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)

  always done what you have asked, I have never forced myself on you. He enticement of tears. My kept his distance and she slowly relaxed. She no longer left the room when blood was on fire, and I he entered, and she could look at him directly. When he offered to accom- was so little in control of myself that I was tempted pany her on a walk, she did not refuse. They were friends, she said. She to make the most of the even put her arm in his as they strolled, a friendly gesture. occasion. • How weak we One rainy day they could not take their usual walk. He met her in the must be, how strong the dominion of circumstance, hallway as she was entering her room; for the first time, she invited him in. if even I, without a She seemed relaxed, and Valmont sat near her on a sofa. He talked of his thought for my plans, could love for her. She gave the faintest protest. He took her hand; she left it risk losing all the charm of there and leaned against his arm. Her voice trembled. She looked at him, a prolonged struggle, all the fascination of a laboriously and he felt his heart flutter—it was a tender, loving look. She started to administered defeat, by speak—"Well! yes, I . . ."—then suddenly collapsed into his arms, crying. It concluding a premature was a moment of weakness, yet Valmont held himself back. Her crying be- victory; if distracted by the most puerile of desires, I came convulsive; she begged him to help her, to leave the room before could be willing that the something terrible happened. He did so. The following morning he awoke conqueror of Madame de to some surprising news: in the middle of the night, claiming she was feel- Tourvel should take nothing for the fruit of his ing ill, Tourvel had suddenly left the château and returned home. labors but the tasteless Valmont did not follow her to Paris. Instead he began staying up late, distinction of having added and using no powder to hide the peaked looks that soon ensued. He went one more name to the roll. Ah, let her surrender, but to the chapel every day, and dragged himself despondently around the let her fight! Let her be too château. He knew that his hostess would be writing to the Présidente, who weak to prevail but strong would hear of his sad state. Next he wrote to a church father in Paris, and enough to resist; let her asked him to pass along a message to Tourvel: he was ready to change his savor the knowledge of her weakness at her leisure, but life for good. He wanted one last meeting, to say goodbye and to return the let her be unwilling to letters she had written him over the last few months. The father arranged a admit defeat. Leave the 407

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  However, as luck would have it, a certain lady fell very deeply in love with him. She saw that he felt the same way, and as her love grew day by day, there not being any way for them to speak to each other, she revealed her sentiments to another lady, who she hoped would be of service to her in this affair. Now this lady neither in rank nor beauty was a whit inferior to the first; and it came about that when she heard the young man (whom she had never seen) spoken of so affectionately, and came to realize that the other woman, whom she knew was extremely discreet and intelligent, loved him beyond words, she straight away began to imagine that he must be the most handsome, the wisest, the most discreet of men, and, in short, the 197 198 • The Art of Seduction when they came back, Rée had the feeling that something physical had happened between them. His blood boiled; Salomé was slipping from his grasp. Finally the group split up, the mother returning to Russia, Nietzsche to his summer place in Tautenburg, Rée and Salomé staying behind at Rée's home. But Salomé did not stay long: she accepted an invitation of Nietz- sche's to visit him, unchaperoned, in Tautenburg. In her absence Rée was consumed with doubts and anger. He wanted her more than ever, and was prepared to redouble his efforts. When she finally came back, Rée vented his bitterness, railing against Nietzsche, criticizing his philosophy, and ques- tioning his motives toward the girl. But Salomé took Nietzsche's side. Rée was in despair; he felt he had lost her for good. Yet a few days later she sur- prised him again: she had decided she wanted to live with him, and with him alone. At last Rée had what he had wanted, or so he thought. The couple set- tled in Berlin, where they rented an apartment together. But now, to Rée's dismay, the old pattern repeated. They lived together but Salomé was courted on all sides by young men. The darling of Berlin's intellectuals, who admired her independent spirit, her refusal to compromise, she was constantly surrounded by a harem of men, who referred to her as "Her Ex- cellency." Once again Rée found himself competing for her attention. Driven to despair, he left her a few years later, and eventually committed suicide. In 1911, Sigmund Freud met Salomé (now known as Lou Andreas- Salomé) at a conference in Germany.