The True Art of Seduction: What Every Christian Should Know

Art by: Ron Discenza

It still boggles my mind how women till this day still fall for the same dirty tricks men play, even the blatantly obvious ones. Of course men should stop deceiving, but why do women keep believing? Why?

Even worse is when seemingly mature Christian women (and men, mind you), who are held to a higher standard with the expectation of having a renewed mind and bearing real spiritual fruit, fall prey to these kind of games. Sometimes, I am aware that many women, who have the world's value system, intentionally close their eyes to seduction, a sort of self-denial, to gratify whatever need they have to feel alive, or make some insecurity feel more secure. But that is not what Christian women should experience. Christian women should be aware of seduction and prepare against by being able to identify it. The problem with that is that Christian women are not able to prepare against it, because most Christian men who have lived through it are too ashamed to talk about and thus educate, or simply want to avoid being judged. I would've certainly fell into the first category, but as a male I now feel like it is so important that people understand seduction that it is not worth hiding behind a veil about it. Before I begin bashing on the men any further, it should be noted that many women like to employ these tactics as well. I hope that women who think themselves cunning in employing these tactics onto men would be ashamed, and would stop seeing themselves "wise" in their own eyes, and the same goes for the men. As it is said "it takes a playa to know a playa".

Some background: Why seduction?
Someone might ask, is this even real? What does this even have to do with Christianity? Is there a spiritual aspect to these kinds of things? The answer is that seduction is a sin to be repented of. It is trying to play God and manipulate someone else's feelings for personal satisfaction. Its unloving and selfish. Jesus Christ died for sin, so you would be alive to righteousness. Seduction is often times assisted, accompanied, and accomplished by demonic beings. Christian's need to be aware of it to

a) Guard themselves from being seduced
b) Resist the temptation to resort to seduction instead of trusting God

I have several concerns about people misusing/misunderstanding this article.

1) Men & Women will read this blog and attempt to "test" or use these methods as a means of seducing, instead of seeing seduction as a sin to be repented of.

2) They will overlook it because its long. Some people will be naive enough to think they are quite aware of seduction, and are not in need of any advice concerning how to defend themselves against it.

3) They may notice they have done some of the things mentioned but are unwilling to stop and seek forgiveness.


Now that those things have been said, lets define seduction.

Seduction is manipulating, or unlovingly influencing someone else for personal motives. Seduction employs different tactics, and in some senses it also is a tactic. In today's culture we like to use cute words to make it seem less evil, like "game" or "charm" but it is what it is, seduction. Notice it is appropriate to call different methods seduction employs tactics, because "games" also employ different tactics. Often times seduction involves attempting to have sex with your victim, other times it is simply trying to win their affection which can be for a plethora of different reasons. Obviously this information isn't based on some surveys or experiments, rather its a lot of generalizations I have made from my personal experience, and learning from others much more experienced in the art of seduction.

So here comes the big question ?
How do you identify seduction, if you have never tried, attempted, or thought about it?

I like to classify seduction in 3 categories, A-C.  A being most effective, the most often, and C being the least effective, the least often. Different methods work on different people. People with their defenses up will be less susceptible to category B & C, as opposed to category A which includes methods that targets those with defenses up. Some things people do "trying" to seduce, are so ineffective, they are not even worth categorizing, as they fail almost always. This includes trying to manipulate people through

●nagging

●wining

●constantly asking

●giving over the top complements; i.e. “gorgeous, beautiful”

●giving over the top gifts; i.e. “jewelry, love letters, poems, flowers”

●trying to sound philosophical about everything

In each of these cases, it could be that the person is not trying to seduce, and is instead simply desperate for your attention because of genuine feelings, which depends on how they are hiding their motives or not. Seduction involves hiding motives and feelings, because of the fear of rejection. So at its core seduction occurs because of insecurity on behalf of the seducer. How to detect and thus guard yourself from techniques is in the ■ points following the ● points.

C - Level Techniques)

These techniques are the least effective from those I will enumerate, but they are also the most well known. A lot of C - Level Techniques are somewhat fundamental to using more advanced techniques. If you have never heard of these things, it will be difficult for you to grasp why they work. These you will find in cheesy "pick up artist" training videos and other corny material you will find floating around the web.

C- Level Techniques include

●Acting Cocky/Confident - this can be a variety of things from good posture to false optimism about yourself. Its acting courageously and being bold not the actual embodiment of confidence, which is a good attribute.

■Over-confidence is easy to detect. I find that women will test your confidence by throwing out insults and monitoring for a reaction. This is ungodly method of detecting false confidence. The godly response is to listen to the speaker to see if he is sharing more information than is being asked. If someone is giving you more information than you ask them, they may be trying to sell an image of themselves to you. This includes bragging about anything irrelevant to a given conversation.

