s a child growing up in England, Charlie Chaplin spent years in dire poverty, particularly after his mother was committed to an asylum. In his early teens, forced to work to live, he landed a job in vaudeville, eventually gaining some success as a comedian. But Chaplin was wildly ambitious, and so, in 1910, when he was only nineteen, he emigrated to the United States, hoping to break into the film business. Making his way to Hollywood, he found occasional bit parts, but success seemed elusive: the competition was fierce, and although Chaplin had a repertoire of gags that he had learned in vaudeville, he did not particularly excel at physical humor, a critical part of silent comedy. He was not a gymnast like Buster Keaton.

In 1914, Chaplin managed to get the lead in a film short called Making a Living. His role was that of a con artist. In playing around with the cos-tume for the part, he put on a pair of pants several sizes too large, then added a derby hat, enormous boots that he wore on the wrong feet, a walk-ing cane, and a pasted-on mustache. With the clothes, a whole new charac-ter seemed to come to life—first the silly walk, then the twirling of the cane, then all sorts of gags. Mack Sennett, the head of the studio, did not find Making a Living very funny, and doubted whether Chaplin had a future in the movies, but a few critics felt otherwise. A review in a trade magazine read, "The clever player who takes the role of a nervy and very nifty sharper in this picture is a comedian of the first water, who acts like one of Nature's own naturals." And audiences also responded—the film made money.

What seemed to touch a nerve in Making a Living, setting Chaplin apart from the horde of other comedians working in silent film, was the almost pathetic naiveté of the character he played. Sensing he was onto something, Chaplin shaped the role further in subsequent movies, rendering him more and more naive. The key was to make the character seem to see the world through the eyes of a child. In The Bank, he is the bank janitor who day-dreams of great deeds while robbers are at work in the building; in The Pawnbroker, he is an unprepared shop assistant who wreaks havoc on a grandfather clock; in Shoulder Arms, he is a soldier in the bloody trenches of World War I, reacting to the horrors of war like an innocent child. Chaplin made sure to cast actors in his films who were physically larger than he was, subliminally positioning them as adult bullies and himself as the helpless in-fant. And as he went deeper into his character, something strange hap-pened: the character and the real-life man began to merge. Although he had had a troubled childhood, he was obsessed with it. (For his film Easy Street he built a set in Hollywood that duplicated the London streets he had known as a boy.) He mistrusted the adult world, preferring the company of the young, or the young at heart: three of his four wives were teenagers when he married them.

More than any other comedian, Chaplin aroused a mix of laughter and sentiment. He made you empathize with him as the victim, feel sorry for

The Natural • 59

him the way you would for a lost dog. You both laughed and cried. And audiences sensed that the role Chaplin played came from somewhere deep inside—that he was sincere, that he was actually playing himself. Within a few years after Making a Living, Chaplin was the most famous actor in the world. There were Chaplin dolls, comic books, toys; popular songs and short stories were written about him; he became a universal icon. In 1921, when he returned to London for the first time since he had left it, he was greeted by enormous crowds, as if at the triumphant return of a great general.

The greatest seducers, those who seduce mass audiences, nations, the world, have a way of playing on people's unconscious, making them react in a way they can neither understand nor control. Chaplin inadvertently hit on this power when he discovered the effect he could have on audiences by playing up his weakness, by suggesting that he had a child's mind in an adult body. In the early twentieth century, the world was radically and rapidly changing. People were working longer and longer hours at increasingly mechanical jobs; life was becoming steadily more inhuman and heartless, as the ravages of World War I made clear. Caught in the midst of revolution-ary change, people yearned for a lost childhood that they imagined as a golden paradise.

An adult child like Chaplin has immense seductive power, for he offers the illusion that life was once simpler and easier, and that for a moment, or for as long as the movie lasts, you can win that life back. In a cruel, amoral world, naivete has enormous appeal. The key is to bring it off with an air of total seriousness, as the straight man does in stand-up comedy. More im-portant, however, is the creation of sympathy. Overt strength and power is rarely seductive—it makes us afraid, or envious. The royal road to seduction is to play up your vulnerability and helplessness. You cannot make this ob-vious; to seem to be begging for sympathy is to seem needy, which is en-tirely anti-seductive. Do not proclaim yourself a victim or underdog, but reveal it in your manner, in your confusion. A display of "natural" weak-ness will make you instantly lovable, both lowering people's defenses and making them feel delightfully superior to you. Put yourself in situations that make you seem weak, in which someone else has the advantage; they are the bully, you are the innocent lamb. Without any effort on your part, people will feel sympathy for you. Once people's eyes cloud over with sentimental mist, they will not see how you are manipulating them.

