Kitty Cavalier says men should bring a keen awareness and willingness to play this game of life with partners, kids, even colleagues.
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A man who wants to explore his role as a seducer is kind of at a catch 22. Based on the societal understanding of seduction, if you’re a skilled seducer you are categorized as a philandering lothario, a lady-killer whose brain lies not behind his skull, but behind his zipper. On the other hand if you scorn seduction, you yourself are shunned for not keeping the spark alive and letting your partner down.
I toss up my hands at these theories.
My work is to teach the art of seduction, not as a means of manipulation, but as a spiritual practice and a way of life. When we broaden our understanding of seduction it opens us to a new world of possibilities.
It is an act of making something so desirable that others find it impossible to resist.
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No longer is seduction only for the bedroom, it can be used in all areas of life. You can use seduction to get your kids to eat the veggies they are resisting, or seduce your family to go on a beach vacation for the holidays instead of the old routine. Seduction is not making someone do something they don’t want to do. It is an act of making something so desirable that others find it impossible to resist.
Seduction is holistic. It is about enjoying the whole journey of a desire from conception to completion.
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One of the places I learned the most about seduction was on stage performing burlesque, which I still do now and then as a hobby. Burlesque is a type of striptease, with heavy emphasis on the word tease. The point of the performance is not just a naked person, it is the enjoyment that comes from seeing how this person will go from being fully clothed to almost naked. If the performer was to just walk out in pasties and a G-string, there would be no point. It is the peel of the glove, the tension of a slowly pulled zipper and the peek of bare skin underneath. The conceal and then the reveal. The process is the point.
And so it is with seduction.
Let’s say you wish to bring your lover home a surprise of her or his favorite dessert. You enter the house with a box from the bakery and place it in the refrigerator, forbidding your dearest from opening it. All night, every time your lover opens the fridge she or he feels the electricity of surprise and desire.
You then instruct your lover to take a long bath or shower and when she or he enters the bedroom, the box is waiting there on the bed wrapped in a thick black ribbon. You give your significant other the satisfaction of slowly untying the ribbon, feeling the satin slide against itself as the bow falls open like a blossom. Then, you take the ribbon and playfully tie it in a blindfold around your lover’s eyes, further heightening the intensity of the tease. You open the box, taking your time. You retrieve just a bit of the dessert onto your fingertip and caress your lover’s lip.
To understand seduction a man must know how to be present and enjoy. He must be open about what he wants and listen closely to the desires of others.
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At this point, your partner’s entire body is straining with yearning to solve the mystery of what is inside that box. Finally, you place the first bite of dessert on your own tongue, and present your lover with the long awaited answer to this delicious riddle by means of a deliriously passionate kiss.
Now isn’t that better than getting home and yelling out “I brought dessert” as you hang up your coat in the closet?
Seduction allows us to slow down and savor life. To understand seduction a man must know how to be present and enjoy. He must be open about what he wants and listen closely to the desires of others. Seduction may or may not make you a better dad, a better boss, a better lover, but one thing is for certain: A man who practices seduction with consciousness inspires action.
Desire however, is hardly a straightforward formula. Desire is a Rubik’s cube that is constantly rearranging from one moment to the next. This is why seduction requires a keen awareness and willingness to play. If it were just as simple as giving someone the object of their desire, I’d be out of a job! It is not the prize that is the thrill, but the pursuit itself.
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Let’s say at work you need your team to finish a project in record time. By making it into a game where there is a prize for the whole team by finishing before the deadline, you have motivated your colleagues to do more than just their job. You have seduced them into happily pursuing the completion of this project as a team.
Or perhaps you wish to seduce your boss into giving you some time off during a busy season. Submitting a time-off request is one way to go about it. Another would be to acknowledge the busy-ness of the season and present her or him with a solid plan as to why this break will actually cause your work to flourish. Inform your boss of your plan to complete every project that is ahead of you, as well as how you will handle situations that come up in your absence. Information is power, in life and in seduction. And don’t forget to make a cheeky mention of the souvenir you will bring for the office when you return from your travels.
By giving permission to break the rules by eating with their hands, you honor the little inner rebel rather than trying to keep it in check.