●Showing minimal interest in someone. This can be through replying in short messages, very late, and never contacting the person first. This may be the most familiar tactic, which is why it also makes it the least effective. By giving short bits of information, short responses, the person relying on you to respond is at your mercy whether you will reply, and what information you will give them.

■This is easily detected by observing patterns between the frequency in how someone is responding. If someone responds late to every single one of your messages, including time critical responses, they may be trying to "show minimal interest". If someone is generous with the length of their responses, then suddenly reverts to minimal responses, these are all indicators they are baiting for a reaction. The Godly response is to trust God and always respond how you would to any other person, instead of reverting to their tactics. The temptation is to respond to pride with pride, but the Godly response is to respond to pride with humility, because that is God's response to us in Christ. Though he was wealthy, he lowered himself to the form of a slave, effectively humbling those who rage against him.

●Exhibiting some creativity with words and metaphors. This is sometimes expressed in pretending to interpret everything someone says as sexual, to not only lure them into thinking about sex, but to actually make them feel like they are giving off that message, so they must have been thinking about it. This includes being funny or witty, trying to tie ideas with some relevant interests of the person, or even simply using their vernacular for your own motives.

■Watch the suspects behavior in a group. If they twist everything everyone says, including their male friends, it could be a false alarm, or a clever cover-up. Its not okay to purposely misinterpret what someone else says. Resist the temptation to give verbal or nonverbal cues approving of their jokes. Simply reassert the seriousness of the conversation and ignore the joke which doesn't belong in the conversation. Coarse jokes in particular are never "okay" and shouldn't be laughed out and thus showing approval. Sometimes smiling with silence while shaking your head sends a healthy response to move forward with a conversation.

●Creating a "popular" Social Media persona. Getting many "likes" and social validation for your posts and things you put online. Posting pictures of yourself "always" having "fun". Attempting to make your life look like something worth coveting, that others desire.

■This falls apart very fast once people observe you in community and see you really have no friends or fans you purport to have online. If someone has hundreds of fans following them and giving them lots of social media feedback, see how that translates into real life. How many social media friends show up to events they host? Pay close attention to who interacts with this person in person.

B - Level Techniques)

These techniques are more advanced, and the success of using these techniques sometimes depends on mastering C- Level, which is why it is important to look at seduction as a whole, not only categorically which I have done for the convenience of the reader more familiar with seduction methods. B- Level techniques will work. They will work quite often, but they will often fail under heavy resistance, and or when the victim realizes what is happening. Strong consistency is often accompanied by these methods, making them harder to detect.

B - Level Techniques include:

●Never admit to your victims strong attributes, i.e. physical attraction, wealth, or anything else they may be confident in.

■Women tend to use this technique far more often than men in my experience. Most women in my experience will avoid at all costs admitting in front of an attractive man, that they are indeed attractive. Still, how do you tell if there is inauthenticity here, or if the person is genuinely not attracted? From experience, you may notice people will eventually slip up when they first meet you, by revealing how they perceive you in the questions they ask you. For example, a question like "You probably have a lot of girls you're talking to, don't you?" reveals an incredible amount of information that the individual is vehemently attempting not to disclose. They assume that you have several romantic interests you are considering. They want to know if you have a current romantic interest, if you are available or not. They are also toying to see your feelings about the exclusivity of love. Notice though, they haven't explicitly admitted any of these things to you, which reveals a hidden motive. Noticing these things is crucial to detecting hypocrisy and seduction being attempted. The Godly response is to keep loving and overlook their avoidance. When they feel comfortable in themselves, and not insecure about themselves, they will be honest in their opinion of your strengths.

●Death by a thousand cuts - this idiom was invented by women who work in male predominant fields to describe how they felt by the pressure around them. When someone is using "death by a thousand cuts", they are subtly cutting away at everything you pride yourself in. The seducers goal is to reveal or create insecurities, for which they have the cure too. It is putting someone down constantly and subtly, so as to break their confidence in themselves, and force them to trust you. This can be telling someone they are ugly, stupid, fat, "lack sexual-appeal" i.e. flat chested etc. , poor, lonely, or anything else that person might value.

■Death by a thousand cuts is evident when someone is always pointing out your weaknesses where they feel they have strengths. A Godly response is look to Christ, who loves you despite your weaknesses. Who is strong on behalf of the weak. Responding with humility and love, even encouraging (lifting up) those who persecute you in this way, by exhorting them at their weakest, is how to overcome this kind of evil. This requires a lot of Godly maturity, and it is best for those who are truly feeling insecure from the insults to get out of the abusive situation, and seek healing for your identity crisis.

