seduction, sinful

During the 1950’s Pittsburgh television stations would play movies during the 11:30pm time slot. These movies were considered after dark films, the kind of production not for the faint of heart or anyone young enough to head off to school the next morning. Many of the movies were based on the seductive prowess of females whose charms leached the virility and independence of lovers, leaving them shells of themselves. Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946), Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity (1944) and Ava Gardner in the Killers (1946) all played wives who manipulated their husbands playing them for fools. Seduction for me during my youth meant beautiful women who even though they were females (this was the 50’s and men were men and women supposed to be their property) had some kind of devil power to turn men into putty.

In 1964, seduction found its way from the movie's on TV to the home of a cousin of mine. Its seemed that cousin Hannah’s husband Al (who had always been known as such a wonderful mensch, a good father, husband and provider) was seduced by his secretary known as that no good woman (a woman who had been invited to bris’s, bar mitzvah’s and wedding showers) and was divorcing his wife. In whispers around the poker table, while the aunts cleared the tables, on long exaggerated phone calls anyone in the vicinity could hear the word seduced bandied about in describing this terrible ordeal happening to my cousin Hannah caused by that no good woman. My mother and her sisters would all make the same ugly face, the slow movement of their heads back and forth, the sound of pooh, pooh to keep the spirits away as they did when speaking of cancer or a heart attack while mentioning the word seducer. 

But then 2012/2013 erupted and with it a new brand of seducers and seduction and a whole new definition for me. Seduction was still about power, but more so the power of lies wrapped up in a misfit of religion, unreliable sources and ridiculous rhetoric. Seduction was not about selfish women wanting to cut off a man’s testicles or ruin a a pretend marriage anymore. It was about replacing deference with indifference, division instead of inclusion, fabrication pretending to fair and balanced. It was about power the kind that is perceived by selfish maneuvers derived to confine science, intelligence, common sense, fair play as something evil. It was about keeping the dumb dumber, the insecure scared and the fool even more fool hearty. Seduction became a useful drug to ignore the truth and create an environment of lies and falsehoods.

There was a code of conduct from the censors during the production of the movies from the 40’s. No matter how sexy the siren was on the screen, in the end she was found to be a fraud and paid a moral price. My cousin Hannah in the 60’s found a happy ending also by taking Al to court and having him buy her a house in Florida and pay all of her bills until the day she died. Somehow however, I don’t see any happy ending from the seducers of 2012/2013. Instead I see a political party aroused by the torment of others, inspired by the lies of its leaders, revved by religious fervor so anti democracy. I see more and more active victims at the ready to hate, hurt and hurl venom and vitriol. Seduction in modern times seems much scarier and sinister as I remember it ever being when I was young.