, like bees that gather pollen from some flowers and deliver it to others. As children we mostly devoted our lives to play and pleasure. Adults often have feelings of being cut off from this paradise, of being weighed down by responsibilities. The seducer knows that people are waiting for pleasure—they never get enough of it from friends and lovers, and they cannot get it by themselves. A person who enters their lives offering adventure and romance cannot be resisted. Pleasure is a feeling of being taken past our limits, of being overwhelmed— by another person, by an experience. People are dying to be overwhelmed, to let go of their usual stubbornness. Sometimes their resistance to us is a way of saying, Please seduce me. Seducers know that the possibility of pleasure will make a person follow them, and the experience of it will make someone open up, weak to the touch.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Yet his host invited him to sit at the imaginary table, saying, "Honor me by eating of this meat." • The old man moved his hands about as though he were touching invisible dishes, and also moved his jaws and lips as though he were chewing. Then said he to Shakashik: "Eat your fill, my friend, for you must be famished." • My brother began to move his jaws, to chew and swallow, as though he were eating, while the old man still coaxed him, saying: "Eat, my friend, and note the excellence of this bread and its whiteness. " • "This man," thought Shakashik, "must be fond of practical jokes. " So he said, "It is, sir, the whitest bread I have ever seen, and I have never tasted the like in all my life. " • "This bread," said the host, "was baked by a slave girl whom I bought for five hundred dinars." Then he called out to one of his slaves: "Bring in the meat pudding, and let there be plenty of fat in it!" • ... Thereupon the host moved his fingers as though to pick up a morsel from an imaginary dish, and popped the invisible delicacy into my brother's mouth. • The old man continued to enlarge upon the excellences of the various dishes, while my brother became so ravenously hungry that he would have willingly died Enter Their Spirit • 225 philosophical keenness, and charm him by seeming to share his interest in politics and warfare. Many men first formed deep friendships with her, only to later fall madly in love. The masculine in a woman is as soothing to men as the feminine in a man is to women. To a man, a woman's strange- ness can create frustration and even hostility. He may be lured into a sexual encounter, but a longer-lasting spell cannot be created without an accom- panying mental seduction. The key is to enter his spirit. Men are often seduced by the masculine element in a woman's behavior or character. In the novel Clarissa (1748) by Samuel Richardson, the young and de- vout Clarissa Harlowe is being courted by the notorious rake Lovelace. Clarissa knows Lovelace's reputation, but for the most part he has not acted as she would expect: he is polite, seems a little sad and confused. At one point she finds out that he has done a most noble and charitable deed to a family in distress, giving the father money, helping the man's daughter get married, giving them wholesome advice. At last Lovelace confesses to Clarissa what she has suspected: he wants to repent, to change his ways. His letters to her are emotional, almost religious in their passion. Perhaps she will be the one to lead him to righteousness? But of course Lovelace has trapped her: he is using the seducer's tactic of mirroring her tastes, in this case her spirituality.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  letter can be. But it is important to learn how to incorporate letters in se- And Hera, with every duction. It is best not to begin your correspondence until at least several intention to deceive: \ "I'm weeks after your initial contact. Let your victims get an impression of you: off to visit the ends of the you seem intriguing, yet you show no particular interest in them. When earth \ And Father Ocean and Mother Tethys \ Who you sense that they are thinking about you, that is the time to hit them nursed and doted on me in with your first letter. Any desire you express for them will come as a sur-their house. . . . " \ And prise; their vanity will be tickled and they will want more. Now make your Zeus, clouds scudding about him: \ "You can go letters frequent, in fact more frequent than your personal appearances. This there later just as well. \ will give them the time and space to idealize you, which would be more Let's get in bed now ami difficult if you were always in their face. After they have fallen under your make love. \ No goddess or woman has ever \ Made spell, you can always take a step back, making the letters fewer—let them me feel