Create a False Sense of Security—Approach Indirectly

If you are too direct early on, you risk stirring up a resistance that will never be lowered. At first there must be nothing of the seducer in your manner. The seduction should begin at an angle, indirectly, so that the target only gradually becomes aware of you. Haunt the periphery of your target’s life—approach through a third party, or

seem to cultivate a relatively neutral relationship, moving gradually from friend to lover. Arrange an occasional “chance” encounter, as if you and your target were destined to become acquainted—nothing is more seductive than a sense of destiny. Lull the target into feeling secure, then strike.

Many women adore the elusive, \ Hate

overeagerness. So, play hard to get, \ Stop

boredom developing. And don’t let your entreaties \ Sound too confident of possession. Insinuate sex \ Camouflaged as friendship. I’ve seen ultrastubborn creatures \ Fooled by this gambit,

the switch from companion to stud.

—OVID, THE ART OF LOVE, TRANSLATED BY PETER GREEN

On the street, I do not stop her, or I exchange a

greeting with her but never come close, but always strive for distance, Presumably our repeated

encounters are clearly noticeable to her;

presumably she does perceive that on her horizon

a new planet has loomed, which in its course has encroached disturbingly upon hers in a curiously

undisturbing way, but she has no inkling of the law underlying this movement. Before I begin my

attack, I must first become acquainted with her and her whole mental state.

—SØREN KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER’S DIARY, TRANSLATED BY HOWARD V. HONG

AND EDNA H. HONG

Friend to Lover

Anne Marie Louis d’Orléans, the Duchess de Montpensier, known in seventeenth-century France as La Grande Mademoiselle, had never known love in her life. Her mother had died when she was young; her father remarried and ignored her. She came from one of Europe’s most illustrious families: her grandfather had been King Henry IV; the future King Louis XIV was her cousin. When she was young, matches had been proposed between her and the widowed king of Spain, the son of the Holy Roman emperor, and even cousin Louis himself, among many others. But all of

these matches were designed for political purposes, or because of her family’s enormous wealth. No one bothered to woo her; she rarely even met her suitors. To make matters worse, the Grande Mademoiselle was an idealist who believed in the old-fashioned values of chivalry: courage, honesty, virtue. She loathed the schemers whose motives in courting her

were dubious at best. Whom could she trust? One by one she found a reason to spurn them. Spinsterhood seemed to be her fate.

In April of 1669, the Grande Mademoiselle, then forty-two, met one of

the strangest men in the court: the Marquis Antonin Péguilin, later known as the Duke de Lauzun. A favorite of Louis XIV’s, the thirty-six-year-old

Marquis was a brave soldier with an acid wit. He was also an incurable Don Juan. Although he was short, and certainly not handsome, his impudent

manners and his military exploits made him irresistible to women. The Grande Mademoiselle had noticed him some years before, admiring his

elegance and boldness. But it was only this time, in 1669, that she had a real conversation with him, if a short one, and although she knew of his lady-

killer reputation, she found him charming. A few days later they ran into each other again; this time the conversation was longer, and Lauzun proved more intelligent than she had imagined—they talked of the playwright

Corneille (her favorite), of heroism, and of other elevated topics. Now their encounters became more frequent. They had become friends. Anne Marie noted in her diary that her conversations with Lauzun, when they occurred, were the highlight of her day; when he was not at court, she felt his absence. Surely her encounters with him came frequently enough that they could not be accidental on his part, but he always seemed surprised to see her. At the same time, she recorded feeling uneasy—strange emotions were stealing up on her, she did not know why.

No sooner had he spoken than the bullocks, driven from their mountain pastures, were on their way to the beach, as Jove had directed; they were making for the sands where the daughter [Europa] of the

great king used to play with the young girls of

Tyre, who were her companions. • . . . Abandoning the dignity of his scepter, the father and ruler of

the gods, whose hand wields the flaming three- forked bolt, whose nod shakes the universe, adopted the guise of a bull; and, mingling with the other bullocks, joined in the lowing and ambled in the tender grass, a fair sight to see. His hide was white as untrodden snow, snow not yet melted by

the rainy South wind. The muscles stood out on his neck, and deep folds of skin hung along his flanks. His horns were small, it is true, but so beautifully made that you would swear they were the work of an artist, more polished and shining than any jewel. There was no menace in the set of his head or in his eyes; he looked completely placid. •

Agenor’s daughter [Europa] was filled with admiration for one so handsome and so friendly. But, gentle though he seemed, she was afraid at

first to touch him; then she went closer, and held out flowers to his shining lips. The lover was delighted and, until he could achieve his hoped-for pleasure, kissed her hands. He could scarcely wait for the rest, only with great difficulty did he restrain himself. • Now he frolicked and played on the green turf, now lay down, all snowy white on

the yellow sand. Gradually the princess lost her fear, and with her innocent hands she stroked his

breast when he offered it for her caress, and hung fresh garlands on his horns: till finally she even

ventured to mount the bull, little knowing on whose back she was resting. Then the god drew away

from the shore by easy stages, first planting the

hooves that were part of his disguise in the surf at the water’s edge, and then proceeding farther out to sea, till he bore his booty away over the wide

stretches of mid ocean.

