Seductive Environment/Seductive Time
In seduction, your victims must slowly come to feel an inner change. Under your influence, they lower their defenses, feeling free to act differently, to be a different person. Certain places, environments, and experiences will greatly aid you in your quest to change and
transform the seduced. Spaces with a theatrical, heightened quality
—opulence, glittering surfaces, a playful spirit—create a buoyant, childlike feeling that make it hard for the victim to think straight.
The creation of an altered sense of time has a similar effect— memorable, dizzying moments that stand out, a mood of festival and play. You must make your victims feel that being with you gives them a different experience from being in the real world.
Festival Time and Place
Centuries ago, life in most cultures was filled with work and routine. But at certain moments in the year, this life was interrupted by festival. During
these festivals—saturnalias of ancient Rome, the maypole festivals of Europe, the great potlatches of the Chinook Indians—work in the fields or marketplace stopped. The entire tribe or town gathered in a sacred space set apart for the festival. Temporarily relieved of duty and responsibility,
people were granted license to run amok; they would wear masks or costumes, which gave them other identities, sometimes those of powerful figures reenacting the great myths of their culture. The festival was a
tremendous release from the burdens of daily life. It altered people’s sense of time, bringing moments in which they stepped outside of themselves.
Time seemed to stand still. Something like this experience can still be found in the world’s great surviving carnivals.
The festival represented a break in a person’s daily life, a radically different experience from routine. On a more intimate level, that is how you must envision your seductions. As the process advances, your targets
experience a radical difference from daily life—a freedom from work or responsibility. Plunged into pleasure and play, they can act differently, can become someone else, as if they were wearing a mask. The time you spend with them is devoted to them and nothing else. Instead of the usual rotation of work and rest, you are giving them grand, dramatic moments that stand out. You bring them to places unlike the places they see in daily life— heightened, theatrical places. Physical environment strongly affects people’s moods; a place dedicated to pleasure and play insinuates thoughts
of pleasure and play. When your victims return to their duties and to the real world, they feel the contrast strongly and they will start to crave that other
place into which you have drawn them. What you are essentially creating is festival time and place, moments when the real world stops and fantasy
takes over. Our culture no longer supplies such experiences, and people yearn for them. That is why almost everyone is waiting to be seduced and why they will fall into your arms if you play this right.
The following are key components to reproducing festival time and place:
Create theatrical effects. Theater creates a sense of a separate, magical world. The actors’ makeup, the fake but alluring sets, the slightly unreal
costumes—these heightened visuals, along with the story of the play, create illusion. To produce this effect in real life, you must fashion your clothes, makeup, and attitude to have a playful, artificial, edge—a feeling that you have dressed for the pleasure of your audience. This is the goddesslike effect of a Marlene Dietrich, or the fascinating effect of a dandy like Beau Brummel. Your encounters with your targets should also have a sense of drama, achieved through the settings you choose and through your actions.
The target should not know what will happen next. Create suspense through twists and turns that lead to the happy ending; you are performing.
Whenever your targets meet you, they are returned to this vague feeling of
being in a play. You both have the thrill of wearing masks, of playing a different role from the one your life has allotted you.
Use the visual language of pleasure. Certain kinds of visual stimuli signal that you are not in the real world. You want to avoid images that have depth, which might provoke thought, or guilt; instead, you should work in environments that are all surface, full of glittering objects, mirrors, pools of water, a constant play of light. The sensory overload of these spaces creates an intoxicating, buoyant feeling. The more artificial, the better. Show your targets a playful world, full of the sights and sounds that excite the baby or child within them. Luxury—the sense that money has been spent or even
wasted—adds to the feeling that the real world of duty and morality has been banished. Call it the brothel effect.