so overwhelmed think you are losing interest and they will be hungry for more. with lust. . . . \ I've never Design your letters as homages to your targets. Make everything you loved anyone as I love you now, \ Never been in the write come back to them, as if they were all you could think about—a grip of desire so sweet. " \ delirious effect. If you tell an anecdote, make it somehow relate to them. And Hera, with every Your correspondence is a kind of mirror you are holding up to them—they intention to deceive: \ "What a thing to say, my get to see themselves reflected through your desire. If for some reason they awesome lord. \ The do not like you, write to them as if they did. Remember: the tone of your thought of us lying down letters is what will get under their skin. If your language is elevated, poetic, here on Ida \ Ami making creative in its praise, it will infect them despite themselves. Never argue, love outdoors in broad daylight! \ What if one of never defend yourself, never accuse them of being heartless. That would the Immortals saw us \ ruin the spell. Asleep, and went to all the A letter can suggest emotion by seeming disordered, rambling from one other gods \Aud told them? I could never get up subject to another. Clearly it is hard for you to think; your love has un- \ And go back home. It hinged you. Disordered thoughts are exciting thoughts. Do not waste time would be shameful. \ But if

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Desdemona came closer. She picked up the pomade and sniffed it. It wasn't the smell on his clothes. "What else do you do down there?" "Nothing." 25 "You stay all night sometimes." "It's a long trip. By the time I walk there, it's late." "What are you smoking in those bars?" "Whatever's in the hookah. It's not polite to ask." "If Mother and Father knew you were smoking and drinking like this . . ." She trailed off. "They don't know, do they?" said Lefty. "So I'm safe." His light tone was unconvincing. Lefty acted as though he had recovered from their parents' deaths, but Desdemona saw through this. She smiled grimly at her brother and, without comment, held out her fist. Auto- matically, while still admiring himself in the mirror, Lefty made a fist, too. They counted, "One, two, three . . shoot!" . "Rock crushes snake. I win," said Desdemona. "So tell me." "Tell you what?" "Tell me what's so interesting in Bursa." Lefty combed his hair forward again and parted it on the left. He swiveled his head back and forth in the mirror. "Which looks better? Left or right?" "Let me see." Desdemona raised her hand delicately to Lefty's hair— and mussed it. "Hey!" "What do you want in Bursa?" "Leave me alone." "Tell me!" "You want to know?" Lefty said, exasperated with his sister now. "What do you think I want?" He spoke with pent-up force. "I want a woman." Desdemona gripped her belly, patted her heart. She took two steps backward and from this vantage point examined her brother anew. The idea that Lefty, who shared her eyes and eyebrows, who slept in the bed beside hers, could be possessed by such a desire had never occurred to Desdemona before. Though physically mature, Desdemona's body was still a stranger to its owner. At night, in their bedroom, she'd seen her sleeping brother press against his rope mat- tress as though angry with it. As a child she'd come upon him in the cocoonery, innocently rubbing against a wooden post. But none of this had made an impression. "What are you doing?" she'd asked Lefty, eight or nine at the time, and gripping the post, moving his 26 knees up and down. With a steady, determined voice, he'd answered, cTm trying to get that feeling." "What feeling?" "You know"— grunting, puffing, pumping knees—"that feeling? But she didn't know. It was still years before Desdemona, cutting cucumbers, would lean against the corner of the kitchen table and, without realizing it, would lean in a little harder, and after that would find herself taking up that position every day, the table corner snug between her legs. Now, preparing her brother's meals, she sometimes struck up her old acquaintance with the dining table, but she wasn't conscious of it. It was her body that did it, with the cunning and si- lence of bodies everywhere.