—OVID, METAMORPHOSES, TRANSLATED BY MARY M. INNES

Time passed, and the Grande Mademoiselle was to leave Paris for a week or two. Now Lauzun approached her without warning and made an emotional plea to be considered her confidante, the great friend who would execute any commission she needed done while she was away. He was

poetic and chivalrous, but what did he really mean? In her diary, Anne Marie finally confronted the emotions that had been stirring in her since

their first conversation: “I told myself, these are not vague musings; there must be an object to all of these feelings, and I could not imagine who it was. Finally, after troubling myself with this for several days, I realized

that it was M. de Lauzun whom I loved, it was he who had somehow slipped into my heart and captured it.”

Made aware of the source of her feelings, the Grande Mademoiselle

became more direct. If Lauzun was to be her confidante, she could talk to him of marriage, of the matches that were still being offered to her. The

topic might give him a chance to express his feelings; perhaps he might

show jealousy. Unfortunately Lauzun did not seem to take the hint. Instead, he asked her why she was thinking of marriage at all—she seemed so happy. Besides, who could possibly be worthy of her? This went on for weeks. She could pry nothing personal out of him. In a way, she understood

—there were the differences in rank (she was far above him) and age (she

was six years older). Then, a few months later, the wife of the king’s brother died, and King Louis suggested to the Grande Mademoiselle that she

replace his late sister-in-law—that is, that she marry his brother. Anne

Marie was disgusted; clearly the brother was trying to get his hands on her fortune. She asked Lauzun his opinion. As the king’s loyal servants, he replied, they must obey the royal wish. His answer did not please her, and to make things worse, he stopped visiting her, as if it were no longer proper for them to be friends. This was the last straw. The Grande Mademoiselle told the king she would not marry his brother, and that was that.

Now Anne Marie met with Lauzun, and told him she would write on a piece of paper the name of the man she had wanted to marry all along. He

was to put the paper under his pillow and read it the next morning. When he did, he found the words “C’est vous”—It is you. Seeing the Grande

Mademoiselle the following evening, Lauzun said she must have been joking; she would make him the laughing stock of the court. She insisted that she was serious. He seemed shocked, surprised—but not as surprised as the rest of the court was a few weeks later, when an engagement was announced between this relatively low-ranking Don Juan and the second- highest-ranking lady in France, a woman known for both her virtue and her skill at defending it.

Interpretation. The Duke de Lauzun was one of the greatest seducers in history, and his slow and steady seduction of the Grande Mademoiselle was his masterpiece. His method was simple: indirection. Sensing her interest in him in that first conversation, he decided to beguile her with friendship. He would become her most devoted friend. At first this was charming; a man was taking the time to talk to her, of poetry, history, the deeds of war—her

favorite subjects. She slowly began to confide in him. Then, almost without

her realizing it, her feelings shifted: the consummate ladies’ man was only interested in friendship? He was not attracted to her as a woman? Such

thoughts made her aware that she had fallen in love with him. This, in part, was what eventually made her turn down the match with the king’s brother

—a decision cleverly and indirectly provoked by Lauzun himself, when he stopped visiting her. And how could he be after money or position, or sex, when he had never made any kind of move? No, the brilliance of Lauzun’s seduction was that the Grande Mademoiselle believed it was she who was making all the moves.

These few reflections lead us to the understanding that, since in attempting a seduction it is up to the man to make the first steps, for the seducer, to

seduce is nothing more than reducing the distance, in this case that of the difference between the sexes and that, in order to accomplish this, it is

necessary to feminize himself or at least identify himself with the object of his seduction. As

Alain Roger writes: “If there is a seduction, it is the seducer who is first lead astray, in the sense that he abdicates his own sex. Seduction

undoubtedly aims at sexual consummation, but it only gets there in creating a kind of simulacra of Gomorra. The seducer is nothing more than a lesbian. ”

—FRÉDÉRIC MONNEYRON, SÉDUIRE: L’IMAGINAIRE DE LA SÉDUCTION DE DON

GIOVANNI A MICK JACCER

Once you have chosen the right victim, you must get his or her attention and stir desire. To move from friendship to love can win success without calling attention to itself as a maneuver. First, your friendly conversations with your targets will bring you valuable information about their characters,

their tastes, their weaknesses, the childhood yearnings that govern their adult behavior. (Lauzun, for example, could adapt cleverly to Anne Marie’s tastes once he had studied her close up.) Second, by spending time with your targets you can make them comfortable with you. Believing you are interested only in their thoughts, in their company, they will lower their resistance, dissipating the usual tension between the sexes. Now they are vulnerable, for your friendship with them has opened the golden gate to their body: their mind. At this point any offhand comment, any slight physical contact, will spark a different thought, which will catch them off- guard: perhaps there could be something else between you. Once that feeling has stirred, they will wonder why you haven’t made a move, and will take the initiative themselves, enjoying the illusion that they are in control. There is nothing more effective in seduction than making the seduced think that they are the ones doing the seducing.

