The Lost Art of Seduction (or How Cheetahs Do It)

I’m pretty open with my embrace of online dating. At its worst, it is the most entertaining people-watching you can do from your living room while watching reruns of Two and Half Men. At its best, it can expose you to people you would never normally meet and it gives a method of screening that a bar just doesn’t give you. For instance, you can pick out hustlers just from their usernames alone.

35 yr old Surfing Enthusiast with the username of Golfnfvr1954 is probably not 35, and most likely can’t be found surfing the waves at Va beach.

31 yr old Looking for a Meaningful Relationship with the username of 2Yummy4U is probably not interested in the latest book you just read.

You get the point. Well, the other day, I was contacted by this really handsome guy, educated, well spoken and funny. I didn’t get a creepy feel off his profile, and he seemed pretty witty. We exchanged a few emails over the course of an afternoon and talked about meeting in person, and I asked him if he had any pictures other than the one he had posted. So he got my email and sent me a couple of photos. The first one I pulled up was a good close up of him – and he was a cutey! Very hot, and the timestamp was current. Yes! I was excited.The second picture I opened was a picture of his penis.

Now to the point of this blog: What has happened to the subtle art of seduction? Done well by a man, a woman can be guided from a “maybe…” to a “hell yeah!” with smoldering eye contact, a hand on the lower back, maybe a finger grazed across a jaw leading to an amazing kiss. Done well by a woman, a man can think this was all his idea, bolstering his ego and sense of conquest.

It’s a game. I’m all just a game. But I have a PhD in this game. Yet, I found someone who had a definite “maybe” going on, and I got flashed. This made me think about the art of seduction and the lack of this skill in a great deal of single men in my generation.

I was watching the discovery channel last night (yes, I have no life) about this special on cheetahs. The female cheetah goes into heat and males approach, attracted to her. If they come by too soon, she beats them down short of killing them. They then back off, wait an hour or so, sneak up slowly and then she lets them get close enough to mate. Ms. Cheetah is getting more foreplay than I am, and frankly I suspect more than a lot of women are getting.

The problem isn’t just online. I’ve found that men are losing their “moves”. The whole point of a seduction is move a No or a Maybe --> to a Yes. A man expresses interest in what a woman has to say. He might ask about her interests, family and hobbies. He flirts and touches and tests the boundaries of what is acceptable, and not acceptable - All in the interest of seducing her. A woman pretends that she doesn’t know exactly what he is doing and guides the process. (She also pretends she’s virginal, but that’s a whole other blog.)

Let’s look at the possible outcomes of the seduction process:

Moving Maybe --> Yes. A woman knows beforehand if a man will succeed. Like the cheetah, she knows if she’ll eventually let him sneak up on her, or if she plans to beat him down. It’s all about subtlety. This is not difficult either. A

maybe is already a 95% yes, and only 5% I’ll hate myself in the morning.

Moving Maybe -->No. You have to have a lot of FAIL to move a maybe to a no, but it can happen. I was flirting with this one guy at a bar. We had a great night, and it was getting late. I was expecting him to ask for

my number, and instead he said “hey baby…wanna come home with me?” and grabbed my hand to place it on his crotch. Notwithstanding the insulting crudeness of it, if he wanted to pull off that ballsy of a move, he probably should have had something under that hand for me to feel.

Moving No -->Where are my panties? A true master will actually change a woman’s mind, but those are rare and hard to find. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve met some experts. One time, I was having a beer playing pool with a friend. Next thing I knew I was doing the walk of shame out of a hotel room thinking, “man, I didn’t see THAT one coming…”

My point is, the art of seduction is time-honored and proven and should be preserved by both sexes. Women: We fold too easy. We need to beat them down when they charge in too soon. After all, it works for the cheetahs. Men: It might take more time than the blunt, “wanna do it” proposition, but it has a much higher success rate. Seduction is an important part of the dating (and relationship) interaction, and a necessary prelude to great sex.

On a completely unrelated note, I have a date on Friday.

Don’t judge. That picture was really impressive.