Seduction

by Jean Baudrillard

Examines modern critical theory, feminism, and psychoanalysis, and discusses the modern concept of sex roles and the political aspect of human sexuality.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Psychology, Sociology, Sexuality, Essays

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet, with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulation of concepts such as hyperreality. Baudrillard wrote about diverse subjects, including consumerism, critique of economy, social history, aesthetics, Western foreign policy, and popular culture. Among his most well-known works are Seduction (1978), Simulacra and Simulation (1981), America (1986), and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991). His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism. Nevertheless, Baudrillard had also opposed post-structuralism, and had distanced himself from postmodernism.

Reviews

[Shahram · Rating 2 out of 5]

دوست داشتم از اون بزرگواری که فرمودند <<حتی کتابهای بد هم ارزش یک بار خواندن را دارند >> بپرسم این نطر را در خصوص ترجمه های بد هم دارند یا خیر.به ویژه زمانی که این یک ترجمه بد از یک متن فلسفی باشد

[Andreea · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why this books leaves me dumbfounded:

Has there, moreover, ever been a phallic power? This entire history of patriarchal domination, of phallocracy, the immemorial male privilege, is perhaps only a story. Beginning with the exchange of women in primitive societies, stupidly interpreted as the first stage of woman-as-object. All that we have been asked to believe - the universal discourse on the inequality of the sexes, the theme song of an egalitarian and revolutionary modernity (reinforced, these days, with all the energies of a failed revolution) - is perhaps one gigantic misunderstanding. The opposite hypothesis is just as plausible and, from a certain perspective, more interesting - that is, that the feminine has never been dominated, but has always been dominant. The feminine considered not as a sex, but as the form transversal to every sex, as well as to every power, as the secret, virulent form of in-sexuality. The feminine as a challenge whose devastation can be experienced today throughout the entire expanse of sexuality. And hasn't this challenge, which is also that of seduction, always been triumphant?

Seriously, now, what is this stupid nonsense and why is it on my reading list?

[Praj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jean Baudrillard gets better with every word. No one has ever clarified seduction with such refinement and eloquence. “For nothing can be greater than seduction, than seduction itself; not even the order that destroys it" .

Baudrillard in this text pose a challenge to the psychoanalytical question of anatomy (human body) being the destiny with the liberation of sex. Seduction has always being categorized as an enthralling act conclusive to sex; a feminine forte. If so, then how do red roses when articulately placed in a bouquet look alluring? Seduction as Baudrillard points out is a game of ritual and simulation which governs politics, social life, culture, sex and even death. Seduction is immortal, a mind game played with no rules but with sheer accuracy which charms, captures and entice the innermost vulnerability leading to its collapse. It is a mystifying illusion that conceals truth creating a superfluous and deceiving environment.

With references to Kierkegaard’s ‘Diary of a Seducer’, stereo- pornography, Japanese vaginal cyclorama and other overtly displays of sexual pleasures; Baudrillard emphasis that acts of sex, fetishes and obsessions lead to the death of seduction mutating a malicious form of perversion.

This is a brilliant book which prophecies that even though today seduction thrives in the remains of the shadows, it will rise like a phoenix and become man’s inescapable destiny. True to its title; I could not let go of the book even after reading the last word.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that (as postmodernists say) should be "read against the text". The book is set up as a paean to the "feminine" forces of Seduction which Baudrillard suggests have maintained the upper hand throughout history against the "masculine" discourse of Reason through a strategy of "artifice" and "play". While initially amused and flattered by this contention as a female, my more lasting impression was a feeling of suspicion. I couldn't help but wonder if at base the argument wasn't really just a sophisticated attempt to try and erode what remained in the 90's of Second Wave Feminism via the demolition job of post-modernist relativism (which ultimately collapses in on itself reaffirming the dominant discourses it pretends to subvert). That this is the real impetus behind the text seems belied by certain statements Baudrillard makes, for example his rather arbitrary but impassioned defense of women wearing makeup (!) (such artifice, it is argued, is an instance of womens' wielding the power of Seduction). If the book has value, I would say this value lies primarily in its documentation of the complexities of male anxieties regarding female sexuality.

