Opération Séduction Is everyone in France out to rope you in? Mais oui! Elaine Sciolino unmasks a nation forever obsessed with the soft sell.
"It is not enough to conquer; one must also know how to seduce.--Voltaire, "Mérope"
Thus begins an article published in the May 21st edition of New York Times T Magazine. No doubt it was planned prior to DSK's arrest on Sunday, May 15th. There's a half-page photo from 2002 of Jacques Chirac kissing her hand, "cradled it as if it were a piece of porcelain from his private art collection".
She goes on to discuss the kind of seduction that "does not always involve sex", the grand séducteur as "someone who never fails to persuade others to his point of view (sic)".
Sciolino writes beautifully, and her forthcoming book, entitled of course La Séduction, is sure to titillate and.....seduce.
Entitled. I wonder about the word entitled in the fresh aftermath of the Sofitel events of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the chambermaid. Droit de cuissage was the right of the man of noble rank or even wealth to the women who worked on the estate, in the palace, manor, country home. It seems something went awry after he asked her repeatedly, "Do you know who I am?" She didn't seem to know who he was, this famous man. Perhaps this was not in the world-famous DSK script, the script in his head (the head on his shoulders).
The chambermaid didn't know who DSK was, he reacted, did something, and she paid a heavy price.
And he'll pay his own price.
He did not take time for any séduction at all. He did not play by any rules at all. He had no rules.