Keep it crowded or close. People crowding together raise the psychological temperature to hothouse levels. Festivals and carnivals depend on the
contagious feeling a crowd creates. Bring your target to such environments sometimes, to lower their normal defensiveness. Similarly, any kind of situation that brings people together in a small space for a long period of
time is extremely conducive to seduction. For years, Sigmund Freud had a small, tight-knit stable of disciples who attended his private lectures and who engaged in an astonishing number of love affairs. Either lead the seduced into a crowded, festivallike environment or go trolling for targets in a closed world.
Manufacture mystical effects. Spiritual or mystical effects distract people’s minds from reality, making them feel elevated and euphoric. From here it is but a small step to physical pleasure. Use whatever props are at hand— astrology books, angelic imagery, mystical-sounding music from some far- off culture. The great eighteenth-century Austrian charlatan Franz Mesmer filled his salons with harp music, the perfume of exotic incense, and a
female voice singing in a distant room. On the walls he put stained glass
and mirrors. His dupes would feel relaxed, uplifted, and as they sat in the room where he used magnets for their healing powers, they would feel a kind of spiritual tingling pass from body to body. Anything vaguely mystical helps block out the real world, and it is easy to move from the spiritual to the sexual.
Distort their sense of time—speed and youth. Festival time has a kind of speed and frenzy that make people feel more alive. Seduction should make the heart beat faster, so that the seduced loses track of time passing. Take them to places of constant activity and movement. Embark with them on
some kind of journey together, distracting their minds with new sights. Youth may fade and disappear, but seduction brings the feeling of being young, no matter the age of those involved. And youth is mostly energy. The pace of the seduction must pick up at a certain moment, creating a whirling effect in the mind. It is no wonder that Casanova did much of his seducing at balls, or that the waltz was the preferred tool of many a nineteenth-century rake.
Create moments. Everyday life is a drudgery in which the same actions endlessly repeat. The festival, on the other hand, we remember as a moment when everything was transformed—when a little bit of eternity and myth entered our lives. Your seduction must have such peaks, moments when something dramatic happens and time is experienced differently. You must give your targets such moments, whether by staging the seduction in a place
—a carnival, a theater—where they naturally occur or by creating them yourself, with dramatic actions that stir up strong emotions. Those moments should be pure leisure and pleasure—no thoughts of work or morality can intrude. Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of King Louis XV, had to re- seduce her easily bored lover every few months; intensely creative, she devised parties, balls, games, a little theater at Versailles. The seduced
revels in affairs like this, sensing the effort you have expended to divert and enchant them.
Scenes from Seductive Time and Place
- Around the year 1710, a young man whose father was a prosperous wine dealer in Osaka, Japan, found himself daydreaming more and more. He worked night and day for his father, and the burden of family life and all of its duties was oppressive. Like every young man, he had heard of the
pleasure districts of the city—the quarters where the normally strict laws of the shogunate could be violated. It was here that you would find the ukiyo, the “floating world” of transient pleasures, a place where actors and
courtesans ruled. This was what the young man was daydreaming about. Biding his time, he managed to find an evening when he could slip out unnoticed. He headed straight for the pleasure quarters.
This was a cluster of buildings—restaurants, exclusive clubs, tea-houses
—that stood out from the rest of the city by their magnificence and color. The moment the young man stepped into it, he knew he was in a different world. Actors wandered the streets in elaborately dyed kimonos. They had
such manners and attitudes, as if they were still on stage. The streets bustled with energy; the pace was fast. Bright lanterns stood out against the night,
as did the colorful posters for the nearby kabuki theater. The women had a completely different air about them. They stared at him brazenly, acting with the freedom of a man. He caught sight of an onnagata, one of the men who played female roles in the theater—a man more beautiful than most women he had seen and whom the passersby treated like royalty.
