Mia Levitin is the author of a new book called The Future of
Seduction. Given the current state of social and sexual relationships between male
and female, it is hard to believe that seduction has any place in modern sexual
relationships.
Mia's book is an attempt to restore the art of seduction to
its rightful place in society. If one person has a chance of success, it is
she. Mia is well qualified to talk on the subject. Levitin is classically beautiful,
highly intelligent and has a PhD in the art of seduction, a dangerous combination
in a woman. Good luck to the man that tries to chat her up. One piece of advice
is to look up what a siren is.
Much of the early part of the book is based on Mia's early life.
Married at a very tender age and then divorced very soon after would scar many
women for life. But not her. Even from the brief period, I have known her; she exhibits
an almost defiant spirit and independence of mind that is very attractive in a
woman.
She writes "When my marriage ended, I figured I had
chosen the wrong partner but did not question for a second that a relationship
was a prerequisite to happiness. Hell-bent on hunting down Mr Right 2.0, I
embarked on dating armed with an Excel spreadsheet and a love-coach-to-the-stars.
Despite my can-do attitude, it has not happened yet. If you had told me then
that I would still be single after111 first dates over about five years, I
would have found it unfathomable. But truth be told, I am grateful for the time
alone". The faster you let go of seeing yourself as a victim, the better
off you will be – no matter how appalling the behaviour of an ex. Own a part of
what went wrong, even if that part is just a sliver.
When I first started dating, I got bored after ten dates to
go through 111; you have to admire that dedication.
The book is extremely well written. Levitin has a surgical
writing style, clear and to the point without using unnecessary words to make
her point. She has a touch of the George Orwell about her.
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| Mia Levitin |
It is clear that social and sexual relations are becoming increasingly
difficult, and the widespread misuse of technology is affecting intimacy. If human
relationships continue the way they are going, humanity will be in Mia's words "screwed".
Mankind's and womankind's struggle to screw is as old as
time. Procreation is a social and necessary part of the human race. Having sex
is a natural occurrence. Mia believes that the reckless pursuit of this
physical activity has been detrimental to men's/women intellectual development.
As one writer puts it "the tools we use to meet, mate and relate have
evolved more in the past ten years than in the previous ten thousand, yet we
arrive at them with biology unchanged since the Stone Age". In some people
intellectually unchanged since the stone age.
Given men and women's obsession with porn on the internet,
you would have thought that the amount of sex in society would have increased,
but as Levitin points out in the book, we have had a 'sex recession' with Britain
leading the way in the massive drop in sexual activity.
While men and women are seeking to satisfy their sexual
urges through the internet, Levitin believes that this is disconnected from our
intellectual development. The brain is the most important sex toy. 'Imagination
is the best pornography we have,' says Kate Moyle.
Many peoples sex lives are divorced from reality. Sex does
not take place in a vacuum. We live in a society that treats women purely as sex
objects, explaining the rise in sexual assaults on women.
I do not know Mia's viewpoint on the #MeToo movement.
However, I believe this movement is detrimental to healthy social and sexual
relationships; it is a very dangerous right-wing political movement that
will do nothing to help real or rational sexual relationships.
As David Walsh points out "On the basis of generally
unsubstantiated claims, careers and lives were destroyed. The New York Times,
Washington Post and the New Yorker and New York magazines regularly and
gleefully participated in the evisceration of various personalities based on
shabby evidence, or no evidence at all.[1]
The great philosopher Hegel once said "The rational is
real, and the real is rational, I believe that Levitin's book is largely
written in this spirit. The book deserves to be widely read. Whether it rescues
the art of seduction from the condescension of history is another matter.
Mia Levitin is a cultural and literary critic based in
London. Her work appears regularly in publications including the Financial
Times, The Spectator and the Times Literary Supplement. She can be found @mialevitin.com
