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jbrieu's review against another edition
4.0
As usual, never read Greene at face value, but just a way to hear about historical anecdotes linked with a common theme.
xaydenlee's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.75
It's an interesting read. The material is educational. After reading, you may be better equipped to identify how or why people present themselves in particular/situations manners.
jmercy's review against another edition
2.0
Read it for the history tidbits, maybe learn some positive social ques. Try not to become a weirdo manipulator/predator.
I'd say Robert Greene is very fucking weird.
I'd say Robert Greene is very fucking weird.
styxis's review against another edition
4.0
People are more complicated than the masks they wear in society.
I can see why some people detest The Art of Seduction.
It teaches how to seduce people in a mostly manipulative and toxic way, which is definitely not the right thing to do when you try to win someone over respectfully. This is definitely not a book one should try to take too serious and follow step by step unless you want to be a living and breathing red flag.
Still, I thought it was insightful and very interesting to learn about all these different seducer (and the anti-seducer) types. At times it felt like I was doing a little personality test, trying to find out what traits I see in myself or in others. I liked the example stories as well. All of them being quite intriguing every time they popped up and nice to have for a further understanding of the topic at hand.
Some outrageous sentences aside, I feel like I learned a little bit more about human behavior and thinking, which is why I think it is an informative read. But taken lightly.
sakusha's review against another edition
Someone recommended that I read this. After reading so many typology books, it made me laugh when I found out that the book also separated people into types—both the seducers and the “victims.” I didn’t really like the message of the book—that you have to put on an act and be dishonest in order to catch your prey. I guess I’m just an anti-seducer. I have no interest in manipulating people. Maybe because I also have little interest in being around people in general.
Of the victim types, the one that most closely matched me was “The Professor.” “These types cannot get out of the trap of analyzing and criticizing everything that crosses their path” (155). The book claims every victim type secretly wants to be seduced. The professor “would like to escape their mental prisons, they would like pure physicality, without any analysis” (155). Actually, no, I like thinking. I don’t want a lover if he’s going to be dishonest and only pretend to be interested in me so he can use me. “Make them feel like Don Juans or Sirens, to even the slightest degree, and they are your slaves” (155). Nope, that has no appeal. Appreciate me for my brain. I guess I’m seduction-proof. “The completely contented person is almost impossible to seduce” (xiii). That’d be another reason why I’m seduction-proof.
Tips for seducing:
1. Pick an isolated, unhappy, anxious person.
2. Approach indirectly. Never be forceful/direct.
3. Send mixed signals; be hard to figure out. Be both tough and tender.
4. Be wanted/courted by many to make yourself more desirable
5. Flirt/be suggestive, make alluring glances
6. Enjoy what they enjoy
7. Tempt them with something they want
8. Surprise, create suspense
9. Say what they want to hear
10. Don’t be around them too often
11. Play the victim so your target sympathizes with you
12. Be the image of adventure, success, and romance
13. If no resistances or obstacles face you, create them (25)
14. Take them away from their friends, family, & home.
15. Do something taboo with them so they’ll have a shared feeling of guilt and complicity
16. Mix pleasure with pain. Make them feel guilty and insecure. Instigate a breakup.
17. Feign boredom and disinterest
18. Once the victim clearly desires you, make your move without hesitation.
19. When reality intrudes (illness, fight), distance can be a solution (40).
20. If you want to part, make it swift and sudden. If you want to stay, use absence, pain, & conflict to keep the victim from taking you for granted.
Men are vulnerable to the visual, and women are vulnerable to language/words (23). Men like a woman who is sexual but also like a mother and has the spirit/intellect of an artist (38).
Seduction was originally done “to overcome a young woman’s resistance to sex” (xx). “The origin of the word ‘seduction’ is the Latin for ‘to lead astray’” (xxi). Men learned to be attractive by being androgynous (xx).
The book says that people can be seduced by mind games alone, even if you aren’t physically attractive (xxii). I disagree.
Marilyn Monroe was deprived of affection as a child, and so desired it (11). Interesting that its usually the case that creating a lack in someone is what gets them begging. Provide a child with love, and they won’t love their parents. Treat a child with scorn, neglect, etc. and the child begs for love.
Political seduction: be vague, suggestive, make slogans for the audience to repeat, ask emotionally loaded questions for them to answer, flatter the crowd, make them feel like they’re part of a drama (23). Dig into a country’s past and bring back images/ideals that have been abandoned (39).
I dropped the book. I may finish it another time.
Of the victim types, the one that most closely matched me was “The Professor.” “These types cannot get out of the trap of analyzing and criticizing everything that crosses their path” (155). The book claims every victim type secretly wants to be seduced. The professor “would like to escape their mental prisons, they would like pure physicality, without any analysis” (155). Actually, no, I like thinking. I don’t want a lover if he’s going to be dishonest and only pretend to be interested in me so he can use me. “Make them feel like Don Juans or Sirens, to even the slightest degree, and they are your slaves” (155). Nope, that has no appeal. Appreciate me for my brain. I guess I’m seduction-proof. “The completely contented person is almost impossible to seduce” (xiii). That’d be another reason why I’m seduction-proof.
Tips for seducing:
1. Pick an isolated, unhappy, anxious person.
2. Approach indirectly. Never be forceful/direct.
3. Send mixed signals; be hard to figure out. Be both tough and tender.
4. Be wanted/courted by many to make yourself more desirable
5. Flirt/be suggestive, make alluring glances
6. Enjoy what they enjoy
7. Tempt them with something they want
8. Surprise, create suspense
9. Say what they want to hear
10. Don’t be around them too often
11. Play the victim so your target sympathizes with you
12. Be the image of adventure, success, and romance
13. If no resistances or obstacles face you, create them (25)
14. Take them away from their friends, family, & home.
15. Do something taboo with them so they’ll have a shared feeling of guilt and complicity
16. Mix pleasure with pain. Make them feel guilty and insecure. Instigate a breakup.
17. Feign boredom and disinterest
18. Once the victim clearly desires you, make your move without hesitation.
19. When reality intrudes (illness, fight), distance can be a solution (40).
20. If you want to part, make it swift and sudden. If you want to stay, use absence, pain, & conflict to keep the victim from taking you for granted.
Men are vulnerable to the visual, and women are vulnerable to language/words (23). Men like a woman who is sexual but also like a mother and has the spirit/intellect of an artist (38).
Seduction was originally done “to overcome a young woman’s resistance to sex” (xx). “The origin of the word ‘seduction’ is the Latin for ‘to lead astray’” (xxi). Men learned to be attractive by being androgynous (xx).
The book says that people can be seduced by mind games alone, even if you aren’t physically attractive (xxii). I disagree.
Marilyn Monroe was deprived of affection as a child, and so desired it (11). Interesting that its usually the case that creating a lack in someone is what gets them begging. Provide a child with love, and they won’t love their parents. Treat a child with scorn, neglect, etc. and the child begs for love.
Political seduction: be vague, suggestive, make slogans for the audience to repeat, ask emotionally loaded questions for them to answer, flatter the crowd, make them feel like they’re part of a drama (23). Dig into a country’s past and bring back images/ideals that have been abandoned (39).
I dropped the book. I may finish it another time.
Content Warnings
It might trigger some people to read all this advice about how to manipulate others with mind games.