Psychology of Seduction

by Jesse James

  CLINIC: The Casual Sex Shield

  Society frowns on women who give in to sex too quickly – we call them sluts. You may face strong resistance moving towards sex, a defensive barrier that pickup artists call the ‘Slut Shield,’ a rather crass term which I have renamed the Casual Sex Shield (CSS). Let’s examine a few workarounds for this defense.

  If a woman turns on the CSS, first of all, remain calm. Do not panic. If you are moving towards sex when the Shield goes up, back off fast. ‘Hey, just kidding, I’m not that easy,’ is one of my favorite recovery lines in this situation.

  You may also need to use what the pickup artist community calls the ‘freeze-out technique’ to crack the Shield. This works by exploiting the scarcity principle; we want what we can’t have. We also value something more when it was recently available and then plucked away than if it was rare all along.

  To employ the ‘freeze-out’ method, suddenly deny the woman your attention; act disinterested, check your email, turn on the television, pick up a book. She will often remove the Shield simply to renew your interest. Women, especially those with low self-esteem, crave male attention more than they crave sex. Their ability to withhold or bestow sexual favors gives them power, and they know it. Your ability to withhold or bestow attention gives you equal power. Use it.

  Manipulating a woman into casual sex before she is psychologically ready is often a terrible idea. She may feel slutty after sex, rightly associating you with her tarnished self-image. She may resent you for making her do something she didn’t really want to do. She might also lose interest because you were too fucking eager.

  Are you seeking a one-time encounter or a permanent booty call? This technique comes with a warning label; proceed with caution.

  Anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan discovered that a woman who perceives a male suitor as interested solely in no-obligation sex is more likely to dress provocatively and grant sexual favors than a woman who perceives a man as generally willing to invest in her future offspring.

  What does this mean for you? Act like you want casual sex. Put your wallet away. Do not buy her roses and gifts or even pay for dinner. From the initial approach to the bedroom, consistently portray yourself as interested in one thing only; a steamy sexual encounter.

  Women are more likely to have sex if they perceive the man as wanting a no-obligation encounter. Remember that a woman pursues two diametrically opposite mating strategies, often at the same time; the ‘he-man’ strategy and the ‘domestic bliss’ strategy. Women following the ‘he-man’ strategy seek good genes and casual sex, but not long-term commitment. Women pursuing ‘domestic bliss’ are more interested in the size of a man’s bank account than the size of his biceps; they are much less willing to engage in casual sex with a potential husband. By expressing your desire for no-obligation sex, you trigger a woman’s ‘good genes’ mating strategy. Enjoy your license to flirt. Act sexually aggressive, flirtatious, playful, and slightly sinister. Demonstrate your ‘cad’ personality. Girls love bad boys, especially for casual sex.

  Women who are most receptive to casual sex tend to be extroverts, open to new experiences of all kinds, such as tasting new ethnic foods, travelling to exotic places, and embracing a sense of adventure. It is much easier to seduce adventurous extroverts than quiet, shy introverts.

  Unfortunately, science suggests that beautiful women tend to be much less interested in casual sex, especially outside of a marital bond. In his seminal work ‘The Evolution of Desire,’ David Buss observed that ‘Women desire a lasting commitment, and the most desirable women are in the best position to get what they want.’70 In a new study by sociologist Elizabeth McClintock at the University of Notre Dame, researchers confirmed Buss’s judgment; less attractive women seek casual sex, while more attractive women avoid it. Humans are opportunists; we take what we can get. To a man who hasn’t eaten in seven days, even prison food might taste like Wolfgang Puck soup.71

  Specifically, McClintock found that physically attractive women are much more likely to form exclusive, long-term relationships than to form purely sexual relationships. For women, the number of sexual partners decreases with increasing physical attractiveness. For men, the exact opposite is true; increasing physical attractiveness correlates to a higher number of sexual partners. Overweight and physically unattractive women reported more casual sex encounters than good-looking women. McClintock also found that very attractive women are less likely than ugly ducklings to have sex within the first week of meeting a partner.

