Seduction

What does seduction mean in Lenore's terms?

Seduction is clearly a Perceiving approach to sexuality. Seduction involves cultivating a firsthand understanding of how to induce someone to desire you sexually, and how to create that desire in that person in a way that they act on it. This understanding can only emerge from the concrete reality of what people actually respond to; understanding how people work exemplifies introverted thinking. For someone to want to sleep with you, you must as least be able to turn them on sexually. Attracting them sexually and impacting their senses requires extraverted sensation. Because of the two main features of seduction—understanding what makes people tick on a sexual level, and using that understanding to influence them—seduction seems to be an ISTP art.

Seduction uses concrete reality (understanding the causal structure of how people respond to each other sexually) as a basis for ethics. Seduction involves harmonizing your actions with what people respond to, rather than with preconceived notions of how you "should" interact with people you are sexually interested in. Yet the understandings that emerge from concrete reality are often at odds with the ethics of the social world. From the standpoint of Judging types, seduction appears manipulative and underhanded. Why can't those sneaky Perceivers just play by the rules and be happy? Extraverted feeling types might genuinely not see why Perceivers might not be able to find success in the dating/relationships realm simply by playing by the normal rules and rituals. ITPs especially tend to find social rituals tedious and difficult. See Why can't you share your feelings.

Lenore on ITPs:

p. 300. "Indeed, these types can be nearly oblivious to the social rituals and signs of relationship that Extraverted Feeling regulates. If they become aware of this aspect of life, it can strike them as a kind of strategic game. For example, and INTP mathematician of my acquaintance, whose relationship were often difficult and confounded him, had a successful sideline career running singles parties and writing how-to manuals on picking up women."

A Je approach to ethics involves embracing social rules and rituals as inherently valuable. Seduction rejects social rituals as inherently valuable, but employs them as an instrumentally valuable heuristic towards sleeping with someone. Hence, seduction flouts social rules for how sexuality is supposed to be negotiated, and often re-appropriates those rituals for purposes they weren't intended for.

A classic example of the re-appropriation of social rituals in seduction is the stereotype of "players" lying to women that they love them (or will marry them, or have a relationship with them), to induce the women to have sex.

A less obviously unethical example of the use of social rituals in seduction is the understanding and use of psychological principles of influence, persuasion, social dynamics, sexuality, and power to entice someone into sex.

For example, the phenomenon of social proof is often employed in seduction. A possible use of social proof would be to make sure the person you want to seduce sees you in the company of attractive and high-status members of their sex. That way, you would appear to be more attractive and high-status because of the company you hold. The social proof phenomenon seems to rest on Fe (and probably on Se also). Yet it is not an example of dominant or secondary Fe: FJs would never build up social connections for the express purpose of attracting and seducing people. Exploiting social proof is an example of tertiary Fe, because it is about intentionally using the way people pay attention to social standing to influence them. This use of social proof is not obviously unethical, but nevertheless the idea will leave a bad taste in the mouths of many, especially FJs.

Although seduction is about Ti and Se on a general level, it often employs other functions, such as Fi to build an emotional connection with someone.