●Create an illusion of always being busy, or having important things to do. This is when someone will act like everything they do is far more valuable than what you are doing so as to get you to feel privileged when they consider giving you their time. They limit access, so that they can get others to try harder to reach them. It also leaves victims feeling like they are indebted to the seducer, because of the sacrifice of time made for them.

■This technique is not avoidable. You can't defend yourself from someone who always acts busy, and calling someone out on it will most likely be responded with more defensiveness, and how "you misunderstand how important what they are doing is". The truth is just about everyone can figure out something to do at all times. When someone wants to give you their time, they tell you they are available. Available doesn't mean they don't have anything else to do, it simply means you have been given priority for the moment. What a seducer will do is make you feel like your availability is really a weakness, and you are alone, bored and need a friend. They will set varying conditions before you, and make you feel like you are not a priority. Ex. "I'm so sorry I am doing X right now, how about in Y time we meet?" People who do this simply need to be reminded of how valuable your time really is. It is then appropriate to be honest and decline compromising your availability, and making it proportionate to who the person trying to manipulate. Why? Because the truth is, someone who doesn't value your time, should fall in time priority, especially when your relationship is not evangelistic. God is in control of your life. Not anybody else. If they wish to meet with you later, let them consult God to open an availability in your life for them. Don't give control of your time to somebody else.

A - Level Techniques)

A - Level Techniques are the stuff no one talks about, because they want to be able to continue to use these techniques effectively. It is partially why I feel like it is important to share them, so that people would be more aware of these, to weaken their power of seduction. This isn't an exhaustive list, neither is there an exhaustive list because as culture and society changes, people's psychology and insecurities which can be taken advantage of change, so creativity is necessary to upkeep effectiveness.

●Bodyguard of friends - is what I call when someone has many friends, particularly of the opposite sex, which creates the illusion that those of the opposite sex must see something valuable in the seducer, thereby he must be valuable.

■Look for people who only share photos of themselves with the opposite sex. They are trying to compensate something, and give an illusion of something they are not. This includes women who will flirt with male friends in front of victims. They want to be perceived as receiving attention from many people, having many "options", thus lowering your value and increasing their value. Defending yourself from this attack is difficult because you can't avoid it. One thing I have noticed is women will attempt to avoid eye contact with men who are talking to another woman, sort of like a defense mechanism as if they are not phased by what is happening. This actually is self-defeating because it reveals that you are indeed falling effectively into the place where the seducer wants, and you have noticed the conversation they are having with the opposite sex. God is your strength in these situations. Consider it a joy that your friend has a new friend and introduce yourself, and share the gospel. Disarm all pride, show your happiness for your friends newfound chemistry. Becoming bitter in your heart and attempting to avoid those people as some do, is ineffective, ungodly, and sinful. This will require Godliness and assistance of the Holy Spirit. Its easy to see an unbeliever when they grow bitter from unintentional conversation such as these.

●Comfort and compliments - the right compliments are honest compliments for the wrong reasons. Usually the right compliments are the opposite of "death by a thousand cuts" and the purpose is to reaffirm the self-esteem of the victim, to give them a false sense of security, where there feel insecure. Its either dishonestly uplifting their spirit, or honestly complimenting something very small they did and thought most people wouldn't notice. By noticing, you stand out from the crowd and make the victim feel like you share the same values. The correct way to apply this is to compliment very small and seemingly insignificant or trivial things, which you think the person has put their identity in.

■This method is often undetectable for a long time. How can you know what someone is really thinking about anything? Women will often compliment each other on how they dress, to their nails, to their accessories. Showing someone you noticed is a good thing. But when you are doing it for the wrong reasons, it becomes hypocrisy. This takes time, and you may need to listen intently to hear this person's opinion when they describe it to someone else.

●Remain a mystery - this is a difficult technique to describe but it involves revealing very little about oneself and forcing your victim to open up about their own identity. Eventually your victims curiosity concerning who you are will peak, and you can distribute a steady stream of selective facts about yourself, building an identity that you think they would desire most. Not talking about yourself will also set you apart from everyone else who quickly shows how self-absorbed they really are by only describing themselves.

