À l'ère de la défiance - Isabelle Alfandry - Semaine de la Pop Philosophie

Isabelle Alfandary, philosopher, in a talk followed by a discussion with journalist Juliette Cerf (Télérama)

Seduction: for better and for worse

Seduction is a double-edged sword: it can be the most delightful or the most traumatic of experiences; it is essential to life, even though it can easily become overwhelming. It begins long before the awakening of romantic feelings: its history for each woman and each man goes back to earliest childhood. A remedy and a poison, seduction spices up human relationships, at the risk of poisoning them. How can it be measured, controlled and protected against? When abusive, seduction borders on violence or rape. The #MeToo movement has enabled women in particular to speak out against its deeply traumatic and unpunished excesses.

Psychoanalysis was born more than 120 years ago from Freud’s listening to women who recalled scenes of abusive seduction, scenes that explained their curious symptoms and psychological suffering. Although Freud eventually abandoned his initial seduction theory and argued for the existence of fantasy, psychoanalysis has never ceased to be haunted by the “scandal” of seduction: essential to psychic and romantic life, seduction carries an unavoidable traumatic charge. Where does seduction come from? Why can it turn into trauma, even when seduction is not deliberately violent or abusive? Is it always synonymous with domination? Should we, can we, give it up? Tame it?