Psychology of Seduction

by Jesse James

  CLINIC: Aphrodisiac Foods

  If you want the main event to follow the main course, think carefully about what you will order for yourself and your date. Avoid heavy foods like red meat or lasagna, which are difficult to digest, diverting blood flow from your nether regions to your stomach. The ideal meal should be light, consisting of aphrodisiac super-foods that will prepare both of you for sensuality later in the night. When examining the menu, consider the following foods:

  Hot chillies

  Capsaicin, the chemical that burns your mouth when you eat fiery peppers, increases and stimulates nerve endings, heightening arousal.

  Asparagus and Avocadoes

  These foods contain an abundance of vitamin E that helps your body produce hormones like testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone, which stimulate sexual responses such as clitoral swelling and vaginal lubrication.

  Chocolate

  Cocoa beans contain phenylethylalanine, the so-called ‘love molecule.’ PEA triggers feelings of attraction and desire, especially in women.

  Oysters

  Oysters are teeming with zinc, a mineral that boosts testosterone production, resulting in increased sex drive. Shucking oysters can help you avoid an ‘aww, shucks’ kind of night.

  Red wine

  In small to moderate quantities, alcohol lowers inhibitions and increases libido. Red wine also contains resveratrol, an antioxidant that boosts blood flow and circulation, stimulating certain (lower) areas of the body. Red wine should grace the table of every dinner date.

  Salmon

  This superfood fish is packed with omega-3 fatty acids, increasing sex hormone production.

  Walnuts, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds

  These healthy seeds (and nuts) contain the same omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon, with similar hormone-boosting effects. A light salad dressed with healthy seeds can dramatically boost a woman’s sex drive.

  Vanilla

  After the main course, vanilla ice cream (preferably non-dairy) or vanilla-flavored desserts help stimulate nerve endings, making sexual sensations later in the night feel even better.

  The Big O

  ‘The majority of women, happily for them and for society, are not very much troubled with sexual feeling of any kind.’

  – Lord Acton

  The good Lord Acton must have known very different women than I’ve met in my life. Women may have more reasons for sex than men, but the standard Victorian narrative that men enjoy sex more than women is, in a word, bullshit.

  In fact, women are much more capable of enjoying sex than men, having bodies designed for multiple orgasms. The centuries-old mythology surrounding the female lack of libido is simply a myth perpetuated by males to control, subjugate and manipulate the opposite sex. The asexual female is truly a ‘woman that never existed,’ except perhaps in the minds of manipulative males. Don’t believe it.

  ‘Any marriage counsellor will tell you the most common sex-related complaint women make about men is that they are too quick and too direct. Meanwhile, men’s most frequent sex-related gripe about women is that they take too damned long to get warmed up. After an orgasm, a woman may be anticipating a dozen more. A female body in motion tends to stay in motion. But men come and go. For them, the curtain falls quickly and the mind turns to unrelated matters.’ 89

  For men interested in seduction, the lesson is clear; if you want a women to keep coming back for second helpings, you must learn the art of sexual pleasure. For starters, understand the anatomical differences between men and women; females take longer to become aroused, but once ‘in the mood,’ they can become ravenously sexual, with appetites far exceeding Ron Jeremy. Men, on the other hand, are easily aroused, but quickly grow bored following ejaculation. After blowing a load, we males may cuddle reluctantly to please the woman, but our hearts are seldom in it; we would rather turn on the hockey game, or turn over and go to sleep.

  While the ‘art of sex’ is beyond the scope of the present book, aspiring seducers should spend some time learning how to give sexual pleasure to the opposite sex. For starters, in the words of Mallory Knox, ‘don’t be so fucking eager.’ Take your time. Tease. Play. And, for God’s sake, avoid becoming a Minute Man! The ability to control ejaculation, and lengthen the woman’s sexual experience, is critical for giving pleasure.

  CLINIC: Ten Ways To Please a Woman in Bed

  Go Down on Her

  Basic stuff, but not every man favors the bushwhack.