2. Emma Crouch, born in 1842 in Plymouth, England, came from a re-spectable middle-class family. Her father was a composer and music profes-sor who dreamed of success in the world of light opera. Among his many children, Emma was his favorite: she was a delightful child, lively and flirta-tious, with red hair and a freckled face. Her father doted on her, and prom-ised her a brilliant future in the theater. Unfortunately Mr. Crouch had a dark side: he was an adventurer, a gambler, and a rake, and in 1849 he

abandoned his family and left for America. The Crouches were now in dire

straits. Emma was told that her father had died in an accident and she was

sent off to a convent. The loss of her father affected her deeply, and as the

years went by she seemed lost in the past, acting as if he still doted on her.

One day in 1856, when Emma was walking home from church, a well-

dressed gentleman invited her home for some cakes. She followed him to

his house, where he proceeded to take advantage of her. The next morning

this man, a diamond merchant, promised to set her up in a house of her

own, treat her well, and give her plenty of money. She took the money but

left him, determined to do what she had always wanted: never see her

family again, never depend on anyone, and lead the grand life that her fa-

ther had promised her.

With the money the diamond merchant had given her, Emma bought

nice clothes and rented a cheap flat. Adopting the flamboyant name of

Cora Pearl, she began to frequent London's Argyll Rooms, a fancy gin

palace where harlots and gentlemen rubbed elbows. The proprietor of the

Argyll, a Mr. Bignell, took note of this newcomer to his establishment—

she was so brazen for a young girl. At forty-five, he was much older

than she was, but he decided to be her lover and protector, lavishing her

with money and attention. The following year he took her to Paris, which

was at the height of its Second Empire prosperity. Cora was enthralled by

Paris, and of all its sights, but what impressed her the most was the parade

of rich coaches in the Bois de Boulogne. Here the fashionable came to take

the air—the empress, the princesses, and, not least the grand courtesans,

who had the most opulent carriages of all. This was the way to lead the

kind of life Cora's father had wanted for her. She promptly told Bignell that

when he went back to London, she would stay on alone.

Frequenting all the right places, Cora soon came to the attention of

wealthy French gentlemen. They would see her walking the streets in a bright pink dress, to complement her flaming red hair, pale face, and freckles. They would glimpse her riding wildly through the Bois de Boulogne, cracking her whip left and right. They would see her in cafes surrounded by men, her witty insults making them laugh. They also heard of her exploits—of her delight in showing her body to one and all. The elite of Paris society began to court her, particularly the older men who had grown tired of the cold and calculating courtesans, and who admired her girlish spirit. As money began to pour in from her various conquests (the Duc d Mornay, heir to the Dutch throne; Prince Napoleon, cousin to the Em-

peror), Cora spent it on the most outrageous things—a multicolored car-

riage pulled by a team of cream-colored horses, a rose-marble bathtub with

her initials inlaid in gold. Gentlemen vied to be the one who would spoil

her the most. An Irish lover wasted his entire fortune on her, in only eight

weeks. But money could not buy Cora's loyalty; she would leave a man on

the slightest whim.

Cora Pearl's wild behavior and disdain for etiquette had all of Paris on

The Natural • 61

edge. In 1864, she was to appear as Cupid in the Offenbach operetta Or-pheus in the Underworld. Society was dying to see what she would do to cause a sensation, and soon found out: she came on stage practically naked, except for expensive diamonds here and there, barely covering her. As she pranced on stage, the diamonds fell off, each one worth a fortune; she did not stoop to pick them up, but let them roll off into the footlights. The gentlemen in the audience, some of whom had given her those diamonds, applauded her wildly. Antics like this made Cora the toast of Paris, and she reigned as the city's supreme courtesan for over a decade, until the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 put an end to the Second Empire.

