Isolate the Victim

An isolated person is weak. By slowly isolating your victims, you make them more vulnerable to your influence. Their isolation may be psychological: by filling their field of vision through the

pleasurable attention you pay them, you crowd out everything else in their mind. They see and think only of you. The isolation may also be physical: you take them away from their normal milieu, friends,

family, home. Give them the sense of being marginalized, in limbo— they are leaving one world behind and entering another. Once isolated like this, they have no outside support, and in their confusion they are easily led astray. Lure the seduced into your lair, where nothing is familiar.

In the state of Wu great preparations had been made for the reception of the two beauties. The

king received them in audience surrounded by his ministers and all his court. As they approached

him the jade pendants attached to their girdles made a musical sound and the air was fragrant

with the scent of their gowns. Pearl ornaments and kingfisher feathers adorned their hair. •Fu Chai,

the king of Wu, looked into the lovely eyes of Hsi Shill (495-472 B.C.) and forgot his people and his state. Now she did not turn away and blush as she had done three years previously beside the little

brook. She was complete mistress of the art of seduction and she knew how to encourage the king to look again. Fu Chai hardly noticed the second

girl, whose quiet charms did not attract him. He had eyes only for Hsi Shih, and before the

audience was over those at court realized that the girl would be a force to be reckoned with and that she would be able to influence the king either for good or ill. • Amidst the revelers in the halls of

Wu, Hsi Shih wove her net of fascination about the heart of the susceptible monarch. “Inflamed by

wine, she now begins to sing / The songs of Wu to please the fatuous king; / And in the dance of Tsu she subtly blends / All rhythmic movements to her sensuous ends.” But she could do more than

sing and dance to amuse the king. She had wit, and her grasp of politics astonished him. When there

was anything she wanted she could shed tears which so moved her lover’s heart that he could refuse her nothing. For she was, as Fan Li had

said, the one and only, the incomparable Hsi Shih, whose magnetic personality attracted everyone,

many even against their own will. • Embroidered

silk curtains encrusted with coral and gems, scented furniture and screens inlaid with jade and mother-of- pearl were among the luxuries which

surrounded the favorite. On one of the hills

near the palace there was a celebrated pool of

clear water which has been known ever since as the pool of the king of Wu. Here, to amuse her

lover, Hsi Shih would make her toilet, using the pool as a mirror while the infatuated king combed her hair. . . .

—ELOISE TALCOTT HIBBERT, EMBROIDERED GAUZE: PORTRAITS OF FAMOUS

CHINESE LADIES

Isolation—the Exotic Effect

In the early fifth century B.C., Fu Chai, the Chinese king of Wu, defeated his great enemy, Kou Chien, the king of Yueh, in a series of battles. Kou

Chien was captured and forced to serve as a groom in Fu Chai’s stables. He was finally allowed to return home, but every year he had to pay a large

tribute of money and gifts to Fu Chai. Over the years, this tribute added up, so that the kingdom of Wu prospered and Fu Chai grew wealthy.

One year Kou Chien sent a delegation to Fu Chai: they wanted to know if he would accept a gift of two beautiful maidens as part of the tribute. Fu Chai was curious, and accepted the offer. The women arrived a few days later, amid much anticipation, and the king received them in his palace. The two approached the throne—their hair was magnificently coiffured, in what was called “the cloud-cluster” style, ornamented with pearl ornaments and kingfisher feathers. As they walked, jade pendants hanging from their

girdles made the most delicate sound. The air was full of some delightful perfume. The king was extremely pleased. The beauty of one of the girls far surpassed that of the other; her name was Hsi Shih. She looked him in the

eye without a hint of shyness; in fact she was confident and coquettish, something he was not used to seeing in such a young girl.

Fu Chai called for festivities to commemorate the occasion. The halls of the palace filled with revelers; inflamed with wine, Hsi Shih danced before the king. She sang, and her voice was beautiful. Reclining on a couch of

white jade, she looked like a goddess. The king could not leave her side.

