A Tale Of Seduction - The Marvelous Ingenuity Of Sexual Fakery

Felicia Sanders was a coquette - a pert, cute Midwestern girl of classic cornflower blue eyes, blonde flaxen hair, a bright smile, and perfect skin. Seduction for her was irrelevant, because God had given her all it takes to attract men.  There was something in her simple perfection and innately seductive beauty that instinctively appealed to men, all men.

 

A blonde woman once said that she had a ten percent jump on all other women just because of her hair, for which advantage she had the Aryans to thank.  Ever since they came down from the steppes, settled in Mohenjo-Daro and then made their way down the Subcontinent, light complexion, light hair, and light eyes became the ideal.

Not only is this preference obvious in the matrimonial notices in Indian newspapers which plead for men and women of light skin, but in every community born of darker shades. 

Despite James Brown's famous, 'Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud', black men have sought the Holy Grail of sexual conquest - a blonde, blue-eyed woman just like Felicia Sanders.  In fact she couldn't walk down K Street without running the gantlet.  

She took it for granted, it came with the territory, and as much of a nuisance as it was, the flip side was the breathless desire of handsome white men everywhere.

Other women of ordinary looks and darker mien had no such luck. They had to work at seduction, tart up like nobody's business - make up, eyeliner, perfume, designer clothes, and Blahnik shoes - and even then had to put on the dog every time they were approached, some sign of sexual proclivity, even eagerness, although nothing too forward. 

The whole kit-and-kaboodle was a grand circus act, a vaudevillian standup routine, a television soap opera of exaggeration and melodrama.  'It isn't who I am, but who I seem to be' is the meme on the sexual street, and there is no woman who doesn't know it, repeat it, and incorporate it as part of her persona. 

A little embellishment never hurt anyone, a touching up around the edges, a little dab here and there; and as long as one didn't stray too far from the truth, such creative invention could pay great rewards.

Blue Jasmine, perhaps Woody Allen's finest movie and an Oscar-winning role for Cate Blanchett, is about a woman who veers too far from the truth.  So anxious is she to land a decent man after a long marriage with a deceitful, crooked man, she creates an alternate identity, one which corresponds to her early childhood fantasies and reflects at least some of her abilities.  It take happenstance, a chance encounter with an errant brother-in-law to out her deception. 

Jasmine is not the only woman who has fudged a bit on her resume or tinkered with her pedigree.  Somehow we all think that we are masters at legerdemain, that we are sailing on a ship of fools, that a sucker is born every minute, that you can fool most of the people most of the time. 

The comedian Joan Rivers was proud of her makeovers.  'I've sent a hundred Jewish kids to Harvard on my face alone', she once told Johnny Carson, and she at seventy never looked better, not quite thirty but a good twenty years had been nipped and tucked by Dr. Goldberg, plastic surgeon to the stars, known for his Michelangelo touch, his Bernini vision, and his DaVinci insights into feminine beauty. 

Rivers wasn't the only woman to seek out Dr. Goldberg.  Jane Fonda was as open and forthright about her cosmetic adjustments.  Why, she said, should a woman of beauty and wealth look like a wrinkled prune when she can retain the youthful looks that were her hallmark?

Women have a stake in hedging their bets.  Keeping fit at the gym, getting facials and body toning, and keeping a beauty chest full of creams, lotions, and powders is far more than simple vanity.  It makes good economic sense. 

A woman who ‘lets herself go’, who lets her graying hair straggle, wears sensible shoes and comfortable pants, and pays no attention to crows' feet, lumps, and sags has lost competitive advantage in a tough marketplace.

In the animal kingdom it is the male bird that has the bright plumage, who does the exotic mating dances, and prances around the female saying, 'I'm here, I'm here!'. 

While men have their own mating rituals, and have relied more on acquired wealth, future promise, and good health than any frippery, women of the human species are the ones who tart up.

Now, legions of ugly women have insisted that beauty is only skin deep, but they know in their heart of hearts that that is complete nonsense.  Conventionally attractive women get the pick of desirable men, the best jobs, quick promotion, and a home in the suburbs, and they are there for all to see.  

In fact the standards of female beauty have never changed.  The most beautiful women today have the same perfect symmetry as the statues of Nefertiti, Venus de Milo, the Three Graces, or Aphrodite, or the women in the paintings of Leonardo and Botticelli. 

So women behind the curve do everything to approximate that universal standard of feminine beauty - create optical illusions to narrow wide-spaced eyes, hide oversized ears, add shadow and color to disguise a long or misshapen nose. 

It has always been so, and women have been the same sexual performers forever.  Of course, social class has a lot to do with the show - peasant women are chosen for their brawn and reproductive potential.  A man needs a working woman, not a movie star, which is why although there are always a few diamonds in the rough, the peasantry is never responsible for the world's most beautiful women. 

To be fair, men put on their own show, a lot of hot air, braggadocio, posturing, and outright obfuscation of the truth to gain competitive advantage.  A silver tongue has always been the sharpest knife in the male cutlery - a little sweet-talking, exaggeration, swagger, and arbitrariness go a long way when it comes to seduction.  

Female credulousness increases with age - older, single women want to believe the most transparent male chicanery and pay the price, but in younger years the battle is enjoined equally.  Male suitors and their intended prizes go through the most preposterous stagecraft, but only one will give in. 

To be even more fair, America is the land of false images, fol-de-rol, and fake everything.  Hollywood is the real America, not Chillicothe or Ames.  It is the heart and soul, the cultural core of America whose citizens don't want the truth, but the fantasy.  Who wants the real life of Walmart greeter, Target checkout clerk, or diner grill man?  

 

Much has been made recently of 'fake news', and progressives have been falling over themselves to promote 'the truth'; but every American knows there is no such thing, everything is a matter of perception and interpretation, so why fuss?

Which is why sexual chicanery, the art of seductive trickery as old as the hills is still not only alive and well but as glitteringly in play as ever.  We don't want the truth, so go ahead and gussy up and give it a try.  We're not good at telling truth from fiction in the first place, so why not enjoy the three ring circus of sexual seduction?