Seduction
Seduction is the art of enticing or persuading someone to make choices that fulfill the desires of the seducer, and while it is often associated with romantic or sexual contexts, it can also apply to various other scenarios, such as business negotiations or personal relationships. In literature and the arts, seduction frequently serves as a theme explored through narratives of romance and desire. However, the concept extends beyond benign interactions; it can encompass manipulative behaviors that lead individuals to act against their own best interests. Historical and mythological references illustrate the complex nature of seduction, with figures like Cleopatra and Marilyn Monroe exemplifying how seduction can intertwine with power and tragedy.
Modern discussions of seduction often explore its darker implications, including forced seduction, which refers to rape, and the tactics of child groomers who use manipulative methods to exploit minors. In today's society, the availability of birth control and the prevalence of pornography have transformed how seduction is perceived and practiced. While some view seduction as a means of achieving pleasure and connection, others highlight its potential for exploitation and harm, particularly in the context of child abuse and predatory behaviors. Thus, seduction remains a multifaceted concept, capable of invoking both allure and danger across various cultural and social landscapes.
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Seduction
Seduction is the art of persuading or enticing another person to make choices that satisfy the individual who is doing the enticing. In literature and the arts, seduction is about persuading another person to engage in sex. However, seduction is not only limited to sex. A business offer can be seductive. Perks can seduce a potential employee to accept a job offer. In all cases of seduction, it is the wooing, cajoling, and appeal of the seducer that entices. Seduction lures, beguiles, and tempts a person to act not always in his or her best interests. In modern times, seduction is most often discussed in the context of romance and sex. Harlequin romance novels built a publishing empire based on seduction. Forced seduction is a pseudonym for rape of a woman. It is a genre of novels hinging on violence in the hope forced seduction will twist into permanent love. Scientific inquiry is exploring seduction as a subject of persuasive arts exploring behavioral change even in non-sexualized settings.
Background
Sigmund Freud introduced the "seduction theory" in 1896, positing that childhood sexual abuse caused hysteria and neurosis. He abandoned the theory a short time later. Nevertheless, his theory is a thread leading to the basic assumption in forced seduction. His theory also provides the principal ingredients in seduction: the causative impact of nurture; trauma assists in the assimilation of sexual feelings though they may be incompatible with the central mass of thoughts and feelings; and seduction is fulfilling when the seduced has unconscious memory of the seduction, leading the seduced to collaborate in the seduction. In management, one can analyze the cultural limits of knowledge and failure to innovate by the juxtaposition of leadership and seduction functions. Strong charismatic leaders seduce workers and followers into religious orders, political activism, and cults.
Violence can be seductive. Boko Haram terrorists in Africa are seduced into the group not for pay, but for freedom to rape and loot. Likewise, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists are seduced by the sense of mission and camaraderie and the opportunity to own sexual slaves. Women have been effective seductresses and targets of seduction in times of war throughout history. In Roman mythology, Mars seduced Venus with come-hither appeal. Lilith, in pre-biblical times, seduced Adam and was banished by God from Heaven and Earth. Potiphar’s wife tried unsuccessfully to seduce Joseph in Egypt, but he spent years in jail because of her false accusations. Delilah seduced Samson and weakened his power by subsequently cutting his hair as he lay sleeping. Salome had John the Baptist beheaded after performing a seductive dance.
Women’s wiles can make them sagacious spies. In Greek mythology, Circe turned men into swine. Cleopatra seduced invaders Julius Cesar and Mark Anthony. The seduction and suicide of Mariah Murray was a tragedy during the Civil War era. Mata Hari’s eroticism enshrined her place in history as a seductress extraordinaire stealing Allied secrets for the Germans in World War I. In the 1960s, Marilyn Monroe seduced politicians, crime bosses, movie moguls, and athletes, who invariably advanced her career. Seduction is a weapon used to save one’s people, prevent evil, advance one’s status, or create pleasure for the seducer. The consequences of seductions can be devastating. Murray, Cleopatra, and Monroe committed suicide. The French executed Mata Hari by firing squad.