  What does McClintock’s research mean for short-term seduction? Bad news. Mystery and other pickup artists often advise their students to pursue the most beautiful women under the assumption that they receive less male attention (because men are afraid to approach them) and are therefore more receptive to advances. While this might be true, the pickup artist community fails to mention that such women are also much more resistant to casual sex, according to Elizabeth McClintock and other social psychologists. If you want to seduce a beautiful woman, expect to work hard; the prettier she is, the more she will resist casual sex. Extremely gorgeous women can make wonderful targets for longer-term seduction, but don’t expect to go home with a ‘10’ when the music stops playing.72

  TIP: Pick the Low Hanging Fruit

  Enhance your chances at seduction by identifying a woman seeking a casual sex partner. Women seeking no-strings-attached sex often engage in overt peacocking. Female peacocking is designed to attract the largest pool of potential mates from which to choose. Women will sexualize their appearance, wearing low-cut blouses revealing cleavage, shirts that expose bare shoulders or backs, short skirts, and tight outfits. Pay attention to female body language; casual sex signals include arching the back to draw attention to the breasts, leaning over to display more cleavage, extended eye contact, licking the lips and exaggerating the hip swivel while walking across a room.

  Domestic Bliss

  Not all guys want casual sex. Some men dream of a nice, stable, long-term relationship. Some folks even want marriage. Seriously. I’m not making this up.

  Women employ a different set of criteria when choosing a long-term mate than a casual fling. Following the so-called ‘domestic bliss’ strategy, women seek commitment, generosity, willingness to invest, wealth, domesticity, and stability in a long-term mate. Broad shoulders and V-shaped torso are always great fun, but much less important in a husband than a fat wallet and emotional commitment.

  Along with many species of birds and primates, high male parental investment (MPI) characterizes the human species. MPI is a fancy way of saying that the males of the species invest heavily in raising the young.

  Women value gifts such as flowers and exorbitant dinners as signs of the man’s commitment. Consider the engagement ring; it is the man who presents the ring to the woman, not the other way around, as a token of his enduring love and commitment to invest in her future and the future of their offspring. Women want the most expensive ring the man can afford, symbolizing his long-term generosity.

  Exploiting the ‘domestic bliss’ strategy is easier than exploiting the ‘he-man’ strategy. You don’t need to transform yourself into a ‘he-man’ or work out at the gym six hours a day. You do need to make some bling and show a willingness to invest it in the girl of your dreams. This means flowers, chocolates, and thoughtful gifts. Bigger gifts are not necessarily better; you can’t just bribe your way into the promised land. Make sure your gifts are thoughtful and tailored to the woman you are targeting. Every girl loves flowers and chocolates, but also consider tickets to her favorite band, a spa pass, and gifts specific to her interests or hobbies.

  In considering your ‘application’ for a long-term relationship, the woman will also carefully scrutinize your personality. If you’re not funny, you better get funny. Watch comedies, learn some one-liners, try to be more lighthearted. Nothing turns a woman on more than humor. Women want a long-term partner who is stable and calm, not given to emotional outbursts. Ot
her traits women look for in a husband are honesty, loyalty, integrity, openness, intelligence, and generosity. Work on building these traits in yourself – a kind of ‘inner game.’ Not only will these positive attributes help you with women, but they will also bring positive energy to every other aspect of your life.

  PART II:

  The Psychology of Attraction

  Kevin Kelly lived an unusual life (and he’s still living). The founding editor of Wired Magazine, Kelly has previously been a writer, photographer, conservationist, and pontificator on digital culture. Kelly is, in a word, highly versatile and immensely successful.

