Give Them Space to Fall—The Pursuer Is Pursued

If your targets become too used to you as the aggressor, they will give less of their own energy, and the tension will slacken. You need

to wake them up, turn the tables. Once they are under your spell, take a step back and they will start to come after you. Begin with a touch of aloofness, an unexpected nonappearance, a hint that you are growing bored. Stir the pot by seeming interested in someone

else. Make none of this explicit; let them only sense it and their imagination will do the rest, creating the doubt you desire. Soon

they will want to possess you physically, and restraint will go out the window. The goal is to have them fall into your arms of their own will. Create the illusion that the seducer is being seduced.

Omissions, denials, deflections, deceptions, diversions, and humility—all aimed at provoking this second state, the secret of true seduction.

Vulgar seduction might proceed by persistence, but true seduction proceeds by absence. It is like

fencing:one needs a field for the feint. Throughout this period, the seducer [Johannes], far from seeking to close in on her, seeks to maintain his

distance by various ploys: he does not speak

directly to her but only to her aunt, and then about trivial or stupid subjects; he neutralizes everything by irony and feigned pedanticism; he fails to respond to any feminine or erotic movement, and even finds her a sitcom suitor to disenchant and

deceive her, to the point where she herself takes the

initiative and breaks off her engagement, thus completing the seduction and creating the ideal situation for her total abandon.

—JEAN BAUDRILLARD, SEDUCTION, TRANSLATED BY BRIAN SINGED

Seductive Gravity

In the early 1840s, the center of attention in the French art world was a young woman named Apollonie Sabatier. She was so much the natural beauty that sculptors and painters vied to immortalize her in their works, and she was also charming, easy to talk to, and seductively self-sufficient— men were drawn to her. Her Paris apartment became a gathering spot for

writers and artists, and soon Madame Sabatier—as she came to be known, although she was not married—was hosting one of the most important literary salons in France. Writers such as Gustave Flaubert, the elder

Alexandre Dumas, and Théophile Gautier were among her regular guests.

Near the end of 1852, when she was thirty, Madame Sabatier received an anonymous letter. The writer confessed that he loved her deeply. Worried that she would find his sentiments ridiculous, he would not reveal his name; yet he had to let her know that he adored her. Sabatier was used to such

attentions—one man after another had fallen in love with her—but this letter was different: in this man she seemed to have inspired a quasi-

religious ardor. The letter, written in a disguised handwriting, contained a poem dedicated to her; titled “To One Who Is Too Gay,” it began by praising her beauty, yet ended with the lines

And so, one night, I’d like to sneak, When darkness tolls the hour of pleasure, A craven thief, toward the treasure Which is your person, plump and sleek…. And, most vertiginous delight!

Into those lips, so freshly striking And daily lovelier to my liking— Infuse the venom of my spite.

Mixed in with her admirer’s adoration, clearly, was a strange kind of lust, with a touch of cruelty to it. The poem both intrigued and disturbed her— and she had no idea who had written it.

A few weeks later another letter arrived. As before, the writer enveloped Sabatier in cultlike worship, mixing the physical and the spiritual. And as before, there was a poem, “All in One,” in which he wrote,

No single beauty is the best,

Since she is all one flower divine. . . . O mystic metamorphosis!

My senses into one sense flow—

Her voice makes perfume when she speaks, Her breath is music faint and low!

The rumor spread everywhere. It was even told to the queen [Guinevere], who was seated at dinner.

She nearly killed herself when she heard the

perfidious rumor of Lancelot’s death. She thought it was true and was so greatly perturbed that she was scarcely able to speak. She arose at once

from the table, and was able to give vent to her grief without being noticed or overheard. She was so crazed with the thought of killing herself that

she repeatedly grabbed at her throat. Yet first she confessed in conscience, repented and asked God’s pardon; she accused herself of having sinned against the one she knew had always been hers, and who would still be, were he alive. She

counted all of the unkindnesses and recalled each individual unkindness; she noted every one, and repeated often: “Oh misery! What was I thinking, when my lover came before me and I did not deign to welcome him, nor even care to listen! Was I not a fool to refuse to speak or even look at him? A fool? No, so help me God, I was cruel and

deceitful! . . . I believe that it was I alone who struck him that mortal blow. When he came

happily before me expecting me to receive him

joyfully and I shunned him and would never even look at him, was this not a mortal blow? At that moment, when I refused to speak, I believe I

severed both his heart and his life. Those two

blows killed him, I think, and not any hired killers.

