PAMELA HARRIMAN in ART OF SEDUCTION by ROBERT GREENE

ART OF SEDUCTION by Robert Green

EXCERPTS:

pages 86-87 PAMELA is a CHARMER...

The world is full of self absorbed people. In their presence, we know that everything in our relationship with them is directed toward themselves, their insecurities, their neediness, their hunger for attention...

page 273

From the 1940's into the early 1960's Pamela Churchill Harriman had a series of affairs with some of the most prominent and wealthy men in the world - Averill Harriman (whom years later she married), Gianni Agnelli (Heir to the Fiat Fortune), Baron Elie de Rothschild. What attracted these men, and kept them in her thrall, was not her beauty or her lineage or her vivacious personality, but her extraordinary attention to detail. It began with her attentive look as she listened to your every world, soaking up your tastes. Once she found her way into your home, she would fill it with your favorite flowers, get your chef to cook that dish you had tasted in the finest restaurants. You mentioned an artists you liked? A few days later that artist would be attending one of your parties. She found the perfect antiques for you, dressed in the way that most pleased or excited you, and she did this without your saying a word - she spied, she gathered information from third parties, overheard you talking to someone else. Harriman's attention to detail had an intoxicating effect on all the men in her life. It had something in common with the pampering of a mother, there to bring order and comfort into their lives, attending to their needs. 

LIFE IS HARSH AND COMPETITIVE

Attending to detail in a way that is soothing to the other person makes them dependent upon you. The key is probing their needs in a way that is not too obvious, so that when you make precisely the right gesture, it seems uncanny.  As if you just read their mind... This is another way of returning your targets to childhood, when all of their needs were met...

A MISTRESS AND A WIFE FIGHT OVER A PAINTING : MISTRESS RUTH KLIGMAN

Vanity Fair - September issue - devotes an article to the story - and so I elect artist Jackson Pollock's mistress Ruth Kligman, as September's Mistress of the Month. As I've said before, there are plenty of historical mistresses, but there are also plenty of modern-day mistresses and they keep making the news if not history!

You know, most Americans claim to loath mistresses. While gay pride parades go happily down the street, the mistress is hidden away. It's presumed that the man is married, that he's rich, that it's heterosexual, that it's "just a fling," that he has a madonna - whore complex. Mistresses are called "home-wreckers," even though the marital relationship may have been "wrecked" for years. Sometimes these things are true, but mistresses are too common for them to always be true. For some people being in a love triangle is simply an alternative lifestyle. It's not for everyone. It's not always for long. And some common ordinary, even conservative women, have found themselves there when they least expected it would ever happen to them.

Despite the denial, films, books, and news about mistresses are just so interesting. Maybe it's just a great fantasy for some people. Maybe it's a lot about sex. Maybe the fiction mistress is safely far far away in a make believe place that even a wife enjoys the read. It's when a mistress isn't make believe that the uproar often starts.

Reading author's like psychologist Dr. Toni Grant, we learn that there is a bit of "Courtesan" in every woman, if she chooses to coax it out. Reading Rabbi Shmuley Boteach we learn that married couples can keep their relationship alive by pretending affairs. Reading Robert Greene we learn seduction is an art and science and philosophy.

Some of our mistresses have lives that are cautionary tales. Some have had a great ride and don't want to get off the roller coaster.

Linking to an interview of author Leslie M. M. Blume, whose Vanity Fair article introduces us to artist Jackson Pollock, his wife, and his mistress!

C 2012 Missy Rapport/ Mistress Manifesto All Rights Reserved ; International : Internet

ROBERT GREENE : TYPES OF ANTI-SEDUCERS

Are you a Brute, a Suffocater, Moralizer, Tightwad, Bumbler, Windbag, Reactor, Vulgarian? (Of all of these it seems to me that the Vulgarian can most change their behavior!)

pages 134-135

"Vulgarians are inattentive to the details that are so important in seduction. You can see this in their personal appearance - their clothes are tasteless by any standard - and in their actions: they do not know what it is sometimes better to control oneself and refuse to give into one's impulses. Vulgarians will blab, saying anything in public. They have no sense of timing and are rarely in harmony with your tastes. Indiscretion, is a sure sign of the Vulgarian (talking to others of your affair, for example); it may seem impulsive, but it's real source is their radical selfishness, their inability to see themselves as others see them. More than just avoiding Vulgarians, you must make yourself their opposite - tact, style, and attention to detail area all basic requirements of a seducer..."

Penguin Books Publisher
C Robert Greene and Joost Elffers 2001

ROBERT GREENE : THE ART OF SEDUCTION : BOOK EXERPT

page 171 Excerpt

"Life is short, and should not be wasted pursuing and seducing the wrong people. The choice of target is critical; it is the set up of the seduction and it will determine everything else that follows. The perfect victim does not have certain facial features, or the same taste in music, or similar goals in life. That is how a banal seducer chooses his or her targets. The perfect victim is the person who stirs you in a way that cannot be explained in words, whose effect on you has nothing to do with superficialities. He or she often has a quality that you yourself lack, and may even secretly envy - The Presidente, for example, has an innocence that Valmont long ago lost or never had. There should be a little bit of tension - the victim may fear you a little, even slightly dislike you. Such tension is full of erotic potential and will make the seduction much livelier. Be more creative in choosing your prey, and you will be rewarded with a more exciting seduction. Of course, it means nothing if the potential victim is not open to your influence. Test the person first..."

Penguin Books C Robert Greene and Joost Elffers, 2001.

(The use of the term victim, is, I believe, if you read the book, almost charming, but maybe it's meant to be charmingly vampirish?)

MISTRESSES ARE READING ROBERT GREENE : THE ART OF SEDUCTION

You have to read this book, which is a masterpiece. You're likely to find yourself in it somewhere, and perhaps you'll be inspired, or more aware...

SOME EXCERPTS COMING

ROBERT GREENE : THE ART OF SEDUCTION : ON CORA PEARL

BOOK EXERPT FROM "THE ART OF SEDUCTION" by ROBERT GREENE

pages 59-60-61

"Born Emma Crouch in 1842 in England, from a respectable middle class family but her father abandoned the family in 1849 for immigration to America. " One day in 1856, when Emma was walking home from church, a well dressed gentleman invited her home for some cakes. She followed him to his house, where he proceeded to take advantage of her. The next morning this man, a diamond merchant, promised to set her up in a house of her own, treat her well, and give her plenty of money. She took the money but left him, determined to do what she had always wanted: never see her family again, never depend on anyone, and lead the grand life that her father had promised her.

With the money the diamond merchant had given her, Emma bought nice clothes and rented a cheap flat. Adopting the flamboyant name of CORA PEARL, she began to frequent London's Argyll Rooms, a fancy place where harlots and gentlemen rubbed elbows. The proprietor, a Mr. Gignell, took note of this newcomer to his establishment - she was so brazen for a young girl. At forty-five he was much older than she was, bu he decided to be her lover and protector, lavishing her with money and attention...

"Frequenting all the right places, Cora soon ca me to the attention of wealthy French gentlemen. ...As money began to pour in from her various conquests (the Duc de Mornay, heir to the Dutch throne; Prince Napoleon, cousin to the Emperor), Cora spent it on the most outrageous things - a multicolored carriage pulled by a team of cream-colored horses, a rose marbled bath tub... But money could not buy Cora's loyalty; she would leave a man on the slightest whim...

Antics like this made Cora the toast of Paris, and she reigned as the city's supreme courtesan for over a decade, until the Franco-Prussian War of 1879 put an end to the Second Empire."

Penguin Books Publisher
C Robert Greene and Joost Elffers 2001