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  "That's gross." "I'll get you a new toothbrush. We've got a box of them. God, you're such a priss." I was only feigning squeamishness. In actuality I wouldn't have minded sharing the Object's toothbrush. I wouldn't have minded be- ing the Object's toothbrush. I was already well acquainted with the splendors of her mouth. Smoking is good for that. You get a full dis- play of the puckering and the sucking. The tongue often makes an appearance, licking from the lips any stickiness imparted by the filter. Sometimes bits of paper adhere to the bottom lip and the smoker, pulling them away, reveals the candied lower teeth against the pulpy gums. And if the smoker is a blower of smoke rings, you get to see all the way in to the dark velvet of the inner cheeks. That was how it went with the Obscure Object. A cigarette in bed was the tombstone marking each day's end and the reed through which she breathed herself back to life each morning. You've heard of installation artists? Well, the Object was an exhalation artist. She had a whole repertoire. There was the Sidewinder, where she politely fun- neled smoke away from the person she was talking to out the corner of her mouth. There was the Geyser when she was angry. There was the Dragon Lady, featuring a plume from each nostril. There was the French Recycle, where she let smoke out her mouth only to inhale it back through her nose. And there was the Swallow. The Swallow was reserved for crisis situations. Once, in the Science Wing bathroom, the Object had just finished taking a long drag when a teacher charged in. My friend had time to flick her cigarette into the toilet bowl and flush. But what about the smoke? Where could it go? "Who's been smoking in here?" the teacher asked. The Object shrugged, keeping her mouth closed. The teacher leaned toward her, sniffing. And the Object swallowed. No smoke came out. Not a wisp. Not a puff. A little moistness in her eyes the only sign of the Chernobyl in her lungs. I accepted the Object's invitation to sleep over. Mrs. Object called Tessie to see if it was all right and, by eleven o'clock, my friend and I went up to bed together. She gave me a T-shirt to wear. It said "Fes- senden" on the front. I put it on and the Object snickered. "What?" 346 "That's Jerome's T-shirt. Does it reek?" "Why'd you give me his shirt?" I said, going stiff, shrinking from the cotton's touch while still wearing it. "Mine are too small. You want one of Daddy's? They smell like cologne." "Your dad wears cologne?" "He lived in Paris after the war. He's got all kinds of fruity habits." She was climbing up onto the big bed now. "Plus he slept with about a million French prostitutes."

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  You will not seduce anyone by simply depending on your engaging personality, or by occasionally doing something noble or alluring. Seduction is a process that occurs over time—the longer you take and the slower you go, the deeper you will penetrate into the mind of your victim. It is an art that requires patience, focus, and strategic thinking. You need to always be one step ahead of your victim, throwing dust in their eyes, casting a spell, keeping them off balance. The twenty-four chapters in this section will arm you with a series of tactics that will help you get out of yourself and into the mind of your victim, so that you can play it like an instrument. The chapters are placed in a loose order, going from the initial contact with your victim to the successful conclusion. This order is based on certain timeless laws of human psychology. Because people's thoughts tend to revolve around their daily concerns and insecurities, you cannot proceed with a seduction until you slowly put their anxieties to sleep and fill their distracted minds with thoughts of you. The opening chapters will help you accomplish this. There is a natural tendency in relationships for people to become so familiar with one another that boredom and stagnation set in. Mystery is the lifeblood of seduction and to maintain it you have to constantly surprise your victims, stir things up, even shock them. A seduction should never settle into a comfortable routine. The middle and later chapters will instruct you in the art of alternating hope and despair, pleasure and pain, until your victims weaken and succumb. In each instance, one tactic is setting up the next one, allowing you to push it further with something bolder and more violent. A seducer cannot be timid or merciful. To help you move the seduction along, the chapters are arranged in 163 164 • The Art of Seduction four phases, each phase with a particular goal to aim for: getting the victim to think of you; gaining access to their emotions by creating moments of pleasure and confusion; going deeper by working on their unconscious, stirring up repressed desires; and finally, inducing physical surrender. (The phases are clearly marked and explained with a short introduction.) By following these phases you will work more effectively on your victim's mind and create the slow and hypnotic pace of a ritual. In fact, the seductive process may be thought of as a kind of initiation ritual, in which you are uprooting people from their habits, giving them novel experiences, putting them through tests, before initiating them into a new life.