• “Ah God! Will I be forgiven this murder, this sin? Never! All the rivers and the seas will dry up first! Oh, misery! How it would have brought me comfort and healing if I had held him in my arms once before he died. How? Yes, quite naked next to him, in order to enjoy him fully . . . .” •. . . When

they came within six or seven leagues of the castle where King Bademagu was staying, news that was pleasing came to him about Lancelot—news that he was glad to hear; Lancelot was alive and was returning, hale and hearty. He behaved most

properly in going to inform the queen. “Good sir,” she told him, “I believe it, since you have told me. But were he dead, I assure you that I could never again be happy. ” • . . . Now Lancelot had his

every wish: the queen willingly sought his

company and affection as he held her in his arms and she held him in hers. Her love-play seemed so gentle and good to him, both her kisses and

caresses, that in truth the two of them felt a joy and wonder of which has never been heard or known.

But I shall let it remain a secret for ever, since it should not be written of: the most delightful and choicest pleasure is that which is hinted at, but never told.

—CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES, ARTHURIAN ROMANCES, TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM W.

KIBLER

Clearly the author was haunted by Sabatier’s presence, and thought of her constantly—but now she began to be haunted by him, thinking of him night and day, and wondering who he was. His subsequent letters only deepened the spell. It was flattering to hear that he was enchanted by more than her beauty, yet also flattering to know that he was not immune to her physical charms.

One day an idea occurred to Madame Sabatier as to who the writer might be: a young poet who had frequented her salon for several years, Charles Baudelaire. He seemed shy, in fact had hardly spoken to her, but she had read some of his poetry, and although the poems in the letters were more polished, the style was similar. At her apartment Baudelaire would always sit politely in a corner, but now that she thought of it, he would smile at her strangely, nervously It was the look of a young man in love. Now when he visited she watched him carefully, and the more she watched, the surer she was that he was the writer, but she never confirmed her intuition, because

she did not want to confront him—he might be shy, but he was a man, and at some point he would have to come to her. And she felt certain that he would. Then, suddenly the letters stopped coming—and Madame Sabatier could not understand why, since the last one had been even more adoring than all of the others before.

Several years went by, in which she often thought of her anonymous admirer’s letters, but they were never renewed. In 1857, however,

Baudelaire published a book of poetry, The Flowers of Evil, and Madame Sabatier recognized several of the verses—they were the ones he had written for her. Now they were out in the open for everyone to see. A little while later the poet sent her a gift: a specially bound copy of the book, and a letter, this time signed with his name. Yes, he wrote, he was the

anonymous writer—would she forgive him for being so mysterious in the past? Furthermore, his feelings for her were as strong as ever: “You didn’t think for a moment that I could have forgotten you? … You to me are more

than a cherished image conjured up in dream, you’re my superstition. . . my constant companion, my secret! Farewell, dear Madame. I kiss your hands with profound devotion.”

This letter had a stronger effect on Madame Sabatier than the others had. Perhaps it was his childlike sincerity, and the fact that he had finally written to her directly; perhaps it was that he loved her but asked nothing of her,

unlike all the other men she knew who at some point had always turned out to want something. Whatever it was, she had an uncontrollable desire to see him. The next day she invited him to her apartment, alone. Baudelaire appeared at the appointed hour. He sat nervously in his seat, gazing at her with his large eyes, saying little, and what he did say was formal and polite. He seemed aloof. After he left a kind of panic seized Madame Sabatier, and the next day she wrote him a first letter of her own: “Today I’m more calm, and I can feel more clearly the impression of our Tuesday evening together. I can tell you, without the danger of your thinking I’m exaggerating, that I’m the happiest woman on the face of the earth, that I’ve never felt more truly that I love you, and that I’ve never seen you look more beautiful, more adorable, my divine friend!”

He was sometimes so intellectual that I felt myself annihilated as a woman; at other times he was so wild and passionate, so desiring, that I almost

trembled before him. At times I was like a stranger to him; at times he surrendered completely. Then when I threw my arms around him, everything changed, and I embraced a cloud.

—CORDELIA DESCRIBING JOHANNES, IN SØREN KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER’S DIARY, TRANSLATED BY HOWARD V. HONG AND EDNA V. HONG

Madame Sabatier had never before written such a letter; she had always been the one who was pursued. Now she had lost her usual self-possession. And it only got worse: Baudelaire did not answer right away. When she saw him next, he was colder than before. She had the feeling there was someone else, that his old mistress, Jeanne Duval, had suddenly reappeared in his life and was pulling him away from her. One night she turned aggressive, embracing him, trying to kiss him, but he did not respond, and quickly found an excuse to leave. Why was he suddenly inaccessible? She began to

flood him with letters, begging him to come to her. Unable to sleep, she would wait all night for him to show up. She had never experienced such desperation. Somehow she had to seduce him, possess him, have him all to herself. She tried everything—letters, coquetry, all kinds of promises—until he finally wrote that he was no longer in love with her and that was that.