[Mon · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Now woman is but appearance. And it is the feminine as appearance that thwarts masculine depth. Instead of rising up against such "insulting" counsel, women would do well to let themselves be seduced by its truth, for here lies the secret of their strength, which they are in the process of losing by erecting a contrary, feminine depth."

Bonus - "Freud was right"

[Francesca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting at the beginning but dragged on when we arrive at the Kierkegaard section , which felt like it never ended
fave concepts : https://francesbeau.tumblr.com/post/6...

[Kate Walker]

Seduction = games of signs, games to demonstrate mastery of signs...

battle of the sexes, blah blah blah, sex sex sex... stuff like that

[Troy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The phallic fable undone.. one could say

[T - · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading the Aeneid here in Italy, I've been wondering why and by what moral code the hero of the story tells his wife Creusa to walk several paces behind him and his aged father, as they are trying to escape the Greeks hot on their trail. While Aeneas, his father and son make it on the ship and escape, Creusa's fate is a mystery...and later the reader finds out she hasn't died, but has been "translated" by the gods to heaven.

This scene also reminded me of one of the final scenes of the Ramayana (Indian myths) where the hero, Ram, abandons his wife Sita, because during the epic battle between the Gods she had been kidnapped by the enemy. Ram doubts she has been faithful to him during her captivity. He makes her walk over fire to prove her purity. She takes the challenge, passes with flying colors, but she doesn't forgive her husband for this humiliation. She prays to Mother Earth and in a way becomes "translated" herself.

Initially, I felt that both Creusa and Sita's roles in myths were summarily sexist, evidence of promotion of mysogyny through classical texts, etc. But as Baudrillard suggests in his fascinating "Seduction" (see below), the events can also be read as Virgil's estimation of the hero as tragically flawed, as weak, imperfect, not infallible to making bad decisions. This type of a reading would cultivate a more rich and complex character sketch of both Creusa and Aeneid, than I initially thought.

From the book:

"The phallic fable reversed: where woman is created from man by subtraction, here it is man created from woman by exception. A fable easily strengthened by Bettleheim's analysis in Symbolic Wounds, where men are said to have erected their powers and institutions in order to thwart the originally far superior powers of women. The driving force is not penis envy, but on the contrary, man's jealousy of woman's power of fertilization. This female advantage could not be atoned; a different order had to be built at all costs, a masculine social, political and economic order, wherein this advantage could be reduced."

..."Has there, moreover, ever been a phallic power? This entire history of patriarchal domination, of phallocracy, the immemorial male privilege, is perhaps only a story. Beginning with the exchange of women in primitive societies, stupidly interpreted as the first stage of woman-as-object. All that we have been asked to believe--the universal discourse on the inequality of the sexes, the theme song of egalitarian and revolutionary modernity (reinforced these with all the energies of a FAILED revolution)--is perhaps a gigantic misunderstanding. The opposite hypothesis is just as plausible, and from a certain perspective, more interesting--that is, that the feminine has never been dominated, but has always been dominant."

[Y. · Rating 5 out of 5]

definitely one of the most important books I've read so far. surely it can make you understand more about manipulating around humanity with signs

seduction is more than just simple sex (but is chained with it). it is kind of a game with signs, gestures and rituals. why travesties and transsexuals are so appealing? because they know how to change the signs. porno is just grotesque: there is no seduction in porno - it is a hyperreality. woman is always available - there is no secret.
the source of seduction and authority is knowledge of rules. all Popes know that there is no God

so what we have left? market and mass media know everything about seduction - and they make us being seducted: even by washing machine advertisment

[amin ghazaei · Rating 5 out of 5]

این کتاب را سه سال پیش ترجمه کردم اما مجوز نگرفت.
یک چیز عجیب اینکه کلمه
seduction
به معنی اغوا فیلتر است.
اگر کسی این کتاب را خواست برای او ارسال خواهم کرد
البته بزودی مقدمه آنرا منتشر می کنم

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing is less certain today than sex, behind the liberation of its discourse. And nothing today is less certain than desire, behind the proliferation of its images.