■Someone who is trying to remain a mystery will respond with vague answers. They will not share the details of how the feel, only "what" they are feeling. Men practice this trait often, as a sort of defense mechanism to give women the false impression that there is real pain or raw emotion, that can't be divulged behind the proverbial curtain. It is necessary for using the "pretending to be a victim" technique. Regardless, someone trying to remain a mystery for a prolonged time is really just hiding insecurities and loneliness in their life. They don't want you to know what affects them emotionally, because then you might use it against them. This is insecurity in identity. One should place all their trust in Christ, that like he is unchanging, the work and love he has done for you is unchanging. Mystery men can be identified by asking God for revelation, to show you their true self. If your identity is secure in Christ, then you are free to share yourself, and thus Christ in you, with that person.

●Pretending to be the victim- this involves great care and resolve as an individual. It appeals to the “Jesus Christ savior” complex in every person. The seducer must convince their assailant they are a fun, charming, relaxed person, who at one point was a very sweet naive person but had their heart completely crushed. The seducer will try to disarm you by first making it appear they are very reserved and on the defensive, and they are the victim you are trying to seduce them. By subtly switching roles, before most people will notice what happened, there emotions for the victim will overflow. People who have been seduced are especially vulnerable to this technique, which means the most attractive people (most likely to people constantly hit on) are those who fall for this most often, because they are the ones sympathize for the hurting, since they once held their shoes.

■Defending yourself from this attack involves two things. First, realizing you cannot save anyone. Repenting of any "Jesus Christ savior" feelings you may have. You have a savior, you are not the savior. It is arrogant to think that you can change someone. It is God who changes us. The name Jesus in Hebrew means "God saves" or "God's salvation". Not "man" saves. Christians are tempted out of pity for others to try to save somebody,  but what inevitably happens is they fight in the flesh, and/or idolize the person. You must do the second thing, the harder thing to do, trust God and pray. What inevitably happens if you do not trust God and pray is that both people start trying to manipulate each other, and will eventually demonize each other if someone does not give in. They become hypercritical of each others behavior, unloving, and succumb to physical temptation as they give up on hope for spiritual fruit. The defense is to trust God and pray. Only he can give you what you need and want. The enemy, and demonic forces can give you want you want, but it won't necessarily be what you need and will come at the cost of compromising your relationship with God. The trick they use is to convince you that you are in control and not them, while they manipulate you with all sorts of anxiety, frustration, and temptation to give in. The antidote is to stop fighting spiritual battles with the flesh and instead pray.

●Dropping indirect statements; this could be as simple as making sure others hear who is attracted to you, what you did over the weekend, how well everything is going for you. Its speaking to a person without actually talking directly to them. You try to sound sincere in giving other people information, that you intend someone who is not addressed to hear, and peak their curiosity. Ex. "So and so person just asked me out, but I am not interested in seeing anybody right now..." Making this kind of statement near the victim can be intended to create a feeling of inferiority in your victim, because you are giving the perception that you are not interested and it is difficult to spark your interest, in hopes that the victims pride will cause them to resort to "pursuing them". Slowly seeding these kinds of ideas and dropping these statements continually can create a desired illusion.

■When the comments are irrelevant to the conversation, it becomes clear they were not intended for the person they were spoken to but a 3rd party. Guard yourself from believing what is said, rather realize the person is desperate for your attention. Then be cordial and loving, listen carefully, and don't be affected by the new piece of information. Remember, often times it's simply for shock value, or to peak a curiosity. Think of it like a cat who isn't facing you, but rubs its tail on you, vying for your attention, for a chase. Don't chase the cat, ignore the cat until it decides to face you. You are not responsible to process information you hear by happenstance. Don't bring up things you overhear, that very well could have intentionally been said in front of you, in order to provoke a response. Instead wait until you are directly questioned or given relevant information. Godly response is to be honest then and share that you may have overheard something, but it wasn't your place to think much of it since your opinion wasn't inquired.

How do you tell the difference between manipulation and mystery?

You have to look for clues as to whether they are remaining mysterious because they want to get to know you better, so that it is a mutual revealing, or they simply want to hold you hostage to their mystery persona. Usually those clues involve showing a willingness to meet and converse, not the opposite. An unwillingness to meet and converse is a sign of manipulation.

Why does seduction work at all?

Seduction works because we place our identity and trust in something other than God. That something for the seducer is often times others. By seeking validation in making others attracted to us, what we are really saying is God is not enough, we have to have something else, someone else's approval. Mark Driscoll calls it "identity idolatry". If we fully trusted God, no one would be able to seduce us. Our appetite for curiosity would be fulfilled by God. We would have nothing to be insecure about because Christ has paid in blood for all of our being, and we know we are infinitely loved despite all of our imperfections. Putting our trust in God gives us confidence in, not in our performance, or how we look, or what we can offer for others, rather, in Christ, where we are accepted, loved, and richly provided for.