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By means of seduction: pickup-artists and the

cultural history of erotic persuasion

Thorn-R. Kray

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 NORMA: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR MASCULINITY STUDIES, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2017.1383024

By means of seduction: pickup-artists and the cultural history

of erotic persuasion
Thorn-R. Kray
Department of Sociology, Giessen Centre for the Study of Culture, Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen,
Giessen, Germany

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This article is about the cultural heritage of a men’s movement, Received 18 June 2016
called PickUp, which gained momentum in the United States Accepted 10 September 2017
during the 1990s. It finds that the seduction techniques they use
KEYWORDS
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can be traced back to historical seducers. The discourse of Seduction; PickUp; cultural
seduction is reconstructed by identifying four stages in seduction sociology; rhetoric;
culture from early modernity to the present. Thus contextualized, masculinity; emotions
the article interpretatively examines three cases of three famous
seducers: Don Juan, Giacomo Casanova, and Søren Kierkegaard,
while highlighting their changing masculinities as connected to
class position and affectual control. Providing insights into
particular social constellations and emotional dynamics of
seduction, the study finds a number of ‘social tropes’ that play a
pivotal role in all the scenes portrayed. Moreover, they have
strong structural equivalencies within the actively applied means
of seduction that the PickUp-Artist’s methodology prescribes,
which is outlined in several advice books that are part of the
contemporary self-help discourse. The conclusion comes back to
seduction’s complicated history, the theory of social tropes, and
problematizes the changing faces of masculinity within them.

If Casanova had left behind not just an autobiography […] but a step-by-step, detailed how-
to guide to his sexual conquests, it would rank as the most sought-after text in history, next to
Holy Scriptures. […] My name is Mystery, and I have written just such a guide, now in your
hands. As the world’s premier pickup artist, I am the closest thing there is to a modern-day
Casanova (although I have already ‘outnumbered’ him). Erik von Markovik aka Mystery, The
Mystery Method, p. 1

1. The return of seduction (as business)

This article is about the cultural heritage of a men’s movement that appeared around the
1980s under the name of PickUp. Its stated aim is to empower unhappy and unlucky men
to become better at what participants call ‘The Game,’ i.e. the practices of contemporary
courtship, which eventually lead to sexual intercourse. As of now, the United States-based

CONTACT Thorn-R. Kray thorn.r.kray@gcsc.uni-giessen.de; thorn.kray@gmx.de

© 2017 The Nordic Association for Research on Men and Masculinities
 2 T.-R. KRAY

movement has formed many different and competing ‘schools,’ led by various, often self-
proclaimed PickUp-Artists (PUAs). Offshoots can be found in a whole range of countries
like France, England, Austria, Australia, Russia or Germany. Importantly, those early days
when the PUA’s somewhat arcane – and morally dubious – knowledge was passed down
mouth-to-mouth are long gone. With increasing economic traction, electronic infrastruc-
ture, and publicity – most notably by Neil Strauss 2006 book The Game: Penetrating the
Secret Society of PickUp-Artists –, the community has turned into a global venture, orga-
nizing workshops, seminars, lectures, and large conferences (the last one took place in Las
Vegas, August 2015). As early as 2007, VH1 aired the first season of The Pickup Artist,
staring renowned author Erik von Markovik (aka Mystery) and some of his compatriots.
These professionals are just peaks of the iceberg. Seduction has become a rational and
rationalizing life-style available to and adaptable by any man who feels the need to do so.
And many do. They come together all over the world to local ‘lair meetings’ for learning to
navigate modern courtship – and, eventually, to ‘sarge,’ i.e. visit social gatherings (bars,
cafés, malls, clubs etc.) to seduce the women they desire.
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It must be noted right from the start that the seduction community has a morally
dubious reputation. Especially feminist activists associate this male endeavor with
manipulation, deception, lies, and dishonesty. Although seduction may have vanished
as a juridical category, strong connotations of misogyny persist (for good reason).
However, once this deeply problematic conduct has been taken into account, the question
hopefully seems less provocative: What can we learn – theoretically – from seducers, past
and present? I suggest we can learn something.
My search in this regard will venture to a territory that has not been well charted.
Amongst the few recent studies on the Seduction Community (Almog & Kaplan, 2015;
Denes, 2011; Hendriks, 2012), none has looked at its cultural history; in fact, ‘there is
little official historical documentation.’ (Almog & Kaplan, 2015, p. 5) Thus, this article’s
major objective is to investigate the Seduction Community’s historical backdrop by
asking: Are the ‘means of seduction,’ which the PUAs use, their own, more or less original
inventions (Strauss, 2006, p. 20)? Or can these ‘social tropes,’ as I will call them, be found
much earlier, for example in scenes and scenarios from the conduct of famous seducers in
previous eras? And if so, do they still have structural equivalences in the PUA’s theory of
social behavior and emotional dynamics, and possibly their conduct? What does the (his-
torical) discourse of seduction tell us about the masculinities involved, their changing class
position and emotionality?

2. Notes on the cultural history of seduction

The cultural history of seduction (in Europe) begins as a – sometimes deadly – battle
between the sexes. Mythology and art history are full of examples of how women, using
their physical charms e.g. in erotic dances, seduce warrior-type men: Calypso makes Odys-
seus stay on her island; Potiphar’s wife wants to lie with Joseph and, when he remains
steadfast, accuses him of rape; Judith decapitates Holofernes; Delilah robs Samson of
his strength. All these mythological motifs portray men as victims and women as
perpetrators.
What changes this – for contemporary observers somewhat counterintuitive – logic is a
major shift during early modernity in the ‘process of civilization’ (Elias): Aristocratic
 NORMA: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR MASCULINITY STUDIES 3