The next day he followed her everywhere. To his astonishment, she was witty, sharp, and knowledgeable, and could quote the classics better than he could. When he had to leave her to deal with royal affairs, his mind was full of her image. Soon he brought her with him to his councils, asking her

advice on important matters. She told him to listen less to his ministers; he was wiser than they were, his judgment superior.

Hsi Shih’s power grew daily. Yet she was not easy to please; if the king failed to grant some wish of hers, tears would fill her eyes, his heart would melt, and he would yield. One day she begged him to build her a palace

outside the capital. Of course, he obliged her. And when he visited the palace, he was astounded at its magnificence, even though he had paid the bills: Hsi Shih had filled it with the most extravagant furnishings. The

grounds contained an artificial lake with marble bridges crossing over it. Fu Chai spent more and more time here, sitting by a pool and watching Hsi

Shih comb her hair, using the pool as a mirror. He would watch her playing with her birds, in their jeweled cages, or simply walking through the palace, for she moved like a willow in the breeze. The months went by; he stayed in the palace. He missed councils, ignored his family and friends, neglected

his public functions. He lost track of time. When a delegation came to talk to him of urgent matters, he was too distracted to listen. If anything but Hsi Shih took up his time, he worried unbearably that she would be angry.

Finally word reached him of a growing crisis: the fortune he had spent on the palace had bankrupted the treasury, and the people were discontented.

He returned to the capital, but it was too late: an army from the kingdom of Yueh had invaded Wu, and had reached the capital. All was lost. Fu Chai had no time to rejoin his beloved Hsi Shih. Instead of letting himself be captured by the king of Yueh, the man who had once served in his stables, he committed suicide.

Little did he know that Kou Chien had plotted this invasion for years, and that Hsi Shih’s elaborate seduction was the main part of his plan.

Interpretation. Kou Chien wanted to make sure that his invasion of Wu would not fail. His enemy was not Fu Chai’s armies, or his wealth and his resources, but his mind. If he could be deeply distracted, his mind filled with something other than affairs of state, he would fall like ripe fruit.

Kou Chien found the most beautiful maiden in his realm. For three years he had her trained in all of the arts—not just singing, dancing, and calligraphy, but how to dress, how to talk, how to play the coquette. And it worked: Hsi Shih did not allow Fu Chai a moment’s rest. Everything about her was exotic and unfamiliar. The more attention he paid to her hair, her moods, her glances, the way she moved, the less he thought about diplomacy and war. He was driven to distraction.

All of us today are kings protecting the tiny realm of our own lives, weighed down by all kinds of responsibilities, surrounded by ministers and advisers. A wall forms around us—we are immune to the influence of other people, because we are so preoccupied. Like Hsi Shih, then, you must lure your targets away, gently, slowly, from the affairs that fill their mind. And what will best lure them from their castles is the whiff of the exotic. Offer

something unfamiliar that will fascinate them and hold their attention. Be different in your manners and appearance, and slowly envelop them in this different world of yours. Keep your targets off balance with coquettish

changes of mood. Do not worry that the disruption you represent is making them emotional—that is a sign of their growing weakness. Most people are ambivalent: on the one hand they feel comforted by their habits and duties, on the other they are bored, and ripe for anything that seems exotic, that

seems to come from somewhere else. They may struggle or have doubts, but exotic pleasures are irresistible. The more you can get them into your world, the weaker they become. As with the king of Wu, by the time they realize what has happened, it is too late.

