Some Men Are Better at Seduction When They Don’t Play the Hunter

I was actually already in the middle of writing this piece when a story by Cathy The Career Ms stopped me in my tracks:

She Decided Before You Even Opened Your Mouth And no, she's not sorry about it

When I read this story, I knew I had to integrate it into the piece I was working on. The protagonist is a woman at a corporate event that Cathy was hosting:

She knew what she wanted and she had already begun the quiet, invisible work of getting it. I followed her eyeline. He was three conversations away. Laughing at something, relaxed, completely unaware that he had already been selected. I made myself a private bet. By the end of the night, she would have manoeuvred them both, gracefully, naturally, without a single moment that looked like effort toward exactly where she wanted this to go.

She worked the room toward him. Not in a straight line, never in a straight line but in that elegant, circling way women move when they are both hunting and performing nonchalance simultaneously. She laughed with other people, genuinely. She engaged with the group. But her body, her attention, her entire gravitational field was slowly, deliberately orienting toward him like a compass finding north.

What caught my attention is the description of the protagonist's quarry:

Laughing at something, relaxed, completely unaware that he had already been selected.

Surely, the way he was relaxed and laughing played a part in Cathy's heroine choosing him. And even if he (to borrow Cathy's own words) wasn't operating with the quiet confidence of someone who knew exactly what the evening held and had the whole thing choreographed in his mind, that doesn't mean he wasn't working his own strategy…

I'm not implying any kind of nefarious intentions on his part. But Cathy makes the point that some men wouldn't be comfortable with the idea that a woman they thought they'd chosen had chosen them first. And while there may indeed be such men, I highly doubt the man in her story was one of them.

I can well imagine the sort of headspace he was in when Cathy's heroine decided he was the one to scratch her itch. In order to paint you a vivid picture of this headspace, allow me to share with you an episode from my own life.

My Night in Comedy Hell

Something you may not know about me is that one of my hobbies is standup comedy. Not just as a member of the audience, but also as the one on stage.

One time, I was booked to take part in a show at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles (or rather West Hollywood, to be precise). I was told that if I brought five people to the show who paid for tickets, I'd get a cut. As it happened, my wife and four of her girlfriends were coming back from a road trip that day, and they promised to come. So I figured I had that covered. Well…

Come the evening of the show, my wife and her girlfriends flake out on me at the last minute. They're exhausted from their trip and don't feel up to it. So right off the bat, I'm a little bummed — not so much about the money as the fact that I'm not going to have anyone in the audience who's there to see me.

And from there, things rapidly go downhill. When the booker finds out I won't be supplying any paying audience members, she turns nasty and threatens to not let me take the mic. After chewing me out for a bit, she tells me I'll be the very last person to go up on stage.

The show starts at 7:30 in the evening, and yet by the time my turn comes around, it's already 12:30! That's five hours of waiting, and I can't even relax because the booker periodically comes over to tell me: "I shouldn't even let you go up. I still might not." I feel like Westley being told by The Dread Pirate Roberts, "I'll most likely kill you in the morning." (If you get that reference, let me know in the comments !)

I'm waiting backstage when the last comic before me goes out to take the mic. I hear him complain about how few people are left in the audience. So on top of feeling on edge due to the booker's incessant hostility, I'm now thinking, "Great. There's hardly anyone left out there, and this guy's being a downer, which is only gonna make it worse. What's the room gonna be like when I get out there? Will there even be anyone left? How am I possibly gonna have a good set?"

But then something inside me just clicks. It tells me: "No need to worry about what'll happen out there. You know you like your material. Just go out there and act like you're hanging out with your friends and telling them jokes." And with that, my energy does a 180. The feeling of impending doom lifts. I come out on stage relaxed and ready to have fun with the audience. And they — all six of them who are still there! — can sense it. They immediately respond to my energy. They laugh at my jokes. They clap enthusiastically when I'm done.

Afterwards, one of them comes up and asks me to take part in a show that he's booking! He tells me that not only was I funny, but he was impressed at how I turned things around when the energy in the room was so low and managed to end the show on a high note.

Circling back to Cathy's story, had I been in that man's shoes, I would've gone into the event with same kind of relaxed, open-to-whatever-comes energy I brought to the stage at that comedy show. Even if I'd been eager to have a fling, I wouldn't have been in "hunter" mode. I would've gone in with a positive energy that's naturally magnetic and looked forward to seeing where that would take me.