I do not approach her, I merely skirt the periphery of her existence. This is the first web into which

she must be spun.

—SØREN KIERKEGAARD

Key to Seduction

What you are after as a seducer is the ability to move people in the direction you want them to go. But the game is perilous; the moment they suspect they are acting under your influence, they will become resentful. We are

creatures who cannot stand feeling that we are obeying someone else’s will. Should your targets catch on, sooner or later they will turn against you. But what if you can make them do what you want them to without their realizing it? What if they think they are in control? That is the power of indirection and no seducer can work his or her magic without it.

As he [Jupiter] was hurrying busily to and fro, he stopped short at the sight of an Arcadian maiden.

The fire of passion kindled the very marrow of his bones. This girl was not one who spent her time in spinning soft fibers of wool, or in arranging her

hair in different styles. She was one of Diana’s warriors, wearing her tunic pinned together with a brooch, her tresses carelessly caught back by a

white ribbon, and carrying in her hand a light javelin or her bow • The sun on high had

passed its zenith, when she entered a grove whose trees had never felt the axe. Here she took her

quiver from her shoulders, unstrung her pliant

bow, and lay down on the turf, resting her head on her painted quiver. When Jupiter saw her thus,

tired and unprotected, he said: ”Here is a secret of which my wife will know nothing; or if she does get to know of it, it will be worth her reproaches!”

• Without wasting time he assumed the appearance and the dress of Diana, and spoke to the girl.

“Dearest of all my companions,” he said, “where have you been hunting? On what mountain ridges?” She raised herself from the grass:

“Greeting, divine mistress,” she cried, “greater in my sight than Jove himself—I care not if he hears me!” Jove laughed to hear her words. Delighted to be preferred to himself, he kissed her—not with the restraint becoming to a maiden’s kisses: and as she began to tell of her hunting exploits in the forest,

he prevented her by his embrace, and betrayed his real self by a shameful action. So far from complying, she resisted him as far as a woman could but how could a girl overcome a man,

and who could defeat Jupiter? He had his way, and returned to the upper air.

—OVID, METAMORPHOSES, TRANSLATED BY MARY M. INNES

The first move to master is simple: once you have chosen the right person, you must make the target come to you. If, in the opening stages, you can make your targets think that they are the ones making the first approach, you have won the game. There will be no resentment, no perverse counterreaction, no paranoia.

To make them come to you requires giving them space. This can be accomplished in several ways. You can haunt the periphery of their existence, letting them notice you in different places but never approaching them. You will get their attention this way, and if they want to bridge the gap, they will have to come to you. You can befriend them, as Lauzun did

the Grande Mademoiselle, moving steadily closer while always maintaining the distance appropriate for friends of the opposite sex. You can also play cat and mouse with them, first seeming interested, then stepping back— actively luring them to follow you into your web. Whatever you do, and whatever kind of seduction you are practicing, you must at all cost avoid

the natural tendency to crowd your targets. Do not make the mistake of thinking they will lose interest unless you apply pressure, or that they will enjoy a flood of attention. Too much attention early on will actually just suggest insecurity, and raise doubts as to your motives. Worst of all, it gives your targets no room for imagination. Take a step back; let the thoughts you are provoking come to them as if they were their own. This is doubly important if you are dealing with someone who has a deep effect on you.

We can never really understand the opposite sex. They are always mysterious to us, and it is this mystery that provides the tension so

delightful in seduction; but it is also a source of unease. Freud famously wondered what women really wanted; even to this most insightful of psychological thinkers, the opposite sex was a foreign land. For both men and women, there are deep-rooted feelings of fear and anxiety in relation to the opposite sex. In the initial stages of a seduction, then, you must find

ways to calm any sense of mistrust that the other person may experience. (A sense of danger and fear can heighten the seduction later on, but if you stir such emotions in the first stages, you will more likely scare the target away.) Establish a neutral distance, seem harmless, and you give yourself room to move. Casanova cultivated a slight femininity in his character—an

interest in clothes, theater, domestic matters—that young girls found comforting. The Renaissance courtesan Tullia d’Aragona, developing

friendships with the great thinkers and poets of her time, talked of literature and philosophy—anything but the boudoir (and anything but the money that was also her goal). Johannes, the narrator of Søren Kierkegaard’s The

Seducer’s Diary, follows his target, Cordelia, from a distance; when their paths cross, he is polite and apparently shy. As Cordelia gets to know him, he doesn’t frighten her. In fact he is so innocuous she begins to wish he

were less so.

