The Art of Seduction

Keys to the Character The Dandy

Many of us today imagine that sexual freedom has progressed in recent years
—that everything has changed, for better or worse. This is mostly an illusion;
a reading of history reveals periods of licentiousness (imperial Rome, late seventeenth-century England, the “floating world” of eighteenth-century Japan) far in excess of what we are currently experiencing. Gender roles are certainly changing, but they have changed before. Society is in a state of constant flux, but there is something that does not change: the vast majority of people conform to whatever is normal for the time. They play the role allotted to them. Conformity is a constant because humans are social creatures who are always imitating one another. At certain points in history it may be fashionable to be different and rebellious, but if a lot of people are playing
that role, there is nothing different or rebellious about it.

We should never complain about most people’s slavish conformity, however, for it offers untold possibilities of power and seduction to those who.are up for a few risks. Dandies have existed in all ages and cultures.(Alcibiades in ancient Greece, Korechika in late-tenth-century Japan), and wherever they have gone they have thrived on the conformist role playing of
others. The Dandy displays a true and radical difference from other people, a
difference of appearance and manner. Since most of us are secretly oppressed by our lack of freedom, we are drawn to those who are more fluid and flaunt their difference.

Dandies seduce socially as well as sexually; groups form around them, their style is wildly imitated, an entire court or crowd will fall in love with them. In adapting the Dandy character for your own purposes, remember that the Dandy is by nature a rare and beautiful flower. Be different in ways that are both striking and aesthetic, never vulgar; poke fun at current trends and styles, go in a novel direction, and be supremely uninterested in what anyone
else is doing. Most people are insecure; they will wonder what you are up to, and slowly they will come to admire and imitate you, because you express yourself with total confidence.

The Dandy has traditionally been defined by clothing, and certainly most Dandies create a unique visual style. Beau Brummel, the most famous Dandy of all, would spend hours on his toilette, particularly the inimitably styled knot in his necktie, for which he was famous throughout early-nineteenthcentury England. But a Dandy’s style cannot be obvious, for Dandies are subtle, and never try hard for attention—attention comes to them. The person whose clothes are flagrantly different has little imagination or taste.

Dandies show their difference in the little touches that mark their disdain for
convention: Théophile Gautier’s red vest, Oscar Wilde’s green velvet suit, Andy Warhol’s silver wigs. The great English Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli had two magnificent canes, one for morning, one for evening; at noon he would change canes, no matter where he was. The female Dandy
works similarly. She may adopt male clothing, say, but if she does, a touch here or there will set her truly apart: no man ever dressed quite like George Sand. The overtall hat, the riding boots worn on the streets of Paris, made her a sight to behold.

This royal manner which [the dandy] raises to the height of true royalty, the dandy has taken this from women, who alone seem naturally made for such a role. It is a somewhat by using the manner and the
method of women that the dandy dominates. And this usurpation of femininity, he makes women themselves approve of this.... The dandy has something anti natural and androgynous about him, which is precisely how he is able to endlessly seduce.
—JULES LEMAÎTRE, LES CONTEMPORAINS

Remember, there must be a reference point. If your visual style is totally unfamiliar, people will think you at best an obvious attention-getter, at worst crazy. Instead, create your own fashion sense by adapting and altering prevailing styles to make yourself an object of fascination. Do this right and you will be wildly imitated. The Count d’Orsay, a great London dandy of the 1830s and 1840s, was closely watched by fashionable people; one day, caught in a sudden London rainstorm, he bought a paltrok, a kind of heavy, hooded duffle coat, off the back of a Dutch sailor. The paltrok immediately became the coat to wear. Having people imitate you, of course, is a sign of your powers of seduction.

The nonconformity of Dandies, however, goes far beyond appearances. It is
an attitude toward life that sets them apart; adopt that attitude and a circle of
followers will form around you.
Dandies are supremely impudent. They don’t give a damn about other people, and never try to please. In the court of Louis XIV, the writer La Bruyère noticed that courtiers who tried hard to please were invariably on the way down; nothing was more anti-seductive. As Barbey d’Aurevilly wrote, “Dandies please women by displeasing them.”

Impudence was fundamental to the appeal of Oscar Wilde. In a London theater one night, after the first performance of one of Wilde’s plays, the ecstatic audience yelled for the author to appear onstage. Wilde made them wait and wait, then finally emerged, smoking a cigarette and wearing an expression of total disdain. “It may be bad manners to appear here smoking,
but it is far worse to disturb me when I am smoking,” he scolded his fans. The Count d’Orsay was equally impudent. At a London club one night, a Rothschild who was notoriously cheap accidentally dropped a gold coin on the floor, then bent down to look for it. The count immediately whipped out a thousand-franc note (worth much more than the coin), rolled it up, lit it like a
candle, and got down on all fours, as if to help light the way in the search.

Only a Dandy could get away with such audacity. The insolence of the Rake is tied up with his desire to conquer a woman; he cares for nothing else. The insolence of the Dandy, on the other hand, is aimed at society and its.conventions. It is not a woman he cares to conquer but a whole group, an entire social world. And since people are generally oppressed by the
obligation of always being polite and self-sacrificing, they are delighted to
spend time around a person who disdains such niceties.

Dandies are masters of the art of living. They live for pleasure, not for work; they surround themselves with beautiful objects and eat and drink with the same relish they show for their clothes. This was how the great Roman writer Petronius, author of the Satyricon, was able to seduce the emperor
Nero. Unlike the dull Seneca, the great Stoic thinker and Nero’s tutor, Petronius knew how to make every detail of life a grand aesthetic adventure, from a feast to a simple conversation. This is not an attitude you should impose on those around you—you can’t make yourself a nuisance—but if you
simply seem socially confident and sure of your taste, people will be drawn to you. The key is to make everything an aesthetic choice. Your ability to alleviate boredom by making life an art will make your company highly prized.

The opposite sex is a strange country we can never know, and this excites us, creates the proper sexual tension. But it is also a source of annoyance and frustration. Men do not understand how women think, and vice versa; each tries to make the other act more like a member of their own sex. Dandies may never try to please, but in this one area they have a pleasing effect: by
adopting psychological traits of the opposite sex, they appeal to our inherent
narcissism. Women identified with Rudolph Valentino’s delicacy and attention to detail in courtship; men identified with Lou Andreas-Salomé’s lack of interest in commitment. In the Heian court of eleventh-century Japan, Sei Shonagon, the writer of The Pillow Book, was powerfully seductive for men, especially literary types. She was fiercely independent, wrote
poetry with the best, and had a certain emotional distance. Men wanted more from her than just to be her friend or companion, as if she were another man; charmed by her empathy for male psychology, they fell in love with her. This kind of mental transvestism—the ability to enter the spirit of the opposite sex, adapt to their way of thinking, mirror their tastes and attitudes—can be a key element in seduction.