How to Increase Your Powers of Charisma and Seduction

The dominatrix wasn’t what I expected. It seemed like anyone earning money from erotic bondage-and-submission services would be seedy, down-market, and a bit of a loser.

I was so wrong.

When we met several years ago, I discovered that she had her very own dungeon, with an assortment of whips and other trappings of the trade. Even a bed of nails. Anyone who hired her wouldn’t be disappointed — and she had some powerful clients.

But there was so much more to her than expected. First, she did not have sex with clients in the traditional sense. And she had the body and bearing of a Broadway showgirl, the brightest star of any universe she happened to be in. At a party in New York, she was among the most popular guests. You might think that the other woman there would have felt threatened by her, given that she was wearing a shiny red dress that looked like it had been poured over her stunning body. But none of them were, as far as I could tell.

It was just a part of who she was. Can anyone object to a shiny red Corvette looking like a shiny red Corvette? And more than that, she was interested in everyone she talked with, men and women alike. Her eyes embraced people when she spoke with them; the other guests were genuinely fascinating to her. Her women friends were almost like sisters. Her glowing eyes made it clear they were the star of the show for her, in that moment.

Her sexually charged glamour gave a little view into an underground world that many of us probably would never have known otherwise. And heightening the feeling of fascination: she was deeply in love with her intriguing husband. Their obvious passion for each other made her even more enthralling (and less threatening).

Meeting the dominatrix was particularly inspiring to me, because at the time I was developing a science fiction novel, which has now been published: The Juice. It imagines media personalities who take a secret chemical substance that makes them supremely charismatic. They are so intoxicating that they can make anyone do almost anything. Which is a bit of a problem, leading to a rollercoaster ride of suspense.

As I researched the book, I began to understand how certain people radiate qualities that make them immensely attractive — and how it’s possible for anyone to heighten their own powers of attraction.

My friend Katie Henly is among those with that ability. That is so clear in this Facebook video, which was shot backstage at Theater Latté Da in Minneapolis, where Katie was performing in La Bohème.

The director and I cast Katie as a fake psychic in a comedic short film I wrote and produced called The Beauty of Disaster. (You can see her in action — along with some other amazing actors — in the film’s trailer here.) And what was so striking, during the casting call, was her sense of fun and humor — like life was a bit of a joke — a cherry on top of a luscious ice cream mound of acting and singing talent.

What I came to understand, as I observed and read about charisma, is that nearly anyone can heighten their powers of magnetism by taking deliberate approaches — learning how to make other people the center of your universe, as the dominatrix does, how to make everything seem fun and like an adventure, which is Katie’s gift.

There’s so much more to it, as is made clear in The Art of Seduction, by Robert Greene. The book was a fascinating (and quite entertaining) resource for me as I developed my magnetic characters. And it would be instructive for anyone trying to increase their powers of persuasion.

Greene has identified nine different types of seductive people with biographical stories laced through the pages — from The Siren (think Cleopatra and Marilyn Monroe) to the Charismatic (Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joan of Arc). And he helps readers figure out what category they might fall into, and how to increase certain elements they project, and downplay other traits that counteract their natural talents.

“The demeanor of Charismatics may be poised and calm, but their eyes are magnetic … Roosevelt could dilate his pupils at will, making his stare both hypnotizing and intimidating. The eyes of the Charismatic never show fear or nerves,” Greene wrote.

Vulnerability has its own power, along with sexuality. Monroe was trained to lower her breathy little-girl voice, and she learned how to walk in a way that “offered a strange mix of innocence and sex.” With those adjustments her fame started to grow like wildfire, Greene notes.

As I write this, during the Russian war on Ukraine, it feels like we’re entering a period where the old “might makes right” maxim is trying to make more of a comeback — at least, in circles of world power. Yet at the same time, the seductive, non-violent power of media and political personalities is swaying our perceptions — sometimes regardless of whether those views are based on reality.

There’s no better time to understand how we’re drawn in by others, and why. And at the same time, there’s no better time to understand how to control and heighten the magnetism buried inside all of us, in its many different forms.