In Cairo Aly bumped into [the singer] Juliette

Greco again. He asked her to dance. • “You have too bad a reputation,” she replied. “We’re going to sit very much apart. ” – • “What are you doing

tomorrow?” he insisted. • “Tomorrow I take a

plane to Beirut. ” • When she boarded the plane, Aly was already on it, grinning at her surprise. •

Dressed in tight black leather slacks and a black sweater [Greco] stretched languorously in an

armchair of her Paris house and observed: •

“They say I am a dangerous woman. Well, Aly was a dangerous man. He was charming in a very special way. There is a kind of man who is very

clever with women. He takes you out to a restaurant and if the most beautiful woman comes in, he doesn’t look at her. He makes you feel you are a queen. Of course, I understood it. I didn‘t

believe it. I would laugh and point out the beautiful woman. But that is me. Most women

are made very happy by that kind of attention. It’s pure vanity. She thinks, ‘I’ll be the one and the

others will leave.’ • ”. With Aly, how the woman

felt was most important. He was a great charmer,

a great seducer. He made you feel fine and that everything was easy. No problems. Nothing to

worry about. Or regret. It was always, ‘What can I do for you? What do you need?’ Airplane tickets, cars, boats; you felt you were on a pink cloud. “

—LEONARD SLATER, —ALY:A BIOGRAPHY,

Isolation—The “Only You” Effect

In 1948, the twenty-nine-year-old actress Rita Hayworth, known as Hollywood’s Love Goddess, was at a low point in her life. Her marriage to Orson Welles was breaking up, her mother had died, and her career seemed stalled. That summer she headed for Europe. Welles was in Italy at the time, and in the back of her mind she was dreaming of a reconciliation.

Rita stopped first at the French Riviera. Invitations poured in, particularly from wealthy men, for at the time she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. Aristotle Onassis and the Shah of Iran telephoned her almost daily, begging for a date. She turned them all down. A few days after her arrival, though, she received an invitation from Elsa Maxwell, the society hostess, who was giving a little party in Cannes. Rita balked but Maxwell insisted, telling her to buy a new dress, show up a little late, and

make a grand entrance.

Rita played along, and arrived at the party wearing a white Grecian gown, her red hair falling over her bare shoulders. She was greeted by a reaction she had grown used to: all conversation stopped as both men and women turned in their chairs, the men gazing in amazement, the women jealous. A man hurried to her side and escorted her to her table. It was thirty-seven-year-old Prince Aly Khan, the son of the Aga Khan III, who was the worldwide leader of the Islamic Ismaili sect and one of the richest men in the world. Rita had been warned about Aly Khan, a notorious rake.

To her dismay, they were seated next to each other, and he never left her side. He asked her a million questions—about Hollywood, her interests, on and on. She began to relax a little and open up. There were other beautiful women there, princesses, actresses, but Aly Khan ignored them all, acting

as if Rita were the only woman there. He led her onto the dance floor, and though he was an expert dancer, she felt uncomfortable—he held her a little too close. Still, when he offered to drive her back to her hotel, she agreed.

They sped along the Grande Corniche; it was a beautiful night. For one evening she had managed to forget her many problems, and she was grateful, but she was still in love with Welles, and an affair with a rake like Aly Khan was not what she needed.

Aly Khan had to fly off on business for a few days; he begged her to stay at the Riviera until he got back. While he was away, he telephoned constantly. Every morning a giant bouquet of flowers arrived. On the

telephone he seemed particularly annoyed that the Shah of Iran was trying hard to see her, and he made her promise to break the date to which she had finally agreed. During this time, a gypsy fortune-teller visited the hotel, and Rita agreed to have her fortune read. “You are about to embark on the greatest romance of your life,” the gypsy told her. “He is somebody you already know You must relent and give in to him totally. Only if you do

that will you find happiness at long last.” Not knowing who this man could be, Rita, who had a weakness for the occult, decided to extend her stay. Aly Khan came back; he told her that his château overlooking the Mediterranean was the perfect place to escape from the press and forget her troubles, and that he would behave himself. She relented. Life in the château was like a fairy tale; wherever she turned, his Indian helpers were

there to attend to her every wish. At night he would take her into his

enormous ballroom, where they would dance all by themselves. Could this be the man the fortune-teller meant?