Duke Ellington, the great jazz artist and a consummate seducer, would initially dazzle the ladies with his good looks, stylish clothing, and charisma. But once he was alone with a woman, he would take a slight step back, becoming excessively polite, making only small talk. Banal conversation can be a brilliant tactic; it hypnotizes the target. The dullness of your front gives the subtlest suggestive word, the slightest look, an amplified power. Never mention love and you make its absence speak volumes—your victims will wonder why you never discuss your emotions, and as they have such thoughts, they will go further, imagining what else is going on in your mind. They will be the ones to bring up the topic of love or affection. Deliberate dullness has many applications. In psychotherapy, the doctor makes monosyllabic responses to draw patients in, making them relax and open up. In international negotiations, Henry Kissinger would lull diplomats with boring details, then strike with bold demands. Early in a seduction, less-colorful words are often more effective than vivid ones—the target tunes them out, looks at your face, begins to imagine, fantasize, fall under your spell.

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

—BEATRICE, IN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, MUCHADO ABOUT NOTHING

I know of a man whose beloved was completely friendly and at ease with him; but if he had

disclosed by the least gesture that he was in love, the beloved would have become as remote from him as the Pleiades, whose stars hang so high in heaven. It is a sort of statesmanship that is

required in such cases; the party concerned was enjoying the pleasure of his loved one’s company intensely and to the last degree, but if he had so

much as hinted at his inner feelings he would have attained but a miserable fraction of the beloved’s

favor, and endured into the bargain all the

arrogance and caprice of which love is capable.

—IBN HAZM, THE RING OF THE DOVE: A TREATISE ON THE ART AND PRACTICE OF

ARAB LOVE, TRANSLATED BY A. J. ARBERRY

Getting to your targets through other people is extremely effective; infiltrate their circle and you are no longer a stranger. Before the

seventeenth-century seducer Count de Grammont made a move, he would befriend his target’s chambermaid, her valet, a friend, even a lover. In this way he could gather information, finding a way to approach her in an unthreatening manner. He could also plant ideas, saying things the third party was likely to repeat, things that would intrigue the lady, particularly when they came from someone she knew.

Ninon de l’Enclos, the seventeenth-century courtesan and strategist of seduction, believed that disguising one’s intentions was not only a necessity, it added to the pleasure of the game. A man should never declare his feelings, she felt, particularly early on. It is irritating and provokes mistrust. “A woman is much better persuaded that she is loved by what she guesses than by what she is told,” Ninon once remarked. Often a person’s haste in declaring his or her feelings comes from a false desire to please, thinking this will flatter the other. But the desire to please can annoy and offend. Children, cats, and coquettes draw us to them by apparently not trying, even by seeming uninterested. Learn to disguise your feelings and let people figure out what is happening for themselves.

In all arenas of life, you should never give the impression that you are angling for something—that will raise a resistance that you will never lower. Learn to approach people from the side. Mute your colors, blend in, seem unthreatening, and you will have more room to maneuver later on.

The same holds true in politics, where overt ambition often frightens people. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin at first glance looked like an everyday Russian; he dressed like a worker, spoke with a peasant accent, had no air of greatness. This made the public feel comfortable and identify with him. Yet beneath this apparently bland appearance, of course, was a deeply clever man who was always maneuvering. By the time people realized this it was too late.

Symbol: The Spider’s Web. The spider finds an innocuous corner in which to spin its web. The longer the web takes, the more fabulous its construction, yet few really notice it—its gossamer threads are

nearly invisible. The spider has no need to chase for food, or even to move. It quietly sits in the corner, waiting for its victims to come to it on their own, and ensnare themselves in the web.

Reversal

In warfare, you need space to align your troops, room to maneuver. The more space you have, the more intricate your strategy can be. But

sometimes it is better to overwhelm the enemy, giving them no time to think or react. Although Casanova adapted his strategies to the woman in question, he would often try to make an immediate impression, stirring her desire at the first encounter. Perhaps he would perform some gallantry, rescuing a woman in danger; perhaps he would dress so that his target would notice him in a crowd. In either case, once he had the woman’s attention he would move with lightning speed. A Siren like Cleopatra tries to have an immediate physical effect on men, giving her victims no time or space to retreat. She uses the element of surprise. The first period of your contact with someone can involve a level of desire that will never be repeated; boldness will carry the day.

But these are short seductions. The Sirens and the Casanovas only get

pleasure from the number of their victims, moving quickly from conquest to conquest, and this can be tiring. Casanova burned himself out; Sirens, insatiable, are never satisfied. The indirect, carefully constructed seduction may reduce the number of your conquests, but more than compensate by their quality.