warriors become refined and cunning courtiers; violence increasingly retreats from every-
day life while, at the palaces, dance and ceremonial guide encounters between the sexes.
From now on, it is the other way around and men take the role of the seducer while
women are seduced (Giesen, 2010, p. 114f.). As schemes replace battles, the male part
cannot coquet with bodily attractions but must, instead, resort to verbal strategies that
illustrate his passion.
One such example for the language of seduction during this age comes from the notor-
ious figure of Don Juan. He is more than a just character of literature – although plays and
operas from five centuries would suggest so (e.g. Singer, 1965). Some scholars have classi-
fied him as a hybrid ‘inscribed […] in the margins of sociocultural reality and literature
[that] is neither purely real nor textual’ (Mandrell, 1992, p. 21). He is the prototype of
a cultural character – the Gallant – which starts to emerge during early modernity not
only in Spain but also in England and France (Griswold, 1983). Endowed with the privi-
leges of bachelorhood, Don Juan uses the code of love, which emerged in courtly circles
but had not gained full autonomy until after the seventeenth century, for his own pur-
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poses: Gallantry is a ‘socially binding style both for deceptive and seductive behavior as
well as for truly loving courtship.’ (Luhmann, 1998b, p. 77) To show how exactly Don
Juan seduces and what ‘devil’s techniques’ (Griswold, 1983) he uses to do so, will be the
task of one of my case studies below.
Although his name keeps resonating through it, the gallant Don Juan is not at the center
of seduction’s cultural history. As a systematic and rather widespread practice, seduction was
developed only in eighteenth century France. For Parisian aristocracy, lured away from its
economic base to the royal court and thus largely deprived of its political autonomy by a
divine-right monarchy, seduction became less a battle of but rather a game between the
sexes (Scott, 2011). Warrior-type masculinities fell out of season even further in favor of
somewhat effeminate, emotionally flexible ‘personality profiles’ that were more prone to par-
ticipate in the Ancient Régime’s lavishnesses, where „commoners, nobles, clergy, and royalty
frequently succumbed to temptation, and the magistrates routinely failed to apply the letter
of the law designed to preserve domestic and social order.’ (for England, see Harvey, 2004;
Merricks, 1990, p. 70) In environments like the salons of Madame du Deffand, Madame
d’Èspinay or the famous Madame de Staël offered them, it was possible for an art of seduc-
tion to develop in a perfectly systematic manner: men’s envy became a matter of women’s
calculation, every posture had its own rationale and was being forecasted in its impact on a
given audience. Antoine Baudeau de Somaize, for instance, provides a whole typology of
sighs in his ‘Dictionnaire des Précieusses’ (de Somaize, 1856 [1660/1661]). However, the
seducer’s goal was not only to enjoy a woman’s body alone, but also to bend her mind to
his will, without being moved himself. As the anonymously published French seduction
manual L’art de réussir en amour, enseigné en 24 leçons explains, the seducer must distance
his (or her!) real feelings from actual behavior and ‘surface act.’ It advices: ‘You, who in the
struggle engages with a capricious women can model your mood after hers, give your mind
the charms of frivolity, and affect a constant state of inconsistency.’ (quoted in Schocket,
2005, p. 69) The literature produced by Crebillion fils and Marmontel, later by Louvet de
Couvrai and Cholderos de Laclos documents this myriad of means and moves most elo-
quently (for an overview, see Kluckholm, 1966 [1922], p. 38ff.).
The next section is going to illustrate one such seduction techniques further, using the
case of perhaps the most famous seducer in history: Giacomo Casanova. Although he was
 4 T.-R. KRAY

Italian, the French tradition of courtship was familiar to him by first-hand experience;
Casanova’s memoirs, which are written in French, are much in line with the Parisian
culture.
Still, this period of seduction’s history – it was not the zenith, as it turns out – ended as
well. With affective individualism on the rise in France and elsewhere, spouses were not
picked by parents anymore but selected through choices largely based on emotional pre-
ferences (Coontz, 2005; Stone, 1977). As external pressures shrunk, love could become a
durable basis for marriage instead of being an ephemeral excess of affect. With love and
marriage being integrated in ever more strata of bourgeois society and its ‘ideal of dom-
esticity’ (Tosh, 1999, p. 27ff.), the aristocratic game of falsifying emotional expressions was
looked upon with spreading suspicion by a growing number of the population (Cott, 1978,
p. 223). And another feature is important. Relying not anymore on virtue, youth, beauty or
riches, love was increasingly seen as being evoked solely by subjective individuality. Thus,
no lover could simply be exchanged for another. Diametrically opposed to the logic of
seduction, in romantic love one person could only be loved exclusively (Luhmann,
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1998b, p. 97ff.). Since the late eighteenth century, exclusivity has become a major part
of the cultural paradigm of romantic love (Lenz, 2006). Its gain of momentum ushered
in the decline of seduction culture, which was increasingly seen, at best, as morally imper-
tinent. Seduction turned into genuine scandal and the seducer became a villain. ‘Once
mere success with women had become a matter of course and trivial, he overstepped
the bounds of clear-sighted techniques and operated methodologically according to the
self-made logic of Evil; he destroyed for destruction’s sake.’ (Luhmann, 1998b, p. 117)
Choderous de Laclos, in his 1782 epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, gave an
illustrative example of this logic, embodied in the notorious Marquise de Merteuil,
whose character is modeled after many non-fictional, historical figures (again Kluckholm,
1966 [1922], p. 50).
Laclos’ and the Marquises’ world definitely ended with industrialization and the emer-
gence of a self-regulated market; society switched its strateficatory mode of differentiation
to functional (Luhmann, 1998a). This ‘great transformation’ also gave rise to what scholars
of romantic love have called the ‘ideology of separate spheres’ (e.g. Cancian, 1993).
Especially in the United States, workplace and home drifted apart and became starkly con-
trasted. While the former was seen as an arena of cold competition, a ‘vast wilderness,’ the
latter turned into a ‘safe haven,’ a ‘spiritual oasis’ filled by warm (female) intimacy
(C. Z. Stearns & Stearns, 1986, p. 38ff.). This dichotomy was, of course, gendered.
Women were to populate the private home and take care of child rearing; men were bread-
winners and supposed to govern the public sphere.
On a more general note, however, the nineteenth century ‘loveworld,’ as Karen Lystra
(1989) has called it, took on a feminine and (thus) morally pure veneer (Cancian, 1993). In
the guise of romantic love, it became a strongly institutionalized and relatively auton-
omous part of modern society – just as law, religion, the economy or science did. As
such, sociologists have highlighted some of the defining traits in its – normative – cultural
outlook: unity of love and marriage; unity of sexuality and affection; integration of parent-
hood; durability; maximal individuality; devalorization of alterior (e.g. economic) motives;
emotional reciprocity etc. (e.g. Illouz, 2012).
This development made seduction vanish as a cultural cluster of meanings and illegi-
timated it as a practice. However, small parts of it survived even in bourgeois society.
 NORMA: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR MASCULINITY STUDIES 5

My third example will come from mid-nineteenth century Copenhagen, more precisely,
Søren Kierkegaard’s semi-fictional Diary of a Seducer in which he processed his (disas-
trous) engagement experience with Regine Olsen.
At this point I end the historical contextualization of seduction and turn to my case
studies. They will show what and how means of seduction were put to use by individual
seducers, and the ways in which they correlate with masculinity, class, and emotion.