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  next few months—until the novelty wore off—de Valois and Richelieu en-who knows how to joyed endless trysts. communicate gradually the heat of love to the senses of Everyone in Paris knew of Richelieu's exploits, for he made it a point the most virtuous woman to publicize them as loudly as possible. Every week a new story would cir-is quite certain of soon culate through the court. A husband had locked his wife in an upstairs being absolute master of her mind and her person; room at night, worried the duke was after her; to reach her the duke had you cannot reflect when crawled in darkness along a thin wooden plank suspended between two you have lost your head; upper-floor windows. Two women who lived in the same house, one a and, moreover, principles of widow, the other married and quite religious, had discovered to their mu-wisdom, however deeply engraved they may be on tual horror that the duke was having an affair with both of them at the the mind, are effaced in same time, leaving one in the middle of the night to be with the other. that moment when the When they confronted him, the duke, always on the prowl for something heart yearns only for pleasure: pleasure alone novel, and a devilish talker, had neither apologized nor backed down, but then commands and is proceeded to talk them into a menage a trois, playing on the wounded obeyed. The man who has vanity of each woman, who could not stand the thought of him preferring had experience of conquests nearly always succeeds the other. Year after year, the stories of his remarkable seductions spread. where he who is only timid One woman admired his audacity and bravery, another his gallantry in and in love fails. . . . • thwarting a husband. Women competed for his attention: if he did not When I had brought my want to seduce you, there had to be something wrong with you. To be the two belles to the state of abandonment in which I target of his attentions became a great fantasy. At one point two ladies The Rake • 21 fought a pistol duel over the duke, and one of them was seriously wanted them, I expressed a wounded. The Duchess d'Orléans, Richelieu's most bitter enemy, once more eager desire; their eyes lit up; my caresses wrote, "If I believed in sorcery I should think that the Duke possessed were returned; and it was some supernatural secret, for I have never known a woman to oppose the plain that their resistance very least resistance to him." would not delay for more than a few moments the next scene I desired them

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  No, the brilliance of Lauzun's seduction was that the Grande Mademoiselle believed it was she who was making all the moves. Once you have chosen the right victim, you must get his or her at- tention and stir desire. To move from friendship to love can win success without calling attention to itself as a maneuver. First, your friendly con- versations with your targets will bring you valuable information about their characters, their tastes, their weaknesses, the childhood yearnings that gov- ern their adult behavior. (Lauzun, for example, could adapt cleverly to Anne Marie's tastes once he had studied her close up.) Second, by spending time with your targets you can make them comfortable with you. Believing you are interested only in their thoughts, in their company, they will lower their resistance, dissipating the usual tension between the sexes. Now they are vulnerable, for your friendship with them has opened the golden gate to their body: their mind. At this point any offhand comment, any slight physical contact, will spark a different thought, which will catch them off- guard: perhaps there could be something else between you. Once that feel- ing has stirred, they will wonder why you haven't made a move, and will take the initiative themselves, enjoying the illusion that they are in control. There is nothing more effective in seduction than making the seduced think that they are the ones doing the seducing. I do not approach her, I merely skirt the periphery of her existence. . . . This is the first web into which she must be spun. —SØREN KIERKEGAARD Key to Seduction W hat you are after as a seducer is the ability to move people in the di- rection you want them to go. But the game is perilous; the mo- ment they suspect they are acting under your influence, they will become resentful. We are creatures who cannot stand feeling that we are obeying someone else's will. Should your targets catch on, sooner or later they will turn against you. But what if you can make them do what you want them to without their realizing it? What if they think they are in control? That is and, until he could achieve h is hoped-for pleasure, kissed her hands. He could scarcely wait for the rest, only with great difficulty did he restrain himself. • Now he frolicked and played on the green turf now lay down, all snowy white on the yellow sand. Gradually the princess lost her fear, and with her innocent hands she stroked his breast when he offered it for her caress, and hung fresh garlands on his horns: till finally she even ventured to mount the bull, little knowing on whose back she was resting.