Interpretation. Baudelaire was an intellectual seducer. He wanted to over- whelm Madame Sabatier with words, dominate her thoughts, make her fall in love with him. Physically, he knew, he could not compete with her many other admirers—he was shy, awkward, not particularly handsome. So he resorted to his one strength, poetry. Haunting her with anonymous letters

gave him a perverse thrill. He had to know she would realize, eventually, that he was her correspondent—no one else wrote like him—but he wanted her to figure this out on her own. He stopped writing to her because he had become interested in someone else, but he knew she would be thinking of him, wondering, perhaps waiting for him. And when he published his book, he decided to write to her again, this time directly, stirring up the old venom he had injected in her. When they were alone, he could see she was waiting for him to do something, to take hold of her, but he was not that kind of seducer. Besides, it gave him pleasure to hold himself back, to sense his power over a woman whom so many desired. By the time she turned physical and aggressive, the seduction was over for him. He had made her fall in love; that was enough.

The devastating effect of Baudelaire’s push-and-pull on Madame Sabatier teaches us a great lesson in seduction. First, it is always best to keep at

some distance from your targets. You do not have to go as far as remaining anonymous, but you do not want to be seen too often, or to be seen as intrusive. If you are always in their face, always the aggressor, they will

become used to being passive, and the tension in your seduction will flag. Use letters to make them think about you all the time, to feed their imagination. Cultivate mystery—stop them from figuring you out.

Baudelaire’s letters were delightfully ambiguous, mixing the physical and the spiritual, teasing Sabatier with their multiplicity of possible interpretations.

It is true that we could not love if there were not some memory in us—tothe greatest extent an

unconscious memory—that we were once loved. But neither could we love if this feeling of being loved had not at some time suffered doubt; if we had always been sure of it. In other words, love would not be possible without having been loved and then having missed the certainty of being loved. • The need to be loved is not elementary.

This need is certainly acquired by experience in

later childhood. It would be better to say: by many experiences or by a repetition of similar ones. I

believe that these experiences are of a negative kind. The child becomes aware that he is not loved or that his mother’s love is not unconditional. The baby learns that his mother can be dissatisfied with him, that she can withdraw her affection if he does not behave as she wishes, that she can be

angry or cross. I believe that this experience arouses feelings of anxiety in the irfant. The

possibility of losing his mother’s love certainly

strikes the child with a force which can no more be coped with than an earthquake. • The child who

experiences his mother’s dissatisfaction and

apparent withdrawal of affection reacts to this menace at first with fear. He tries to regain what seems lost by expressing hostility and

aggressiveness. The change ofits character

comes about only after failllre; when the child realizes that the effort is a failure. And now something very strange takes place, something which is foreign to our conscious thinking but

which is very near to the infantile way. Instead of grasping the object directly and taking possession of it in an aggressive way, the child identifies with the object as it was before.The child does the same

that the mother did to himin that happy time which has passed. The process is very illuminating

because it shapes the pattern of love in general.

The little boy thus demonstrates in his ownbe

havior what he wants his motherto do to him, how she should behave to him.He announces this wish by displaying his tenderness and affection to ward his mother who gave these before to him. It is an attempt to overcome the despair and sense of loss in taking over the role of the mother. The boy tries to demonstrate what he wishes by doing it himself: look, I would like youto act thus toward me, to be

thus tender and loving to me. Of course this attitude is not the result of consideration or

reasoned planning but an emotional. process by identification, a natural exchange of roles with the unconscious aim of seducing the mother into fulfilling his wish. He demonstrates by his own

actions how he wants to be loved. It is a primitive presentation through reversal, an example of how to do the thing which he wishes done by her. In this presentation lives the memory of the attentions, tendernesses, and endearments once received from the mother or loving persons.

—THEODOR REIK, OF LOVE AND LUST

Then, at the point when they are ripe with desire and interest, when perhaps they are expecting you to make a move—as Madame Sabatier

expected that day in her apartment—take a step back. You are unexpectedly distant, friendly but no more than that—certainly not sexual. Let this sink in for a day or two. Your withdrawal will trigger anxiety; the only way to

relieve this anxiety is to pursue and possess you. Step back now and you make your targets fall into your arms like ripe fruit, blind to the force of gravity that is drawing them to you. The more they participate, the more

their willpower is engaged, the deeper the erotic effect. You have challenged them to use their own seductive powers on you, and when they respond, the tables will turn and they will pursue you with desperate energy.