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  She bathed on her roof at an hour when she knew he would be standing on his balcony. After tempting a man she knew had a weakness for women, she played the coquette, forcing him to come after her. This is the opportunity strategy: give someone weak the chance to have what they lust after by merely placing yourself within their reach, as if by accident. Temptation is often a matter of timing, of crossing the path of the weak at the right moment, giving them the opportunity to surrender. Bathsheba used her entire body as a lure, but it is often more effective to use only a part of the body, creating a fetishlike effect. Madame Re- camier would let you glimpse her body beneath the sheer dresses she wore, but only briefly, when she took off her overgarment to dance. Men would leave that evening dreaming of what little they had seen. Empress Josephine made a point of baring her beautiful arms in public. Give the target only a part of you to fantasize about, thereby creating a constant temptation in their mind. tree. Too much riding by night had left him with very little strength for the day's labors, and so there he lay, with his clothes ruffled up in front by the wind, leaving him all exposed. Finding herself alone, the lady stood with her eyes riveted to this spectacle, and she was seized by the same craving to which her young charges had already succumbed. So, having roused Masetto, she led him away to her room, where she kept him for several days, thus provoking bitter complaints from the nuns over the fact that the handyman had suspended work in the garden. Before sending him back to his own quarters, she repeatedly savored the one pleasure for which she had always reserved her most fierce disapproval, and from then on she demanded regular supplementary allocations, amounting to considerably more than her fair share. —GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO, THE DECAMERON, TRANSLATED BY G. H. MCWILLIAM Symbol: The Apple in the Garden of Eden. The fruit looks deeply inviting, and you are not supposed to eat of it; it is forbidden. But that is pre- cisely why you think of it day and night. You see it but cannot have it. And the only way to get rid of this tempta- tion is to yield and taste the fruit. 238 • The Art of Seduction Reversal T he reverse of temptation is security or satisfaction, and both are fatal to seduction. If you cannot tempt someone out of their habitual com- fort, you cannot seduce them. If you satisfy the desire you have awakened, the seduction is over. There is no reversal to temptation. Although some stages can be passed over, no seduction can proceed without some form of temptation, so it is always better to plan it carefully, tailoring it to the weak- ness and childishness in your particular target.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Stanley was a douche. Reese desired him, but she wouldn’t say that she liked him. She liked his jealousy, his controlling behavior, the way he told her how to dress. She liked seeing herself through his eyes: vulnerable, fragile, prone to the most exasperatingly feminine qualities—he made fun of her for being obsessed with her looks, for flightiness, dreaminess, and her highly subjective and associative takes on the workings of the world. She liked how he called her a whore, then bought her expensive gifts. Rub his leg, ask for a new dress, get called a bimbo, go shopping for the dress. She liked how infatuated with her he had become, and how much he resented his own infatuation. The more he demeaned her, she knew, the more she’d hooked him. And so goading him into anger took on an unctuous, dangerous pleasure. Her friends hated him. Only Iris, she of the gorgeous blond hair and the party habit, who frequently disappeared into two- or three-day meth-fueled sex benders, really understood why Reese kept digging in deeper with Stanley. “I want to drive men crazy,” Iris said in her customary arch manner. “I want men to suffer. I want a man to love me so much he murders me. I want to die because I’m loved too much for him to tolerate my existence.” Reese didn’t want to die. Compared to Iris, Reese felt like she was only playing at this sort of psychodrama—Fisher Price: My First Abusive Man. Whereas Iris only had time for abusive men. Iris had a doll’s eyes and a practiced Marilyn Monroe giggle. She’d been an English major at Brown before she had transitioned, but refused to read any books afterward, and instead presented vacant ambitions in which she could remain an object: get discovered and be a movie star, become a Lana Del Rey song personified. In the post-meth lows, she spoke in other images, laced with serotonin-depleted terror and an almost prideful insistence on describing her own actions in the passive voice: being pimped; having my pussy pledged; spending days in addled semi-captivity among faceless men who made me addicted, who owned me, who fucked me limp, whose lives depend on my body.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  when the lover’s body floats slowly down into the oceanic void. But not Katrina; for Katrina and her bossy games, he was fully here, electrified, daydreaming about it even when they were apart. Amazingly, his desire hadn’t faded over the whole of the five months they had been together. If anything it had grown, gotten wild: lush unruly green life that overran the tidily landscaped paths and garden beds of proper behavior. He suspected that, although Katrina was too proud to openly say so, they had been having a type of sex that she had long craved but never before known to ask for. That this was the first time in her life that she was experiencing the mind-scrambling effects of good sex— the kind of sex where you travel across the country for just a couple hours together, after which you talk about buying property, or moving in together, or just generally entwining lives in a way logistically unjustified by a short period of intimacy. In short, the sex that Katrina and he were having was in the category that meant that when a pregnancy test comes up positive—keeping the baby is very much an option. Except for two caveats: First, she didn’t know that he was once a transsexual, and second, after all his mental gymnastics, after all the lessons of transition and detransition, fatherhood remained the one affront to his gender that he still couldn’t stomach without a creeping sense of horror. To become a father by his own body, as his father was to him, and his father before him, and on and on, would sentence him to a lifetime of grappling with that horror. God, he’d hidden so much of his past from her, a past murky, half-spoken, all of it covered by the pretext that he was trying to protect their relationship from the office. It tired Ames, despite erasure having become a second nature mode of dealing with his past. In his office now, Katrina scoots forward in her chair and takes his hand. “Ames, help me,” she says softly. “What do you want to do? I’m not asking you to decide anything for me. I surprised myself by finding out I’m excited. I feel vulnerable saying that, so please, give me some sense of what this means for you.” She touches her stomach again. The baby-yet-not-yet-a-baby beneath her hand. He remembers hearing that a fetal pulse is detectable at four weeks. He remembers that she has miscarried before. The quiet pain of that. It hurts to think about what she might be going through. “You told me you were sterile and now I’m pregnant,” she says. “Now the only thing you have to tell me after my doctor’s confirmation—that you asked for—is that your testicles are atrophied? This is not how most men react to finding out they are a potential father.”