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Is love alone then something furtive rather than something to be gloried in? Exactly, that's just it—I don't want any of the good things of life unless people are envious of them. —PETRONIUS, THE SATYRICON, TRANSLATED BY J. P. SULLIVAN 202 • The Art of Seduction and discipline—precisely what no other leader had at the time. In the American presidential race of 1980, the irresoluteness of Jimmy Carter made the single-mindedness of Ronald Reagan look desirable. Contrasts are eminently seductive because they do not depend on your own words or self-advertisements. The public reads them unconsciously, and sees what it wants to see. Finally, appearing to be desired by others will raise your value, but often how you carry yourself can influence this as well. Do not let your targets see you so often; keep your distance, seem unattainable, out of their reach. An object that is rare and hard to obtain is generally more prized. Symbol: The Trophy. What makes you want to win the trophy, and to see it as something worth having, is the sight of the other competitors. Some, out of a spirit of kindness, may want to reward everyone for trying, but the Trophy then loses its value. It must represent not only your victory but everyone else's defeat. Reversal T here is no reversal. It is essential to appear desirable in the eyes of others. Create a Need— Stir Anxiety and Discontent A perfectly satisfied person cannot be seduced. Tension and disharmony must be instilled in your targets' minds. Stir within them feelings of discontent, an unhappiness with their circumstances and with themselves: their life lacks adventure, they have strayed from the ideals of their youth, they have become boring. The feelings of inadequacy that you create will give you space to in- sinuate yourself, to make them see you as the answer to their problems. Pain and anxiety are the proper precursors to pleasure. Learn to manufacture the need that you can fill. Opening a Wound I n the coal-mining town of Eastwood, in central England, David Herbert Lawrence was considered something of a strange lad. Pale and delicate, he had no time for games or boyish pursuits, but was interested in litera- ture; and he preferred the company of girls, who made up most of his friends. Lawrence often visited the Chambers family, who had been his neighbors until they moved out of Eastwood to a farm not far away. He liked to study with the Chambers sisters, particularly Jessie; she was shy and serious, and getting her to open up and confide in him was a pleasurable challenge. Jessie grew quite attached to Lawrence over the years, and they became good friends. One day in 1906, Lawrence, twenty-one at the time, did not show up at the usual hour for his study session with Jessie.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  I took hold of her T-shirt and lifted it up. I gazed at her naked belly for a long while and, finally, with a kind of woefulness, bowed my head. I bowed my head to the god of desperate longing. I kissed the Object's belly and then slowly, gathering confidence, worked my way up. Do you remember my frog heart? In Clementine Stark's bedroom it had kicked off from a muddy bank, moving between two elements. Now it did something even more amazing— it crept up onto land. Squeezing millennia into thirty seconds, it developed consciousness. While kissing the Object's belly, I wasn't just reacting to pleasurable stimuli, as I had been with Clementine. I didn't vacate my body, as I had with Jerome. Now I was aware of what was happening. I was thinking about it. I was thinking that this was what I'd always wanted. I was realiz- ing that I wasn't the only faker around. I was wondering what would happen if someone discovered what we were doing. I was thinking that it was all very complicated and would only get more so. 383 I reached down and touched her hips. I hooked my fingers in the waistband of her underpants. I began to slip them off. Just then, the Object lifted her hips, very slightly, to make it easier for me. This was her only contribution. The next day we didn't mention it. When I got up, the Object was al- ready out of bed. She was in the kitchen, observing her father's preparation of scrapple. Making scrapple was Mr. Object's Sunday morning ritual. He presided over the bubbling fat and grease while the Object