3. Three famous seductions: Tisbea, Maria Morosini, Cordelia Wahl

Usually, two kinds of material are consulted to study seduction historically. The first one is
legal proceedings (e.g. Cavallo & Cerutti, 1990; Dyer, 2003; Gottlieb, 1980); the second
type of source, equally common, is literature (e.g. Kray, 2013; Schocket, 2005; Walsøe-
Engel, 1993). Literature – either as (semi-)fictional and narrative, or non-fictional and pre-
scriptive – has the advantage of portraying the ‘informal, mediating social customs regard-
ing the display of emotions that constitute the heart of seductive persuasion,’ thus showing
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the cultural codes behind and ‘rhetorical stratagems’ operating within the process of
seduction (Seed, 1993, pp. 747, 745). That is why the following case studies belong to
this type.
In the previous section, I noted some important phases of seduction’s historical and
cultural trajectory, thereby locating the selected sources in specific periods. Now, I will
focus on the codes and stratagems used by historical seducers. This will allow to answer
the question, if and/or where they can be found in the contemporary PUA-discourse.

3.1. Tisbea’s promise

Don Juan is a well-studied myth. However, scholars made clear that it had many correlates
in history and, hence, cannot be considered a matter of fiction alone. To the contrary,
Tirso de Molina’s (1579–1648) character Don Juan Tenorio in The Beguiler from Seville
and the Stone Guest (1634)1 had many historical counterparts. Antonio Morales,
Martín Joaquín Andonagui and Laureano Antonio Gama may not have been damned
to hell as punishment (like the monk had wanted it) and rather made to pay fines for
their ‘crimes,’ but the emotional dynamics and rhetorical tactics are reportedly similar
(for further examples, see Dyer, 2003; Seed, 1993, p. 751f.). The most important one is
the promise to marriage. As a socially recognized token of commitment, the promise
could become an effective ‘weapon of seduction.’ (Gottlieb, 1980, p. 73) And yet,
uttered without complete context and proper preparation, it would not work and lead
to sexual relations. Tirso de Molina thus provides us with a narrative of the emotional
dynamics and cultural meanings framing the promise’s ‘proper’ use.
Four seductions are described in the play, two of noble women – Duchess Isabella and
Doña Ana – as well as two of peasant women – Aminta and Tisbea. Probably the most
interesting ones are the latter two; for reasons of brevity and because the promise to mar-
riage plays a crucial role here, I will concentrate on Tisbea (Aminta’s scene would show a
different means of seduction, the triangle, which I am going to focus on during the Casa-
nova case).
Tisbea finds Don Juan due to a shipwreck after which he has been washed up on a beach
near the city of Tarragona (Catalonia). Staring at him as he slowly awakens, she instantly
 6 T.-R. KRAY

notices him as a ‘gallant’ (DJ, I, p. 572). Don Juan gazes back at her: ‘If the sea meant my
certain death / you now return to me life’s breath / I’ve lost my fear that could drown me /
since from the dark hell of the sea / I rise to your heaven’s clarity.’ (DJ, I, pp. 575–579)
(The gaze will play a major part in Casanova’s and Kierkegaard’s case as well.) This
‘rebirth’ (DJ, I, p. 584) renders him clean, pristine, unpolluted; she immediately
becomes the endpoint, the safe haven and savior. Although making fun of his wordiness,
she is impressed and links his response to a natural agent: ‘You must have drunk undoubt-
edly / your pretty speech straight from the sea.’ (DJ, I, pp. 596–597) At the same time,
Tisbea connects his ‘heated’ rhetoric with a complementary metaphor: ‘You were
brought by the sea / yet charged with fire seem to be.’ (DJ, I, pp. 605–607) This links
him to both sides of a binary she has established: cold sea and hot fire. But the initial
agency she took scares her: ‘You promise a great deal of fire / I hope to God you are no
liar!’ (DJ, I, pp. 610–611) – a sentence she utters time and again. As Don Juan notices
her hesitation, he doubles down:
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I do wish, lass, that the Lord had / destroyed and drowned me in the main / so that I could
have ended sane / and wouldn’t because of you die mad / for the sea could drown me all right
/ between its waves of silver white / that blur and dissolve boundary / but the sea could never
burn me / quite like the sun you seem to be / for it gives you much liberty / since, although
you are made of snow / just with your looks you do burn so. (DJ, I, pp. 613–623)

Near the end of this scene, no sexual intercourse has taken place and no promise has been
made either. Still, Don Juan has positioned himself in trying to ‘melt’ Tisbea’s doubt (she is
‘made of snow’). Committing to the dark side he has swallowed beforehand, another
dichotomy is brought into play: madness versus sanity. Cross-wiring sanity with death
and madness with life, he produces a meaning tailored to explain his exuberant behavior.
Tisbea becomes his only hope – after the sea could not burn him, i.e. cure the darkness he
is possessed by, she becomes the sun. After all the ‘blurred and dissolved boundaries’ that
exist within him, only she has the power to answer to him. Only she can ‘burn so,’ and
eradicate his wickedness.
The next time they meet, roles reverse: ‘The moment I’m away from you / I lose my
mind, indeed I do’ (DJ, I, pp. 900–901), she proclaims. Being the cure for his madness,
she, paradoxically, has become mad herself while Don Juan withdraws: ‘The way you
act and simulate / does not the slightest credit rate.’ (DJ, I, pp. 902–903) Accusing her
of deceiving him is a tactic that frees him from suspicion while shifting the burden of
proof to Tisbea. Asked for the reason of his accusation, he answers: ‘Because if you
loved me / my heart would get favors from thee.’ (DJ, I, pp. 904–905) Rendering sex as
evidence for love, she is shocked by his frivolous demand. In this situation, as a move
to ‘close the deal,’ Don Juan – finally – promises:
If to me life and bliss you bring / I’ll pledge myself to anything / and even if I full well knew /
that I must die while serving you / I would die gladly anyhow / and to be your husband I vow.
(DJ, I, pp. 910–915)