I retreat and thereby teach her to be

victorious as she pursues me. I continually fall back, and in this backward movement I teach her to know through me all the

powers of erotic love, its turbulent thoughts, its passion, what longing is, and hope, and impatient expectancy.

—SØREN KIERKEGAARD

Keys to Seduction

Since humans are naturally obstinate and willful creatures, and prone to suspicions of people’s motives, it is only natural, in the course of any

seduction, that in some ways your target will resist you. Seductions, then, are rarely easy or without setbacks. But once your victims overcome some of their doubts, and begin to fall under your spell, they will reach a point where they start to let go. They may sense that you are leading them along,

but they are enjoying it. No one likes things to be complicated and difficult, and your target will expect the conclusion to come quickly. That is the point, however, where you must train yourself to hold back. Deliver the

pleasurable climax they are so greedily awaiting, succumb to the natural tendency to bring the seduction to a rapid end, and you will have missed an opportunity to ratchet up the tension, to make the affair more heated. After all, you don’t want a passive little victim to toy with; you want the seduced to engage their will in all its force, to become active participants in the seduction. You want them to pursue you, hopelessly ensnaring themselves in your web in the process. The only way to accomplish this is to take a step back and make them anxious.

You have strategically retreated before (see chapter 12), but this is different. The target is falling for you now, and your retreat will lead to

panicky thoughts: you are losing interest, it is somehow my fault, perhaps it is something I have done. Rather than think you are rejecting them on your own, your targets will want to make this interpretation, since if the cause of the problem is something they have done, they have the power to win you back by changing their behavior. If you are simply rejecting them, on the other hand, they have no control. People always want to preserve hope.

Now they will come to you, turn aggressive, thinking that will do the trick. They will raise the erotic temperature. Understand: a person’s willpower is directly linked to their libido, their erotic desire. When your victims are passively waiting for you, their erotic level is low. When they turn pursuer, getting involved in the process, brimming with tension and anxiety, the

temperature is raised. So raise it as high as you can.

When you withdraw, make it subtle; you are instilling unease. Your

coldness or distance should dawn on your targets when they are alone, in

the form of a poisonous doubt creeping into their mind. Their paranoia will become self-generating. Your subtle step back will make them want to

possess you, so they will willingly advance into your arms without being pushed. This is different from the strategy in chapter 20, in which you are inflicting deep wounds, creating a pattern of pain and pleasure. There the goal is to make your victims weak and dependent, here it is to make them active and aggressive. Which strategy you prefer to use (the two cannot be combined) depends on what you want and the proclivities of your victim.

In Søren Kierkegaard’s The Seducer’s Diary, Johannes aims to seduce the young and beautiful Cordelia. He begins by being rather intellectual with her, and slowly intriguing her. Then he sends her letters that are romantic and seductive. Now her fascination blossoms into love. Although in person he remains a little distant, she senses in him great depths and is certain that he loves her. Then one day, while they’re talking, Cordelia has a strange sensation: something about him is different. He seems more interested in

ideas than in her. Over the next few days, this doubt gets stronger—the

letters are a little less romantic, something is missing. Feeling anxious, she slowly turns aggressive, becomes the pursuer instead of the pursued. The seduction is now much more exciting, at least for Johannes.

Johannes’s step back is subtle; he merely gives Cordelia the impression that his interest is a little less romantic than the day before. He returns to being the intellectual. This stirs the worrisome thought that her natural

charms and beauty no longer have as much effect on him. She must try harder, provoke him sexually, prove to herself that she has some power over him. She is now brimming with erotic desire, brought to that point by Johannes’s subtle withdrawal of affection.

Each gender has its own seductive lures, which come naturally to them.

When you seem interested in someone but do not respond sexually, it is disturbing, and presents a challenge: they will find a way to seduce you. To produce this effect, first reveal an interest in your targets, through letters or subtle insinuation. But when you are in their presence, assume a kind of

sexless neutrality. Be friendly, even warm, but no more. You are pushing them into arming themselves with the seductive charms that are natural to their sex—exactly what you want.

In the latter stages of the seduction, let your targets feel that you are becoming interested in another person—this is another form of taking a step back. When Napoleon Bonaparte first met the young widow Josephine de

Beauharnais in 1795, he was excited by her exotic beauty and the looks she gave him. He began to attend her weekly soirees and, to his delight, she would ignore the other men and remain at his side, listening to him so attentively He found himself falling in love with Josephine, and had every reason to believe she felt the same.

