Modes of Seduction
Jan. 14th, 2003 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapsedmodernistseveral modes of seduction:
1) The Ayn Rand seduction--successful when both parties have read "The Fountainhead" or "Atlas Shrugged." Since to those that have read them, those were often formative books, this fosters an immediate elitist bond. Plus, all that talk about granite quarries, and those phallic trains going into those tunnels, and the whole ideology of self-actualization. Sexy.
2) The e.e. cummings seduction. That's when someone recites e.e. poetry at you, starting with the light ones, and moving towards the more risque ones, while simultaneously moving their hand up your leg. The poetic equivalent of a "home run" in this progression is e.e. cumming's poem called "may i feel"
here it is:
may i feel
by e.e. cummings
may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)
may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she
may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she
but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she
(tiptop said he
don't sop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)
if performed in real time, the poem can progress from being metaphorical (i.e. "i am reading you this sexy poem because i want to fuck you AND i want you to think i am literary and witty, the poem he/she in the poem are the metaphor for you/me and what we should be doing!") to being acted out literally (i.e. "you are fucking me because I am literary and witty and you are proving it in the moment and the he/she in the poem become, metonymically, you and me")
3) The Leonard Cohen seduction. That's when a boy plays Leonard Cohen songs for you, tells you how the lyrics in one of them are really about sex, then says "wait, wait, I want to play you this song, it makes me think of you..." Followed by a *meaningful gaze* through the long eyelashes.
4) The Seduce-Me seduction. That's when a boy reclines on a piece of furniture somehwere in your hourse/apartment/dorm room with his hand vaguely in the vicinity of his crotch, making absolutely no advances towards you, and showing no sign of leaving, thus provoking you into doing anything at all to resolve this weird and uncomfortable impasse.
5) The Peace Corps seduction--the vaguely existential "I've been in these places/we are so privileged/yet there is joy and human spirit in the midst of poverty/this stone that I have around my neck on a hemp rope matches the color of your eyes/This powder is a powerful indigenous aphrodisiac, they say that if you take it with your soulmate, you will see stars...No, those are not glow-in the dark-constellations on my ceiling" seduction.
6)The Hemingway Seduction--drink a lot of cognac, abstractly talk about impotence, and also about bullfighting and toreadores in curt, concise, sentences. There is analogy with the Peace Corps seduction in the sense that there may be a Proppian adventure narrative in place, featuring traveling to exotic locales (like Barcelona or Morocco), but there is no homology, because the subtext of the PC seduciton is "the world is interconnected, let's be interconnected too," while the Hemingway corollary is "the world is alienating, life is a tale told by an idiot with the sound and the fury and the nothingness, we are all emotionally impotent, let's highlight the ironic state of affairs by engaging in some fleeting physical intimacy."
7) The Nabokovian Seduction--"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin. My soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. "
Some seductions can be hybrids that feature permutations of different elements endemic to different seductions. For example, the Leonard Cohen seduction can be alternately deployed together with the PC seduction, or the Hemingway seduction; The Ayn Rand seduction and the Hemingway seduction may target some overlapping demographic; the "seduce me" seduction can occationally flavor the PC seduction, either enhancing the sensitivity tip, or, depending on how it's played, conversely, adding mystery to an earnest hippie-type approach.
In the next installation, you will be familiarized with the lexicon pertaining to pomo genders and sexualities, with the ontogenesis and definition of commonly used terms, and also contexts in which they may be applied, and examples of the terms used in sentences. There may be a worksheet. I have not decided yet.
1) The Ayn Rand seduction--successful when both parties have read "The Fountainhead" or "Atlas Shrugged." Since to those that have read them, those were often formative books, this fosters an immediate elitist bond. Plus, all that talk about granite quarries, and those phallic trains going into those tunnels, and the whole ideology of self-actualization. Sexy.
2) The e.e. cummings seduction. That's when someone recites e.e. poetry at you, starting with the light ones, and moving towards the more risque ones, while simultaneously moving their hand up your leg. The poetic equivalent of a "home run" in this progression is e.e. cumming's poem called "may i feel"
here it is:
may i feel
by e.e. cummings
may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)
may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she
may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she
but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she
(tiptop said he
don't sop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)
if performed in real time, the poem can progress from being metaphorical (i.e. "i am reading you this sexy poem because i want to fuck you AND i want you to think i am literary and witty, the poem he/she in the poem are the metaphor for you/me and what we should be doing!") to being acted out literally (i.e. "you are fucking me because I am literary and witty and you are proving it in the moment and the he/she in the poem become, metonymically, you and me")
3) The Leonard Cohen seduction. That's when a boy plays Leonard Cohen songs for you, tells you how the lyrics in one of them are really about sex, then says "wait, wait, I want to play you this song, it makes me think of you..." Followed by a *meaningful gaze* through the long eyelashes.
4) The Seduce-Me seduction. That's when a boy reclines on a piece of furniture somehwere in your hourse/apartment/dorm room with his hand vaguely in the vicinity of his crotch, making absolutely no advances towards you, and showing no sign of leaving, thus provoking you into doing anything at all to resolve this weird and uncomfortable impasse.