Tisbea accepts, hoping that ‘this act of love shall bind your will.’ (DJ, I, p. 945)
As we have seen, the promise depends on the institution of marriage and its status in
society, rendering seduction both illegitimate and illegal. Associated with trust and hope,
the promise, as a seduction technique, also relies on a complex use of metaphors and
 NORMA: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR MASCULINITY STUDIES 7

binary distinctions – in this case life and death, hot and cold, sea and fire, madness and
sanity. To cross from one side to the other generates emotional energy. Don Juan’s mas-
culinity is marked by an – allegedly – uncontrollable passion expressed through extreme
polar opposites. Relying on the stark class-difference between a privileged aristocrat and a
poor peasant woman, he channels his compulsion forcefully into a push–pull roleplay that
ensnares Tisbea.
To investigate the symbolic/strategic side of the seduction process further, I will now
turn to my next example: Giacomo Casanova.

3.2. Maria Morosini’s triangle

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) is one of the great seducers in history. Historians have
often used him and his memoirs to tell numerous stories about politics, culture, gender,
and sexuality in eighteenth-century Italy and France (e.g. Kelly, 2008; Summers, 2006).
Although I will also draw on the History of My Life (Casanova, 1997),2 the purpose
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here is different. I want to analyze one of Casanova’s most daring and complicated seduc-
tions, that of two Venetian nuns – Caterina Capretta (C.C.) and Marina Maria Morosini
(M.M.).3 Here, we can find a rhetorical tactic – or ‘social trope’ – which gains its seductive
force by constructing a specific social figuration, the triangle. It is primarily associated with
jealousy and ‘mimetic desire’ (Girad). Additionally, Casanova’s case will present yet
another, more refined and controlled type of masculinity.
1 November 1753: A letter, delivered by an intermediary, invites Casanova to Santa
Maria degli Angeli on Murano, where he has been a frequent guest over the last couple
of months. First skeptical of the invitation, written by an anonymous female, his curiosity
leads him to accept. With his mask on, he gondols to the island and, accompanied by the
messenger, Countess S., meets Maria in the convents visiting room, which is divided by an
iron grating in two parts, one for the visitors and one for the nuns. The two women just
talk amongst themselves. Leaving without an introduction, Casanova later notes how the
scene was a game Maria played with him, a test he passed for being able to restrain his
curiosity. Here, already, we see how the triangle – underlined and enforced by the
room’s architecture – becomes a mechanism for exclusion while, at the same time, a tech-
nique to evoke desire, e.g. for participation and acknowledgement.
About three weeks later, the two meet again in Murano. Unmasked but still parted by
the grid, they are happy and interested to see each other again. Somewhat impatiently, he
asks her if she has a lover. ‘Yes, I have,’ Maria freely admits, ‘and it is he who makes me
rich and who is completely my master. For this reason, I never leave him in ignorance of
anything.’ (HML, IV, pp. 2, 31) Casanova is surprised. ‘But what will your lover [who, he
will later learn, is François Joachim de Pierre de Bernis (1715–1795), the French Ambas-
sador in Venice] say?,’ he asks after she invites him to her casino – a secret domicile away
from the monastery – for the next day. ‘He [de Bernis] will be delighted to see [sic] me in
love and happy with a lover like you.’ (HML, IV, pp. 2, 31)
The triangle, in this situation again, is facilitator of desire. Now, however, the constella-
tion has changed into two men and one woman, bearing clear sexual connotations. Exclu-
sivity is not an issue yet with Casanova’s and de Bernis’ masculinity, both confident
enough not only to tolerate but actually invite the other for play. In fact, notions of exclu-
siveness would even be an impediment for the lovers – especially since another triangle is
 8 T.-R. KRAY

about to unfold. Asked by Maria if Casanova has a mistress himself, he confirms. What he
does not tell her yet is the fact that Caterina Capretta (C.C.), a 14 (!) year old beauty, was
put into the very same convent by her father to safeguard his daughter. She has been the
reason for Casanova’s frequent visits to the monastery. He wanted to see her in the church
chorus (where Maria first spotted him in the audience and inquired who he was). And, to
make the situation even more delicate: Maria is Caterina’s French teacher, her favorite
student and secret lover.
Two scenes from this complicated love affair, which cannot be analyzed in full here, are
distinctly illustrative for the ways in which the triangle engenders emotional dynamics –
positive as well as negative ones.
Before Casanova and Maria have their fifth meeting, she confesses that her lover, de
Bernis, was watching during their first date. Spying on them from a hidden chamber,
he was curious how they would interact. And for their next date he wants to do it
again. She tells Casanova: ‘You will not see him, and he will see everything.’ (HML, IV,
pp. 2, 61) By a letter, she asks for his consent. Casanova is intrigued. Neither feeling
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betrayed nor reluctant to agree, he answers: ‘I can never understand how a man can be
ashamed of letting a friend see him at a moment when he is giving the greatest proofs
of love to a very beautiful woman,’ and promises ‘I will play my role perfectly.’ (HML,
IV, pp. 2, 62) Sure that his and Maria’s clandestine rendezvous will only arouse an enti-
cing, joyful jealousy, he says:
Seeing us will drive him frantic, and he will either run away or have to come out of his hiding
place and go down on his knees to me, begging me to give you up to the violence of his
amorous desires in thus need to calm the fire which our transports will have kindled in
his soul. (HML, IV, pp. 2, 64)