In a word, sex is fucked. The free sex movement has hit a dead end. "No more want, no more prohibitions and no more limits: it is the loss of every referential principle." Like bringing a deep sea fish to the surface, sex has deflated into a husk of itself; the differential pressure required to sustain such an act has been released, and it disintegrated between our fingers. So can this genie be put back in the bottle?

Baudrillard starts off very rocky, claiming "Freud was right." Here, I, along with several of the top 1 star reviews on this book, was tempted to stop reading. I pushed on, and I'm glad I did. What Baudrillard managed in this text was a more substantive critique of feminism than I've ever read. Essentially, feminism strove to make women equal to men, under the apparatus of "Law," "Reason," and "Production." Baudrillard argues that in doing so, "Seduction" has been abandoned. What does he mean by that?

"To be seduced is to be turned from one's truth. To seduce is to lead the other from his/her truth."

&

"There can never be seduction or challenge by contract."

&

"To seduce is to appear weak. To seduce is to render weak."

&

"Seduction always seeks to overturn and exorcize a power. If seduction is artificial, it is also sacrificial. One is playing with death, it always being a matter of capturing or immolating the desire of the other."

These quotes from later in the book get to the point. Seduction is a "game," something with arbitrary "rules" (rather than logical "laws" as in governance or science), and by its very arbitrariness, it reels us in. Seduction is "appearances, and the mastery of appearances" (thus fashion, beauty, celebrity); it's especially well-suited for today's climate of profilicity. Seduction is the postmodern tactic par excellence. It is all artifice, all playacting, all a game, and trying to dig underneath it is nonsensical. For example, you can ask if you believe in God in a traditional sense, under the discourse of production, of logos, but under the discourse of seduction, it doesn't make any sense to ask "do you believe in the rules of hide-and-go-seek?" Either you observe the rules or you cheat and are no longer playing the game. To cheat is to miss the point of playing a game, whereas within a discourse of Law, you have the options of "Transgression" and "Abolition." Essentially, Baudrillard is suggesting perhaps the most subversive approach imaginable, one in which actual change can take place. So long as feminists persist in the discourse of production, laws may be shifted around, rights may be administered or taken away, but really nothing changes:

The danger of the sexual revolution for the female is that she will be enclosed within a structure that condemns her to either discrimination when the structure is strong, or a derisory triumph within a weakened structure. The feminine, however, is, and has always been, somewhere else. That is the secret of its strength...the feminine seduces because it is never where it thinks it is, or where it thinks itself.

Of course, dogmatic feminists would balk at such an assertion, since it assumes several things they would consider problematic. If those one-star reviewers could have swallowed their cries of "blasphemy!" for just a few pages more, then they would have seen Baudrillard is not only on their side, he's more radically on their side than they are.

Coyness, indirectness, misdirection, in a word, "seduction," has always been the the core(less core) of feminine sexuality. It was abandoned by feminism, and if it were reclaimed, the possibilities would be endless. Rather than viewing a binary opposition between masculine and feminine, AND rather than merely abolishing the two categories (which are the two options under a "law" discourse, the latter of which 4th wave feminists prefer), Baudrillard suggests that the feminine can "seduce" the masculine. This is both a literal and a metaphorical seduction. Essentially, "seduction represents mastery over the symbolic universe, while power represents only mastery of the real universe." Anyone who studies languages or religion understands that the symbolic universe is not only more powerful than the real universe, it's also more honest about the unreality beneath things:

Seduction is stronger than power because it is reversible and mortal, while power, like value, seeks to be irreversible, cumulative and immortal. Power partakes of all the illusions of production, and of the real; it wants to be real, and so tends to become its own imaginary, its own superstition

Like said in the Tao Te Ching, that which is solid gets dry and stiff, and thus brittle, while that which is liquid remains fluid, can more dynamically react to circumstances. Seduction is precisely one of the main affordances of living in an age of profilicity, that quickly shifting landscape. Seduction, though it may be misinterpreted as a "shallowness" because it is based on appearances, is really a muddying, a complication, an ambiguity: "It is not quite the feminine as surface that is opposed to the masculine as depth, but the feminine as indistinctness of surface and depth." Per postmodernism, the masculine "depth" is the worse illusion, a propping up of "reason," of "meaning;" thus such an approach to femininity is not only more honest, but also "truer:"

But here she survives because outside psychology, meaning or desire. What destroys people, wears them down, is the meaning they give their acts. But the seductress does not attach any meaning to what she does, nor suffer the weight of desire. Even if she speaks of reasons or motives, be they guilty or cynical, it is a trap.

