The Art of Seduction

To seduce a woman is the most intoxicating journey a man will ever pursue, but it's not love

Photo by VENUS MAJOR on Unsplash

Fortunate men experience that moment of surrender.

While it's only happened to me a few precious times - like a flashbulb memory, I remember the exact words my first wife said to me in broken Portuguese-English, "My feelings for you have grew..."

But it wasn’t the words that made me weak in the knees and lit my soul on fire, it was the surrender in her eyes.

You know, that mysterious, unpredictable moment when you can feel someone losing themselves in your self-perceived greatness.

You know, the instant when all the funny jokes, all the deep stares, all the over-the-top compliments, all the monumental promises, crystallize into a whirlwind of hopes, dreams, and lust.

The moment when you know that consummation is just around the corner.

I can hear my close female friends screaming at me, “You misogynistic, throwback, nowadays, it’s women who are seducing men into subservience…not the other way around….grow the f*ck up.”

Fair enough.

A man who loses himself - surrendering his autonomy - once he’s under a woman’s spell is often called, “pussy whipped.” Implying it’s demasculating, degrading, and sickening to see someone change their principles, morals, ethics, and personality to stay in the good graces of someone for whom they are sexually addicted.

Is it possible that those who end up in a state of near-perpetual obedience and loyalty are the ones who come the closest to experiencing true love, regardless of the cost?

Do couples who stay together through thick and thin, by definition, have some kind of pathological dependence on each other?

Is the fear of losing someone an evolutionary emotion that separates us from behaving like wild animals?

As far as we know, only humans can fake love.

One definition of seduction is literally to convince someone to have sexual intercourse with you.

But I’m not talking about an intoxicating moment in a bar where a combination of lightheadedness and chemical euphoria combine to create what most call a one-night stand.

I’m talking about the kind of seduction that leaves us so unanchored from reality, so gaslit and brainwashed, that we forsake everything - our friends, our family, our careers, and our ability to think clearly, to avoid even the slightest chance that we will lose someone who we perceive as vital to our very sanity and well being.

Nobody can accurately predict where seduction will lead.

I have one particularly brilliant, dear female friend, who explicitly claims every man and woman should be taught at an early age - perhaps as part of sexual education in schools - to completely separate the euphoria we physically crave and experience when someone finds us attractive enough to want to have down and dirty sex, from what’s left after the sex gets repetitive and old, which - to some extent or another - means the person who once rocked your world with unimaginably orgasmic sex, ultimately becomes you best friend.

You know, the person who used to knock your socks off, but is now a little older or fatter or less physically flexible or attractive.

True love, this genius friend of mine claims, is how you feel every time you forsake temptation and force yourself to remain faithful to your spouse and family.

Every time we force ourselves to walk away from a potential sexual affair, she proclaims, we should be drenched in the same satisfaction we get from not smoking or drinking too much, or stuffing ourselves with that piece of cheesecake when we’ve already had to unbutton our pants from gluttony.

Said plainly, seduction is what animals do….peacocks unfurl their vibrant feathers….monkeys twerk, gorillas pounce.

But even animals who seem to be monogamous in the wild have been observed having “extra-marital” sex and then returning to their “spouses.” As if on some deep, physiological level, even less evolved mammals know the difference between sex and love.

Penguins rarely divorce over infidelity.

Over and over again, I witness married couples growing bored with each other, craving and seeking to quench their desires through raw sexual seduction, divorcing (or threatening to do so) only to repeat the same process of mistaking sex for love and sometimes wishing they had not strayed to begin with.

I sometimes feel that way.

What would my life be like if I had stuck it out?

Would I feel, like I suspect some of my long-married friends do - a deep sense of pride and satisfaction that comes with never giving up….no matter what?

Or, would I have sunk into a state of intense melancholy - even outright depression - by pretending to feel the way I did in the early stages of the marriage, despite both of us moving on emotionally, physically, and spiritually?

If you’re looking for some sage marriage advice, for the same reason you don’t ask a drunk how to stop drinking, it’s best not to ask someone twice divorced about how to stay married.

But I’ll tell you this, I am convinced down to my marrow that we are all in the process of discovering the difference between seduction and love.

Seduction is animalistic; love is human.

You can’t have both….forever.

Many people seem to know this. Thus, the idea is that you should date and have wild, uninhibited sex when you’re young, and settle for something more practical when it comes to marriage….is common.

Does it really matter if you marry someone for whom you’re initially drenched in sexual serotonin when you’ve already got that out of your system in high school, college, and in your twenties?

Is it better to approach a long-term relationship as more of a business proposition than something determined by Cupid’s arrow, since no one person will ever fully quench your sexual desires over the long run?

Is it truly possible to find someone who completes you?

We all know it is.

And we all strive for it.

For me, a man who turns 60 next year, I believe there is a way to have your cake and eat it too - to engage in the art of explosive, heart-palpating, seduction while simultaneously creating a narrow runway for a soft landing when the eros inevitably fades.

I also know from lived experience that divorce doesn’t ever completely erase the love created from that initial, absurdly powerful seduction.

In some ways, we are the sum of every emotional and sexual love affair we’ve ever had.

We carry our past with us.

Every seduction marks us.

Einstein perfectly defined love when he said, ‘Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.’

Sometimes, we transfer the love (energy) we once had for someone else into a new relationship.

And when we do, it enriches us in ways we don’t consciously understand….but know, on some level, is a tribute to those who’ve led us to where we are.

In that sense, true love is eternal….after all….if there is a heaven….we’re all ultimately reunited - the divorced, the remarried, the widowed, the forsaken, the one that got away, the one that made you feel alive, the one who had endless patience, and the one who forgave you - anyone and everyone who ever made our life rich and exciting and meaningful….you know, an energy that can never be destroyed.