To seduce someone is to overwhelm them.  It’s to dangle a moment of rebellion where the seduced can put aside their reasonableness, their rationality, their adult responsibilities - and instead give in to the pleasure of falling bombastically for another human.

When we encounter someone who takes our breath away with a furtive glance, a whispered word, a show of skin, a promise of grandeur - it provides a welcome escape from the mundane and the monotonous.  It has a spiritual quality to it that delivers that jolt of adrenaline that we need sometimes to feel truly alive.

Seduction envelops every piece of art ever produced.  It is the home of romance and heartbreak, passion and aloofness, sex and lust, love and despair.  The ability to seduce is the ultimate power in a socially charged world - leaving money, influence and violence in its wake.

We all know what it feels like to be seduced.  History is littered with stories of dazzling women winning men over with only their sexuality, guile and femininity - bending them to their will.  It’s littered with stories of powerful men playing the hero to the damsel in distress, disarming them with charm, strength and power - exerting their dominance over their target.

And even if you don’t read history, you’ll find the prototypical seduction story in every song, film or piece of art that concerns human interaction.  It’s so deeply interwoven into the romanticisation of our mass media that it’s impossible to escape.  Girls grow up to learn that one day an impossibly good looking man who always has the perfect thing to say will burst into their lives to whisk them off their feet and deliver her a life worthy of her unique specialness.  Boys grow up groveling over scantily-clad women who can own space in their brains just with a bit of skin, face paint and suggestive gestures.  This is troubling, of course.

It seems obvious to me (but significantly under-discussed) that the media we consume dictates so much of how we experience the world and is not merely a mirror on reality - but an immutable self-fulfilling prophecy machine.

Thus, if we wish to instill certain ideals in our society, it is incumbent on us to investigate and understand what impact these portrayals are having on us.

We have to understand how we are being seduced.

This is not an attempt to moralise seduction or to ruin the party, per se.  There is the risk, of course, that shining a light on the merry jig does spoil the fun, like a comedian explaining their joke, or a magician revealing his trick.  But I think it’s an important enough topic to discuss - and I doubt my persuasive ability with these words will be able to stall the behemoth that is our desire for fantasy and romance.  

‘The Art of Seduction’ by Robert Greene is a book that synthesises the stories and strategies of the world’s greatest seducers throughout time.  In his own way, he lays out a set of principles that one should follow when attempting to seduce someone.  Like many of his books, it reads a lot like Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ with its unapologetic practical wisdom designed to help you get what you want.

At my most cynical, I might say that it reads as the literary source material for the ‘pick-up’ community that burst into mainstream media a couple of years ago.  (Mostly thanks to books like ‘The Game’). But then again, I don’t have much of a leg to stand on really, as I sit at home on a Saturday night reading a book about seduction, after my prospective date for the night canceled due to illness.

As I finished reading the book, the key takeaway was that, for someone like me, I would need to create a whole new personality in order to succeed in my seduction.  This is because the whole idea of ‘seducing’ someone is terrifying to me.  I don’t really identify as the kind of person who a woman might find seductive.  I’m not tall, dark or exceedingly handsome.  I don’t ooze sexuality.  I don’t have irrepressible confidence.  I don’t have a swimmer’s body.  So in order to seduce, if I am to go by this book, I must forge a new personality - a new story for myself.  I must become something that I am not.

Some of this image creation is exciting of course.  We all must strive to put on a brave face and become better than we were the day before.  We all do put our best foot forward in social situations because we know what is expected of us.  We all do ‘dress up for the camera’ as it were.

It’s liberating to put aside our own insecurities for a while and pretend like we have it all figured out.  We can play whatever role we want.  We can be the seducer if we want.  And if we know that that’s what we are doing, that it’s all just a mask - then it’s harmless fun.  Then it’s the catalyst for the seduction that we all have learned to love.  

The trouble comes when we take that mask too seriously.

“Remember, the role you were given in life is not the role you have to accept.  You can always live out a role of your own creation, a role that fits your fantasy.  Learn to play with your image, never taking it too seriously.” - Robert Greene

There is no better example of this than modern Instagram culture.

Instagram’s impact on our culture is hard to understate.  As the most powerful and relevant social media platform on the market right now, it consumes an incredible volume of time and attention, the world over.  It has become the de-facto online presence for a large portion of the world’s population.  It’s our online portfolio.

Instagram is modern seduction.  And if you don’t realise that, you can lose yourself pretty quickly.

For the most part, people use the app to win lovers, admirers, fans, customers, followers, friends and devotees.  We craft a perfect image of the life we want to portray, filtered to perfection and starved of any context that might break the spell.  We then sit back and wait for human psychology to do what it does best.

I’ve felt it myself.  Even though intellectually I understand that what I’m seeing is not a true reflection of that person’s life, I still feel the same envy, disillusionment, lust and sadness that I think we all do.  Everyone on my feed is better looking, more successful, happier, more cultured, more intelligent than me.  Our lives just don’t match up.

I have to constantly remind myself that what I’m seeing is not a fair comparison.  I am being seduced by a carefully crafted set of photos and videos - that brings me immediate pleasure but long-term pain.

I think we will look back on this one day and attribute a lot of the mental health concerns to this dichotomy.  The gap between real authentic expression and the mask I wear on Instagram is significant and is a drain on self-esteem for everyone.

I’m all for being seduced when I know it is happening and I’m willing to let myself go.  But if it’s happening below my subconscious, against my better judgment, then it’s something I need to keep an eye on.

I’ll leave you with a few recommendations on what you can do personally to mitigate against this:

1. Spend less time on Instagram.

2. Follow fewer scantily-clad models and more photographers/creatives/thinkers.

3. Make a commitment to share authentically yourself.  Be vulnerable where you can.

4. Remind yourself that what you see on your feed only represents a small portion of that person’s life.  Don’t be seduced by it.

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