Sex: Whose Weakness is It?

(NOTE:This blog was originally posted on www.theladyk.com on January 12, 2007, under my former blogger identity "the lady k". This blog was largely anecdotal commentary about relationships and the quagmires of singledom as well as self- fulfillment. I created "Fly Funky Diva" as a culture/lifestyle blog. Needless to say I was in a very different place in my own life when I assumed the identity of "Ike" (my life long nick name that until now I've hidden from my friends" ) and relinquished "the lady K", the sharp, witty, woman who kept ending up involved with "crazies".LOL. I'm relatively at peace now. Nevertheless, as I still enjoy the subject of romance, relationships, and seduction I will be posting more frequently on this theme. Come to find out... there's a demand! I will also post several blogs from the original site, like this one.)

“This girl is sprung over me and it’s driving me crazy!” he said in anguish. “I have to keep lying to get her off my back.”

I frown. “I mean…how did she get that way? Did you have sex? Did she give you a professional?”

“Yeah, we did all that.”

I rolled my eyes, having heard this scenario far too many times. “Well then, you know why she’s sprung.” I told him, hoping he wasn’t silly enough to think that she was caught under the spell of his loins.

“Nah, I put it all on the line beforehand. She knew that I didn’t want anything beyond sex and that if she wasn’t down, she didn’t have to.” I laughed. This guy clearly had forgotten who he was talking to.

You are a fool if you think that any man, or woman for that matter, truly puts it all on the line before prematurely doing the deed. For a man to put it all on the line would be for him to pause kissing and suckling on his female subject long enough to make a heart felt confession. He’d admit that he is only interested in her body, which at this moment right now he wants to thoroughly taste and enjoy, and if it’s good, maybe dine a few times more. “Baby…Your behind has been far more engaging than anything you’ve said since we met. Matter of fact, what was it that you were telling me in the car? Honestly I was trying to remember where I stashed that pack of condoms…well that and predicting whether or not you were wearing regular panties or a g-string. I see I was right.” He’d wink, laugh at his little joke and then go on to confess that “Yo, this moment will never lead to anything substantial and sweetheart, you’d be silly to think so. In fact, right now I’m talking to a dime piece and I’m not trying to ruin things with her by doing exactly what I’m about to do with you. I just needed something to tide me over. You know how a brother has needs.” Then he’d definitely have to tell her about that press release he’ll send to his boys the next morning. Promptly. And if she requests, he’ll be kind enough to forward her a copy too. And finally, before undoing the last notch in his belt, his face will become very serious. “Baby please, promise me one thing. After tonight, do not call, text, two-way, page or message me. Don’t ask my friends where I’m at. Don’t have your girls call my phone to see if I’m ignoring just your calls, because I probably will be. Don’t swing by my house. Don’t swing by my job. Don’t even send me a post card. If I want you, I’ll holla.” Then he’d walk over to the stereo, turn the Jodeci back up, do a few quick stretches and with great skill, he’d blow her back out.

Wait, wait, rewind. Screeeech!! Most women would be gone after that first line, leaving a trail of dust in their path. I suppose the tragedy is that there are some women that even after the most sincere confession would willingly get down with the get down. But you are not one of them. The truth is that no man truly puts it all on the line, at least not verbally, because that would ruin the mood. The point is to get some. And he’s going to manipulate the woman’s greatest weakness in order to do so; her desire to be desired. To be upfront and honest about superficial intentions is just not sexy.

There is often a miscommunication between the sexes. Women are verbal, refined, and cultured creatures. Through out the ages, we have softened and feminized civilization. And while many feminine traits have since been adopted by men, they still are far less verbal in articulating their emotions than we are, and than we expect them to be. In many ways they do put it all on the line before jumping in the sheets, but rarely with words. You have to hear his actions, not his words. Actions don’t lie. If you’ve been ‘talking’ for weeks and still have yet to meet any of his friends, if he arranged that ‘date’ after nine o’clock PM that evening, if you hooked up the same night you two met, if you’ve eagerly divulged your life story but you still know very little about him, if he’s a notorious womanizer and you’re on the mission to change him….well stop. You are his sexual object. You are not his soul mate. You are not even a lover. You are piece. Maybe a piece of ass. Maybe a piece of paradise, but for heaven’s sake, he is not taking you home and he is not trying to be in a RELATIONSHIP!!! (many will chill at the Relation Port, but few will sail that Relation Ship)

Women get so caught up in the ideal of what a man could be that they resist seeing what he really is. The best place to hide something is in plain sight and dating is no exception to that rule. We could all be diagnosed with PCC, the Prince Charming Complex, hypnotized as little girls with endless fairy tales and fables of the gallant man that will one day sweep us off our feet and we wait for this dashing suitor, foolishly expecting each man to be him. Well consider this. I don’t believe that to each person there is only one soul mate; one person that God designed just for you to spend the rest of your life with. I think we have several soul matches and with the help of patience and divine intervention, we meet one, maybe two in a lifetime. But even if there are three men out there designed for you, chances are the man trying to get in your pants right now, on date number two, is not him. Statistically. So be a lady. Cross your legs, get over it and get on (well... unless you're in it for the same reason as him).