Then, at one soiree, she was friendly and attentive, as usual—except that she was equally friendly to another man there, a former aristocrat, like Josephine, the kind of man that Napoleon could never compete with when it came to manners and wit. Doubts and jealousies began to stir within. As a military man, he knew the value of going on the offensive, and after a few weeks of a swift and aggressive campaign he had her all to himself, eventually marrying her. Of course Josephine, a clever seductress, had set it all up. She did not say she was interested in another man, but his mere

presence at her house, a look here and there, subtle gestures, made it seem that way. There is no more powerful way to hint that you are losing your desire. Make your interest in another too obvious, though, and it could backfire. This is not the situation in which you want to seem cruel; doubt and anxiety are the effects you are after. Make your possible interest in another barely perceptible to the naked eye.

Once someone has fallen for you, any physical absence will create unease. You are literally creating space. The Russian seductress Lou

Andreas-Salomé had an intense presence; when a man was with her, he felt her eyes boring into him, and often became entranced with her coquettish ways and spirit. But then, almost invariably, something would come up— she would have to leave town for a while, or would be too busy to see him.

It was during her absences that men fell hopelessly in love with her, and vowed to be more aggressive next time they were with her. Your absences at this latter point of the seduction should seem at least somewhat justified.

You are insinuating not a blatant brush-off but a slight doubt: perhaps you could have found some reason to stay, perhaps you are losing interest,

perhaps there is someone else. In your absence, their appreciation of you will grow. They will forget your faults, forgive your sins. The moment you return, they will chase after you as you desire. It will be as if you had come back from the dead.

According to the psychologist Theodor Reik, we learn to love only through rejection. As infants, we are showered with love by our mother— we know nothing else. But when we get a little older, we begin to sense that her love is not unconditional. If we do not behave, if we do not please her,

she can withdraw it. The idea that she will withdraw her affection fills us with anxiety, and, at first, with anger—we will show her, we will throw a tantrum. But that never works, and we slowly realize that the only way to keep her from rejecting us again is to imitate her—to be as loving, kind, and affectionate as she is. This will bond her to us in the deepest way. The pattern is ingrained in us for the rest of our lives: by experiencing a rejection or a coldness, we learn to court and pursue, to love.

Re-create this primal pattern in your seduction. First, shower your targets with affection. They will not be sure where this is coming from, but it is a delightful feeling, and they will never want to lose it. When it does go away, in your strategic step back, they will have moments of anxiety and anger, perhaps throwing a tantrum, and then the same childlike reaction: the only way to win you back, to have you for sure, will be to reverse the pattern, to imitate you, to be the affectionate, giving one. It is the terror of rejection that turns the tables.

This pattern will often repeat itself naturally in an affair or relationship. One person goes cold, the other pursues, then goes cold in turn, making the first person the pursuer, and on and on. As a seducer, do not leave this to chance. Make it happen. You are teaching the other person to become a

seducer, just as the mother in her own way taught the child to return her

love by turning her back. For your own sake learn to relish this reversal of roles. Do not merely play at being the pursued, but enjoy it, give in to it.

The pleasure of being pursued by your victim can often surpass the thrill of the hunt.

Symbol: The Pomegranate. Carefully cultivated and tended, the pomegranate begins to ripen. Do not gather it too early or force it off the stem—it will be hard and bitter. Let the fruit grow heavy and

full of juice, then stand back—it will fall on its own. That is when its pulp is most delicious.

Reversal

There are moments when creating space and absence will blow up in your face. An absence at a critical moment in the seduction can make the target

lose interest in you. It also leaves too much to chance—while you are away, they could find another person, who will distract their thoughts from you.

Cleopatra easily seduced Mark Antony, but after their first encounters, he returned to Rome. Cleopatra was mysterious and alluring, but if she let too much time pass, he would forget her charms. So she let go of her usual coquetry and came after him when he was on one of his military campaigns.

She knew that once he saw her, he would fall under her spell again and pursue her.

Use absence only when you are sure of the target’s affection, and never let it go on too long. It is most effective later in the seduction. Also, never create too much space—don’t write too rarely, don’t act too cold, don’t

show too much interest in someone else. That is the strategy of mixing pleasure with pain, detailed in chapter 20, and will create a dependent

victim, or will even make him or her give up completely Some people, too, are inveterately passive: they are waiting for you to make the bold move, and if you don’t, they will think you are weak. The pleasure to be had from such a victim is less than the pleasure you will get from someone more active. But if you are involved with such a type, do what you need to if you are to have your way, then end the affair and move on.