This ironic distance proves powerfully elusive, and it undermines "all the mechanisms of reason and truth people use to protect themselves from seduction;" Baudrillard argues that women have always had (and understood) this power of seduction, have always benefited from its distancing (through appearances), and that it is rooted in premodern magical rites:

For it is not the prohibition, but its non-sense that seduces him. Thus, against all logic, it is the improbable prophecies that come true; all that is required is that they not make too much sense. Otherwise they would not be prophecies. Such is the bewitchment of magical speech, such is the sorcery of seduction.

This is why neither magic nor seduction concerns belief or make-believe, for they employ signs without credibility and gestures without referents; their logic is not one of mediation, but of immediacy, whatever the sign.

Today, many "cultural Jews" follow the law of Moses without even believing in God. They do the rites, they don't eat pork, but they can't explain why. And from the outside it seems absurd, since most of us live in the discourse of production, of law, of science, of reason. Most of human history, however, has been dominated by a sort of seduction.

To wear meaning out, to tire it out in order to liberate the pure seduction of the null signifier or empty term - such is the strength of ritual magic and incantation....The power of words, their "symbolic efficacy" is greater when uttered in a void.

Thus we get both creation ex nihilo, as well as God as The Word. The power of "empty" (magical) words (rites) have been tragically underestimated by contemporary feminists, insofar as they have abandoned it in favor of more explicit forms of power (i.e. Barbie Feminism, Foucault, etc.). Baudrillard argues something I remarked on a long time ago, namely that women have always had their own sort of power, merely a more indirect version:

But they have always remained mistresses of this possibility of eclipse, of seductive disappearance and transluscence, and so have always been capable of eclipsing the power of their masters.

Women have always had a profound ability to, pardon my french, squeeze, and men will obey. This tactic, though crude, was and still is effective. Contemporary feminism has almost entirely dropped it in favor of seeking legal, economic, and employment equality between the sexes and a maximization of pleasure and desire. But, "For seduction, desire is not an end but a hypothetical prize. More precisely, the objective is to provoke and deceive desire." Desire should rightly be viewed as a tactic, not an end in itself. The church understood this, as did every other magical, rule-based, seductive game in town.

If we simplify seduction once again to merely sexual seduction, Baudrillard rails against pornography as quite literally anti-seduction: it's essentially the logical conclusion of a productive, law-based transgression. Its excessive explicitness and frankness with anatomy renders it the least seductive thing one can consume. All subtlety, all (fore)play is removed, and "by giving you a little too much one takes away everything." Somehow, greater detail inverts things so that it feels less real (because we normally don't perceive every detail, nor can we process so much info?). In a sense, we are not meant to see everything through a microscope; that world makes no sense to us, but rather the world of surfaces (seduction) does make sense. This overwhelming flood of information ("info glut," "info overload") is not only a problem for all of us who consume content, but it evokes a similar problem to Derrida's attempt to account for the exceptions, the margins. We humans, however, are limited and cannot process the excessive amount of information being produced every day; if handed all of it unfiltered, we end up processing none of it. We cower in the corner, wanting it all to go away. It turns out that filtering is not merely discrimination, rather it's a necessary survival tactic. We HAVE to jettison some detail in order to function, we HAVE to exclude exceptions, we have to simplify. Derrida's claim to the contrary is not only unrealistic but unethical. It's also hypocritical, as he necessarily must exclude; every choice of context by definition excludes everything outside of the context.