Hence, the two are inspired by the fact that they are being watched. Eating aphrodisiac
foods and writing erotic texts, they perform ‘every kind’ (HML, IV, pp. 2, 64) of sexual
stunt. De Bernis becomes an invisible audience, which, as a ‘mediator’ (Simmel), facilitates
their desire – he is corporally absent but symbolically present. However, the ‘condition of
felicitousness’ is transparency, i.e. the fact that both know that they are being watched,
thus enabling them to adjust their erotic performance. Under such circumstances, the tri-
angle builds trust, bolsters pleasure, and renders the other party’s masculinity non-
threatening.
The second scene, taking place shortly after the first one, shows the exact opposite.
Here, the triangle engenders emotions of betrayal and jealousy.
Unable to keep the two women separate, Casanova makes Caterina promise him not to
reveal to Maria that she is indeed his mistress, while simultaneously ‘assuring her that the
fancy I had taken for her dear friend in no way detracted from the constancy of my passion
for her.’ (HML, IV, pp. 2, 80) What he does not know is that Maria and Caterina have
started a love affair of their own. Thus, Maria is aware of the relationship between her
pupil/lover and Casanova. Later, under the pretext of wanting to meet him afterwards
in the hideaway, she invites him to a ball at the monastery. After the event, to which he
comes disguised as a Pierrot, he enters the secret casino and is shocked to find Caterina
there, instead of Maria. Has she given away the secret and broken her promise? ‘But if
she has betrayed me, how dare she appear before me? If M.M. [Maria] loves me how
can she have deprived herself of the pleasure of seeing me and sent her rival?’ (HML,
 NORMA: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR MASCULINITY STUDIES 9

IV, pp. 2, 83) Unsure whether somebody is watching them (again), Casanova feels ‘tricked,
deceived, trapped, scorned.’ (HML, IV, pp. 2, 83) After a long silence, Caterina tries to
explain:
You know that she [Maria] loves me, and that I am often her wife […]; so, just as you do not
object to my being your rival and to my often making her happy, she does not want you to
suppose that her love is like hate, for such is the love of a jealous heart. (HML, IV, pp. 2, 88–
89)

But Casanova has been blindsided and can’t keep his anger at bay. Insisting on Maria’s
malice, the feeling of being ridiculed and humiliated has damaged his confidence and
robbed him of his sense of control, leading him to dismiss Caterina’s explanation. –
Later, we learn that Maria, who arranged the meeting in good faith, was watching from
the secret chamber indeed, again accompanied by de Bernis. Apologizing to Casanova,
she later confesses: ‘Being the author of the play, it was only natural that I should give
myself the pleasure of being its audience.’ (HML, IV, pp. 6, 97)
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Such constellations occur throughout the memoirs. These two scenes, however, crys-
tallize both good and bad emotional effects of the triangle and thus show its seductive
power. Binaries like absent and present, trust and betrayal, friendship and rivalry are
constantly negotiated. Although marriage is not emphasized, the promise still plays
an important role as a means to manage the relationship. Seduction, at this time in
liberal Venice, was still a crime, but if it was not publicly connected to adultery, preg-
nancy or rape, the parties involved could very well enjoy mutual pleasures without
fearing consequences ex officio (Kelly, 2008). Casanova is a citadino or citizen, an
emerging class just below the aristocracy. His masculinity is thus not safe-guarded
by an impugnable social position which would permit as much negligence in indulging
one’s carnal desires – like Don Juan did, who gets away with his behavior until the very
end (in hell). The double effect of this different societal standing is that Casanova’s
emotional management is leaning towards (some) more restraint and refinement,
while his masculinity becomes more vulnerable.
These trajectories will be even more visible in the next case, centering the gaze.

3.3. Cordelia Wahl’s Gaze

The Diary of a Seducer (2009)4 is part of Søren Kierkegaard’s (1813–1855) opus magnum
Either/Or (published 1843), in itself one of the earliest works of existential philosophy (e.g.
Hannay & Marino, 1998). Over a period of several months, the Diary’s protagonist, a
young esthete named Johannes, seduces Cordelia Wahl, a 17-year-old girl from Copenha-
gen. Situated in mid-nineteenth century Denmark, the book is obviously based on Kierke-
gaard’s much publicized and mutually traumatic engagement experience with Regine
Olsen (e.g. Ferreira, 2009). Some scholars, however, have preferred a less biographical
reading of the Diary and used it as a source to study the emotional dynamics of seduction
(e.g. Becker-Theye, 1988; Haustedt, 1992; especially Kray, 2013). Following this approach,
I will now shortly summarize the Diary’s narrative and, subsequently, concentrate on one
specific means of seduction, the gaze.
Unlike Don Juan and Casanova, Johannes plans his seduction of Cordelia meticulously.
After spotting her getting out of a carriage on the night of April 4, he is determined to
 10 T.-R. KRAY