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Eight years before conception T HE POPPERS HIT. Purple jellyfish expanded and pulsated across the backs of Amy’s eyelids. She had just enough time to get her mouth back on Reese’s soft cock before her constant interior monologue, that complicated apparatus that processed all the raw signals from her body into a tolerable meaning, for the first time in her life, cut out. Some critical component of consciousness withdrew like the needle lifted from a still-spinning record. No words. No thought. Just raw, unprocessed, open fire hydrants of data that rushed in from Amy’s senses. Time became a slippery fish among it. Fragments of atomized notions began to coagulate. Slips of words formed, as cosmic dust gloms together by its own weak gravity, drawn together into molecules of gas, pressed against other molecules, collectively gravitated pressure growing, until a change: fusion, heat, light—and Amy flared back into an interior language, into words and the possibility of reason. The purple jellyfish descended back into the depths. Her vision cleared. Where was she? Oh. There: sobbing with Reese’s cock in her mouth. Shivering. How long had she been sobbing? She didn’t want to sob, she wanted to kiss the pretty dick resting on the pad of her tongue. For the last month, she had been obsessed with Reese; all she wanted to do was get closer and closer to her. It was to the point that the phrase “I just want to eat you up” took on shades of the literal—digestive incorporation being the only act that Amy could imagine getting her closer to Reese than sex. Just an hour before, Amy had watched Reese brush her teeth, her long brown hair hanging loose, and her arm pistoning back and forth so hard as she brushed that her tits waggled side to side under her slinky nightgown. Amy decided it was the sexiest thing she had ever seen, topping each of the fifty other Reese actions she’d decided one after another that day was the sexiest vision ever. The simultaneous emotions of wanting Reese so badly, the happiness of actually having her, and the fear that something might happen to either herself or Reese to ruin it all made her stomach fizz with a virulent form of a crush.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Stanley was a douche. Reese desired him, but she wouldn’t say that she liked him. She liked his jealousy, his controlling behavior, the way he told her how to dress. She liked seeing herself through his eyes: vulnerable, fragile, prone to the most exasperatingly feminine qualities—he made fun of her for being obsessed with her looks, for flightiness, dreaminess, and her highly subjective and associative takes on the workings of the world. She liked how he called her a whore, then bought her expensive gifts. Rub his leg, ask for a new dress, get called a bimbo, go shopping for the dress. She liked how infatuated with her he had become, and how much he resented his own infatuation. The more he demeaned her, she knew, the more she’d hooked him. And so goading him into anger took on an unctuous, dangerous pleasure. Her friends hated him. Only Iris, she of the gorgeous blond hair and the party habit, who frequently disappeared into two- or three-day meth-fueled sex benders, really understood why Reese kept digging in deeper with Stanley. “I want to drive men crazy,” Iris said in her customary arch manner. “I want men to suffer. I want a man to love me so much he murders me. I want to die because I’m loved too much for him to tolerate my existence.” Reese didn’t want to die. Compared to Iris, Reese felt like she was only playing at this sort of psychodrama—Fisher Price: My First Abusive Man. Whereas Iris only had time for abusive men. Iris had a doll’s eyes and a practiced Marilyn Monroe giggle. She’d been an English major at Brown before she had transitioned, but refused to read any books afterward, and instead presented vacant ambitions in which she could remain an object: get discovered and be a movie star, become a Lana Del Rey song personified. In the post-meth lows, she spoke in other images, laced with serotonin-depleted terror and an almost prideful insistence on describing her own actions in the passive voice: being pimped; having my pussy pledged; spending days in addled semi-captivity among faceless men who made me addicted, who owned me, who fucked me limp, whose lives depend on my body.