Seduction Today
Seduction in the modern period has changed. Birth control is widely available. Mass media’s biggest topic is pornography. It desexualizes the most intimate relationships and eliminates the need for techniques of seduction. Many readers appreciate the great novelists who built stories on the design of seduction: Chaucer, Marlowe, Defoe, Keats, Byron, and Dickens. In an age of "how to" do things best—from cooking to exercise videos and books for Dummies—it is little surprising there are many handbooks for how to perform the art of seduction. Preying on people’s need for pleasure and self-assurance, one observer begins with the importance of choosing the right victim. Create a false sense of security, make the victim an object of desire, stir anxiety, insinuate oneself into the target’s life and spirit, create temptation, keep what comes next unknown to that person, sow confusion, and establish oneself in the Pierian line of seduction.
Seduction leaving victims in its wake was so prevalent in Ohio and other states that in 1886, Ohio made seduction illegal and punishable by up to ten years in prison or coercing some men into marrying their victims. Many US presidents seduced their secretaries, had mistresses, and one is alleged to have had a child out of wedlock. In the 1990s, President Clinton was impeached for seducing a White House intern and lying about it, but it did not stop him from a life in the public eye. A younger woman seduced a 2016 presidential candidate while he was still married, but it did not perceptively impact his campaign in a negative way. She went on to seduce her bodyguard, and the candidate divorced her. In 2010, a seductress and femme fatale, Anna Chapman, was arrested in New York for spying for Russia. She used her feminine wiles to lure men in government and big business.
The art of seduction can also be used for evil purposes. Seduction emotes a sense of effete airy promises, but there are evil people who employ seduction for the most heinous purposes—child abuse. Seduction is a favorite technique of abusers with its own strong emotions. Abusers—family members, teachers, and other persons of trust—befriend and build emotional ties with an underage child for the purpose of seducing the child into abusive sexual acts. Child grooming lures minors into trafficking for prostitution and pornography. Child groomers for sexual exploitation use the same methods of seduction given in "how to" examples to build trust in the child or young adult for the abuser. In the United States, it is illegal to use the mail, phones, or Internet to entice a minor for sexual activity. In the UK, just meeting a minor or befriending one for purposes of sexual activity then or in the future is a criminal offense. Seduction may be an immoral act, but child grooming is a predatory one considered in and of itself as violence against a minor.
Bibliography
"24 Rules of Seduction." Business Insider, 26 June 2021, www.businessinsider.in/latest/24-rules-of-seduction/slidelist/35905519.cms. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
Auriol, Emmanuelle, and Jean-Phillipe Plateau. "Religious Seduction in Autocracy: A Theory Inspired by History." Centre for Economic Policy Research, May 2016, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract‗id=2777545. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
Berger, Arthur Asa. The Art of the Seductress: Techniques of the Great Seductresses from Biblical Times to the Postmodern Era. San Jose: Writers Club Press, 2002. Print.
Bynum, Victoria E. "The Seduction and Suicide of Mariah Murray: A Civil War Tragedy." Ohio Valley History 15.1 (2015): 21-40. Web. 2 January 2025.
Calás, Marta B. "Voicing Seduction to Silence Leadership." Organization Studies 12.4 (1991): 567-601. Web. 22 Jan. 2025.
Giroux, Henry A., and Brad Evans. Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2015. Print.
Morabito, Stella. "A De-Sexed Society is a De-Humanized Society." Public Discourse. The Witherspoon Institute, 25 May 2016. Web. 22 Jan. 2025.
Singh, Ritu. "Ex-Russian Sex Spy Reveals How She Seduced Her Targets." www.ndtv.com/world-news/ex-russian-sex-spy-reveals-how-she-seduced-her-targets-its-about-psychology-of-men-5543281. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.