make her fall in love with him. Following her around in the subsequent days, he orches-
trates little events which are set up to look random (we will come back to one of them
below). Finally figuring out her name and finding the proper angle, he acquires an invita-
tion for afternoon tea at her house. For most of his subsequent visits, Johannes ignores
Cordelia almost completely, only befriending her old aunt, Cordelia’s guardian. Shortly
afterwards, Edvard, a young friend of the family, enters the household. He quickly falls
in love with Cordelia, too. Acting as Edvard’s friend, Johannes gives him (bad) advice
how to win Cordelia over. He constructs a triangle as to make his rival Edvard exhibit
his desire for Cordelia in such a clumsy way that she grows emotionally distant from
him, while getting a sense of her own erotic aura. Johannes asks the aunt for consent
for a betrothal, just after telling Edvard to wait with his own proposal, thus pushing
him out of the picture, while he and Cordelia become officially engaged. In the following
weeks, Johannes stays somewhat withdrawn and almost cold toward her whenever they
are together in public. Yet, he starts writing Cordelia passionate letters, thereby contradict-
ing his detached demeanor. In these letters, he depicts the engagement as just a formal
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bond, a sterile public institution not by its own virtue connected to one’s interior,
finally suggesting that it even stands in their love’s way. This, however, had been part
of his plan in the first place: ‘I shall certainly contrive for her to be the one who breaks
off the engagement. My chivalrous pride scorns giving promises.’ (Diary, p. 91f.) In the
same passage, however, he insists that ‘I have never promised a girl marriage, not even
casually; if I seem to be doing so here, it is only a pretense. […] Let common seducers
use such methods!’ (Diary, p. 91f.) After Cordelia, as a sign of love and, to some
degree, an act of defiance against the conventions of bourgeois society, breaks off the
engagement, they meet once more at a small cottage in the countryside. And, after enjoy-
ing their first – and last – night of love-making, Johannes leaves Cordelia for good.
In Kierkegaard’s – aka Johannes’ – case we can also see how seduction becomes some-
thing morally despicable because marriage and romantic love have moved closer together.
While thus losing all ethical merits, seduction also turned into an aesthetical endeavor
whereby legal consequences have become increasingly unlikely. Scorn, yes; jail, no. Meth-
odologically, however, the process still relies on a number of binary distinctions: direct and
indirect behavior, the societal institution of marriage versus true feeling, cold demeanor
exhibited in public and hot letters written/read in private. Such dichotomies seem to be
an important prerequisite for the means of seduction in general, and all the seducers por-
trayed here are experts in using them for their own dubious ends. But Johannes has made
another leap in rationalizing his use of them and thus exhibits much more emotional self-
control than any of his predecessors. And yet, this ‘leap’ takes its toll. From Johannes
descriptions of his inner life we learn about his suffocation when away from Cordelia, con-
stantly questioning and going astray inside his own subjectivity (Kray, 2013). Being tor-
mented in private while appearing confident in public, the price for Johannes’ restraint,
methodical conduct is a constant hypocrisy that damages his masculinity as it is caught
between two, seemingly irreconcilable worlds. No class privileges (besides the common
mechanisms of nineteenth Century patriarchy of course) can shelter him and stabilize
his interior.
What this tragic state of (masculine) affairs buys him, however, is a true mastery in
handling another social trope, which is at the heart of Johannes conduct, the gaze.
Social theorists have pointed out that
 NORMA: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR MASCULINITY STUDIES 11

the gaze is a performative act, which founds or destroys, begins or ends something. […] A
sight can move or hit us hard, the gaze can be objectifying, desirous, aggressive, uninterested
or perilous; in any case, it is the medium by which an image is formed – of Ego, Alter and the
situation. (Schürmann, 2008, p. 193)

In order to see the gaze – as a seduction technique – work, we must return to the very
beginning of the Diary. Back at the late evening of April 4 again, their very first encounter,
Johannes sees Cordelia step out of her carriage into a doorway. He watches the scene
closely.
I shall just place myself under this street lamp so you can’t see me, and one is always only
bashful, after all, to the extent one is seen, but then again, one is always only seen to the
extent one sees. (Diary, p. 22)

Asymmetrically adjusted like this, the stage is set for his approach:
No one has seen anything; to be sure, a dark figure appears, wrapped to the eyes in a cloak.
One cannot see where he has come from, the light shines right in one’s eyes; he passes you by
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in a moment, when you are about to enter the street door. Just at the critical second, a side-
long glance seizes upon its object. You blush, your bosom becomes too full to be able to
lighten itself in a single breath; there is exasperation in your glance, a proud contempt;
there is a prayer, a tear in your eye; both are equally beautiful, I accept both equally as my
due, for I can be just as well the one thing as the other. (Diary, p. 23)

For Cordelia, the situation must have appeared dangerous. A strange man sharply passes
by her in the very split second she wants to enter a doorway’s safety, i.e. on the brink of
moving from the public to the private sphere. He catches her off guard. She can only see
his eyes since the rest of his face is cloaked. She is surprised, flabbergasted, and a little bit
aroused (we see her blush). Just one day later, Johannes meets Cordelia in Østergarde, one
of the many parks in Copenhagen. Her servant has dropped some groceries she bought on
her way home as Johannes, ‘accidentally’ walks by, helping her to pick up the items.
Crouching and first with his back toward her, Cordelia approaches him and wants to
help. He moves around and looks up to her: ‘Watch out! A look like that from below is
more dangerous than one from straight ahead. It’s like fencing, and what weapon so
sharp, so sudden in its movement, and hence so deceptive, as the eye?’ (Diary, p. 27f.; my
italics). – The eye becomes a weapon. And if looks cannot kill, they will surely wound
and thus be remembered. Precisely because the gaze is not strictly symbolic – or even
semiotic, for that matter – it has the capacity to pierce the threshold of cognition and
enter the realm of one’s emotional ecology. Hindered from being a symmetrical process
of looking and looking back, one can see the subtle power relation necessary for the
seducer to meet his end. Such asymmetry, however, is far from present in the first
place. It must be carefully prepared and geared-up, just like we have seen, partly, in
Don Juan’s and, more prominently, in Casanova’s case. This time the gap between
private space and public place was used. In such a way attuned to culture structures
like the mentioned dichotomies and situational circumstances, the gaze becomes a power-
ful means for seduction.
The crucial questions are now: Can we still find these ancient means of seduction in the
contemporary PUA-discourse? What shapes the new masculinities within it, their social
position and emotionality?
 12 T.-R. KRAY