periodically looked into the frying pan and said, "That is so disgusting." Soon she was working on a plate of it, and made me have one, too. "I'm going to have the worst heartburn," she said. I understood the unspoken message immediately. The Object wanted no dramatics, no guilt. No show of romance, either. She was going on about the scrapple to separate night from day, to make it clear that what happened at night, what we did at night, had nothing to do with daylight hours. She was a good actress, too, and at times I wondered if maybe she really had been sleeping through the whole thing. Or maybe I had only been dreaming it. She gave only two signs during the day that anything had changed between us. In the afternoon Jerome's film crew arrived. This consisted of two friends of his, carrying boxes and cables and

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Not only words insinuate; pay attention to gestures and looks. Madame Glances are the heavy Récamier's favorite technique was to keep her words banal and the look in artillery of the flirt: her eyes enticing. The flow of conversation would keep men from thinking everything can be conveyed too deeply about these occasional looks, but they would be haunted by in a look, yet that look can always be denied, for it them. Lord Byron had his famous "underlook": while everyone was dis- cannot be quoted word for cussing some uninteresting subject, he would seem to hang his head, but word. then a young woman (the target) would see him glancing upward at her, his —STENDHAL, QUOTED IN head still tilted. It was a look that seemed dangerous, challenging, but also RICHARD DAVENPORT-HINES, ambiguous; many women were hooked by it. The face speaks its own lan- ED., VICE: AN ANTHOLOGY guage. We are used to trying to read people's faces, which are often better indicators of their feelings than what they say, which is so easy to control. 218 • The Art of Seduction Since people are always reading your looks, use them to transmit the insinuating signals you choose. Finally, the reason insinuation works so well is not just that it bypasses people's natural resistance. It is also the language of pleasure. There is too little mystery in the world; too many people say exactly what they feel or want. We yearn for something enigmatic, for something to feed our fantasies. Because of the lack of suggestion and ambiguity in daily life, the person who uses them suddenly seems to have something alluring and full of promise. It is a kind of titillating game—what is this person up to? What does he or she mean? Hints, suggestions, and insinuations create a seductive atmosphere, signaling that their victim is no longer involved in the routines of daily life but has entered another realm. Symbol: The Seed. The soil is carefully prepared. The seeds are planted months in advance. Once they are in the ground, no one knows what hand threw them there. They are part of the earth. Disguise your manipulations by planting seeds that take root on their own. Reversal The danger in insinuation is that when you leave things ambiguous your target may misread them. There are moments, particularly later on in a seduction, when it is best to communicate your idea directly, particularly once you know the target will welcome it, Casanova often played things that way. When he could sense that a woman desired him, and needed little preparation, he would use a direct, sincere, gushing comment to go straight to her head like a drug and make her fall under his spell. When the rake and writer Gabriele D'Annunzio met a woman he desired, he rarely delayed. Flattery flowed from his mouth and pen. He would charm with his

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  believe I severed both his This letter had a stronger effect on Madame Sabatier than the others heart and his life. Those had. Perhaps it was his childlike sincerity, and the fact that he had finally two blows killed him, I think, and not any hired written to her directly; perhaps it was that he loved her but asked nothing killers. • "Ah God! Will I of her, unlike all the other men she knew who at some point had always be forgiven this murder, this turned out to want something. Whatever it was, she had an uncontrollable sin? Never! All the rivers desire to see him. The next day she invited him to her apartment, alone. Give Them Space to Fall— The Pursuer Is Pursued • 387 Baudelaire appeared at the appointed hour. He sat nervously in his seat, and the seas will dry up gazing at her with his large eyes, saying little, and what he did say was for- first! Oh, misery! How it would have brought me mal and polite. He seemed aloof. After he left a kind of panic seized comfort and healing if I Madame Sabatier, and the next day she wrote him a first letter of her own: had held him in my