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Since time immemorial, women have known that within the most apparently self-possessed man is an animal whom they can lead by filling his senses with the proper physical lures. The key is to attack on as many fronts as possible. Do not ignore your voice, your gestures, your walk, your clothes, your glances. Some of the most alluring women in history have so distracted their victims with sensual detail that the men fail to notice it is all an illusion. From the 1940s on into the early 1960s, Pamela Churchill Harriman had a series of affairs with some of the most prominent and wealthy men in the world—Averill Harriman (whom years later she married), Gianni Agnelli (heir to the Fiat fortune), Baron Elie de Rothschild. What attracted these men, and kept them in thrall, was not her beauty or her lineage or her vivacious personality, but her extraordinary attention to detail. It began with her attentive look as she listened to your every word, soaking up your tastes. Once she found her way into your home, she would fill it with your favorite flowers, get your chef to cook that dish you had tasted only in the finest restaurants. You mentioned an artist you liked? A few days later that artist would be attending one of your parties. She found the perfect antiques for you, dressed in the way that most pleased or excited you, and she did this without your saying a word—she spied, gathered information from third parties, overheard you talking to someone else. Harriman's attention to detail had an intoxicating effect on all the men in her life. It had something in common with the pampering of a mother, there to bring order and comfort into their lives, attending to their needs. Life is harsh and competitive. Attending to detail in a way that is soothing to the other person makes them dependent upon you. The key is probing their needs in a way that is not too obvious, so that when you make precisely the right gesture, it seems uncanny, as if you had read their mind. This is another way of returning your targets to childhood, when all of their needs were met. In the eyes of women all over the world, Rudolph Valentino reigned as the Great Lover through much of the 1920s. The qualities behind his appeal certainly included his handsome, almost pretty face, his dancing skills, the strangely exciting streak of cruelty in his manner. But his perhaps most endearing trait was his time-consuming approach to courtship. His films would show him seducing a woman slowly, with careful details— sending her flowers (choosing the variety to match the mood he wanted to 274 • The Art of Seduction

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Thousands of years ago, power was mostly gained through physical violence and maintained with brute strength. There was little need for subtlety—a king or emperor had to be merciless. Only a select few had power, but no one suffered under this scheme of things more than women. They had no way to compete, no weapon at their disposal that could make a man do what they wanted—politically, socially, or even in the home. Oppression and scorn, Of course men had one weakness: their insatiable desire for sex. A thus, were and must have woman could always toy with this desire, but once she gave in to sex the been generally the share of women in emerging man was back in control; and if she withheld sex, he could simply look societies; this state lasted in elsewhere—or exert force. What good was a power that was so temporary all its force until centuries and frail? Yet women had no choice but to submit to this condition. There of experience taught them to substitute skill for force. were some, though, whose hunger for power was too great, and who, over Women at last sensed that, the years, through much cleverness and creativity, invented a way of turn- since they were weaker, ing the dynamic around, creating a more lasting and effective form of their only resource was to seduce; they understood power. that if they were dependent These women—among them Bathsheba, from the Old Testament; on men through force, men Helen of Troy; the Chinese siren Hsi Shi; and the greatest of them all, could become dependent on them through pleasure. Cleopatra—invented seduction. First they would draw a man in with an al- More unhappy than men, luring appearance, designing their makeup and adornment to fashion the they must have thought image of a goddess come to life. By showing only glimpses of flesh, they and reflected earlier than would tease a man's imagination, stimulating the desire not just for sex but did men; they were the first to know that pleasure was for something greater: the chance to possess a fantasy figure. Once they had always beneath the idea their victims' interest, these women would lure them away from the mascu- that one formed of it, and line world of war and politics and get them to spend time in the feminine that the imagination went farther than nature. Once world—a world of luxury, spectacle, and pleasure. They might also lead these basic truths were them astray literally, taking them on a journey, as Cleopatra lured Julius known, they learned first Caesar on a trip down the Nile. Men would grow hooked on these refined, to veil their charms in order to awaken curiosity; they

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  to his character. He replied by writing that he had changed. He did not say Olympus \ Gold-throned how or why, but the implication was that it was because of her. Hera saw her brother, \ Now his letters came almost daily. They were mostly of the same Who was her husband's brother too, \ Busy on the length, in a poetic style that had a touch of madness to it, as if he were in-fields of human glory, \ toxicated with love. He talked of Greek myth, comparing Cordelia to a And her heart sang. Then nymph and himself to a river that fell in love with a maiden. His soul, he she saw Zeus \ Sitting on the topmost peak of Ida \ said, merely reflected back her image; she was all he could see or think of. And was filled with Meanwhile he detected changes in Cordelia: her letters became more po-resentment. Cow-eyed etic, less restrained. Without realizing it she repeated his ideas, imitating his Hera \ Mused for a while on how to trick \ The mind style and his imagery as if they were her own. Also, when they saw each of Zeus Aegis-holder, \ other in person, she was nervous. He made a point of remaining the same, And the plan that seemed aloof and regal, but he could tell that she saw him differently, sensing best to her \ Was to make depths in him that she could not fathom. In public she hung on his every herself up and go to