4. The game of PickUp artists

Like the epigraph, which started this article, has already indicated: Many pickup artists see
themselves as successors of famous historical seducers. Even if this is mostly true for the
leaders and popularizers of the movement, it still connects the PUA-discourse to a now
ancient past and thus makes this past some kind of cultural heritage.
One pivotal difference between the PUAs and other seducers in history, however, is the
already mentioned fact that they see themselves as teachers; as men, rejected time and time
again, who have greatly suffered under their own inadequacy concerning practices of
courtship, who finally learned how to seduce women and mastered ‘The Game’ (of
modern courtship). Now, they want to help others enduring the same fate of suffering,
inability, and helplessness. Ran Almog and Danny Kaplan have recently pointed out
that many amateur participants – ‘nerds’ – utilize the PUAs’ ‘expertise’ to remedy their
ambivalent social location, i.e. having privileged economic prospects, while being
‘unable to conquer women due to lack of social skills.’ (Almog & Kaplan, 2015, p. 4) Sim-
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ultaneously competing and cooperating in the homosocial space of the Seduction Com-
munity allows ‘nerdy’ men to mimic their teachers’ transformation from Average
Frustrated Chumps (AFCs) to PUAs and their ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell). Yet
the price for this transformation is quite high, namely the ‘hyperstandardization of the
relations between the sexes in the spirit of instrumental rationality [which] negates the
romantic perspective of sexual relations.’ (Almog & Kaplan, 2015, p. 17)
In comparison to Don Juan, who could afford to be overwhelmed by his passions,
‘nerds’ stand at the end of a long historical arch that has deteriorated monolithic class pri-
vileges, while necessitating an ever-increasing capability for emotional self-control. As the
examples from Casanova and Kierkegaard imply, this trajectory was accompanied by a
macro-trend that diversified masculinities while entangling them in new self-doubts
about (social) positions and (collective) prospects. Thus, vulnerabilities intensified that
were due to shifts in many (Western) societies overall structure.
Seduction puts these developments under a magnifying glass since, today, it runs
counter the well-established moral universe of romantic love, and hence must frame the
nerds’ personal tales of woe within a much bigger context: self-help. Scholars, who
study the rise of self-help in Western culture, usually link it to the development of neoli-
beralism as emotional capitalism, the therapeutization of society, and the entrepreneurial
self (e.g. Illouz, 2008; Nehring, Alvarado, Hendriks, & Kerrigan, 2016; Nolan, 1998). This
line of argument might explain why most PUAs ground their theories about gender-
relations in (essentialist) evolutionary psychology (Denes, 2011) and how seduction
could re-emerge as a business model (Hendriks, 2012).
Yet, the question persists: What is the precise nature of the connection that the PUAs
hold to the historical discourse of seduction? Does it amount to not much more than just
the superficial referencing of pop culture? Or can we find a firm ‘methodological’ conduit,
i.e. structural analogies in the ways seduction works for contemporary PUAs and their his-
torical counterparts?
Obviously, my argument claims the latter. The case studies have shown that, despite the
historical conjunctures of seduction discourse and culture, some techniques or means of
seduction have survived. Since all the tropes appeared in every text, this is an interesting –
and puzzling – finding in its own right. Now, however, I will argue even further that these
 NORMA: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR MASCULINITY STUDIES 13

social tropes can also be located in the contemporary seduction discourse. To do so, I shall
turn to a number of advice books from the Seduction Community. Prescriptive sources
like these, historians of emotion have contended, contain ‘collective emotional standards’
(P. N. Stearns & Stearns, 1985, p. 813), especially relevant when it comes to courtship prac-
tices. Although they may not tell us how lived reality actually looks like in every instance,
such sources provide ‘a number of widespread terms and metaphors’ which dominate the
community’s ‘lair meetings’ and internet forums (Almog & Kaplan, 2015; Hendriks, 2012,
p. 5). Hence, we can say that (these) advice books give us applied theories of social behav-
ior and emotional dynamics.
Yet, it would be presentist to look for the means of seduction that Don Juan, Casanova,
and Kierkegaard used in contemporary advice books all too directly. But still, the pickup
artists have developed complex methodologies for seduction where some elements – social
constellations and emotional dynamics – strongly reassemble what we have seen in the
above case studies.
Let us start with the promise, since it is the least likely to find in the PUA-discourse. After
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women entered the work force, second-wave feminists demanded acknowledgement, and the
pill triggered the sexual revolution during the 1960s, for most people in the Western world it is
not (as much) an issue anymore to find an institutionally legitimating pretext for having sexual
relations. Consequently, the promise to marriage has lost its efficacy as a means of seduction.
However, we might still find its structural equivalent if we understand the promise, like
Shoshana Felman (2003) has suggested, as a category of commitment. If Don Juan seduced
by granting commitment, and Kierkegaard by fostering skepticism toward it, the PUAs try
to seduce by refraining from commitment. They invert the trope by teaching how to avoid dis-
ambiguation. Robert Greene (2003, p. 190), for example, notes that seduction ‘thrives on ambi-
guity, on mixed signals, on anything that eludes interpretation. […] The key to both attracting
and holding attention is to radiate mystery.’ More practically, sending mixed signals means to
‘make her work. This is about being less attainable and remaining a challenge.’ (Ruina, 2007,
p. 226) Instead of revealing oneself, ‘you expertly withhold personal information to further
maintain control of the situation.’ (Taylor, 2006, p. 25) If the promise is a performative
speech act that constitutes an intersubjectively shared reality by committing to a certain
course of action, the PUA does the exact opposite: refusing to be clear and transparent,
hoping to thus become more desirable. As one British (female!) seduction coach explains,
the refrain from commitment is often embedded in push–pull technique, quite similar or
even analogous to what we have seen in Don Juan:
The principle of push–pull is about controlling a woman’s emotions during a conversation.
First, the guy will be nice with her and to hook her in and/or will use positive validation,
either of which acts as “pull.” Then, right after the woman has pulled in, he demonstrates
indifference or negative validation, which is of course the “push” part […]. This technique
is effective because the woman never really knows if the guy is interested in her. (Noble,
2012, p. 141; my emphasis)

Even though the technique is designed for causal interactions during courtship and/or
hooking up, it points to a more general pattern of men rationing commitment as a way
to gain/keep the upper hand in romantic relations (Illouz, 2012).
Our next trope, the gaze, is much easier to identify in the contemporary seduction
discourse. Reduced and re-formulated in PUA-terminology, it contracts to an Indicator
 14 T.-R. KRAY

of Interest (IOI). An IOI is ‘a sign a woman gives a man that indirectly reveals she is
attracted to or interested in him.’ (Strauss, 2006, p. 442) These signs come in many
forms and shapes, from giggling, smiling, and touching to when ‘she holds eye
contact for longer periods of time when she speaks with you.’ (Mystery, 2006, p. 90)
Subsumed under flirtatious non-verbal behavior, one advice book distinguishes
between an eye-flash and an ‘extended gaze,’ and instructs: ‘Don’t miss the extended
gaze by looking away before she does.’ (Taylor, 2008, p. 16) The gaze is a standard
seduction device and must be calibrated for the various stages and situations in court-
ship. Kenzia Noble advices:
Never break eye contact when you are at the sexual escalation stage […], or when you’re
telling her how you feel. Furthermore, if you say anything that’s considered strong or
intense, or has the ability to shift the mood, then you must make doubly sure that you
hold eye contact. (Noble, 2012, p. 41)