People often mistakenly believe that what makes a person desirable and se-ductive is physical beauty, elegance, or overt sexuality. Yet Cora Pearl was not dramatically beautiful; her body was boyish, and her style was garish and tasteless. Even so, the most dashing men of Europe vied for her favors, often ruining themselves in the process. It was Cora's spirit and attitude that enthralled them. Spoiled by her father, she imagined that spoiling her was natural—that all men should do the same. The consequence was that, like a child, she never felt she had to try to please. It was Cora's powerful air of independence that made men want to possess her, tame her. She never pre-tended to be anything more than a courtesan, so the brazenness that in a lady would have been uncivil in her seemed natural and fun. And as with a spoiled child, a man's relationship with her was on her terms. The moment he tried to change that, she lost interest. This was the secret of her astound-ing success.

Spoiled children have an undeservedly bad reputation: while those who are spoiled with material things are indeed often insufferable, those who are spoiled with affection know themselves to be deeply seductive. This be-comes a distinct advantage when they grow up. According to Freud (who was speaking from experience, since he was his mother's darling), spoiled children have a confidence that stays with them all their lives. This quality radiates outward, drawing others to them, and, in a circular process, making people spoil them still more. Since their spirit and natural energy were never tamed by a disciplining parent, as adults they are adventurous and bold, and often impish or brazen.

The lesson is simple: it may be too late to be spoiled by a parent, but it is never too late to make other people spoil you. It is all in your attitude. People are drawn to those who expect a lot out of life, whereas they tend to disrespect those who are fearful and undemanding. Wild independence has a provocative effect on us: it appeals to us, while also presenting us with a challenge—we want to be the one to tame it, to make the spirited person dependent on us. Half of seduction is stirring such competitive desires.

3. In October of 1925, Paris society was all excited about the opening of the Revue Negre. Jazz, or in fact anything that came from black America,

All was quiet again. (Genji slipped the latch open and tried the doors. They had not been bolted. A curtain had been set up just inside, and in the dim light he could make out Chinese chests and otherfurniture scattered in some disorder. He made his way through to her side. She lay by herself, a slight little figure. Though vaguely annoyed at being disturbed, she evidently took him for

the woman Chujo until he pulled back the covers.

• ... His manner was so gently persuasive that devils and demons could

not have gainsaid him.

• ... She was so small that he lifted her easily. As he passed through the doors to his own room, he came upon Chujo who had been summoned earlier. He called out in surprise. Surprised in turn, Chujo peered into the darkness. The perfume that came from his robes like a cloud of smoke told her who he was.... [Chujo] followed after, but Genji was quite unmoved by her pleas. • "Come for her in the morning," he said, sliding the doors closed. • The lady was bathed in perspiration and quite beside herself at the thought of what Chujo, and the others too, would be thinking. Genji had to feel sorry for her. Yet the sweet words poured forth, the whole gamut of pretty devices for making a woman surrender.... • One may imagine that

he found many kind promises with which to comfort her....

—MURASAKI SHIKIBU,

THE TALE OF GENJI,

TRANSLATED BY EDWARD G.

SEIDENSTICKER

62 • The Art of Seduction

was the latest fashion, and the Broadway dancers and performers who made up the Revue Nègre were African-American. On opening night, artists and high society packed the hall. The show was spectacular, as they ex-pected, but nothing prepared them for the last number, performed by a somewhat gawky long-legged woman with the prettiest face: Josephine Baker, a twenty-year-old chorus girl from East St. Louis. She came onstage bare-breasted, wearing a skirt of feathers over a satin bikini bottom, with feathers around her neck and ankles. Although she performed her number, called "Danse Sauvage," with another dancer, also clad in feathers, all eyes were riveted on her: her whole body seemed to come alive in a way the au-dience had never seen before, her legs moving with the litheness of a cat, her rear end gyrating in patterns that one critic likened to a hummingbird's. As the dance went on, she seemed possessed, feeding off the crowd's ecsta-tic reaction. And then there was the look on her face: she was having such fun. She radiated a joy that made her erotic dance oddly innocent, even slightly comic.

By the following day, word had spread: a star was born. Josephine be-came the heart of the Revue Nègre, and Paris was at her feet. Within a year, her face was on posters everywhere; there were Josephine Baker per-fumes, dolls, clothes; fashionable Frenchwomen were slicking their hair back a la Baker, using a product called Bakerfix. They were even trying to darken their skin.