Ida, \ Seduce him, and then shed word. She must have memorized his letters, for she referred to them con-on his eyelids \ And stantly in their talks. It was a secret life they shared. When she held his cunning mind a sleep hand, she did so more tightly than before. Her eyes expressed an impa-gentle and warm. . . . \ When everything was tience, as if she were hoping that at any moment he would do something perfect, she stepped \ Out bold. of her room and called Johannes made his letters shorter but more numerous, sometimes Aphrodite \ And had a word with her in private: \ sending several in one day. The imagery became more physical and more "My dear child, will you suggestive, the style more disjointed, as if he could barely organize his do something for me, \ I thoughts. Sometimes he sent a note of just a sentence or two. Once, at a wonder, or will you refuse, party at Cordelia's house, he dropped such a note into her knitting basket angry because \ I favor the Greeks and you the and watched as she ran away to read it, her face flushed. In her letters he Trojans?" \ And Zeus' saw signs of emotion and turmoil. Echoing a sentiment he had hinted at in daughter Aphrodite an earlier letter, she wrote that she hated the whole engagement business— replied: \ "Goddess revered

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  tion about him? Why is he alone, why is he avoided? There has to be a enrolled in the same list, reason. Until someone takes pity on this man and starts up a conversation and of being praised in the 200 • The Art of Seduction same way, in the presence with him, he will look unwanted and unwantable. But over there, in an-of your other female other corner, is a woman surrounded by people. They laugh at her remarks, friends. This will greatly and as they laugh, others join the group, attracted by its gaiety. When she delight her, and you need not be surprised if she moves around, people follow. Her face is glowing with attention. There has testifies her admiration of to be a reason. your character by throwing In both cases, of course, there doesn't actually have to be a reason at her arms around your neck on the spot. all. The neglected man may have quite charming qualities, supposing you ever talk to him; but most likely you won't. Desirability is a social illu- — L O L A M O N T E Z , THE ARTS AND SECRETS OF BEAUTY, WITH sion. Its source is less what you say or do, or any kind of boasting or self-H I N T S TO GENTLEMEN ON THE advertisement, than the sense that other people desire you. To turn your ART OF FASCINATING targets' interest into something deeper, into desire, you must make them see you as a person whom others cherish and covet. Desire is both imitative (we like what others like) and competitive (we want to take away from oth- [ René] Girard's mimetic ers what they have). As children, we wanted to monopolize the attention of desire occurs when an individual subject desires a parent, to draw it away from other siblings. This sense of rivalry pervades an object because it is human desire, repeating throughout our lives. Make people compete for desired by another subject, your attention, make them see you as sought after by everyone else. The here designated as the rival: desire is modeled on aura of desirability will envelop you. the wishes or actions of Your admirers can be friends or even suitors. Call it the harem effect. another. Philippe Lacoue- Pauline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon, raised her value in men's eyes by al-Labarthe says that "the basic hypothesis upon ways having a group of worshipful men around her at balls and parties. If which rests Girard's famous she went for a walk, it was never with one man, always with two or three. analysis [ is that] every Perhaps these men were simply friends, or even just props and hangers-on; desire is the desire of the the sight of them was enough to suggest that she was prized and desired, a other (and not immediately desire of an object), every woman worth fighting over. Andy Warhol, too, surrounded himself with structure of desire is

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Arthur Miller can't write for years. A man is often ruined by a Siren, yet cannot tear himself away. (Many powerful men have a masochistic streak.) An element of danger is easy to hint at, and will enhance your other Siren characteristics—the touch of madness in Marilyn, for example, that pulled men in. Sirens are often fantastically irrational, which is immensely attractive to men who are oppressed by their own reasonableness. An element of fear is also critical: keeping a man at a proper distance creates respect, so that he doesn't get close enough to see through you or notice your weaker qualities. Create such fear by suddenly changing your moods, keeping the man off balance, occasionally intimidating him with capricious behavior. The most important element for an aspiring Siren is always the physical, the Siren's main instrument of power. Physical qualities—a scent, a heightened femininity evoked through makeup or through elaborate or seductive clothing—act all the more powerfully on men because they have no meaning. In their immediacy they bypass rational processes, having the same effect that a decoy has on an animal, or the movement of a cape on a bull. The proper Siren appearance is often confused with physical beauty, particularly the face. But a beautiful face does not a Siren make: instead it creates too much distance and coldness. (Neither Cleopatra nor Marilyn Monroe, the two greatest Sirens in history, were known for their beautiful faces.) Although a smile and an inviting look are infinitely seductive, they must never dominate your appearance. They are too obvious and direct. The Siren must stimulate a generalized desire, and the best way to do this is by creating an overall impression that is both distracting and alluring. It is not one particular trait, but a combination of qualities: The voice. Clearly