As children, we were more highly influenced by our senses. Spectacles like a circus or the colors of a new toy could fascinate us. Our senses grew duller as we aged. We don’t notice as much because we are constantly moving to get things done. In seduction, you want to take your target to their golden childhood, where they were less rational and more easily deceived.
By orchestrating details, colors, gifts, little ceremonies – you capture their senses, and this distracts them from what you may really be after. The more people focus on the little things, the less they notice your larger direction.
Women have always known that within even the most self-possessed man was an animal they can lead by filling his senses with the right physical lures. They key is to stage attacks on many different fronts: the voice, the gestures, the walk, the clothes, the glances.
Words are important in seduction but what is most seductive is what you do not say – it is what you communicate indirectly. Don’t tell someone what you are feeling, let them guess it in your looks and gestures. That language is more convincing.
Therefore in my view when the courtier wishes to declare his love he should do so by his actions rather than by speech, for a man’s feelings are sometimes more clearly revealed by . . . a gesture of respect or a certain shyness than by volumes of words.
BALDASSARE CASTIGLIONE