Probably the place that feminism went wrong in terms of the discourse of production was its attempt to "liberate" sex. I thought about that phrase for a bit, and the more I think about it, the idea of liberating sex is among the stupidest I've ever heard. Do you want to "liberate" a panther prowling in your living room? No! It will consume you in a bloody blur of desire, and you'll deserve what you get. The implicit conclusion Baudrillard may be hinting at is that we need more "rules" around sex, not fewer. To get hung up on "laws" is to miss the point, is to move sexuality into a realm it never should enter (the productive, rather than the seductive). Once it does enter the realm of law, of hyper-scientific rationalism, it becomes deeply irrational, and thus contradictory. But seduction lives outside of rationality, and thus Baudrillard's remarks on astrology were fascinating in this context:

Every sign of the Zodiac has its form of seduction. For we all seek the favour of a meaningless fate, and place our hopes in the spell that might result from some absolutely irrational conjuncture - here lies the strength of the horoscope and zodiacal signs. No one should laugh at astrology, for he who no longer seeks to seduce the stars is the sadder for it. In effect, many a person's misfortune comes from their not having a place in the sky, within a field of signs that would agree with them - that is to say, in the last instance, from their not having been seduced by their birth and its constellation. They will bear this fate for life, and their very death will come at the wrong time. To fail to be seduced by one's sign is far more serious than the failure to have one's merits rewarded or one's desire gratified. Symbolic discredit is always much more serious than a real defect or misfortune.

Of course it's not rational, but the logical conclusion of logic is arguably even more irrational. Baudrilalrd challenges us to "imagine a theory that would treat signs in terms of their seductive attraction, rather than their contrasts and oppositions," as this is not only more human, but provides much wider opportunities (political and otherwise). Baudrillard goes so far as to claim that Simone de Beauvoir is behind the curve, not ahead of it:

The claim that anatomy (or the body) is not destiny is not recent, but was made far more stridently in all societies prior to our own. Rituals, ceremonies, raiments, masks, designs, mutilations and torture - all in order to seduce . . . the gods, the spirits, or the dead. The body was the first great medium of this immense undertaking.

Thus, the more we risk our current gnostic trend of abandoning the body, treating it as a disposable object, as something overdetermined by language to the point of nullity (think of trans-ness), the farther we move from seduction. Seduction undermines the masculine conception of nudity as objective truth, but I wonder how much seduction relies on that very misunderstanding in order to seduce. For seduction is only possible so long as the tease continues, as long as the thing being obscured is obscured. As soon as consummation is achieved, visually or otherwise, the allure is lost. In a strange sense, that means that Islamic cultures which veil their women are in a sense much more seductive than libertine western cultures which project half-naked women on every surface. The frankness and ubiquity of the female body's media representation renders it null; it robs our culture of any meaningful seduction. The moment that food/sex/drugs/excitement/laughter become readily available on-demand, they all lose their seductive power. In an economic sense they are irredeemably devalued and rendered inedible, unattractive, and impossible. Paradoxically: limitation, famine, sobriety, moderation, are all preconditions for enjoyment, not barriers to it.

No matter how hard we claw our way out of religion, out of the premodern systems and hierarchies we so flagrantly disparage today, our distance from them only displays their wisdom all the more clearly. But can we return to these systems? Postmodernists like Baudrillard would likely argue no, at least not in an un-altered state. But that's the cool thing about postmodernism: often it wraps back around to premodernity, and we end up being much more ancient than we'd like to admit. It turns out that games, far from being panem et circenses, are really required not only for society to function, but for our sanity's sake. In that case, it's dealer's choice: what game would you like to play? Or, how can I seduce you today?

[Ant · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Το παιχνίδι των μοντέλων και η ελαστική τους συνδυαστική χαρακτηρίζουν ένα σύμπαν παιγνιώδες, όπου τα πάντα λειτουργούν ως πιθανή προσομοίωση, όπου τα πάντα μπορούν να παίξουν, ελλείψει Θεού για να αναγνωρίσει τα δημιουργήματά του, ως εναλλακτική προφανεια. Οι αξίες της ανατροπής εναλλάσσονται, η βία και η κριτική μοντελοποιούνται και αυτές με τη σειρά τους. Βρισκόμαστε σ'ένα σύμπαν εύπλαστο και κάμπυλο, όπου δεν υπάρχουν πλέον γραμμές φυγής. Άλλοτε η συνοχή ενός αντικειμένου και της χρήσης του, μιας λειτουργίας και ενός θεσμού, κάθε πράγματος και του αντικειμενικού προσδιορισμού, όριζε μια αρχή της αλήθειας. Σήμερα η σύζευξη μιας επιθυμίας και ενός μοντέλου (ενός αιτήματος και της προεξόφλησής του μέσω προσομοιωμένων απαντήσεων ) είναι αυτή που ορίζει την αρχή της ηδονής."