a critical quality, as the legend indicates, the Siren's voice has an immediate animal presence with incredible suggestive power. Perhaps that power is regressive, recalling the ability of the mother's voice 14 • The Art of Seduction to calm or excite her child even before the child understood what she was saying. The Siren must have an insinuating voice that hints at the erotic, more often subliminally than overtly. Almost everyone who met Cleopatra commented on her delightful, sweet-sounding voice, which had a mesmerizing quality. The Empress Josephine, one of the great seductresses of the late eighteenth century, had a languorous voice that men found exotic, and suggestive of her Creole origins. Marilyn Monroe was born with her breathy, childlike voice, but she learned to lower to make it truly seductive. Lauren Bacall's voice is naturally low; its seductive power comes from its slow, suggestive delivery. The Siren never speaks quickly, aggressively, or at a high pitch. Her voice is calm and unhurried, as if she had never quite woken up—or left her bed.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Now she was silent. She picked up a stocking and started to darn it, ignoring him; his eyes followed her every move, particularly the way she rubbed her bare knee. Finally he brought up Lohmann again, and the police. "You've no idea what this life's like," she said. "Everyone who comes here thinks he's the only pebble on the beach. If you don't give them what they want they threaten you with the police!" "I certainly regret having hurt a lady's feelings," he replied sheepishly. As she got up from her chair, their knees rubbed, and he felt a shiver up his spine. Now she was nice to him again, and poured him some more wine. She invited him to come back, then left abruptly to perform another number. 342 • The Art of Seduction The next day he kept thinking about her words, her looks. Thinking about her while he was teaching gave him a kind of naughty thrill. That night he went back to the club, still determined to catch Lohmann in the act, and once again found himself in Rosa's dressing room, drinking wine and becoming strangely passive. She asked him to help her get dressed; that seemed quite an honor and he obliged her. Helping her with her corset and her makeup, he forgot about Lohmann. He felt he was being initiated into some new world. She pinched his cheeks and stroked his chin, and occasionally let him glimpse her bare leg as she rolled up a stocking. Now Professor Mut showed up night after night, helping her dress, watching her perform, all with a strange kind of pride. He was there so often that Lohmann and his friends no longer showed up. He had taken their place—he was the one to bring her flowers, pay for her champagne, the one to serve her. Yes, an old man like himself had bested the youthful Lohmann, who thought himself so suave! He liked it when she stroked his chin, complimented him for doing things right, but he felt even more excited when she rebuked him, throwing a powder puff in his face or pushing him off a chair. It meant she liked him. And so, gradually, he began to pay for all her caprices. It cost him a pretty penny but kept her away from other men. Eventually he proposed to her. They married, and scandal ensued: he lost his job, and soon all his money; finally he landed in prison. To the very end, however, he could never get angry with Rosa. Instead he felt guilty: he had never done enough for her.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Find that weakness of theirs, that fantasy that has yet to be real- ized, and hint that you can lead them toward it. It could be wealth, it could be adventure, it could be forbidden and guilty pleasures; the key is to keep it vague. Dangle the prize before their eyes, postponing satisfaction, and let their minds do the rest. The future seems ripe with possi- bility. Stimulate a curiosity stronger than the doubts and anxieties that go with it, and they will follow you. The Tantalizing Object S ome time in the 1880s, a gentleman named Don Juan de Todellas was wandering through a park in Madrid when he saw a woman in her early twenties getting out of a coach, followed by a two-year-old child and a nursemaid. The young woman was elegantly dressed, but what took Don Juan's breath away was her resemblance to a woman he had known nearly three years before. Surely she could not be the same person. The woman he had known, Cristeta Moreruela, was a showgirl in a second-rate theater. She had been an orphan and was quite poor—her circumstances could not have changed that much. He moved closer: the same beautiful face. And then he heard her voice. He was so shocked that he had to sit down: it was indeed the same woman. Don Juan was an incorrigible seducer, whose conquests were innu- merable and of every variety. But he remembered his affair with Cristeta quite clearly, because she had been so young—the most charming girl he had ever met. He had seen her in the theater, had courted her assiduously, and had managed to persuade her to take a trip with him to a seaside town. Although they had separate rooms, nothing could stop Don Juan: he made up a story about business troubles, gained her sympathy, and in a tender moment took advantage of her weakness. A few days later he left her, on the pretext that he had to attend to business. He believed he would never see her again. Feeling a little guilty—a rare occurrence with him—he sent her 5,000 pesetas, pretending he would eventually rejoin her. Instead he went to Paris. He had only recently returned to Madrid. As he sat and remembered all this, an idea troubled him: the child. Could the boy possibly be his? If not, she must have married almost imme- diately after their affair. How could she do such a thing? She was obviously wealthy now. Who could her husband be? Did he know her past? Mixed with his confusion was intense desire. She was so young and beautiful. Why had he given her up so easily?