It’s really a shame. Our foremothers had far better game than we will ever have, yet like idiots we reject their priceless pearls of wisdom. In all honesty, your grandmother probably could have sealed the deal with your crush back in her day, better than you ever could. Why? In the frenzy of female equality in education and the labor force combined with the explicit nature of our culture, the art of seduction has been lost. And seduction is a highly specialized and refined feminine art form. If you don’t believe me, read Robert Greene’s 400-plus page book The Art of Seduction . The most famous seductresses in history, Cleopatra being perhaps the paragon, have understood that men are powerful creatures. Until just the past few decades they have overruled women entirely. However, men have several daunting weakness: visual stimulation, Sex, and validation.They also can't resist a chase (well some can, but those brutish men are whack) Seduction takes advantag of all these tender spots.

Alexander von Gleichen-Russwurm is one amongst the historians who have recognized a woman’s seduction as a powerful art form. In his work, The World’s Lure, he writes “The important side-track, by which woman succeeded in evading man’s strength and establishing herself in power, has not been given due consideration by historians. From the moment when the woman detached herself from the crowd, an individual finished product, offering delights which could not be obtained by force, but only by flattery…, she had discovered the might of lust, the secret of the art of love, the daemonic power of a passion artificially aroused and never satiated. The force thus unchained was thenceforth to count among the most tremendous of the world’s forces and at moments to have power even over life and death…”

It is much more effective to make a man fall in love than lust. Love is emotional and hard to relinquish. Lust is fleeting. Seduction works on the imagination, making courtship a whimsical journey in which the woman leads the man astray from his every day life and delights him with the pleasures of her beauty, and her cultured, and cunning self. She creates a pattern of giving herself to him emotionally and spontaneously withdrawing herself. She feeds him warmth and coldness. Hope and despair. This heightens her enigma and the man’s desire to please her. Her power doesn’t lure his body, but his mind. He becomes enamored. He falls in love. And then sex becomes the ultimate surrender… for him. (Let it be noted that not all seductions follow this complete pattern... it's a sophisticate conquest. I needed to simplify.)
Many mistresses had come before her, but when Cleopatra seduced Julius Caesar and then his successor Mark Antony, both times she was given Rome. And it is this clever restraint that our foremothers understood.

Modern culture has cheapened sex, reducing it to a simple physical act of pleasure. Actors reenact it, rappers rap about it, singers sing about it, companies use it to sell you their products. You want to just do it. You want it in 57 varieties, and you want to have it your way. The truth is that unlike diamonds it won’t be forever, it sure as hell won’t be the real thing, and probably won’t even be good to the last drop. Sex is more than what we make it. It is about the surrender if you want to think about it in terms of seduction, and about solidification of new love. It is your zenith, your inner most you, your crown jewel, your highly anticipated finale even.

Most people preach abstinence. No, no. I don’t. Restraint is not necessarily about purity or religion. I preach common sense. You want him to stick around, seduce him. Don’t just sex him. Even if you rock his world, lust alone won’t keep him. Make it like a precious commodity that only a select few can have, and he’ll long for you…and it. Don’t devalue yourself. And for my readers of African descent…yes, brown women are built sexy. Our hips, our lips, our breasts advertise our tantalizing secrets to the world…. But don’t give in to the exotic fetish the world creates of us. Guard it, even when you also want it like hell, and you’ll be rewarded in the end. “Nobody wants to be with a girl that’s been passed around like a joint at a rap party” as my dad would say.

To return to my friend’s dilemma over his sprung psycho-ex, I ask that you not turn into this tragedy. She knew she’d been played. That’s why she kept calling him, hoping, just praying he’d show her affection and prove her instinct wrong. Clearly he didn’t. Few of us make it to twenty-five without a “What the hell was I thinking” morning after experience, but take one of those for the road and learn from it. If you really want that special guy, you too can put it all on the line. Make your feminine mystique as sexy as your body, tease him, play with him, entertain and delight…and he’ll be back for more. And when he finally blows your back out, there will be no walk of shame involved.

Flyness and Funk,

-Ike