Such sudden fame represented quite a change, for just a few years ear-lier, Josephine had been a young girl growing up in East St. Louis, one of America's worst slums. She had gone to work at the age of eight, cleaning houses for a white woman who beat her. She had sometimes slept in a rat-infested basement; there had never been heat in the winter. (She had taught herself to dance in her wild fashion to help keep herself warm.) In 1919, Josephine had run away and become a part-time vaudeville performer, landing in New York two years later without money or connections. She had had some success as a clowning chorus girl, providing comic relief with her crossed eyes and screwed-up face, but she hadn't stood out. Then she was invited to Paris. Some other black performers had declined, fearing things might be still worse for them in France than in America, but Josephine jumped at the chance.

Despite her success with the Revue Nègre, Josephine did not delude herself: Parisians were notoriously fickle. She decided to turn the relation-ship around. First, she refused to be aligned with any club, and developed a reputation for breaking contracts at will, making it clear that she was ready to leave in an instant. Since childhood she had been afraid of dependence on anyone; now no one could take her for granted. This only made impre-sarios chase her and the public appreciate her the more. Second, she was aware that although black culture had become the vogue, what the French had fallen in love with was a kind of caricature. If that was what it took to be successful, so be it, but Josephine made it clear that she did not take the caricature seriously; instead she reversed it, becoming the ultimate

The Natural • 63

Frenchwoman of fashion, a caricature not of blackness but of whiteness. Everything was a role to play—the comedienne, the primitive dancer, the ultrastylish Parisian. And everything Josephine did, she did with such a light spirit, such a lack of pretension, that she continued to seduce the jaded French for years. Her funeral, in 1975, was nationally televised, a huge cul-tural event. She was buried with the kind of pomp normally reserved only for heads of state.

From very early on, Josephine Baker could not stand the feeling of having no control over the world. Yet what could she do in the face of her un-promising circumstances? Some young girls put all their hopes on a hus-band, but Josephine's father had left her mother soon after she was born, and she saw marriage as something that would only make her more misera-ble. Her solution was something children often do: confronted with a hopeless environment, she closed herself off in a world of her own making, oblivious to the ugliness around her. This world was filled with dancing, clowning, dreams of great things. Let other people wail and moan; Jose-phine would smile, remain confident and self-reliant. Almost everyone who met her, from her earliest years to her last, commented on how seductive this quality was. Her refusal to compromise, or to be what she was expected to be, made everything she did seem authentic and natural.

A child loves to play, and to create a little self-contained world. When children are absorbed in make believe, they are hopelessly charming. They infuse their imaginings with such seriousness and feeling. Adult Naturals do something similar, particularly if they are artists: they create their own fan-tasy world, and live in it as if it were the real one. Fantasy is so much more pleasant than reality, and since most people do not have the power or courage to create such a world, they enjoy being around those who do. Re-member: 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. The key is to infuse your play with the conviction and feeling of a child, making it seem natural. The more absorbed you seem in your own joy-filled world, the more seductive you become. Do not go halfway: make the fantasy you inhabit as radical and exotic as possible, and you will attract attention like a magnet.

4. It was the Festival of the Cherry Blossom at the Heian court, in late-tenth-century Japan. In the emperor's palace, many of the courtiers were drunk, and others were fast asleep, but the young princess Oborozukiyo, the emperor's sister-in-law, was awake and reciting a poem: "What can compare with a misty moon of spring?" Her voice was smooth and deli-cate. She moved to the door of her apartment to look at the moon. Then, suddenly, she smelled something sweet, and a hand clutched the sleeve of her robe. "Who are you?" she said, frightened. "There is nothing to be

64 • The Art of Seduction

afraid of," came a man's voice, and continued with a poem of his own: "Late in the night we enjoy a misty moon. There is nothing misty about the bond between us." Without another word, the man pulled the princess to him and picked her up, carrying her into a gallery outside her room, sliding the door closed behind him. She was terrified, and tried to call for help. In the darkness she heard him say, a little louder now, "It will do you no good. I am always allowed my way. Just be quiet, if you will, please."