Of course, the gaze Kenzia Noble prescribes is not the same that, for example, Kierke-
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gaard used. Gender equality serves as the foundation for this struggle between gazers. Still,
it can switch gears in the gendered emotional economy and its power structure, carrying
‘the ability to shift the mood’ quickly – without the use of language.
Even more straightforward is the PUA’s employment of the triangle. Mystery, for
example, places it right in the center of his ‘theory of group dynamics.’ Based on
the observation that women are seldom found at social gatherings alone, it holds
that the PUA must approach any group or ‘set’ of women in a way that plays on
the relations between them. One woman is designated as ‘target,’ the other(s) as
‘obstacle(s).’ The PUA then focuses his positive attention on the ‘obstacle,’ while ignor-
ing and occasionally ‘negging’ his target. A ‘neg’ is a ‘subtle-yet-negative statement that
puts the target off-guard and makes her question her own value.’ (Mystery, 2006,
p. 217) Executed correctly, the ‘obstacle’ will start to befriend/desire the PUA,
leading the ‘target’ to become increasingly competitive, since she is excluded from
receiving positive attention. ‘Sometimes the first moment she feels jealousy is also
the first moment she consciously realizes that she is into you and that she wants to
have you, besting the other girl.’ (Mystery, 2006, p. 175) A German seduction book
puts it similarly and gives the following advice for how to conquer a beautiful
woman in a group setting: ‘I ignore her as long and as intensely as possible, while I
take care of her friends.’ (Kuhn, 2008, p. 135)
Again, a par for par translation from the historical sources is unlikely. However, tech-
niques taught by the PUA’s seem to play on similar emotional mechanisms, like the eli-
citation of (female) rivalry, fostering jealousy, and a divide-and-conquer style
production of ‘mimetic desire.’
The following conclusion will reflect more broadly on seduction’s present past, the
social tropes I have examined throughout this article, and the crucial issue of
masculinity.

5. Seduction’s present past, social tropes, masculinity

Today, seduction has become a global, multi-million-dollar business and, driven by
the ideology of self-improvement, flourishes like never before. Further inquiries
 NORMA: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR MASCULINITY STUDIES 15

into its historical trajectory would uncover, I think, a trend toward ever greater
rationalization that can be observed in several dimensions like, for instance, the
‘methods’ employed, involved personality structures, gender relations or the pat-
terns of emotional (self-)control. Although I have hinted at some of this, much
remains speculative: these alleged large-scale changes would need further investi-
gation and were not the main objective of this article. Rather, it focused on
some – quite surprising – continuities that the cultural history of seduction has
held in store.
Social tropes, as I have discussed them here, are what Jeffrey Alexander and Philip
Smith (2003) call ‘culture structures,’ as such relatively autonomous from the political
and the economic realm, which might explain their remarkable durability. Since they lie
way below their larger theoretical counterparts – big dichotomies, grand narratives or
longstanding institutions – it is easy to overlook them. If, however, one pays attention
to the components of the ‘strategies of action’ people use to orient themselves, to solve pro-
blems, and to achieve their ends, social tropes get visible as part of a ‘cultural toolkit’
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(Swidler).
These toolkits, however, carry moral weight and the social tropes can be used for
dubious purposes. The Seduction Community has been accused for propagating misogy-
nist gender stereotypes and sexism: ‘The act of seduction conveys misleading messages and
manipulations intended to gain power over women, all the while undermining and deva-
luing them [as they are] denied subjectivity and treated as a product that may be graded
and quantified.’ (Almog & Kaplan, 2015, p. 17) This perspective, as important as it is, over-
looks that ‘members of the Seduction Community not only objectify women, but also
other men – and they first and foremost objectify themselves.’ (Hendriks, 2012, p. 9)
Pickup may be (mis)guided by ideals of ‘hegemonic masculinity,’ as the ‘transformation’
from AFC to PUA evinces. Yet it is also an expression of the ‘crisis of masculinity’ and the
helplessness this inevitably entails.
What the historical comparison has brought to the forth are two arguably inter-
linked dimensions that might tell us something about what kinds of problems we
are dealing with regarding seduction, and perhaps more generally: class position and
emotional self-control. As the former deteriorated, the latter became ever more necess-
ary; semi-subaltern masculinities like that of the nerd try to remedy their ‘lack of social
skills’ methodologically. They sometimes seem unaware that this solution quickly
becomes a problem in and of itself. Seduction, sold and taught as a life-style
product, does not heal damaged masculinities, but injures them even further. It
might provide some temporary relief and comfort through the community around
the discourse/business. But that does not mean the loneliness will vanish. To the con-
trary, one might reckon, an instrumental attitude towards women will only exacerbate
it and deepen the malaise.
The means of seduction can be cruel, so let us remember the old Buddhist saying: ‘The
stronger you get, the gentler you become.’

Notes
1. Here, I use the play’s translation from Max Oppenheimer, Jr. (De Molina, 1976); I will abbre-
viate it with DJ.
 16 T.-R. KRAY

2. Henceforth abbreviated with HML.

3. These ‘Brides of Christ’ (Ruggiero, 1985, p. 70ff.) resided in Santa Maria degli Angeli on
Murano, one of the 36 convents in the Republic of Venice at the time (for a social history,
see Zarri, 1998). Sent to monasteries by their aristocratic kin in order to preserve family patri-
monies – an economic strategy referred to as ‘patrician monachization’ (Sperling, 1999) –,
such ‘Virgins of Venice’ were often very uncommitted to their (forced) religious lifestyle,
and thus eager to pierce the boundary between the sacral and secular realm.
4. Henceforth abbreviated as Diary.

Acknowledgement
My cordial thanks for helping to prepare earlier versions of this article go out to Phil Smith at Yale,
who continuously encourage me, his writing seminar, and the participants of the Yale Spring Con-
ference 2013; Bernhard Giesen contributed the boldness to study long historical trends, and
especially I thank Eva Illouz for her witty, sharp, and inspirational comments. This contribution
would also have been impossible without the time and effort of anonymous reviewers, as well as
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Ulf Mellström’s patience.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Thorn-R. Kray is a doctoral candidate at the Giessen Centre for the Study of Culture. His research
interests include romantic love, the work place, fine art, and the sociology of science. He studies
seduction as part of his interest in gender and the historical development of modern courtship
practices.

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