[Marla]

I was seduced by this book's subject and yet, it left me without climax. The language is far beyond my capabilities and when I did the cost/benefit analysis of trying to decipher what the author intended, I decided that the cost was much higher than my attention span.

If anyone is so inclined to weave through the rhetoric, please let me know how it turns out. ;)

[Ryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

i have given Baudrillard plenty of chances. I don't believe i will be reading anything else by him

[Aiva Blažytė · Rating 1 out of 5]

I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU HOW DARE YOU
koks nusivylimas…. omfg…. sitoj knygoj baudrillardas siulo moterims eksploatuoti lyties normas savo naudai tam, kad kovotu pries patriarchaline sistema. viliojimas yra vienas is tu dalyku, kuriuo moteris turetu naudotis. Right…. aciu uz nieka? kdl vyrai isvis raso apie moteris….
Gal geriau likti prie simuliakru ir hiperrealizmo 🙏

[v · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another obnoxious transitional book from Baudrillard's autumnal period. But this one's the most obnoxious.
The first chapter, "The Ecliptic of Sex," contains a snappy section on pornography and a seduction/challenge to feminism that no one accepted; chapter two, "Superficial Abysses," is generally middling apart from "The Sacred Horizon of Appearances" which is the core of his argument regarding psychoanalysis; and chapter three, "The Political Destiny of Seduction," ends quite strongly at a meeting point of simulation, seduction, and the demise of the social

[A. Raca · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Uzlaşmaz çelişki: Klonlama, sürekli olarak, kendi modellerine benzedikleri için eşeyli canlılar üretirken, cinsellik, klonlama yüzünden yararsız bir işlev halini alacaktır -ancak elbette cinsellik bir işlev değildir; bedenin bütün bölümlerini ve bütün işlevlerini aşar. Cinsellik, bedende bir araya gelebilen bilgilerin tümünden üstündür. Kalıtsal formül ise bütün bu bilgileri birleştirdiğini iddia eder. İşte bu yüzden özerk, cinsellikten ve ölümden bağımsız bir üreme biçiminin kapısını aralamaktan başka bir şey yapamamaktadır. "