• 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)

  Lursay knew full well that she was the source of the young man's awkward- a-fire, that she had ness, but she was a tease; you must tell me, she said, with whom you are in longings to taste other fare love. Finally Meilcour confessed: it was indeed Madame whom he desired. than the muscatels that hung on the trellis, as also His mother's friend advised him to not think of her that way, but she also by her hot, wanton, and sighed, and gave him a long and languid look. Her words said one thing, wild speech, he did her eyes another—perhaps she was not as untouchable as he had thought. promptly seize on so fair an opportunity. So catching As the evening ended, though, Madame de Lursay said she doubted his hold of her without the feelings would last, and she left young Meilcour troubled that she had said least ceremony, he did lay nothing about reciprocating his love. her on a little couch that was there made of turf and Over the next few days, Meilcour repeatedly asked de Lursay to declare clods of earth, and did very her love for him, and she repeatedly refused. Eventually the young man de- pleasantly work his will of cided his cause was hopeless, and gave up; but a few nights later, at a soiree her, without her ever at her house, her dress seemed more enticing than usual, and her looks at uttering a word but only: "Heavens! Sir, what are him stirred his blood. He returned them, and followed her around, while you at? Surely you be the she took care to keep a bit of distance, lest others sense what was happen- maddest and strangest ing. Yet she also managed to arrange that he could stay without arousing fellow ever was! If anyone comes, whatever will they suspicion when the other visitors left. say? Great heavens! get When they were finally alone, she made him sit beside her on the sofa. out!" But the gentleman, He could barely speak; the silence was uncomfortable. To get him talking without disturbing himself, did so well continue what she raised the same old subject: his youth would make his love for her a he had begun that he did passing fancy. Instead of denying it he looked dejected, and continued to finish, and she to boot, keep a polite distance, so that she finally exclaimed, with obvious irony, "If with such content as that after taking three or four it were known that you were here with my consent, that I had voluntarily turns up and down the arranged it with you . . . what might not people say? And yet how wrong alley, they did presently they would be, for no one could be more respectful than you are." Goaded start afresh. Anon, coming into action, Meilcour grabbed her hand and looked her in the eye. She forth into another, open, alley, they did see in

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Reese swivels on the bench to face both Ames and Katrina, nearly trembling, a runner taking her mark. “I can tell you exactly why I want to be a mom,” Reese says. “So that when I have and love a child, no one ever asks me that question again.” “What question?” Katrina asks. “Why do you want to be a mom?” “Yeah.” “How would being a mom make no one ask you that?” “Because that’s not the question that cis women have to answer. The moms I knew when I was little didn’t have to prove that it was okay to want a child. Sure, a lot of women I know wonder if they do want a child, but not why. It’s assumed why. The question cis women get asked is: Why don’t you want kids? And then they have to justify that. If I had been born cis, I would never even have had to answer these questions. I wouldn’t have had to prove that I deserve my models of womanhood. But I’m not cis. ’m trans. And so until the day that I am a mother, I’m constantly going to have to prove that I deserve to be one. That it’s not unnatural or twisted that I want a child’s love. Why do I want to be a mother? After all those beautiful women I grew up with, the ones who chaperoned my classes on field trips, or made me lunch when I was at their house, or sewed costumes for all the little girls that I ice skated with—and you too, Katrina, for that matter—have to explain their feelings about motherhood, then, Ill explain mine. And do you know what I'll say?” “No, what?” “Ditto.” Katrina listens, her face blank, braced as if facing into a wind. “I don’t know, Reese. It doesn’t sound like you’re talking about all women, it just sounds like a certain kind of woman. Like, women now, here in this country—white women,” she says when Reese finishes. “When my grandma arrived here from China, she wasn’t encouraged to have kids. The opposite. She had to justify the basic desire to reproduce.” “Fine, cis white women,” Reese concedes. “But you say that like ’'m being annoying,” Katrina says, catching some aural cue from Reese. “I don’t think I am. If you want to talk about this in terms of reproductive rights, it might be that you and I come from pretty different places. All my white girlfriends just automatically assume that reproductive rights are about the right to

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  draw this fetishistic attention, the strongest is the face; so learn to tune your gilded for the occasion, had face like an instrument, making it radiate a fascinating vagueness for effect. fallen at the altar as the And since you will have to stand out from other Stars in the sky, you will axe struck their snowy need to develop an attention-getting style. Dietrich was the great practi- necks. Smoke was rising from the incense, when tioner of this art; her style was chic enough to dazzle, weird enough to en- Pygmalion, having made thrall. Remember, your own image and presence are materials you can his offering, stood by the control. The sense that you are engaged in this kind of play will make peo- altar and timidly prayed, saying: "If you gods can ple see you as superior and worthy of imitation. give all things, may I have as my wife, I pray—" he She had such natural poise . . . such an economy of ges-did not dare to say: "the ture, that she became as absorbing as a Modigliani. . . . ivory maiden," but finished: "one like the She had the one essential star quality: she could be mag-ivory maid." However, nificent doing nothing. golden Venus, present at her festival in person, — B E R L I N A C T R E S S L I L I DARVAS O N M A R L E N E D I E T R I C H understood what his prayers meant, and as a sign that the gods were The Mythic Star kindly disposed, the flames burned up three times, shooting a tongue of fire On July 2, 1960, a few weeks before that year's