ANNE: Didst thou not kill this king [Henry VI]? \ RICHARD: I grant ye. \ ANNE: And thou unfit

for any place, but hell. \ RICHARD: Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it. \ ANNE: Some dungeon. \ RICHARD: Your bedchamber. \ ANNE: III rest betide the chamber where thou liest! \ RICHARD: So will it, madam, till I lie with you. … But gentle Lady Anne. \Is not the causer of the

timeless deaths \ Of these Plantagenets, Henry and

Edward, \ As blameful as the executioner? \ ANNE: Thou wast the cause and most accursed effect. \ RICHARD: Your beauty was the cause of that effect—\ Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep \ To undertake the death of all the world, \ So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD III

My child, my sister, dream \ How sweet all things would seem \ Were we in that kind land to live

together, \ And there love slow and long, \ There

love and die among \ Those scenes that image you, that sumptuous weather. \ Drowned suns that

glimmer there \ Through cloud-dishevelled air \ Move me with such a mystery as appears \ Within

those other skies \ Of your treacherous eyes \ When I behold them shining through their tears, \ There, there is nothing else but grace and measure, \ Richness, quietness, and pleasure. \ See,

sheltered from the swells \ There in the still canals

\ Those drowsy ships that dream of sailing forth; \ It is to satisfy \ Your least desire, they ply \ Hither through all the waters of the earth. \ The sun at

close of day \ Clothes the fields of hay, \ Then the canals, at last the town entire \ In hyacinth and gold: \ Slowly the land is rolled \ Sleepward under a sea of gentle fire. \ There, there is nothing else but grace and measure, \ Richness, quietness, and pleasure.

—CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, “INVITATION TO THE VOYAGE,” THE FLOWERS OF EVIL,

TRANSLATED BY RICHARD WILBUR

Aly Khan invited his friends over to meet her. Among this strange company she felt alone again, and depressed; she decided to leave the château. Just then, as if he had read her thoughts, Aly Khan whisked her off to Spain, the country that fascinated her most. The press caught on to the affair, and began to hound them in Spain: Rita had had a daughter with

Welles—was this any way for a mother to act? Aly Khan’s reputation did not help, but he stood by her, shielding her from the press as best he could. Now she was more alone than ever, and more dependent on him.

Near the end of the trip, Aly Khan proposed to Rita. She turned him down; she did not think he was the kind of man you married. He followed her to Hollywood, where her former friends were less friendly than before. Thank God she had Aly Khan to help her. A year later she finally succumbed, abandoning her career, moving to Aly Khan’s château, and marrying him.

Interpretation. Aly Khan, like a lot of men, fell in love with Rita Hayworth the moment he saw the film Gilda, in 1948. He made up his mind that he would seduce her somehow. The moment he heard she was coming to the Riviera, he got his friend Elsa Maxwell to lure her to the party and seat her next to him. He knew about the breakup of her marriage, and how

vulnerable she was. His strategy was to block out everything else in her world—problems, other men, suspicion of him and his motives, etc. His campaign began with the display of an intense interest in her life—constant phone calls, flowers, gifts, all to keep him in her mind. He set up the fortune-teller to plant the seed. When she began to fall for him, he introduced her to his friends, knowing she would feel alienated among them, and therefore dependent on him. Her dependence was heightened by the trip to Spain, where she was on unfamiliar territory, besieged by reporters, and forced to cling to him for help. He slowly came to dominate her thoughts. Everywhere she turned, there he was. Finally she succumbed, out of weakness and the boost to her vanity that his attention represented.

Under his spell, she forgot about his horrid reputation, relinquishing the suspicions that were the only thing protecting her from him.

It was not Aly Khan’s wealth or looks that made him a great seducer. He was not in fact very handsome, and his wealth was more than offset by his bad reputation. His success was strategic: he isolated his victims, working so slowly and subtly that they did not notice it. The intensity of his attention made a woman feel that in his eyes, at that moment, she was the only woman in the world. This isolation was experienced as pleasure; the woman did not notice her growing dependence, how the way he filled up her mind with his attention slowly isolated her from her friends and her milieu. Her natural suspicions of the man were drowned out by his intoxicating effect on her ego. Aly Khan almost always capped off his seductions by taking the woman to some enchanted place on the globe—a place that he knew well, but where the woman felt lost.