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

امتیاز به علت ترجمه‌ی بد است نه خود کتاب

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We are indeed in an original situation as regards sexual violence - violence done to the ‘subsuicidal’ male by unbridled, female sensualism. But it is not a matter of a reversal of the historical violence done to women by male sexual force. The violence involved here is relative to the neutralization, depression and collapse of the marked term before the irruption of the non-marked term. It is not a real, generic violence, but a violence of dissuasion, the violence of the neuter, the violence of the degree zero. So too is pornography: the violence of sex neutralized.”
–
“Pornography at its most sublime reverses itself into a purified obscenity, an obscenity that is purer, deeper, more visceral. But why stop with nudity, or the genitalia? If the obscene is a matter of representation and not of sex, it must explore the very interior of the body and the viscera. Who knows what profound pleasure is to be found in the visual dismemberment of mucous membranes and smooth muscles? Our pornography still retains a restricted definition. Obscenity has an unlimited future.”
–
“The more immersed one becomes in the accumulation of signs, and the more enclosed one becomes in the endless over-signification of a real that no longer exists, and of a body that never existed.”
–
“A culture of the desublimation of appearances: everything is materialized in accord with the most objective categories. What is obscene about this world is that nothing is left to appearances, or to chance. Everything is a visible, necessary sign. Like those dolls, adorned with genitalia, that talk, pee; and will one day make love.”
–
“Disenchanted simulation: pornography - truer than true - the height of the simulacrum. Enchanted simulation: the trompe-l'oeil - falser than false - the secret of appearances.
Simulacra without perspective, the figures in trompe l'oeil appear suddenly, with lustrous exactitude, as though denuded of the aura of meaning and bathed in ether. Pure appearances, they have the irony of too much reality.”
–
“There are no fruits, meats or flowers, no baskets or bouquets, nor any of the delightful things found in (a still) life. Nature is carnal, and a still life is a carnal arrangement on a horizontal plane, that provided by the ground or a table. Although a still life may sometimes play with disorder, with the ragged edge of things and the fragility of their use, it always retains the gravity of real things, as underscored by the horizontalness.”
–
“This advance towards the subject of a mirror object, it is the appearance of the double, in the guise of trivial objects, that creates the effect of seduction, the startling impression characteristic of the trompe l'oeil: a tactile vertigo that recounts the subject's insane desire to obliterate his own image, and thereby vanish. For reality grips us only when we lose ourselves in it, or when it reappears as our own, hallucinated death.
A vague physical wish to grasp things, but which having been suspended, becomes metaphysical: the objects of the trompe l'oeil have something of the same: fantastic vivacity as the child's discovery of his own image, an unmediated hallucination anterior to the perceptual order.

If there is a miracle of l'oeil, it does not lie in the realism of its execution, like the grapes of Zeuxis which appeared so real that birds came to peck at them. This is absurd. Miracles never result from a surplus of reality but, on the contrary, from a sudden break in reality and the giddiness of feeling oneself fall. It is this loss of reality that the surreal familiarity of objects translates.”
–
“Here the emptiness was seemingly provoked by the insignificance. Elsewhere words and gestures are emptied of their meaning by unflagging repetition and scansion. To wear meaning out, to tire it out in order to liberate the pure seduction of the null signifier or empty term - such is the strength of ritual magic and incantation.”
–
“The seduction of eyes. The most immediate, purest form of seduction, one that bypasses words. Where looks alone join in a sort of duel, an immediate intertwining, unbeknownst to others and their discourses: the discrete charm of a silent and immobile orgasm. Once the delightful tension of the gazes gives way to words or loving gestures, the intensity declines. A tactility of gazes that sums up the body's full potential (and that of its desires?) in a single, subtle instant, as in a stroke of wit. A duel that is simultaneously sensual, even voluptuous, but disincarnated - a perfect foretaste of seduction's vertigo, which the more carnal pleasures that follow will not equal. That these eyes meet is accidental, but it is as though they had been fixed on each other forever. Devoid of meaning, what is exchanged are not the gazes. There is no desire here, for desire is not captivating, while eyes, like fortuitous appearances, cast a spell composed of pure, duel signs, with neither depth nor temporality.”
–
“The claim that anatomy (or -the body) is not destiny is not recent, but was made far more stridently in all societies prior to our own. Rituals, ceremonies, raiments, masks, designs, mutilations and torture - all in order to seduce . . . the gods, the spirits, or the dead. The body was the first great medium of this immense undertaking. For us alone does intake on an aesthetic, decorative character.
The body is made to signify, but with signs that, strictly speaking, have no meaning. All resemblance has vanished, all representation is absent. The body is covered with appearances, illusions, traps, animal parodies and sacrificial simulations, not in order to dissemble, nor to reveal (a desire, say, or a drive), nor even just for fun (the spontaneous expressiveness of children and primitives). What is involved here is an undertaking that Artaud would have, termed metaphysical: a sacrificial challenge to the world to exist. For nothing exists naturally, things exist because challenged, and because summoned to respond to that challenge. It is by being challenged that the powers of the world, including the gods, are aroused; it is by challenging these powers that they are exorcized, seduced and captured; it is by the challenge that the game and its rules are resurrected.”
–
“Remember the Babylonian Lottery. Whether or not it exists, the veil of indetermination it throws over our life is absolute. Its arbitrary decrees rule the least details of our existence. We dare not speak of a hidden infrastructure, for the latter will eventually be called upon to appear as truth - while here it is a matter of fate, that is, of a game that has always already been worked out, yet remains forever indecipherable.”
–
“The group with a video camera is itself its own terminal. It records, adjusts and manages itself electronically. It turns itself on, seduces itself. The group is seduced and even eroticized by the instantaneous report it has of itself. Soon self-management will be universal, the province of every person, group and terminal. Self-seduction will become the norm of all the charged particles in the networks or systems. The body itself, operated by remote control from the genetic code, is itself no more than its own terminal; it has no other concern than the optimal self-management of its memory banks.”
–
“Anatomy is not destiny, nor is politics: seduction is destiny. It is what remains of a magical, fateful world, a risky, vertiginous and predestined world; it is what is quietly effective in a visibly efficient and stolid world.”

