As you may know if you’ve been watching my videos on YouTube this week, I’ve recently been re-reading (again) The Art of Seduction by the great Robert Greene. If you haven’t taken the time to read the book yet then you absolutely should. But be warned: it’s not a cheap and tawdry ‘pickup’ book (if you want those, check out my bundle RENEGADE DATING BLUEPRINT hur hurrrr) but rather an elegant and cerebral exploration of the art of seduction over the centuries, referencing such diverse figures as Ovid, Freud, John F Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe.
I’m a sucker for Greene’s writing, and if there’s a single contemporary writer I emulate it’s him. Why? Because he is essentially a voyeur (or so it seems to me – maybe I’m wrong). That is, he studies human nature via literary and historical texts, and observation, and codifies what he finds in precise and finely-wrought prose, however unflattering to our species it might be. Most of my contemporaries in this space have read The 48 Laws of Power, and it’s much-quoted as a result. But I feel that ‘Seduction’ is somewhat overlooked. Perhaps that’s because people don’t quite know what to make of it. As I mentioned, it’s not a ‘dating’ guide in any sense, and if you’re hitting up the strip in Vegas in the hope of hooking up with attractive young party girls it’s probably not going to be your go-to text. But it contains many profound lessons that apply to the sexual marketplace and beyond nevertheless.
I now want to quote a passage from the book where Greene writes about uninhibitedness – a hugely important element of charisma and seduction which isn’t much taught, presumably because it is an elusive quality that dating coaches find somewhat hard to articulate:
Most people are repressed, and have little access to their unconscious – a problem that creates opportunities for the charismatic, who can become a kind of screen on which others project their secret fantasies and longings. You will first have to show that you are less inhibited than your audience – that you radiate a dangerous sexuality, have no fear of death, are delightfully spontaneous. Even a hint of these qualities will make people think you are more powerful than you are . . . .
An extension of your being uninhibited is a dreamlike quality in your work and character that reveals your openness to your unconscious. It was the possession of this quality that transformed artists like Wagner and Picasso into charismatic idols. Its cousin is a fluidity of body and spirit; while the repressed are rigid, Charismatics have an ease and an adaptability that show their openness to experience.
Like so much of Greene’s writing in this book, if you never watched a dating or charisma advice video in your life, but simply imbibed this paragraph and applied it wholesale to your own behaviour, you would without a doubt see an exponential increase in your success in the sexual marketplace. Why? Well, you only have to look around you on an evening out in a bar, lounge or club to see that those men who appear to be least inhibited are in receipt of the greatest amount of female attention.
Rock Star Status
But let’s consider this in the context of our handy, perennial example, the rock star. The rock star is almost contractually obliged to be uninhibited. It’s in the job description. I recently went to see the British electronic band Underworld at Wembley Arena – a fantastic concert. The band is composed of just two members: Rick Smith, instrumentalist, and Karl Hyde, the singer. Over the course of two hours they took us through some brooding and (relatively) restrained new material, to apocalyptically-banging favourites like Rez, Born Slippy and Moaner (from their Beaucoup Fish album).
The effect on the audience was unmistakeable – something about the music, the lights, and the band’s presentation had taken us to a state of near-religious ecstasy. The energy in the room was off the charts. It was as though they’d been disseminating MDMA through the aircon system. Not a small part of this is Karl Hyde’s stage-persona. Hyde is a skinny, post-punk dude in his early sixties. He was dressed simply in jeans and a white long-sleeved t-shirt. He is not the world’s greatest singer: he likely wouldn’t get past the first audition on X-Factor. He is also not a skilled dancer: his moves are perhaps best described as ‘dad rave’. BUT, he is uninhibited as fuck. He shuts his eyes, shakes his head, and pumps his fists up and down to the beats, twisting his emaciated body this way and that in a wildly escalating embodiment of ecstasy.
Watching him let loose on stage in front of 10,000 people it’s impossible not to feel a kind of catharsis oneself. He is an ‘ordinary guy’ seemingly in direct communion with his subconscious. And thus he plays the role of shaman – via his elevated state the crowd too are able to access something of their own subconscious. To experience a kind of transcendental state themselves.
As Greene says, most people are repressed and have little access to their subconscious. Certainly this is true in the dating marketplace, where many women are addicted to their phones, shopping, social media and Netflix shows, and are dulled by these things so that they are not really in touch with their inner selves.
Which is precisely why, when the guy turns up at the club who is totally ‘in the moment’, dancing in some wacky way being louder than everyone else, saying random, surreal shit, and basically totally ignoring normie social conventions, they go nuts. You’ve probably seen the sort of guy I’m talking about on a night out, and it’s kind of annoying when he appears, because a lot of the time, if we’re honest, we do feel inhibited and not ‘free’ in the social space ourselves. And so when a man who has those qualities turns up and seems to effortlessly own the room we feel defeated because we sense immediately the vast erotic power he holds over the women present. For them, something of his vibe hints at great sex – because he is free, not closed up and repressed like the betas who are holding their drinks up close to their chests. He signals fantasy and adventure. He is someone who might just break the women out of the dull ennui of their everyday lives. He is a superhero, come to the existential rescue.
Of course, most people access such states with drink and drugs. I don’t recommend either. While in the short term they might make you a hit at parties, the longer-term prognosis is not good. But, it’s up to you. For myself, I haven’t used alcohol or other substances for around 18 years, because of the pesky ol’ addictive personality. Instead, I had to learn to be uninhibited sober, both in nightclubs and during the daytime. It’s not easy, but I got pretty damn good at it.
Basically, you have to recognise the absurdity of life. Then you must realise that no one else gives a damn about you, and that, since we’re all going to be dead pretty soon, it doesn’t really matter what the hell you do (within the law). Then you have to see how messing around with people’s reality – their expectations of you, and of polite social behaviour – is actually pretty funny. Then you must allow your competitive streak to ignite – if that guy can be loud, you can be louder. If that dude can dance weird, you can dance weirder, etc. And then you must consider that all of humanity is a steaming pile of confused crap, and no one else knows what the hell’s going on either, and you’re only trying to get laid, which is pretty amusing when you come to think about it, and that your actions in this context – as in most other contexts – has practically zero practical significance at all.
And then . . . you must walk into the centre of the arena and simply . . .be.
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