The Art of Seduction (11 page)

sex: to a woman they are psychologically female, to a man

they are male. Dandies fascinate and seduce in large

numbers. Use the power of the Dandy to create

an ambiguous, alluring presence that

stirs repressed desires.

The Feminine Dandy

When the eighteen-year-old Rodolpho Guglielmi emigrated from

Italy to the United States in 1913, he came with no particular skills apart from his good looks and his dancing prowess. To put these qualities to advantage, he found work in the thes dansants, the Manhattan dance halls where young girls would go alone or with friends and hire a taxi dancer for a brief thrill. The taxi dancer would expertly twirl them around the dance
Once a son was born to
floor, flirting and chatting, all for a small fee. Guglielmi soon made a name
Mercury and the goddess
as one of the best—so graceful, poised, and pretty.

Venus, and he was brought

up by the naiads in Ida's

In working as a taxi dancer, Guglielmi spent a great deal of time around
caves. In his features, it
women. He quickly learned what pleased them—how to mirror them in
was easy to trace
subtle ways, how to put them at ease (but not too much). He began to pay
resemblance to his father
and to his mother. He was

attention to his clothes, creating his own dapper look: he danced with a
called after them, too, for
corset under his shirt to give himself a trim figure, sported a wristwatch
his name was
(considered effeminate in those days), and claimed to be a marquis. In 1915,
Hermaphroditus. As soon
as he was fifteen, he left

he landed a job demonstrating the tango in fancy restaurants, and changed
his native hills, and Ida
his name to the more evocative Rodolpho di Valentina. A year later he
where he had been brought
moved to Los Angeles: he wanted to try to make it in Hollywood.

up, and for the sheer joy of

Now known as Rudolph Valentino, Guglielmi appeared as an extra in
travelling visited remote
places. . . .He went as far

several low-budget pictures. He eventually landed a somewhat larger role in
as the cities of Lycia, and
the 1919 film
Eyes of Youth,
in which he played a seducer, and caught
on to the Carians, who
women's attention by how different a seducer he was: his movements were
dwell nearby. In this region
he spied a pool of water, so

graceful and delicate, his skin so smooth and his face so pretty that when
clear that he could see right
he swooped down on his victim and drowned her protests with a kiss, he
to the bottom. . . . The
seemed more thrilling than sinister. Next came
The Four Horsemen of the water was like crystal, and
the edges of the pool were

Apocalypse,
in which Valentino played the male lead, Julio the playboy, and
ringed with fresh turf and
became an overnight sex symbol through a tango sequence in which he se-
grass that was always
duced a young woman by leading her through the dance. The scene encap-
green. A nymph

[
Salmacis
]
dwelt

sulated the essence of his appeal: his feet smooth and fluid, his poise almost
there. . . . Often she would
feminine, combined with an air of control. Female members of the audi-
gather flowers, and it so
ence literally swooned as he raised a married woman's hands to his lips, or
happened that she was
shared the fragrance of a rose with his lover. He seemed so much more at-
engaged in this pastime
when she caught sight of

tentive to women than other men did; but mixed in with this delicacy was
the boy, Hermaphroditus.
a hint of cruelty and menace that drove women wild.

As soon as she had seen

In his most famous film,
The Sheik,
Valentino played an Arab prince
him, she longed to possess
him. . . .She addressed

(later revealed to be a Scottish lord abandoned in the Sahara as a baby) who
him: "Fair boy, you surely
rescues a proud English lady in the desert, then conquers her in a manner
deserve to be thought a
43

44
•
The Art of Seduction

god. If you are, perhaps
that borders on rape. When she asks, "Why have you brought me here?,"
you may be Cupid? . . . If

he replies, "Are you not woman enough to know?" Yet she ends up falling
there is such a girl
[
engaged
in love with him, as indeed women did in movie audiences all over the
to you
]
, let me enjoy your

love in secret: but if there is
world, thrilling at his strange blend of the feminine and the masculine. In
not, then I pray that I may
one scene in
The Sheik,
the English lady points a gun at Valentino; his re
be your bride, and that we
sponse is to point a delicate cigarette holder back at her. She wears pants;
may enter upon marriage

together." The naiad said
he wears long flowing robes and abundant eye makeup. Later films would
no more; but a blush
include scenes of Valentino dressing and undressing, a kind of striptease
stained the boy's cheeks, for
showing glimpses of his trim body. In almost all of his films he played some
he did not know what love
exotic period character—a Spanish bullfighter, an Indian rajah, an Arab
was. Even blushing became

him: his cheeks were the
sheik, a French nobleman—and he seemed to delight in dressing up in jew
colour of ripe apples,
els and tight uniforms.
hanging in a sunny orchard,

In the 1920s, women were beginning to play with a new sexual free
like painted ivory or like
the moon when, in eclipse,
dom. Instead of waiting for a man to be interested in them, they wanted to
she shows a reddish hue
be able to initiate the affair, but they still wanted the man to end up sweep
beneath her brightness. . . .
ing them off their feet. Valentino understood this perfectly. His off-screen
Incessantly the nymph

demanded at least sisterly
life corresponded to his movie image: he wore bracelets on his arm, dressed
kisses, and tried to put her
impeccably, and reportedly was cruel to his wife, and hit her. (His adoring
arms round his ivory neck.
public carefully ignored his two failed marriages and his apparently nonex
"Will you stop!" he cried,
istent sex life.) When he suddenly died—in New York in August 1926, at

