By Jackson Biko
Seduction is the act of a man enticing (without the use of force or blackmail) a previously chaste woman to consent to sexual intercourse.
That’s the general definition according to most dictionaries and encyclopedia.
Of course, this definition is dated because parts of it are not relevant or practical in today’s setting. Like that “chaste” bit because chaste women in this city are as common as bananas are in Egypt.
I suspect that by the time our children become young adults, this word will be as ambiguous and outdated as the word smallpox. Nonetheless, seduction in the traditional sense basically involved a man pursuing a woman for her affections.
To do this, the man would use techniques that would eventually make the woman agreeable to his way of thinking. And so he would take her for many dates where they would put away many plates of rice, meats and drink hundreds of mugs of coffees between them.
On top of these, they would drink rivers of alcohol, watch reels and reels of movies and laugh at jokes he would be recounting for the umpteenth time, albeit to a different audience.
He would constantly get on the phone at the end of the day and ask the most important question women want to hear at sunset: “How was your day?” Then he would listen like he really and truly cared.
Sometimes he would lie to her. Lie to her that he has boatful of money, but only if she had given him a strong indication that she is turned on by money.
So if this was the case, he would borrow swanky cars and wear outrageously priced suits (bought on credit) and sometimes go further and take loans to present a more affluent front.
Through all these, she would play the role perfectly by acting disinterested, unavailable, aloof and very busy. But he would not lose sight of the prize, especially if she had those alluring child-bearing hips.
This seduction game would grind on for a while, maybe a few months, before finally he would – to use the language of our forefathers – have his way with her. That was how the cookie crumbled- according to script.
Now the tide seems to have changed. The art of seduction has quickly become dour, pale and sickly. Something happened because at some point, women took matters into their own hands and started seducing men, not subtly but with bristling courage.
Sure, a few chivalrous men still try to cling onto the role of seduction and can even still afford to send “dirty little stones” to a woman’s suite, but mostly it’s the women doing the chasing.
The traditional seduction roles have been turned upside down and more and more women are saying, “Look, I know I look nice in this short skirt and if you won’t notice my legs and pursue me, then you leave me with no choice but to pursue you instead.”
Everybody has heard of this collective woeful cry from our women: “Kenyan men are so unromantic!”
This is one statement that men are used to, and it is tied to the seduction theorem that states that a man will always apply himself in the romantic way if he wants a woman badly enough.
What makes seduction enjoyable is the uncertainty of it all, the chance of you – the man – knowing that you could get rejected.
Challenge
The reality is that a man will get more creative with his persuasion skills and exert himself more when faced with a challenge. Why pull a chair or buy flowers or stare deep into a woman’s eyes and wax lyric if she has made it clear – and in many unsubtle and amorous ways – that she is ready (to repeat the language of our fathers) to have her way with you? Why bother taking a loan to impress her?
It’s natural when a man pursues a woman. Because that’s God intention. In these times, a woman who pursues a man might be tagged as “liberated” or a “go-getter”, or that “they know what they want” and they “go for it.”
Those synonyms might sound very heroic and urbane in the drunken milieu of a bar.
But in truth, much as all these bold advances might be flattering, very few men will take a woman who is forward too seriously because by being very aggressively forthcoming they shatter the man’s primal instinct to seek and conquer.
So ladies, next time you see a man in the pub who takes your fancy, think twice before you make your move on him. No man wants to be pursued by an aggressive woman.
Source: Daily Nation
Comments