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Let’s say you want your kids to eat the broccoli you just steamed, but they hate steamed broccoli. Punishment for not eating the broccoli and rewarding them if they do is one approach to having your desire fulfilled, but let’s look at it a different way: The way the broccoli is being presented is just not seductive enough to a kid. In order to seduce, we must first understand desire.
Take a moment to consider some of the things your kids love: play, fun and imagination are some of the things that come to mind. So what if you took those vegetables, added a little butter for flavor and arranged them on the plate in the shape of a mountain. Then tell the kids to sit down and close their eyes. Bring a grater to the table with a wedge of Parmigiano Reggiano. Start grating and have them open their eyes. It’s snowing on the mountains! Tell them they get to tell you when it stops snowing. And since you would never stick a fork in a mountain, you will let them eat with their hands, just this one time.
In this scenario you have tapped into several of your children’s desires: play, fun and imagination, but also independence and rebellion. By giving permission to break the rules by eating with their hands, you honor the little inner rebel rather than trying to keep it in check. In turn, the little rebel works for you by making broccoli consumption not just complicit but downright joyous! Happy you, happy kid.
Seduction is attraction in action. You want to inspire action? Make it really attractive. Desire, seduction, attraction – all it is is a game. The more often you play, and the more consciousness you bring to it, the more skilled and successful you become.
Go get em’ tiger.
Photo: Burke Heffner, courtesy of Kitty Cavalier
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Sorry for the double post., some bad keystroke took me off the page to a different tab, and then let me continue editing Again, social fear is my enemy. I do not want to be anonymous.
Jon, what I do is type my message on word, then I cut and paste it.
If you are manipulating people to get a desired result, how is that any different from what the PUA crowd teaches? It’s headgames either way.
Right. But a lot of sex is psychological. If head games are what some people want, then it is not our place to judge them. My partner (who is male) constantly wants me to do things to him, that I do not feel respectful, as the one doing them. But telling him what he wants is not respectful *of him*, is not my place, right? We need to be less defensive about this. There is no safe. Men are overly afraid of punishment, on all fronts. Not surprising, since the people we see in jails are men, because we punish… Read more »
Right. But a lot of sex is psychological. If head games are what some people want, then it is not our place to judge them. My partner (who is male) constantly wants me to do things to him, that I do not feel respectful, as the one doing them. (Maybe xs411, but I am suddenly the top, here, after much more even-handed sex in the past.) But telling him what *he wants* is not respectful *of him*, is not my place, right? We need to be less defensive about this. There is no safe. To my mind, men are overly… Read more »
Jon, I love this! “Making things more attractive can only add to the world, even when those things are yourself — even parts of yourself you might rather disown”
Hey Wes, I think that there is a difference between manipulation that is based in controlling the outcome and simply presenting something in a way that is desireable. The first preys on a persons insecurities and vulnerabilities and exploits them in order to get the result you want. The second is actually quite a collaborative experience, because it frees the person you are seducing to use their free will. An example would be my Mom. She texts me and sometimes it takes me a while to call her back. Lately she has been sending me love texts like “Dad and… Read more »
And if you lack experience at it, you’re a “creep”.
If you read the thing on social awkwardness, here, I think he nails it. You can tell inexperience from hidden aggression, and even from defensiveness about inexperience that has some implicit aggression hidden in it…
Creepy is a habit honed over time. Creeps are limiting their risk exposure by controlling their targets. The inexperienced are increasing their risk exposure, and when they fail, they take the hit.
I’ve read it and I disagree.
Calling someone a creep is often a subjective judgement, and it strikes me as a bit ridiculous to effectively insist that these claims are beyond question. As ever, SOP is to just assume the guy involved MUST just be being a misogynistic jerk.
Hi Oirish! Thanks for reading and commenting. I think it all comes down to one’s intention. When the intention is just to enjoy a person without controlling an outcome, that feels good for you and the person you are enjoying. When there is another agenda, that’s when things can feel creepy. 🙂
I agree there is a problem when people have agendas or boundaries are violated, absolutely. But a lot of people (typically men) are creep-shamed for simply not being very good with approaching women. That response doesn’t exactly help them break out of that rut either.
It is indeed a jungle out there, no matter how ya spin it! 🙂