Observations placeholder
Dante - Inferno [seduction]
Identifier
007293
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Dante found a place in Hell for seduction.
I found the inclusion of this to be intriguing – not wrong - intriguing because the vast majority of examples he gave were of men.
There are plenty of cases in history of women seductresses, but they seem to do less harm to men than male seducers do to women. A female seductress tends to simply drive men to distraction inciting them to all sorts of other unfortunate or ill judged acts, which may or may not cause harm. She thus tends to be an inciter of harmful action.
A male seducer plays with women's affections and can seriously hurt, seriously hurt. And there are far far male seducers than there are female seductresses.
Men seduced by women know they are being seduced, women being seduced by men often don't and believe all the stuff they're told – how lovely they are, how much the chap loves them, etc etc. It may be the only times in their whole lives they have ever been told this, they are overwhelmed, joyful, - someone really loves me! And he doesn't, he may simply think that she is a far easier conquest because she is innocent and gullible and trusting. Really nasty hurtful stuff, a game to them, another notch on their gun [so to speak] but the girl concerned can come away heartbroken and seriously damaged.
Seducers feature strongly in a lot of literature – Far from the Madding Crowd, many of Charles Dickens novels have seducers. Jason of the Argonauts was a seducer, and Woody Allen has made a film about a seducer who murders his pregnant lover in order to ensure his life with his pregnant wife is not spoiled. Basic Instinct was a film about a female seductress.
Stories about seducers tend to feature more prominently in the older literature because the unwanted pregnancies that resulted from the seduction in those days condemned the girl to a life of misery.
What many do not realise is the unwanted pregnancies that occur today still condemn girls to misery – the world has not changed that much. How would you like to live with the knowledge that your child was the result of an alliance based on lies, half of the little person created has the genes of a nasty lying toad. Almost but not quite as bad as having a child through being raped. It is after all rape with persuasion.
A description of the experience
Dante – The Divine Comedy INFERNO I
CANTO XVII
That is Jason, who with his courage and his cunning
Went to Colchis and carried off the fleece
He passed by way of the island of Lemnos
After the furious, pitiless women there
Had put their menfolk one and all to death
There, by his tokens and seductive words
He tricked Hipsypyle, the young girl who
Had before that tricked all the other women
He left her there, pregnant and on her own
Such is the fault which brings him to the torment;
And there is vengeance here for Medea too