The young man saw other young men like himself entering a teahouse, so he followed them in. Here the highest class of courtesans, the great tayus, plied their trade. A few minutes after the young man sat down, he heard a
noise and bustle, and down the stairs came a few of the tayus, followed by musicians and jesters. The women’s eyebrows were shaved, replaced by a thick black painted line. Their hair was swept up in a perfect fold, and he had never seen such beautiful kimonos. The tayus seemed to float across the floor, using different kinds of steps (suggestive, creeping, cautious, etc.), depending on whom they were approaching and what they wanted to
communicate to him. They ignored the young man; he had no idea how to invite them over, but he noticed that some of the older men had a way of bantering with them that was a language all its own. The wine began to
flow, music was played, and finally some lower-level courtesans came in. By then the young man’s tongue was loosened. These courtesans were much friendlier and the young man began to lose all track of time. Later he managed to stagger home, and only the next morning did he realize how much money he had spent. If father ever found out …
Yet a few weeks later he was back. Like hundreds of such sons in Japan whose stories filled the literature of the period, he was on the path toward squandering his father’s wealth on the “floating world.”
Seduction is another world into which you initiate your victims. Like the ukiyo, it depends on a strict separation from the day-to-day world. When your victims are in your presence, the outside world—with its morality, its codes, its responsibilities—is banished. Anything is allowed, particularly anything normally repressed. The conversation is lighter and more suggestive. Clothes and places have a touch of theatricality. The license
exists to act differently, to be someone else, without any heaviness or judging. It is a kind of concentrated psychological “floating world” that you create for the others, and it becomes addictive. When they leave you and return to their routines, they are doubly aware of what they are missing. The moment they crave the atmosphere you have created, the seduction is complete. As in the floating world, money is to be wasted. Generosity and luxury go hand in hand with a seductive environment.
- It began in the early 1960s: people would come to Andy Warhol’s New York studio, soak up the atmosphere, and stay awhile. Then in 1963, the artist moved into a new Manhattan space and a member of his entourage covered some of the walls and pillars in tin foil and spray-painted a brick wall and other things silver. A red quilted couch in the center, some five- foot-high plastic candy bars, a turntable that glittered with tiny mirrors, and helium-filled silver pillows that floated in the air completed the set. Now
the L-shaped space became known as The Factory, and a scene began to develop. More and more people started showing up—why not just leave the door open, Andy reasoned, and come what may. During the day, while Andy would work on his paintings and films, people would gather—actors,
hustlers, drug dealers, other artists. And the elevator would keep groaning all night as the beautiful people began to make the place their home. Here might be Montgomery Clift, nursing a drink by himself; over there, a beautiful young socialite chatting with a drag queen and a museum curator.
They kept pouring in, all of them young and glamorously dressed. It was
like one of those children’s shows on TV, Andy once said to a friend, where guests keep dropping in on the endless party and there’s always some new bit of entertainment. And that was indeed what it seemed like—with nothing serious happening, just lots of talk and flirting and flashbulbs popping and endless posing, as if everyone were in a film. The museum curator would begin to giggle like a teenager and the socialite would
flounce about like a hooker.
By midnight everyone would be packed together. You could hardly move. The band would arrive, the light show would begin, and it would all careen in a new direction, wilder and wilder. Somehow the crowd would disperse at some point, then in the afternoon it would all start up again as the
entourage trickled back. Hardly anyone went to The Factory just once.
It is oppressive always to have to act the same way, playing the same boring role that work or duty imposes on you. People yearn for a place or a moment when they can wear a mask, act differently, be someone else. That is why we glorify actors: they have the freedom and playfulness in relation to their own ego that we would love to have. Any environment that offers a chance to play a different role, to be an actor, is immensely seductive. It can be an environment that you create, like The Factory. Or a place where you
take your target. In such environments you simply cannot be defensive; the playful atmosphere, the sense that anything is allowed (except seriousness), dispels any kind of reactiveness. Being in such a place becomes a drug. To re-create the effect, remember Warhol’s metaphor of the children’s TV
show. Keep everything light and playful, full of distractions, noise, color, and a bit of chaos. No weight, responsibilities, or judgments. A place to lose yourself in.
