Table Of Content

SEDUCTION (cid:9) CultureTexts Arthur and Marilouise Kroker General Editors CultureTexts is aseries of creative explorations in theory, politics and culture at thefin-de-millenium. Thematically focussed around key theoretical debatesin thepostmoderncondition, theCultureTextsseries 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 representtheforwardbreaking-edge ofpostmodern theory and practice. Titles Seduction Jean Baudrillard Panic Encyclopedia Arthur Kroker, Marilouise Kroker and David Cook LifeAfter 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 3 The Eternal Irony of the Community 12 Stereo-Porno 28 Seduction/Production 37 II. SUPERFICIAL ABYSSES The Sacred Horizon of Appearances 53 Trompe l'oeil or Enchanted Simulation 60 I'll Be Your Mirror 67 Death in Samarkand 72 The Secret and The Challenge 79 The Effigy of the Seductress 85 The Ironic Strategy of the Seducer 98 The Fear of Being Seduced 119 III.THE POLITICAL DESTINY OF SEDUCTION The Passion for Rules 131 The Dual, the Polar and the Digital 154 The "Ludic" and Cold Seduction 157 Seduction as Destiny 179 INTRODUCTION Afixeddestinyweighs on seduction. For religion seduction wasastrategy of the devil, whether in the guise of witchcraft or love. It is always the seduction ofevil - or of theworld. It is the very artifice of theworld. Its malediction has been un- changed in ethics and philosophy, andtoday it is maintained in psychoanalysis and the `liberation of desire.' Given the present-daypromotionofsex, evil andperversion, alongwith the celebration of the ofttimes programmatic resurrection of allthatwasonce accursed, it mightseem paradoxicalthat seduc- tionhasremained in theshadows -andeven returned thereto permanently. Theeighteenth centurystillspokeofseduction.It was, with valour andhonour, acentralpreoccupationof the aristocratic spheres.ThebourgeoisRevolution putan endto this preoccu- pation (and the others, the later revolutions ended it irrevoca- bly - every revolution, in its beginnings, seeks to end the seduction of appearances). Thebourgeois era dedicated itself to nature andproduction,thingsquiteforeignandeven express- ly fatalto seduction.Andsincesexualityarises,asFoucault notes, from aprocessof production (ofdiscourse, speech or desire), it is not at all surprising that seduction has been all the more covered over. We live todaythepromotion ofnature, be it the good nature of thesoul of yesteryear, or the good material na- tureofthings, or even thepsychicnature ofdesire. Nature pur- sues its realization through all the metamorphosis of the repressed, and through the liberation of all energies, be they 2 SEDUCTION psychic, social or material. Seduction, however, never belongs to the order of nature, but that of artifice - never to the order of energy, butthat of signs and rituals. This is why all the greatsystems ofproduc- tion and interpretation have not ceased to exclude seduction - to itsgood fortune -from their conceptual field. Forseduc- tion continuesto hauntthem fromwithout, andfromdeepwi- thin itsforsaken state, threateningthem with collapse. itawaits thedestructionofeverygodlyorder, includingthoseofproduc- tion anddesire. Seductioncontinuesto appear toallorthodoxies as malefice and artifice, a blackmagic for the deviation of all truths, an exaltation of themalicioususeofsigns, aconspiracy ofsigns. Every discourse is threatened with this sudden rever- sibility, absorbed into its own signs without a trace of meaning. This is why all disciplines, which have as an axiom the coherence andfinality oftheirdiscourse, must try to exorcize it. This is whereseductionandfemininity are confounded, in- deed, confused . Masculinity has always been hauntedby this sudden reversibilitywithin the feminine. Seduction andfemi- ninity are ineluctable as the reverse side of sex, :meaning and power. Today the exorcism is more violent and systematic. We are entering theeraof final solutions; forexample, that ofthesex- ual revolution, of the production and management of all limi- nal and subliminal pleasures, the micro-processing of desire, with thewoman who produces herselfas woman, andas sex, being the last avatar. Ending seduction. Or else thetriumphofasoft seduction, awhite, diffusefemini- zation and eroticization of all relations in an enervated social universe. Or else none of the above. Fornothingcan be greater than seduction itself, not even the order that destroys it. THE ECLIPTIC OF SEX