Seduction and Courtship – why knowing the difference matters

Seduction is the currency of our time. Clever campaigns invite us to believe that we are lesser humans for not having the hottest, newest “X”.

Seduction is the constant barrage of images. Skinny, young, perfect. Selfies.

It’s the data-mined construction of words and messages. The Cambridge Analytica, where, unless we are super aware, we will be seduced.

To be seduced is to move towards something that is a shallow representation of our true desires. And in the process, we give up our sovereignty to the seducer.

Seduction is a power game. With winners and losers.

To be seduced is to be lost to ourselves.

Courtship is a dance of relationships. In its etymological origins, a court was an enclosed yard surrounding a palace.

There are no losers. The palace/central space is the sacred – what happens as a consequence of the dynamic of the relationship around which we court. Within our courting, we remain sovereign, for it is towards the third, the central, that we come into relationship with each other.

Courtship evokes time and a process of getting to know the courted.

Shall we dance?

Photo credit: Tim Gouw

Article written March 5th 2017.