  Turn Up the Romance

  “As sappy as this sounds, the whole petals on the bed and candles all around thing? It’s so romantic, and romance is the ultimate turn-on.”

  —Amber, 22 90

  Slowly Undress Her

  “Instead of just taking our clothes off ourselves, I wish my guy would slowly remove mine and take in every inch of my naked body as he sees it. Feeling that he’s getting excited with every piece of clothing that comes off is so sensual—in fact, he should tell me just how excited he is every step of the way.”

  —Becca, 23 91

  Have Sex in a Public or Semi-Public Place

  Most women dream of the danger and risk associated with sex in a public place; unleash your passion in an elevator, restaurant bathroom or (for the uber-bold) a subway car. Indecent exposure? Maybe so.

  Be the Boss

  Women secretly want a ‘man in charge’ in the bedroom, even if it is politically incorrect to admit it publicly. Dish out orders. Tell her what you want her to do. Take control. “I like it when a man takes charge in the bedroom—when he tells me exactly what he wants me to do to pleasure him. It doesn’t have to be forceful, just simple, like when he pushes my hands over my head, or tells me to get on my knees. Half of my pleasure is pleasing him.”—Erin, 29 92

  Get Crazy With Chocolate and Whip Cream

  Women love novelty and play when it comes to sex. Step out of your usual routine; cover her stomach with whip cream and chocolate, then lick it off. Tell her to do the same to you. She’ll love it.

  Kiss, Kiss, Kiss

  Kissing should be more than just foreplay; even during sex itself, ravenous kissing keeps a woman turned on.

  Attack Her

  In a good way! Every woman dreams of spontaneous, ravenous, passionate sex. “Surprise me! Almost every woman’s fantasy is just to have a man that wants her so bad he picks her up, throws her down somewhere, rips off her clothes and has his way with her. We want you to want us so bad you just absolutely have to go for it. Spontaneous, passionate sex is so manly and sexy!”—Krystal, 30 93

  Talk Dirty

  Women love sexy, dirty, naughty talk; whisper it in their ear, and use your imagination!

  Rough It Up

  I am NOT talking about date rape! But women often dream of aggressive, rougher sex than they usually receive, especially from their regular partner. Blindfolds, handcuffs and gentle spanking can spice things up in the bedroom. Know her limits, and ask her well in advance if she’s into that.

  Your Nose Wobbles When You Laugh

  An attractive young college girl sits alone at a bar. She may be waiting for a friend, enjoying the music or simply winding down from a long day of classes. A middle-aged man walks past, glances back over his shoulder, then does a U-turn and plops down next to her. Slightly nervous and unsure of himself, he appears a little geeky and awkward. ‘Your nose wobbles when you laugh,’ he tensely blurts out.

  Confused, the woman turns toward the strange man, furrows her brow, and asks ‘what did you say?’

  Heart racing and palms sweating, the awkward nerd tries another line from the seductionscience.com website: “You are young and fun-loving, that gives you 10 points. Then you are blonde, that gives you five points. At 20 points you get my phone number.”

  ‘Buzz off,’ says the girl, as she gets up and moves three seats away from him. ‘You’re a creep.’

  In one last-ditch attempt, sweating and desperate, Joe remembers another line he found in a pickup artist forum: ‘You make my
floppy disk turn into a hard drive.’

  Poor Joe - let’s call him Nerdy Joe. It’s almost like he was driving a car that became stuck in the mud, slamming the gas pedal to the floor in a hopeless bid to escape the quagmire, the wheels spinning helplessly in the muck.

  Why did Joe insult a woman he had just met? The ‘negging’ phenomenon traces back to the ‘pickup artist’ subculture which arose during the 1990s, blown wide open to the mainstream with the release of Neil Strauss’s fabulous book ‘The Game.’ (The Game won’t help you pick up girls, by the way, but it is a fun read.)

  Why would anyone believe that an insult could translate to sex? Who made that perverse promise, anyway?

  In order to understand why negging works or doesn’t work, we need to understand more about why women have sex.

  According to attraction researcher Cindy Meston (who literally wrote the book on why women have sex), women engage in intercourse partly to boost their self-esteem. Who doesn’t love a good ego boost every now and then?

