Seduction, Dominance & Energy

I stumbled across a woman's blog today who is socially and intimately involved in a group which I had not heard of prior, called the Seduction Community. This network of "pickup artists" (men, generally), both online and in bars or "lairs," practices a set techniques aimed at helping them pick up women-- pre-scripted lines, dominance behavior, "female psychology."

It is not hard to see the positive and negative sides of the idea-- on the one hand, it corrects some erroneous notions that some men hold about women. The Seduction Community teaches men not to buy women things to try and convince them to like them. Good idea. On the other hand, it seems to espouse some appalling notions of the highest good in life as being the biggest player, the one who can sleep with the most willing females.

The whole issue, though, brings to mind something for me that has been tangentially on my mind for some time. As a girl child, I was socialized by my mother with a set of behaviors that serve me incredibly badly, and especially when it comes to dating and sex.

Like most girl children, I was taught to be polite. Polite at all costs. Polite and nice and girly and kind even when I felt uncomfortable, even when I didn't like somebody. Polite when an adult gave me a creepy feeling. I was chastised for rudeness, told repeatedly that I was rude if I didn't thank people, say you're welcome each time, accept invitations. This is the way, of course, that most of us are socialized; however, there are stark differences between the socialization of boy and girl children.

In a relationship, I was taught to be needy. of course, this was not said, this was not taught as such. But I was taught a particular type of insecurity about myself. When I got into a relationship with E., I learned about this trait of mine much more thoroughly. Five months into our "relationship," I realized my self esteem had fallen greatly. I was dating someone who slept with everyone in town, it seemed, except for me. I was tagging along in our relationship because I wanted to be wanted. And I was not. E., like some other people, based his need for someone inversely upon how much they need him. The more I needed him, the less he needed me. The less I needed him, the more he wanted me. I was deeply aware of this push and pull, yet he seemed utterly oblivious to it. Our continuum of need flipflopped by the day, or the hour. Neither of us were aware enough to stop it. Finally, we agreed to separate.

This neediness, it seems, is part of what the Seduction Community wants to help cultivate in women. What I am curious about is---is there a middle ground between needing and being needed, where a relationship is fun, a playful tug of war? Would that be an enjoyable game? That is to say, must we accept the paradigm of need (of dealer and addict, as Ruiz analogizes it) or can we transcend it entirely?

I guess I have been somewhat in favor of transcending it. It seems tawdry, a little, and unneeded. For awile, I have sought a "new paradigm of relationship," an elusive third option. Is this third option, of mutual benefit, a transcendence of the mental realities of needed and needer? Or is it a fine fluctuation between the two? And, if two people genuinely LIKE each other, is all of this rendered moot?

Seduction Community may help to empower men, and perhaps even help them to relate to women better, less desperately, with more balance. Yet, in its many practices, it seems to overlook that simple idea of mutual liking. Game playing CAN keep a partner off balance and interested for a long time. E. kept me off balance and made me THINK I liked him for a long time. But I eventually realized I did not. I was attracted to my own need.

With M., I put a fair amount of effort into our friendship at first, and did expend effort in making sure that I was coming on well, not overly needy, and guiding the depth and intensity of our conversations in a somewhat calculated way, yet it was not something aimed at seducing him. There is no reason for me to pursue sex or intimacy in this way.

Rather, I wanted to see if I could get a better picture of myself, and see what I was habituated into doing in a relationship. I learned a lot by breaking my habits. Something like the SC--or many other programs aimed at establishing social dominance--can be so valuable in helping you to see where your learned submission lies. Yet their real value is there--in the seeing--and not in your ability to adopt the "new program", the new habit, and become successful. That success is just as much a false image as the failure you were experiencing before.

With M, I have ceased my energy expenditure in guiding the relationship. I feel fairly lazy. I am not sure If I'm presently feeling a great attraction to him. If getting close to him results in finding that I genuinely like him, I believe it is worth it to expend a little extra energy.