  But it wasn’t always so. When he was 27 years old living as a freelance journalist in Jerusalem, Kelly found himself locked out of his hostel. With nowhere to go and only a few dollars in his pocket, he curled up on the street for the night. Little did he know at the time, he slept in the same spot where Jesus was crucified. Hallelujah – Eureka! When he woke up the next morning, he had a ‘religious experience,’ vowing to live as if he would die in six months. He gave away all of his money and possessions, returning to Jerusalem six months later to ‘die’ on Halloween. He was reborn.

  Kevin Kelly’s story is a tale about new beginnings, starting over from scratch, and re-inventing himself. He went on to achieve tremendous success in life after purging his old Self, the inhibitions and weaknesses that were holding him back. I want you to write your own story about new beginnings. And the story begins, of course, with you.

  T.S. Elliot said that ‘For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.’ Forget your past failures in relationships, dating and seduction. The past is behind you; the future is an open book yet to be written.

  Chapter 6

  Why Do Women Have Sex?

  ‘There’s lots of good fish in the sea …maybe …but the vast masses seem to be mackerel or herring, and if you’re not mackerel or herring yourself, you are likely to find very few good fish in the sea.’

  - D.H. Lawrence, “Lady Chatterly’s Lover”

  Why do women have sex? From the male perspective, this seems like a moot point; to have fun, to have an orgasm. But there is more to it than that.

  While women like to experience orgasm as much – or more – than men do, the desire for sexual orgasm ranks midway on the list of reasons women have sex. According to Cindy Meston, who wrote the book ‘Why Women Have Sex,’ women engage in sexual intercourse for a whopping 237 different reasons. Not 235 or 238, but exactly 237. (If someone wrote a book called ‘Why Men Have Sex,’ it would be about 1 sentence long.) Answering the question ‘why do women have sex?’ is like unraveling the Da Vinci code of seduction.

  The Groupie Syndrome

  Amidst the lush tropical rainforest of the Lola Ya Bonobo Sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, scientists study the behavior of one of our closest relatives, bonobos. Bonobos are notorious for having sex, and lots of it, pretty much all the time. Described as the ‘sexiest primates alive,’ the average bonobo makes the Whore of Babylon look like a prude.

  Bonobos, apparently, are natural libertines. Researchers at the Bonobo Sanctuary discovered that females use homosexual sex as a means to boost their social status within the monkey troop. They found that low-status females interacted with all females, frequently initiating sex with higher-ranking females. High-ranking females, however, rarely initiated contact with other high-ranking females. Furthermore, ‘copulation calls’ of squeals and screams by a low-status female were much louder and more pronounced when her partner enjoyed higher status or in the presence of an alpha-female. Such calls provide a means for the low-ranking female to draw attention to her sexual contact with a higher-status member of the troop, thereby improving her own rank.73 Copulation calls ‘have become ritualized, beyond their reproductive function, to serve as broader social signals in flexible and potentially strategic ways.’74

  Bonobo females trade sex for status. ‘These females are climbing social ladders,’ explains researcher Zanna Clay.75

  Something like this occurs every night on the Hollywood Strip. Human females, like bonobos, leverage their sex appeal to boost their status. Women seldom visit bars or nightclubs alone; they travel in groups. Why? Because the nightclub represents the long-lost Pleistocene social scene, where women can embrace their female nature by competing amongst themselves for the most handsome, high status males. Women prowl the clubs on Saturday night not so much to ‘hook up’ with men, but to compete with other women, especially their friends. Mating with high status males raises their social standing within the group. Sex is just an afterthought, a way of keeping score. Women who prevailed over their rivals by accessing the most desirable men enjoyed a variety of reproductive benefits including economic support, a provider husband, or good genes for the woman’s offspring.

  Women use sex to boost their social status, outdoing their rivals. Young female ‘groupies’ compete for the opportunity to sleep with a high-status musician or rock star. Monica Lewinsky bumped her status by giving oral pleasure to the top dog in the White House. Even the ghostly-pale, oddball-looking Julian Assange enjoys myriad sexual encounters springing from his high profile status as founder of Wikileaks.