- In 1746, a seventeen-year-old girl named Cristina had come to the city of Venice, Italy, with her uncle, a priest, in search of a husband. Cristina was from a small village but had a substantial dowry to offer. The Venetian men who were willing to marry her, however, did not please her. So after two
weeks of futile searching, she and her uncle prepared to return to their village. They were seated in their gondola, about to leave the city, when Cristina saw an elegantly dressed young man walking toward them. “There’s a handsome fellow!” she said to her uncle. “I wish he was in the
boat with us.” The gentleman could not have heard this, yet he approached, handed the gondolier some money, and sat down beside Cristina, much to her delight. He introduced himself as Jacques Casanova. When the priest complimented him on his friendly manners, Casanova replied, “Perhaps I should not have been so friendly, my reverend father, if I had not been attracted by the beauty of your niece.”
Cristina told him why they had come to Venice and why they were leaving. Casanova laughed and chided her—a man cannot decide to marry a girl after seeing her for a few days. He must know more about her character; it would take at least six months. He himself was looking for a wife, and he explained to her why he had been as disappointed by the girls he had met as she had been disappointed by the men. Casanova seemed to
have no destination; he simply accompanied them, entertaining Cristina the whole way with witty conversation. When the gondola arrived at the edge of Venice, Casanova hired a carriage to the nearby city of Treviso and invited them to join him. From there they could catch a chaise to their village. The uncle accepted, and on the way to their carriage, Casanova offered his arm to Cristina. What would his mistress say if she saw them,
she asked. “I have no mistress,” he answered, “and I shall never have one again, for I shall never find such a pretty girl as you—no, not in Venice.”
His words went to her head, filling it with all kinds of strange thoughts, and she began to talk and act in a manner that was new to her, becoming almost brazen. What a pity she could not stay in Venice for the six months he needed to get to know a girl, she told Casanova. Without hesitation he offered to pay her expenses in Venice for that period while he courted her.
On the carriage ride she turned this offer over in her mind, and once in Treviso she got her uncle alone and begged him to return to the village by himself, then come back for her in a few days. She was in love with
Casanova; she wanted to know him better; he was a perfect gentleman, who could be trusted. The uncle agreed to do as she wished.
The following day Casanova never left her side. There was not the slightest hint of disagreement in his nature. They spent the day wandering around the city, shopping and talking. He took her to a play in the evening and to the casino after that, supplying her with a domino and a mask. He gave her money to gamble and she won. By the time the uncle returned to Treviso, she had all but forgotten about her marriage plans—all she could think of was the six months she would spend with Casanova. But she returned to her village with her uncle and waited for Casanova to visit her.
He showed up a few weeks later, bringing with him a handsome young man named Charles. Alone with Cristina, Casanova explained the situation: Charles was the most eligible bachelor in Venice, a man who would make a much better husband than he would. Cristina admitted to Casanova that she too had had her doubts. He was too exciting, had made her think of other
things besides marriage, things she was ashamed of. Perhaps it was for the better. She thanked him for taking such pains to find her a husband. Over
the next few days Charles courted her, and they were married several weeks later. The fantasy and allure of Casanova, however, remained in her mind forever.
Casanova could not marry—it was against everything in his nature. But it was also against his nature to force himself on a young girl. Better to leave her with the perfect fantasy image than to ruin her life. Besides, he enjoyed the courting and flirting more than anything else.
Casanova supplied a young woman with the ultimate fantasy While he
was in her orbit he devoted every moment to her. He never mentioned work, allowing no boring, mundane details to interrupt the fantasy. And he added great theater. He wore the most spectacular outfits, full of sparkling jewels. He led her to the most wonderful entertainments—carnivals, masked balls,
the casinos, journeys with no destination. He was the great master at creating seductive time and environment.
Casanova is the model to aspire to. While in your presence your targets must sense a change. Time has a different rhythm—they barely notice its passing. They have the feeling that everything is stopping for them, just as
all normal activity comes to a halt at a festival. The idle pleasures you
provide them are contagious—one leads to another and to another, until it is too late to turn back.
