SEDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM
(“Now I lay me—”
OLD PRAYER)
In preparation
THE SEDUCER’S VENI MECUM
A COURSE FOR ADVANCED STUDENTS
SEDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM
The Principles & Practices
of Seduction
A Beginner’s Handbook
by Emily Hahn
1930
New York
BREWER AND WARREN INC.
PAYSON & CLARKE LTD.
COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY EMILY HAHN
First Printing before Publication March 1930
Second Printing before Publication March 1930
SET UP, ELECTROTYPED, PRINTED AND BOUND
IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY H. WOLFF ESTATE, NEW YORK, N. Y.
DEDICATED TO
HERBERT ASBURY
WHO TOLD ME TO WRITE IT DOWN
INTRODUCTION
Although seduction as an applied art has beenslowly developing over a period of several generations,the science of seduction has so far beenlargely neglected. While the value of the empiricalknowledge acquired by early practitionersand transmitted to us by a great body of folk-loreshould not be minimized, the trial and errormethods of these precursors, both amateur andprofessional, are to be deplored as crude; for howeverrefined they may have been in application,there is evidence that they were lacking in thatexactness in observation which could make themvaluable to science.
Only a very few though hardy pioneers havein the past, recognized the necessity for organizingman’s empirical knowledge of this vast subject ona rational basis, and it is due to their unselfishlabours alone that we now have a sufficient body ofobserved phenomena, a sufficient accumulation ofdata, to make possible the beginnings of a truescience of seduction. It is the purpose of thisbook, to co-ordinate the efforts of these for themost part anonymous and forgotten contributors,these modest, silent benefactors, and to attempta proper classification within the subject: to adumbratesuch practical methods of procedure as mayin the, let us hope, near future develop into a suretechnique. Owing to the limitations of space andthe present confused state of the subject, it is ofnecessity only possible here to indicate the lineswhich such a development must follow. It is mydesire to confine this work to a purely practicalconsideration of the subject, and to make it ahandbook in the hope that my students and thosewho come after me will be the better able to addto the body of our observed knowledge of seductionand to indicate the more clearly for myshortcomings along what li