Seduction

SEDUCTION CultureTexts Arthur and Marilouise Kroker General Editors CultureTexts is a series of creative explorations in theory, politics and culture at the fin-de-millenium . Thematically focussed around key theoretical debates in the postmodern condition, the CultureTexts series challenges received discourses in art, social and political theory, feminism, psychoanalysis, value inquiry, science and technology, the body, and critical aesthetics . Taken individually, contributions to CultureTexts represent the forward breaking-edge of postmodern theory and practice. Titles Seduction Jean Baudrillard Panic Encyclopedia Arthur Kroker, Marilouise Kroker and David Cook Life After Postmodernism : Essays on Value and Culture edited and introduced by John Fekete Body Invaders edited and introduced by Arthur and Marilouise Kroker The Postmodern Scene : Excremental Culture and HyperAesthetics Arthur Kroker/David Cook SEDUCTION JEAN BAUDRILLARD translated by Brian Singer New World Perspectives CultureTexts Series Montreal COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Published by CTHEORY BOOKS in partnership with NWP and copyright, © 2001, by CTHEORY BOOKS. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher, except for reading and browsing via the World Wide Web. Users are not permitted to mount this file on any network servers. Readers are encouraged to download this material for personal use. Commercial use with permission only. First published as De la seduction by Editions Galilee, 1979. 9, rue Linne, Paris 5e. © Editions Galilee English language copyright New World Perspectives, 1990 . ISBN 0-920393-25-X Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Baudrillard, Jean Seduction (CultureTexts series) Translation of: De la seduction. ISBN 0-920393-25-X 1. Seduction-Psychological aspects. (Psychology). 3 . Sex (Psychology) 4. 1 . Title. II . Series . BF637.S36133813 1990 2 . Femininity Postmodernism.z V CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I . THE ECLIPTIC OF SEX The Ecliptic of Sex The Eternal Irony of the Community Stereo-Porno Seduction / Production 3 12 28 37 II . SUPERFICIAL ABYSSES The Sacred Horizon of Appearances Trompe l'oeil or Enchanted Simulation I'll Be Your Mirror Death in Samarkand The Secret and The Challenge The Effigy of the Seductress The Ironic Strategy of the Seducer The Fear of Being Seduced 53 60 67 72 79 85 98 119 III . THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF SEDUCTION The Passion for Rules The Dual, the Polar and the Digital The "Ludic" and Cold Seduction Seduction as Destiny 131 154 157 179 INTRODUCTION A fixed destiny weighs on seduction. For religion seduction was a strategy of the devil, whether in the guise of witchcraft or love . It is always the seduction of evil - or of the world. It is the very artifice of the world . Its malediction has been unchanged in ethics and philosophy, and today it is maintained in psychoanalysis and the `liberation of desire .' Given the present-day promotion of sex, evil and perversion, along with the celebration of the ofttimes programmatic resurrection of all that was once accursed, it might seem paradoxical that seduction has remained in the shadows - and even returned thereto permanently. The eighteenth century still spoke of seduction. It was, with valour and honour, a central preoccupation of the aristocratic spheres. The bourgeois Revolution put an end to this preoccupation (and the others, the later revolutions ended it irrevocably - every revolution, in its beginnings, seeks to end the seduction of appearances) . The bourgeois era dedicated itself to nature and production, t