Do not give your targets the time or space to worry about, suspect, or resist you. Flood them with the kind of attention that crowds out all other thoughts, concerns, and problems. Remember—people secretly yearn to be led astray by someone who knows where they are going. It can be a

pleasure to let go, and even to feel isolated and weak, if the seduction is done slowly and gracefully.

Put them in a spot where they have no place to go, and they will die before fleeing.

—SUN-TZU

Keys to Seduction

The people around you may seem strong, and more or less in control of their lives, but that is merely a facade. Underneath, people are more brittle than they let on. What lets them seem strong is the series of nests and safety nets they envelop themselves in—their friends, their families, their daily routines, which give them a feeling of continuity, safety, and control.

Suddenly pull the rug out from under them, drop them alone into some foreign place where the familiar signposts are gone or scrambled, and you will see a very different person.

A target who is strong and settled is hard to seduce. But even the strongest people can be made vulnerable if you can isolate them from their nests and safety nets. Block out their friends and family with your constant presence, alienate them from the world they are used to, and take them to places they do not know Get them to spend time in your environment.

Deliberately disturb their habits, get them to do things they have never done. They will grow emotional, making it easier to lead them astray.

Disguise all this in the form of a pleasurable experience, and your targets will wake up one day distanced from everything that normally comforts them. Then they will turn to you for help, like a child crying out for its mother when the lights are turned out. In seduction, as in warfare, the isolated target is weak and vulnerable.

In Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, written in 1748, the rake Lovelace is attempting to seduce the novel’s beautiful heroine. Clarissa is young, virtuous, and very much protected by her family. But Lovelace is a conniving seducer. First he courts Clarissa’s sister, Arabella. A match between them seems likely. Then he suddenly switches attention to Clarissa, playing on sibling rivalry to make Arabella furious. Their brother, James, is angered by Lovelace’s change in sentiments; he fights with Lovelace and is wounded. The whole family is in an uproar, united against Lovelace, who, however, manages to smuggle letters to Clarissa, and to visit her when she

is at the house of a friend. The family finds out, and accuses her of disloyalty. Clarissa is innocent; she has not encouraged Lovelace’s letters or visits. But now her parents are determined to marry her off, to a rich older man. Alone in the world, about to be married to a man she finds repulsive,

she turns to Lovelace as the only one who can save her from this mess. Eventually he rescues her by getting her to London, where she can escape this dreaded marriage, but where she is also hopelessly isolated. In these circumstances her feelings toward him soften. All of this has been masterfully orchestrated by Lovelace himself—the turmoil within the family, Clarissa’s eventual alienation from them, the whole scenario.

Your worst enemies in a seduction are often your targets’ family and friends. They are outside your circle and immune to your charms; they may provide a voice of reason to the seduced. You must work silently and subtly to alienate the target from them. Insinuate that they are jealous of your target’s good fortune in finding you, or that they are parental figures who

have lost a taste for adventure. The latter argument is extremely effective with young people, whose identities are in flux and who are more than ready to rebel against any authority figure, particularly their parents. You represent excitement and life; the friends and parents represent habit and boredom.

In Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Richard III, Richard, when still the Duke of Gloucester, has murdered King Henry VI and his son, Prince Edward. Shortly thereafter he accosts Lady Anne, Prince Edward’s widow, who knows what he has done to the two men closest to her, and who hates him as much as a woman can hate. Yet Richard attempts to seduce her. His method is simple: he tells her that what he did, he did because of his love for her. He wanted there to be no one in her life but him. His feelings were so strong he was driven to murder. Of course Lady Anne not only resists

this line of reasoning, she abhors him. But he persists. Anne is at a moment of extreme vulnerability—alone in the world, with no one to support her, at the height of grief. Incredibly, his words begin to have an effect.