"or I shall run away and

leave this place and you!"
the age of thirty-one, from complications after surgery for an ulcer—the
Salmacis was afraid: "1
response was unprecedented: more than 100,000 people filed by his coffin,
yield the spot to you,
many female mourners became hysterical, and the whole nation was spell
stranger, I shall not
intrude," she said; and,
bound. Nothing like this had happened before for a mere actor.
turning from him, pretended

to go away. . . . The boy,
There is a film of Valentino's,
Monsieur Beaucaire,
in which he plays a total
meanwhile, thinking

himself unobserved and
fop, a much more effeminate role than he normally played, and without his
alone, strolled this way and
usual hint of dangerousness. The film was a flop. Women did not respond
that on the grassy sward,
to Valentino as a swish. They were thrilled by the ambiguity of a man who
and dipped his toes in the

lapping water
—t
hen his
shared many of their own feminine traits, yet remained a man. Valentino
feet, up to the ankles.
dressed and played with his physicality like a woman, but his image was
Then, tempted by the
masculine. He wooed as a woman would woo if she were a man—slowly,
enticing coolness of the
attentively, paying attention to details, setting a rhythm instead of hurrying
waters, he quickly stripped

his young body of its soft
to a conclusion. Yet when the time came for boldness and conquest, his
garments. At the sight,
timing was impeccable, overwhelming his victim and giving her no chance
Salmacis was spell-bound.
to protest. In his movies, Valentino practiced the same gigolo's art of leading
She was on fire with

passion to possess his
a woman on that he had mastered as a teenager on the dance floor—

naked beauty, and her very
chatting, flirting, pleasing, but always in control.
eyes flamed with a

Valentino remains an enigma to this day. His private life and his charac
brilliance like that of the
dazzling sun, when his
ter are wrapped in mystery; his image continues to seduce as it did during
bright disc is reflected in a
his lifetime. He served as the model for Elvis Presley, who was obsessed
mirror. . . . She longed to
with this star of the silents, and also for the modern male dandy who plays
embrace him then, and

with difficulty restrained
with gender but retains an edge of danger and cruelty.
her frenzy.

Seduction was and will always remain the female form of power and

Hermaphroditus, clapping
warfare. It was originally the antidote to rape and violence. The man who
his hollow palms against
uses this form of power on a woman is in essence turning the game around,
The Dandy
•
45

employing feminine weapons against her; without losing his masculine
his body, dived quickly into
identity, the more subtly feminine he becomes the more effective the se-
the stream. As he raised
first one arm and then the

duction. Do not be one of those who believe that what is most seductive is
other, his body gleamed in
being devastatingly masculine. The Feminine Dandy has a much more sin-
the clear water, as if
ister effect. He lures the woman in with exactly what she wants—a familiar,
someone had encased
pleasing, graceful presence. Mirroring feminine psychology, he displays at-
anivory statue or white
lilies in transparent glass.

tention to his appearance, sensitivity to detail, a slight coquettishness—but

"I have won! He is

also a hint of male cruelty. Women are narcissists, in love with the charms
mine!" cried the nymph,
of their own sex. By showing them feminine charm, a man can mesmerize
and flinging aside her
garments, plunged into the

and disarm them, leaving them vulnerable to a bold, masculine move.
heart of the pool. The boy

The Feminine Dandy can seduce on a mass scale. No single woman
fought against her, but she
really possesses him—he is too elusive—but all can fantasize about doing so.
held him, and snatched
kisses as he struggled,

The key is ambiguity: your sexuality is decidedly heterosexual, but your
placing her hands beneath
body and psychology float delightfully back and forth between the two
him, stroking
poles.

his unwilling breast, and

clinging to him, now on

this side, and now on that.

I am a woman. Every artist is a woman and should have a

•
Finally, in spite of ail his

taste for other women. Artists who are homosexual cannot

efforts to slip from her

be true artists because they like men, and since they them-

grasp, she twined around

selves are women they are reverting to normality.

him, like a serpent when it

is being carried off into the

—PABLO PICASSO

air by the king of birds: for,

as it hangs from the eagle's

beak, the snake coils round

his head and talons and

The Masculine Dandy

with its tail hampers his

beating wings. . . ."You

may fight, you rogue, but

In the 1870s, Pastor Henrik Gillot was the darling of the St. Petersburg
you will not escape. May
intelligentsia. He was young, handsome, well-read in philosophy and lit-
the gods grant me this, may
erature, and he preached a kind of enlightened Christianity. Dozens of
no time to come ever
young girls had crushes on him and would flock to his sermons just to look
separate him from me, or
me from him!" Her prayers

at him. In 1878, however, he met a girl who changed his life. Her name
found favour with the gods:
was Lou von Salomé (later known as Lou Andreas-Salomé), and she was
for, as they lay together,
seventeen; he was forty-two.

their bodies were united

and from being two persons

Salomé was pretty, with radiant blue eyes. She had read a lot, particu-
they became one. As when
larly for a girl her age, and was interested in the gravest philosophical and
a gardener grafts a branch
religious issues. Her intensity, her intelligence, her responsiveness to ideas
on to a tree, and sees the
two unite as they grow,

cast a spell over Gillot. When she entered his office for her increasingly fre-
and come to maturity
quent discussions with him, the place seemed brighter and more alive. Per-
together, so when their
haps she was flirting with him, in the unconscious manner of a young
limbs met in that clinging
embrace the nymph and the

girl—yet when Gillot admitted to himself that he was in love with her, and
boy were no longer two, but
proposed marriage, Salomé was horrified. The confused pastor never quite
a single form, possessed of
got over Lou von Salomé, becoming the first of a long string of famous
a dual nature, which could
men to be the victim of a lifelong unfulfilled infatuation with her.
not be called male or