  Unlike men, women attach tremendous importance to their physical attributes. Female self-esteem is inexorably bound up with their perceived attractiveness to the opposite sex. Studies show that specific body attributes such as waist, thighs, and hips impact a woman’s self esteem because appearance provides bountiful cues to fertility.

  Sex can provide a rush of self-confidence for a woman by making her feel sexier. Some women enjoy sex simply for the ego trip.

  In fact, sex is directly linked to self-esteem. Intimate encounters in the bedroom boost confidence, both psychologically and physiologically from the release of hormones such as oxytocin and vasopressin. Both genders experience a deep psychological connection between sexuality and self-image. Male self-esteem plummets after a bout of impotence. In the ancestral environment, a man’s ‘failure to launch’ would have jeopardized his ability to reproduce. Females need not ‘get hard,’ but they do need to look good relative to other females in order to attract the best quality males. Not surprisingly, female self-esteem nosedives as they view more and more images of beautiful models on TV and in magazines.

  Young women, especially, tend to suffer from chronic low self-confidence. Magazines like Cosmopolitan and blogs like Just Jared feature emaciated, long-legged women with artificial breasts wearing the most revealing outfits. The average young girl cannot – and should not – live up to such media ideals. And yet this failure to achieve ‘model perfection’ creates a major self-esteem issue in the majority of young females.

  Promiscuity increases as young women seek to raise their self-esteem by re-affirming their sexual attractiveness. Posting racy photos to Facebook is one way to boost the ego. Another way is sex.

  I believe a savvy and determined researcher could link the increase in young female promiscuity over the past fifty years to the increasingly ubiquitous portrayal of tall, thin supermodels as the female ideal sprayed all over the mass media in films, websites, blogs, magazines and online videos. For young women, the message is clear; lose weight, plaster your face with makeup, get a boob job. Otherwise, men will not find you attractive; kiss your self-esteem goodbye.

  In an environment of depressed female self-esteem, sex offers women tremendous benefits as a confidence booster. Intercourse re-affirms a woman’s sex appeal, increases her perceived mate value, provides the confidence needed to trade up to a better partner, and confirms her sexual power.

  Exploiting a woman’s desire for ego-boosting sex seems straightforward; complement her appearance, stroke her ego, admire her pretty earrings and off come the clothes. Dead wrong. The trick is to do exactly the opposite. A woman with low self-esteem will not believe a man who lavishly extols her. He can sing her praises till the sun don’t shine, but she will only hear lies. She will know he is trying to manipulate her into sex. Game over, rover

  Low female self esteem represents the psychological underpinning of the much-ballyhooed ‘neg’ opener, popularized and heavily elucidated by the Maestro of Pickup, Mystery.

  A ‘neg’ is a minor derogatory comment, not too serious or disparaging – just enough to make a woman feel self-conscious. For example, during a cold approach, a man might open with a classic neg such as ‘How brave of you to wear an outfit like that.’ Pickup artist guru David D’Angelo reminds us that negs must be delivered in a ‘cocky funny’ manner or else we have another word for them - insults. Negs require a bold approach; how many men would dare poke fun of a beautiful woman straight to her face? The ‘negger’ has big kahunas. Ballsy is sexy.

  In an online discussion, a woman named Larissa claimed that negging ‘worked on me when I was 18 and a dumbass. It would never work on me as a mature adult.’ Uh huh. ‘Here’s the thing, negging women will only succeed with women who are immature enough/inexperienced enough/have low enough self esteem to put up with it,’ Larissa continued. ‘Unfortunately a lot of those women exist, and those are also the women that end up with “jerks and douches.” If that’s the sort of woman a man wants to find.. neg it up. But know that somehow, in a mild way, you’re taking advantage of her insecurities.’94

  Do negs really work, or is this some sort of urban pickup legend? Psychologists wanted to find out.