[Kaplumbağa Felsefecisi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baştan çıkarmak kaderdir, dedi sonunda Baudrillard. Katılıyorum evet, fakat kitapta pek çok kez geçen kadınsı özelliklere ve kadın olmaya, kadına yüklediği misyonlara kesinlikle katılmıyorum. Erkeğin baştan çıkarıcılığı olmadığı ve kadının da bunu bastırılmış haliyle gün yüzüne çıkartmadığı bir dünyada simülasyondan öte bir yaşam kurgusu olamaz diyor yazar. Cinselliğin, pornografinin hiçbir surette aracısı olmayan, olmaması gereken baştan çıkarmanın insan doğası için bir gereklilik olduğunu anlatıyor. Kierkegaard'ın Baştan Çıkarıcının Günlüğü kitabından çokça referans almış olan yazarın en çok dikkatimi çeken değinisi, baştan çıkmaktan korktuğumuz için baştan çıkardığımız gerçeğidir. Bunun şeytan oyunu ya da kötü kadın özelliği olduğunu düşündüren sistem aslında cinselliğin, erotizmin ve pornografinin en uc noktalarda simulasyonunu yaşamakta ve tam da kendi içinde kıvranıp durmakta.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man, I don't know. I understood more of this than I thought I would at the beginning, but by the end my understanding had all unraveled. Lots of evocative thoughts, although his disgust for "sexual liberation" (as the end of seduction and robbing women and life of mystery) is a little hard for me to take at times.

[Dusty Hope]

even though for me there is a point where his language falls off the roof, in a way, pushes the dialectic into a frenzy of emptiness, like Zeno fighting with the wall, I still find the stuff he gets into really dazzling, very important

[rully · Rating 3 out of 5]

membujuk bukan sekedar melemahkan, tapi juga menguatkan di satu sisi - jean baudrillard


sayang sampe sekarang gak bakal selesai baca buku ini, belum selesai di baca bukunya sudah berada di mana. saya baca edisi terjemahan bahasa Indonesia dengan Judul "berahi" sekitar tahun 2002

[Bernier · Rating 5 out of 5]

La seducción para Baudrillard tiene el mismo lugar que el Amor para Barthes, son ámbitos que no son recogidos por ningún sistema, no tienen ciuaddanía ni en la moral ni en la religión ni menos en el psicoanálisis. Son operaciones transgresoras en el sentido más extremo.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

seduction replaces production; fascination replaces power.

[Prerna Munshi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baudrillard probably endeavours to redeem seduction, enchantment and magic which are dying a silent death in a world obsessed with production, discourses,anatomy and what not!

Mind boggling certainly but does Baudrillard himself realise writing a book on 'seduction' adds up to its anti-thesis?

Loved it. Especially the sections on stereo-pornography, feminist discourses and Oedipus. Recommended!

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spiel typical to French leftism, and that’s why I like it, though focused more on how porn is like a false intimacy. Lyotard had a similar point but was taken out of context because the right needed something to bitch about.

[Анна · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ur-Frenchman’s thoughts on women.
Take that however you want.

[Alexandra Owens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably closer to 3.5 but rounding up. Baudrillard's attempt at psuedo-psychoanalysis is very interesting but the opinions he exposits in The Consumer Society were much more well-adjusted... going back on his theories of desire and the sex-object was not a good idea