Democratic National into the air. When Convention, former President Harry Truman publicly stated that Pygmalion returned home, he made straight for the John F. Kennedy—who had won enough delegates to be chosen his party's statue of the girl he loved, candidate for the presidency—was too young and inexperienced for the leaned over the couch, and job. Kennedy's response was startling: he called a press conference, to be kissed her. She seemed warm: he laid his lips on televised live, and nationwide, on July 4. The conference's drama was hers again, and touched her heightened by the fact that he was away on vacation, so that no one saw or breast with his hands— at heard from him until the event itself. Then, at the appointed hour, his touch the ivory lost its Kennedy strode into the conference room like a sheriff entering Dodge hardness, and grew soft. City. He began by stating that he had run in all of the state primaries, at —OVID, METAMORPHOSES, T R A N S L A T E D B Y M A R Y M . I N N E S

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  At least one of the chapters should strike a chord—you will recognize part of yourself. That chapter will be the key to developing your own powers of attraction. Let us say you have coquettish tendencies. The Coquette chapter will show you how to build upon your own self-sufficiency, alternating heat and coldness to ensnare your victims. It will show you how to take your natural qualities further, becoming a grand Coquette, the type we fight over. There is no point in being timid with a seductive quality. We are charmed by an unabashed Rake and excuse his excesses, but a halfhearted Rake gets no respect. Once you have cultivated your dominant character trait, adding some art to what nature has given you, you can then develop a second or third trait, adding depth and mystery to your persona. Finally the section's tenth chapter, on the Anti-Seducer, will make you aware of the op-3 4 • The Art of Seduction posite potential within you—the power of repulsion. At all cost you must root out any anti-seductive tendencies you may have. Think of the nine types as shadows, silhouettes. Only by stepping into one of them and letting it grow inside you can you begin to develop the seductive character that will bring you limitless power. A man is often secretly oppressed by the role he has to play— by always having to be responsible, in control, and rational. The Siren is the ulti- mate male fantasy figure because she offers a total release from the limitations of his life. In her pres- ence, which is always heightened and sexually charged, the male feels transported to a world of pure plea- sure. She is dangerous, and in pursu- ing her energetically the man can lose control over himself something he yearns to do. The Siren is a mirage; she lures men by cultivating a par- ticular appearance and manner. In a world where women are often too timid to project such an image, learn to take control of the male li- bido by embodying his fantasy. The Spectacular Siren In the year 48 B.C., Ptolemy XIV of Egypt managed to depose and exile his sister and wife, Queen Cleopatra. He secured the country's borders against her return and began to rule on his own. Later that year, Julius Caesar came to Alexandria to ensure that despite the local power struggles, Egypt would remain loyal to Rome. One night Caesar was meeting with his generals in the Egyptian palace, In the mean time our good discussing strategy, when a guard entered to report that a Greek merchant ship, with that perfect wind was at the door bearing a large and valuable gift for the Roman leader. to drive her, fast approached the Sirens' Isle.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Her masculinity made the relationship seem vaguely homosexual; her slightly cruel, slightly domi- neering streak could stir up masochistic yearnings, as it did in Nietzsche. Salomé radiated a forbidden sexuality. Her powerful effect on men—the lifelong infatuations, the suicides (there were several), the periods of intense creativity, the descriptions of her as a vampire or a devil—attest to the ob- scure depths of the psyche that she was able to reach and disturb. The Masculine Dandy succeeds by reversing the normal pattern of male superiority in matters of love and seduction. A man's apparent inde- pendence, his capacity for detachment, often seems to give him the upper hand in the dynamic between men and women. A purely feminine woman will arouse desire, but is always vulnerable to the man's capricious loss of interest; a purely masculine woman, on the other hand, will not arouse that interest at all. Follow the path of the Masculine Dandy, however, and you neutralize all a man's powers. Never give completely of yourself; while you are passionate and sexual, always retain an air of independence and self- possession. You might move on to the next man, or so he will think. You have other, more important matters to concern yourself with, such as your work. Men do not know how to fight women who use their own weapons against them; they are intrigued, aroused, and disarmed. Few men can resist the taboo pleasures offered up to them by the Masculine Dandy. ancestral device, but with the figure of Eros armed with a thunderbolt. The leading men of Athens watched all this with disgust and indignation and they were deeply disturbed by his contemptuous and lawless behaviour, which seemed to them monstrous and suggested the habits of a tyrant. The people's feelings towards him have been very aptly expressed by Aristophanes in the line: "They long for him, they hate him, they cannot do without him. . . ." • The fact was that his voluntary donations, the public shows he supported, his unrivalled munificence to the state, the fame of his ancestry, the power of his oratory and his physical strength and beauty . . . all combined to make the Athenians forgive him everything else, and they were constantly finding euphemisms for his lapses and putting them down to youthful high spirits and honourable ambition. —PLUTARCH,"THE LIFE OF ALCIBIADES," THE RISE AND FALL OF ATHENS: NINE GREEK LIVES, TRANSLATED BY IAN SCOTT-KILVERT Further light—a whole flood of it—is thrown upon this attraction of the male in petticoats for the female, in the diary of the Abbé de Choisy, one of the most brilliant men- women of history, of whom we shall hear a great deal more later. The abbé, a churchman of Paris, was a constant masquerader in female attire. He lived in the days of Louis XIV, and was a great friend of Louis' brother, also addicted to women's clothes.