Today’s post explores themes from our upcoming Film Night. The movie we’re studying together is Shame, and you can sign up for Sunday’s round-table call here.

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You can learn much from men who are good with women. You can also learn from those that are bad.

Early in Shame, Brandon knows this, and leverages his boss as a kind of cannon fodder. In fact, Brandon leverages himself against all the men in New York City, who in this movie are all loud, too large in movement, and walled off. Brandon refines a presence that goes against the grain.

But it’s the bar scene with Blondie where we see Brandon at his strongest. He knows his boss is a lech and a user, concealed by a nice-guy mask, and that his conversation with women is ordinary at best, and that he fails to pay proper attention. So when his boss is excited by Blondie, Brandon gives him all the encouragement. Go ahead, I’ll catch up! With David stuck in the donkey-work of carrying a conversation (then offering drinks, then yanking her off to dance), Brandon takes the easy role: he leans back and bears witness.

David’s constant bumbling, his need to impress, is so noxious, that Brandon’s attractiveness is all the more enhanced. I guess it’s the guys’ version of the hot friend/ugly friend phenomenon you see in girls: where an attractive but insecure woman uses a less attractive woman as a decoy. What the less-attractive woman gets out of the arrangement is scraps, and party invites, she wouldn’t get if alone.

I told you we’d step on some shadowy themes this week.

Anyway, there are other seduction scenes where we see Brandon in ‘action’. In the subway at the beginning where there’s a potency in his gaze; moments in his up-and-down story with Marianne of both electric leadership and charm; and an occasion in a pub where he slips his fingers inside… and he gets a hefty beating from the boyfriend because of it.

Part of what I like about Shame is that these scenes are entirely true. I do not like early James Bond films because the seduction is all untrue: women throw themselves over Bond too early—I never believe in the tension. In Shame, Brandon carries a tension around with him. And the seduction scenes in this movie (although perfectly—meaning, a little too-neatly—written) all correlate to things I’ve seen and experienced myself. The sheer grit of what happens in Shame is honest.

But if you say that women can always feel the inner truth of men, why are they attracted to Brandon, with his addiction, with his shame?

Many reasons. No matter how murky your insides, you can’t ignore the power of polarity. Brandon’s set against the rest of the men in the city. He’s still, there’s a smouldering sort of interiority about him, he doesn’t flinch, raise his voice, boast. His presence is stable. There are no surface lies, no monkey antics, no need to impress.

Beneath that, I get the sense he likes women. Sure, he pornographises, has his call-girls, and magazine collection that could serve a small army. But the way he breaks down when Sissy sings in the jazz lounge, the way—although shaken—he speaks of his Irish upbringing with Marianne, there’s an aperture here, a sensitivity to beauty, which is his redeeming trait. Put it all together and you get an enigma, a sort of compressed, broken mystique.

And this is all before stating the obvious: Brandon has a triangle-shaped body, dresses well, and holds a good posture. Bring it all together with a strong need for sex, and he’s moulded himself as an instrument of seduction. Women might not know him but they know what he’s for: he’s a guy who knows what he’s doing.

When you see him staring, in rapture, at Elizabeth on the dancefloor with his boss, there is a particular quality to his presence. I call this quality ‘inevitability’, and it’s accompanied with a delightful smirk. It’s the frame of mind you inhabit when you know how it’s all going to play out—when you’ve seen something a hundred times before. Inevitability. When Brandon walks out of the club it’s as if he’s indifferent to anything happening with that girl… then she pulls up to him, offering a ride.

Notice that in their first moment alone—in a public space before reaching anyone’s home—they start fucking. There’s no romanticism here.

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But that opening subway scene, that finger-moment in the pub… are these kinds of things really possible?

Bear in mind that these are cinematic, perfect-storm scenarios. But, yes: most men I know who’ve gone deep on this path have experienced stunning moments of magnetism and escalation, where the possibilities of the world shock you awake.

More commonly, you will get the same tension, the same sub-communication you see in the film, but reduced some fifty percent. The universe is sex and desire abounds; it may not be immediate, but it’s latent. Yet the cheek turns the other way.

This puts most men in a sort of grey zone: you sense she might be open, that she may feel some desire. But her signals are unclear, her flame may need some fanning, or there’s a reason or two right now that cause her to suppress. It’s the plausible deniability of her attraction that keeps most men in their heads, guessing. If you were present to the signs, more trusting; if you really knew what she was thinking—as Zan would say—you’d be fifty times more bold.

So explain how the finger thing escalated so quickly!

This possibility didn’t come through the interaction, as if the way you build a conversation could lead to such a thing. The energy between Brandon and this girl happened long before any talking. I’ve said it before: when a man and a woman see each other for the first time, they know everything about their relationship that they’ll ever need to know. Most of us simply block out this flash of inuition, and forget. The girl is enthralled by Brandon because he vibrates some erotic possibility; something in her is spellbound by the darkness of men, and she’s lured in.

If you watch closely, you’ll see Brandon’s conversation is simple, like waves. The ocean’s tide is already set. Not every woman’s lips are already so open.

We might then consider the different female characters of Shame. If you consider a woman that’s attracted to Brandon, who must she be? And what’s her inner life like? Is she some sort of shame-woman? A love- or fellow sex-addict? Or just another girl who hasn’t considered her self-worth (or has deeply considered it, and is on the hunt), floating around New York as another hook-up option?

We’ll talk about Sissy and Marianne a little later. Both hold keys to this puzzle.

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Standing Shoulder to Shoulder

While David represents the average city grifter, trying to take home a girl on a Friday night, Brandon stands totally still. But don’t mistake stillness for freeze, hesitation, or cowardice.

Stillness is pregnant with the capability to move.

Here’s the thing about presence: when you truly feel it, you already feel complete—there’s never anything or anyone to move for. Just a scene to enjoy.

Stillness is active enjoyment of the woman before you.

On the level of energy, the more present—the more still—you are, the more energy moves through her body. While her muscles will tend to constrict, protecting her from being being seen in her pleasure, you see her excitement in the tapping of her fingers, in the quick dilation of her pupils. It explodes as her sudden decision to buy the drinks.

Since learning the language of sub-communication, I could never go back. Imagine knowing how to read the energy of any woman, and of any moment.

And some men think seduction is a numbers game!

Anyway, if you’d like to hear me go further into this, the following will give you something to think about:

Shoulder to Shoulder: The Evolution of a Seducer.

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FWIW, eighteen months passed between the first story in that piece and the last. During the Movie Night we might explore… whether a man needs to go fully ‘dark-side’, if he is to acquire ‘dark’ erotic skills.

~ Jordan

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T-17 days: The Mastery Course, Season #2

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