  Indeed, negging enjoys some limited scientific support. Elaine Hatfield conducted an experiment on the campus of Stanford University in 1965 demonstrating that a woman becomes more attracted to a man when her self-esteem is injured. Experimenters cleverly (and, hopefully, temporarily) lowered a woman’s self esteem, asking her to rate the attractiveness of a male student. Dr. Hatfield discovered that women whose self-esteem had been lowered during the experiment felt greater attraction to the man than women whose self-esteem had been raised. Since negging lowers a woman’s self-esteem, it should increase her attraction to the negger.95

  Maybe, maybe not. Professor Michael Cunningham at the University of Louisville sent his students into bars and clubs to flirt with people using three different types of pickup lines; innocuous, direct, and cute/flippant (a kind of neg). Guess what worked best?

  Sorry, Mystery. Men using the direct approach enjoyed the most success. The opener ‘I feel a little embarrassed about this, but I’d like to meet you’ scored highest success rate at 82%, with ‘success’ being defined as the recipient’s willingness to continue the dialogue.

  The innocuous approach worked second best. The simple ‘Hi’ scored 55% and the harmless question ‘what do you think of this band?’ rated 70%.

  The neg struggled. Cute-flippant scored last with only 20% of women responding positively to the pickup line ‘Bet I can outdrink you.’

  In another study, Christopher Bale at University of Edinburgh examined other innocuous pickup lines. ‘Want me to carry that for you?’ scored well at the grocery store, while ‘could you help me pick out a gift for a friend?’ enjoyed success at various retail outlets. The pickup line ‘It amazes me that Van Gogh painted this at Saint-Remy’ displays intelligence, ranking well at an art gallery. Again, negs failed to live up the hype.96

  A simple ‘hi’ with a light touch on the arm worked well in all of Dr. Cunningham’s studies, although it lacks creativity. Performing even slightly better in another study was ‘I feel a little embarrassed about this, but I’d like to meet you.’ Context-specific pickup lines such as ‘What do you think of the band?’ also made a good impression.

  How important are pickup lines? Not very. As long as you don’t say something stupid or make fun of her hair, the quality of the pickup line probably doesn’t matter too much. Women pay more attention to nonverbal signals. Your body language and aura of confidence trumps any words spilling out of your mouth. A casual ‘hey, how’s it going?’ works fine in almost any situation.

  Scripted and canned openers sound scripted and canned. Unless you’re a professional pickup artist like Mystery or Neill Strauss with ten thousand hours of experience, delivering scripted pickup lines will often make you seem awkward and uncomfortable. Instead, use natural, non-threatening and non-neg
ative conversation to approach women.

  The PUA using scripted lines almost always flames out. Consider this exchange between a PUA and his online ‘victim:’

  PUA: ‘lol, you look like a space commando’

  GIRL: ‘I’ve heard that one before.’

  They say everything has been done under the sun …

  In the 2012 study titled ‘The Dating Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Emerging Science of Human Courtship,’ psychologists Nathan Oesch and Igor Miklousic evaluated the most common pickup artist techniques, including the infamous ‘neg.’ They found that ‘there is currently no direct evidence that “negging” is universally effective.’97

  Consider the chart below showing the best and worst pickup lines according to a recent study of college students.

  ‘I’ve been enjoying my cock since I was ten years old - why shouldn’t you?’ said a desperate friend of mine to a random girl in a bar. He ripped the line from a TV show, thinking it was a blockbuster neg. Guess what? He ended up enjoying his cock that night too.

  So what is the verdict on negging? As an opener, fuhgettaboutit.

  However, negs can be used sparingly (and intelligently) during seduction to gently lower a woman’s self-esteem, making it easier for a man to engage her sexually. As a woman’s self-esteem diminishes, she unconsciously lowers her expectations for status in male partners. Women with high self esteem seek an equally high status male; just ask Macaulay Culkin. After Mila Kunis boosted her status to the stratosphere in ‘The Black Swan,’ she felt confident abandoning her low status ex-child-actor boyfriend. She hooked up with Ashton Kutcher - no lack of status there. Properly delivered negs lower a woman’s status just a notch, diminishing her expectations in a male. Poor Macaulay should have been spewing an endless stream of negs.