arms "Today I'm more calm, and I can feel more clearly the impression of our once before he died. How? Yes, quite naked next to Tuesday evening together. I can tell you, without the danger of your think- him, in order to enjoy him ing I'm exaggerating, that I'm the happiest woman on the face of the earth, fully. . . . " • . . . When that I've never felt more truly that I love you, and that I've never seen you they came within six or look more beautiful, more adorable, my divine friend!" seven leagues of the castle where King Bademagu was Madame Sabatier had never before written such a letter; she had always staying, news that was been the one who was pursued. Now she had lost her usual self-possession. pleasing came to him about And it only got worse: Baudelaire did not answer right away. When she saw Lancelot— news that he was glad to hear; Lancelot him next, he was colder than before. She had the feeling there was some- was alive and was one else, that his old mistress, Jeanne Duval, had suddenly reappeared in his returning, hale and hearty. life and was pulling him away from her. One night she turned aggressive, He behaved most properly in going to inform the embracing him, trying to kiss him, but he did not respond, and quickly queen. "Good sir," she found an excuse to leave. Why was he suddenly inaccessible? She began to told him, "I believe it, flood him with letters, begging him to come to her. Unable to sleep, she since you have told me. But were he dead, I assure

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  said she was married or had a child. She knew that being unable to have her serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For would make him want her more than ever. It was the only way to seduce a God knows that when you man like him. eat of it your eyes will be Overwhelmed by the lengths she had gone to, and by the emotions she opened, and you will be like God, knowing good had so skillfully stirred in him, Don Juan forgave Cristeta and offered to and evil. " So when the marry her. To his surprise, and perhaps to his relief, she politely declined. woman saw that the tree The moment they married, she said, his eyes would wander elsewhere. was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, Only if they stayed as they were could she maintain the upper hand. Don and that the tree was to be Juan had no choice but to agree. desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Interpretation. Cristeta and Don Juan are characters in the novel Dulce y —GENESIS 3:1 , O L D TESTAMENT Sabrosa (Sweet and Savory, 1891), by the Spanish writer Jacinto Octavio Picon. Most of Picon's work deals with male seducers and their feminine victims, a subject he studied and knew much about. Abandoned by Don Juan, and reflecting on his nature, Cristeta decided to kill two birds with Thou strong seducer, one stone: she would get revenge and get him back. But how could she Opportunity. lure such a man? The fruit once tasted, he no longer wanted it. What came —-JOHN DRYDEN easily to him, or fell into his arms, held no allure for him. What would tempt Don Juan into desiring Cristeta again, into pursuing her, was the sense that she was already taken, that she was forbidden fruit. That was his As he listened, Masetto weakness—that was why he pursued virgins and married women, women experienced such a longing he was not supposed to have. To a man, she reasoned, the grass always to go and stay with these nuns that his whole body seems greener somewhere else. She would make herself that distant, allur-tingled with excitement, for ing object, just out of reach, tantalizing him, stirring up emotions he could it was clear from what he not control. He knew how charming and desirable she had once been to had heard that he should be able to achieve what he him. The idea of possessing her again, and the pleasure he imagined it had in mind. Realizing, would bring, were too much for him: he swallowed the bait. however, that he would get Temptation is a twofold process. First you are coquettish, flirtatious; nowhere by revealing his intentions to Nuto, he you stimulate a desire by promising pleasure and distraction from daily life.