5) The Peace Corps seduction--the vaguely existential "I've been in these places/we are so privileged/yet there is joy and human spirit in the midst of poverty/this stone that I have around my neck on a hemp rope matches the color of your eyes/This powder is a powerful indigenous aphrodisiac, they say that if you take it with your soulmate, you will see stars...No, those are not glow-in the dark-constellations on my ceiling" seduction.
6)The Hemingway Seduction--drink a lot of cognac, abstractly talk about impotence, and also about bullfighting and toreadores in curt, concise, sentences. There is analogy with the Peace Corps seduction in the sense that there may be a Proppian adventure narrative in place, featuring traveling to exotic locales (like Barcelona or Morocco), but there is no homology, because the subtext of the PC seduciton is "the world is interconnected, let's be interconnected too," while the Hemingway corollary is "the world is alienating, life is a tale told by an idiot with the sound and the fury and the nothingness, we are all emotionally impotent, let's highlight the ironic state of affairs by engaging in some fleeting physical intimacy."
7) The Nabokovian Seduction--"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin. My soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. "
Some seductions can be hybrids that feature permutations of different elements endemic to different seductions. For example, the Leonard Cohen seduction can be alternately deployed together with the PC seduction, or the Hemingway seduction; The Ayn Rand seduction and the Hemingway seduction may target some overlapping demographic; the "seduce me" seduction can occationally flavor the PC seduction, either enhancing the sensitivity tip, or, depending on how it's played, conversely, adding mystery to an earnest hippie-type approach.
In the next installation, you will be familiarized with the lexicon pertaining to pomo genders and sexualities, with the ontogenesis and definition of commonly used terms, and also contexts in which they may be applied, and examples of the terms used in sentences. There may be a worksheet. I have not decided yet.
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no subject
Date: 2003-01-14 03:46 pm (UTC)The seduction itself advances through a sort of bastard negative dialectic by which the boy refuses to seduce you because that would be bougie and instead talks about how a man must love the Revolution above and beyond anything else, and that love between a man and a woman is defined as the shared quest for justice and may in the meantime refer to his desire to find the "mujer de su gran viaje", during which if you mention the fact that revolutionaries he's mentioned up until now tended to have one in every guerilla intervention, he will either go pomosocialist and, well, you know, act out a hypermasculine overcome-by-passion change of subject which is somehow defined as subverting the "hegemonic" Antioch-fascist relationship regime or insist how moving it is when a woman sacrifices her (individual bougie) love to the Revolution. At that point the seduction ends because the seducer is smacked in the face (late but better than never) with his own copy of The Motorcycle Diaries.
yay! a worksheet!
Date: 2003-01-14 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 10:51 am (UTC)like, horn-rimmed glasses and too-short pants and "ironic" 80s clothing are pomo.
also, wanking about how things don't mean anything because nothing means anything and everything is text, and reducing everything to semantics--also pomo.
pomo is kinda like porn--you'll know it if you see it.
no subject
And thus academics needed to come up with the new sincerity. Heeeeeeee.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 08:44 am (UTC)This doesn't work if the song is "The Future." "Give me crack and anal sex" does not have a positive effect on most women.
Let's add the gayboy seduction. Boy shows up to dinner better dressed than girl, wearing a purple shirt and a beret, bonds with her about how men are all evil, and she begins to mistakenly see herself as the seducer with a tremendous challenge facing her--when in fact he's bi and has been wanting to eat her out since he first laid eyes on her. (Yes, I did use this. No, not on my current partner.)
no subject
Date: 2003-01-15 10:55 am (UTC)i guess there are 2 leonard cohen subcategories--cohen dark and cohen romantic.
dark is, like, the future, everybody knows, avalanche, etc. it's all about nihilism and fear and inability to love or hope.
romantic is suzanne, dance me to the end of love, light as the breeze, etc. it's all about being romantic and connected and rising above circustances, esp. when circumstances consist of empty bottles of cheap beer and an overturned ashtray.
it all depends on the mode of seduction.
sure, the gay-boy seduction works too. there are many variations on it. then there is the all-purpose-every-gender pick-up line: "i have been taking these women's studies courses and questioning my sexuality...can you help?" can be used by any gender on any gender.
i forgot to add
Date: 2003-01-20 01:34 pm (UTC)*there is a skinny puppy seduction... or at least a skinny puppy flavor to certain seductions. and i can guarantee you that anyone who 'had their life changed' by skinny puppy is inherently Really Wierd.
huh. this is fun.
Re: i forgot to add
Date: 2003-01-20 02:09 pm (UTC)I can totally see a Skinny Puppy seduction. I can also see a general-domain punk seduction. It's, like, Alineated and Angry but not in a Hemingway way.
I was also debating making a separate Edward Hopper seduction, but I think it will just have to be in the footnotes for the Leonard Cohen seduction.
And I really like the Holistic Seduction we came up with last night.
Wow, the possibilities are truly endless. This is henceforth a project in progress.
(Charlie)- The Pygmalian Seduction