Murder is not a seductive tactic, but the seducer does enact a kind of killing—a psychological one. Our past attachments are a barrier to the

present. Even people we have left behind can continue to have a hold on us. As a seducer you will be held up to the past, compared to previous suitors, perhaps found inferior. Do not let it get to that point. Crowd out the past with your attentions in the present. If necessary, find ways to disparage their previous lovers—subtly or not so subtly, depending on the situation. Even go so far as to open old wounds, making them feel old pain and seeing by contrast how much better the present is. The more you can isolate them from their past, the deeper they will sink with you into the present.

The principle of isolation can be taken literally by whisking the target off to an exotic locale. This was Aly Khan’s method; a secluded island worked best, and indeed islands, cut off from the rest of the world, have always been associated with the pursuit of sensual pleasures. The Roman Emperor Tiberius descended into debauchery once he made his home on the island of Capri. The danger of travel is that your targets are intimately exposed to you—it is hard to maintain an air of mystery. But if you take them to a

place alluring enough to distract them, you will prevent them from focusing on anything banal in your character. Cleopatra lured Julius Caesar into taking a voyage down the Nile. Moving deeper into Egypt, he was further

isolated from Rome, and Cleopatra was all the more seductive. The early- twentieth-century lesbian seductress Natalie Barney had an on-again-off- again affair with the poet Renée Vivien; to regain her affections, she took Renée on a trip to the island of Lesbos, a place Natalie had visited many times. In doing so she not only isolated Renée but disarmed and distracted her with the associations of the place, the home of the legendary lesbian poet Sappho. Vivien even began to imagine that Natalie was Sappho herself. Do not take the target just anywhere; pick the place that will have the most effective associations.

The seductive power of isolation goes beyond the sexual realm. When new adherents joined Mahatma Gandhi’s circle of devoted followers, they were encouraged to cut off their ties with the past—with their family and

friends. This kind of renunciation has been a requirement of many religious sects over the centuries. People who isolate themselves in this way are much more vulnerable to influence and persuasion. A charismatic politician feeds off and even encourages people’s feelings of alienation. John F. Kennedy did this to great effect when he subtly disparaged the Eisenhower years; the comfort of the 1950s, he implied, compromised American ideals. He invited Americans to join him in a new life, on a “New Frontier,” full of danger and excitement. It was an extremely seductive lure, particularly for the young, who were Kennedy’s most enthusiastic supporters.

Finally, at some point in the seduction there must be a hint of danger in the mix. Your targets should feel that they are gaining a great adventure in following you, but are also losing something—a part of their past, their cherished comfort, Actively encourage these ambivalent feelings. An

element of fear is the proper spice; although too much fear is debilitating, in small doses it makes us feel alive. Like diving out of an airplane, it is exciting, a thrill, at the same time that it is a little frightening. And the only person there to break the fall, or catch them, is you.

Symbol: The Pied Piper A jolly fellow in his red and yellow cloak, he lures the children from their homes with the delightful sounds of his flute. Enchanted, they do not notice how far they are walking,

how they are leaving their families behind. They do not even notice the cave he eventually leads them into, and which closes upon them forever.

Reversal

The risks of this strategy are simple: isolate someone too quickly and you will induce a sense of panic that may end up in the target’s taking flight. The isolation you bring must be gradual, and disguised as pleasure—the pleasure of knowing you, leaving the world behind. In any case, some

people are too fragile to be cut off from their base of support. The great modern courtesan Pamela Harriman had a solution to this problem: she isolated her victims from their families, their former or present wives, and in place of those old connections she quickly set up new comforts for her lovers. She overwhelmed them with attention, attending to their every need. In the case of Averill Harriman, the billionaire who eventually married her, she literally established a new home for him, one that had no associations with the past and was full of the pleasures of the present. It is unwise to keep the seduced dangling in midair for too long, with nothing familiar or comforting in sight. Instead, replace the familiar things you have cut them off from with a new home, a new series of comforts.