  Females compete fiercely in the social arena. The truism ‘men hunt, women forage’ conjures up visions of bloodied, thick-chested men hurling spears on the warpath while women passively lounge around camp, picking berries and changing diapers. Although women performed essential domestic duties, they spent the bulk of their time competing for status with other females in a desperate bid to climb the social ladder. Men roamed for days or weeks on military and hunting campaigns, while women remained in camp with the children, jockeying for social position through subtle maneuvering, gossip, innuendo – all designed to assault the reputation of other women. By lowering the status of other females and raising her own, the Pleistocene-era Kim Kardashian hoped to gain a better mate.

  Distinguished American psychologist Martha McClintock proved in the early 1970s that pheromones help synchronize the ovulation cycles of young women living or travelling together. Dubbed the ‘McClintock Effect,’ synchronous ovulation appears to be an evolutionary adaption ensuring fair female competition for men.76 My girlfriend experienced this strange phenomenon when she travelled to Europe for six months with four close female friends. She reported that within two months, their menstrual cycles had completely synchronized. For all their bodies knew, they were still living on the African savannah, competing for the most desirable males.

  Women compete even more fiercely when ovulating. ‘When women kiss it always reminds me of prizefighters shaking hands,’ observed H.L. Mencken. During the fertile phase of a woman’s cycle, mating decisions become most consequential and mistakes most costly. Beating out rivals pays more reproductive dividends than cooperating to gather fruit. In one ground-breaking study, researchers found that women judge other females less attractive around ovulation. Scientists asked ovulating women to view photographs of attractive local females, then offered them a chance to buy clothing and beauty accessories. Subjects who were shown photos of attractive local women bought sexier products than those who were shown photos of less attractive women or women who live far away. ‘Not unlike the chimps featured on the Discovery Channel,’ claim the scientists, ‘women become more competitive with other females during the handful of days each month when they are ovulating. The desire for women at peak fertility to unconsciously choose products that enhance appearance is driven by a desire to outdo attractive rival women.”77

  Women do not have female friends; women have friendly rivals. Consider again the disparate historical roles of males and females; men forged real friendships to cooperate on dangerous hunting expeditions or fight together in deadly serious warfare. Failure to cooperate meant failure to survive, so the male mind evolved an apparatus for deep, long-lasting bonds. Women required no such friendship module to surv
ive because they did not band together for hunting or warfare. Instead they loitered around camp, waiting for the men to return, tending to the children, picking berries, making crafts, and jockeying for social status in the nonviolent ways at which women excel – innuendo, gossip, peacocking.

  A woman often attacks a rival’s sexual reputation to lower her competitor’s social status. While young men in school rendezvous after class for fisticuffs to sort out their alpha pecking order, young women congregate at the mall, trading gossip and often branding an unfortunate classmate as a ‘slut’ to assault her reputation, thereby lowering her status. In a scene straight out of Survivor, I recall an incident from high school when Seniors passed a note around school which read ‘Jennifer is slut, she slept with the whole football team.’ Even her closest friends abandoned her, and she remained a pariah for the rest of the year. Cindy Meston explains that ‘Derogation of a rival’s sexual reputation has a very specific function: to render the rival less desirable to other women as a friend and to long-term mates as a sexual partner. In reproductive competition, a rival’s loss has benefits. A woman who limits her rival’s mating opportunities by impugning her sexual reputation simultaneously increases her own mating opportunities.’78

  The ‘slut’ label puts a girl in a difficult situation because there is no easy way to refute the charge. The allegation can lower her social status, damaging her opportunity for securing a boyfriend or long-term partner. Little wonder, then, that girls rarely discuss their own sexual behavior or desires even amongst their closest friends. While boys in the locker room graphically detail encounters with cheerleaders on Saturday night, young women rarely admit to more than thinking a guy is ‘cute.’ Sexual behavior and feelings represent the most risky confidences among female friends because of the high chance for gossipy betrayal.