Now the princess recognized the voice, and the scent: it was Genji, the young son of the late emperor's concubine, whose robes bore a distinctive perfume. This calmed her somewhat, since the man was someone she knew, but on the other hand she also knew of his reputation: Genji was the court's most incorrigible seducer, a man who stopped at nothing. He was drunk, it was near dawn, and the watchmen would soon be on their rounds; she did not want to be discovered with him. But then she began to make out the outlines of his face—so pretty, his look so sincere, without a trace of malice. Then came more poems, recited in that charming voice, the words so insinuating. The images he conjured filled her mind, and dis-tracted her from his hands. She could not resist him.

As the light began to rise, Genji got to his feet. He said a few tender words, they exchanged fans, and then he quickly left. The serving women were coming through the emperor's rooms by now, and when they saw Genji scurrying away, the perfume of his robes lingering after him, they smiled, knowing he was up to his usual tricks; but they never imagined he would dare approach the sister of the emperor's wife.

In the days that followed, Oborozukiyo could only think of Genji. She knew he had other mistresses, but when she tried to put him out of her mind, a letter from him would arrive, and she would be back to square one. In truth, she had started the correspondence, haunted by his midnight visit. She had to see him again. Despite the risk of discovery, and the fact that her sister Kokiden, the emperor's wife, hated Genji, she arranged for fur-ther trysts in her apartment. But one night an envious courtier found them together. Word reached Kokiden, who naturally was furious. She de-manded that Genji be banished from court and the emperor had no choice but to agree.

Genji went far away, and things settled down. Then the emperor died and his son took over. A kind of emptiness had come to the court: the dozens of women whom Genji had seduced could not endure his absence, and flooded him with letters. Even women who had never known him in-timately would weep over any relic he had left behind—a robe, for in-stance, in which his scent still lingered. And the young emperor missed his jocular presence. And the princesses missed the music he had played on the koto. And Oborozukiyo pined for his midnight visits. Finally even Kokiden broke down, realizing that she could not resist him. So Genji was sum-moned back to the court. And not only was he forgiven, he was given a hero's welcome; the young emperor himself greeted the scoundrel with tears in his eyes.

The Natural • 65

The story of Genji's life is told in the eleventh-century novel The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu, a woman of the Heian court. The character was most likely based on a real-life man, Fujiwara no Korechika. Indeed another book of the period, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, de-scribes an encounter between the female author and Korechika, and reveals his incredible charm and his almost hypnotic effect on women. Genji is a Natural, an undefensive lover, a man who has a lifelong obsession with women but whose appreciation of and affection for them makes him irre-sistible. As he says to Oborozukiyo in the novel, "I am always allowed my way." This self-belief is half of Genji's charm. Resistance does not make him defensive; he retreats gracefully, reciting a little poetry, and as he leaves, the perfume of his robes trailing behind him, his victim wonders why she has been so afraid, and what she is missing by spurning him, and she finds a way to let him know that the next time things will be different. Genji takes nothing seriously or personally, and at the age of forty, an age at which most men of the eleventh century were already looking old and worn, he still seems like a boy. His seductive powers never leave him.

Human beings are immensely suggestible; their moods will easily spread to the people around them. In fact seduction depends on mimesis, on the conscious creation of a mood or feeling that is then reproduced by the other person. But hesitation and awkwardness are also contagious, and are deadly to seduction. If in a key moment you seem indecisive or self-conscious, the other person will sense that you are thinking of yourself, in-stead of being overwhelmed by his or her charms. The spell will be broken. As an undefensive lover, though, you produce the opposite effect: your vic-tim might be hesitant or worried, but confronted with someone so sure and natural, he or she will be caught up in the mood. Like dancing with some-one you lead effortlessly across the dance floor, it is a skill you can learn. It is a matter of rooting out the fear and awkwardness that have built up in you over the years, of becoming more graceful with your approach, less de-fensive when others seem to resist. Often people's resistance is a way of testing you, and if you show any awkwardness or hesitation, you not only will fail the test, but you will risk infecting them with your doubts.

Symbol: The Lamb. So soft and endearing. At two days old the lamb can gambol gracefully; within a week it is playing "Follow the Leader."

Its weakness is part of its charm. The Lamb is pure innocence, so innocent we want to possess it, even devour it.