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  for her age). She wrote in her diary, "They stared at my sweater as if it were Hermes, accompanied by a gold mine." Hera, Athene, and The revelation was simple but startling. Previously ignored and even Aphrodite delivered the golden apple and Zeus's ridiculed by the other students, Norma Jean now sensed a way to gain at- message: "Paris, since you tention, maybe even power, for she was wildly ambitious. She started to are as handsome as you are smile more, wear makeup, dress differently. And soon she noticed some- wise in affairs of the heart, Zeus commands you to thing equally startling: without her having to say or do anything, boys fell judge which of these passionately in love with her. "My admirers all said the same thing in differ- goddesses is the fairest. " • ent ways," she wrote. "It was my fault, their wanting to kiss me and hug "So be it," sighed Paris. me. Some said it was the way I looked at them—with eyes full of passion. "But first I beg the losers not to be vexed with me. I Others said it was my voice that lured them on. Still others said I gave off am only a human being, vibrations that floored them." liable to make the stupidest 10 • The Art of Seduction mistakes." • The A few years later Marilyn was trying to make it in the film business. goddesses all agreed to Producers would tell her the same thing: she was attractive enough in per-abide by his decision. • son, but her face wasn't pretty enough for the movies. She was getting "Will it be enough to judge them as they are?" work as an extra, and when she was on-screen—even if only for a few sec-Paris asked Hermes, "or onds—the men in the audience would go wild, and the theaters would should they he naked?" • erupt in catcalls. But nobody saw any star quality in this. One day in 1949, "The rules of the contest are for you to decide," only twenty-three at the time and her career at a standstill, Monroe met Hermes answered with a someone at a diner who told her that a producer casting a new Groucho discreet smile. • "In that Marx movie, Love Happy, was looking for an actress for the part of a blond case, will they kindly bombshell who could walk by Groucho in a way that would, in his words, disrobe?" • Hermes told the goddesses to do so, and "arouse my elderly libido and cause smoke to issue from my ears." Talking politely turned his back. • her way into an audition, she improvised this walk. "It's Mae West, Theda Aphrodite was soon ready, Bara, and Bo Peep all rolled into one," said Groucho after watching her but Athene insisted that she should remove the saunter by. "We shoot the scene tomorrow morning." And so Marilyn cre-famous magic girdle, which

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  best purpose. . . . The And now she could not help noticing little details: Genji's robes seemed to Emperor Ming Huang, glow, in pleasing and vibrant colors, as if dyed by unworldly hands. Hotaru's supreme in the land and robes seemed drab by comparison. And the perfumes burned into Genji's with thousands of the most handsome maidens to garments, how intoxicating they were. No one else bore such a scent. Ho-choose from, became a taru's letters were polite and well written, but the letters Genji sent her were complete slave to her on magnificent paper, perfumed and dyed, and they quoted lines of poetry, magnetic powers . . . spending day and night in always surprising yet always appropriate for the occasion. Genji also grew her company and giving up and gathered flowers—wild carnations, for instance—that he gave as gifts his whole kingdom and that seemed to symbolize his unique charm. for her sake. One evening Genji proposed to teach Tamakazura how to play the — S H U - C H I U N G , YANG KUEI- FEI: THE MOST FAMOUS koto. She was delighted. She loved to read romance novels, and whenever BEAUTY OF CHINA Genji played the koto, she felt as if she were transported into one of her books. No one played the instrument better than Genji; she would be honored to learn from him. Now he saw her often, and the method of his lessons was simple: she would choose a song for him to play, and then Then [ Pao-yu] called Bright Design to him and would try to imitate him. After they played, they would lie down side by said to her, "Go and see side, their heads resting on the koto, staring up at the moon. Genji would what [ Black Jade] is doing. have torches set up in the garden, giving the view the softest glow. If she asks about me, just say that I am quite all The more Tamakazura saw of the court—of Prince Hotaru, the other Pay Attention to Detail • 271 suitors, the emperor himself—the more she realized that none could com- right now. " • "You'll have pare to Genji. He was supposed to be her protector, yes, that was still true, to think of a better excuse than that," Bright Design but was it such a sin to fall in love with him? Confused, she found herself said. "Isn't there anything giving in to the caresses and kisses that he began to surprise her with, now that you can send or want that she was too weak to resist. to borrow? I don't want to go there and feel like a fool without anything to say. " • Pao-yu thought for a Interpretation. Genji is the protagonist in the eleventh-century novel The moment and then took two Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu, a woman of the Heian court. handkerchiefs from under his pillow and gave them