Was in fact the man in Cathy's story operating in this headspace? There's no way for me to know for sure — but that isn't the point. The point is to raise awareness of the fact that a man doesn't necessarily have to "go after what he wants" in order to be seductive.

Thinking Outside the Box

On the topic of seduction, Mona Lazar has written the following:

When I'm in a seductive mood, I don't necessarily try to seduce someone in particular into doing something I want. What I'm actually doing is being friendly, bubbly, approachable, and disarming, because that's the state that I feel best in. But it's also the state that others enjoy the most on me and it makes them feel relaxed, happy, and connected with me. I use this whenever I feel like it and with everyone around me, women and men, without any other intent than to feel good and make others feel good. I can tell you for a fact that it's the most efficient seductive tactic in the world and there is zero manipulation behind it. All it is is feeling and spreading joy.

Seductress: The Skill, The Art, The Magic 3 tips and tricks to take over the world.

Even as a cishet man, I see myself in Mona's words. Maybe not the part about being "bubbly", but certainly the part about having no intention other than to feel good and make others feel good, and about that being the state I feel best in.

While Cathy's piece is about a woman collecting one-time experiences with men, when I reflect upon my romantic relationships, I see a similar pattern. We started off as friends, but when our friendship blossomed into something more, it happened like this: one way or another, she tipped me off that she wanted us to move into romantic and/or sexual territory, and the ball was in my court to decide if I was ready to take that leap with her. In other words, she'd already made the decision on her end; it was up to me to catch up.

If you're familiar with my work on Medium, you may have read me say the following:

I'm not intimidated by women's beauty or feminine allure, because no matter how gorgeous a woman is — no matter how stunning or breathtaking I find her — I know that if she were to get naked with me, I would make it a beautiful experience for her.

Based on those words, you might imagine me spotting an extremely attractive woman sitting at a bar and boldly approaching her and offering to buy her a drink. I wouldn't blame you for imagining that. But you would be mistaken. I've never been a man who does that.

It's not that I'm afraid to go after what I want. It's that what I want is to relate to women first and foremost as fellow human souls. Even women I find attractive. Especially women I find attractive.

So what I said above isn't me deluding myself into thinking I can bed any woman I want to. It's a reminder to me that no matter how much my body reacts to a woman as if she's a goddess, she is in fact a fellow soul, and I shouldn't allow thoughts like "She's out of my league" to deter me from relating to her as one human soul to another.

It's also a way for me to tap into my mojo, an energy that lets women know:

Whatever level of connection we have right now, it's enough for me. Within the confines of what that level allows, I will make you feel good — simply because I want to and choose to.

That level could be as close to the ground as her and me crossing paths on the sidewalk, most likely never to see each other again. Under such circumstances, I'll smile — with my eyes as much as my mouth. A smile that conveys warmth without asking for anything in return.

And when the level of our connection is up in the heavens, my warmth is, shall we say…more intense. And I convey it with way more than just a smile!

I'm not just showing her that her pleasure matters. I'm showing her that her breasts and pussy are actually meant to receive love, and to be conduits through which she as a person receives love.

I find that powerfully intoxicating — all the more so for how subversive it is. And let's not kid ourselves: it is very subversive. It's a direct message to her nervous system:

You never deserved to be treated like a piece of meat. You never deserved to feel unsafe. You never deserved to be fetishized. You never deserved to be shamed for your body or your existence as a sexual being. None of that should've ever happened to you (or any other woman, for that matter).

Her Pleasure is the Whole Point — Or Is It? How I, as a man, take it even further

Whether the level of connection between us is on the ground, up in the heavens, or anywhere in between — such as friendship — my intention is, in essence, the same: to give her a genuine gift. And to give it to her not in the spirit of "You owe me", but because it's its own reward.

In this way, I approach every level of connection — from the ground up — as something that's worthwhile in its own right. Even if it never leads to a higher level. Paradoxically, I've found that this makes women — not all of them, but enough of them — feel good enough about our connection, and safe enough in it, to be interested in taking it to another level.

My Takeaway For You

Whether you're a man with an interest in women or a woman with an interest in men, if the conventional "man as hunter, woman as prize" dynamic hasn't worked out well for you, then it might be that that dynamic just doesn't suit you. That you were never meant for it. And that's okay. It doesn't mean you're defective.

One of the keys to living a life that truly feels worth living to you is to learn what actually works for you and embrace it, even when it doesn't fit neatly into the boxes you've been conditioned to accept as "just the way things are".

With Love,

© Ben Rosenthal 2026