Category: The Way of the Femme Fatale

To hear a beautiful, rich, well brought up, well-educated woman talk, ever so nonchalantly about her sex life was disturbing.

from page 63, Basic Instinct, Richard Osborne 

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This will be a bit of a different chapter than my opening post, 
“I know who you are. How did he die?” | The Way of the Femme Fatale. Lesson 1 to 4 which I wrote three months ago.

That opening post was a study of what makes the Femme Fatale so powerful, drawing from scenes from the movie Basic Instinct.
The protagonist, or antagonist if you will, of this story is “Catherine Tramell”, played by Sharon Stone.
In that post I derived four lessons, and I thought it was the first four.
That I would continue with the formula.

But soon after writing it, I understood what had made femme fatale Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct so powerful.
I knew what it was.
After which the idea of going over the movie Basic Instinct scene-by-scene to discover what she did, or how she did it, seemed a bit pompous.
Like a “Oh look what we got here!”, in badly acted surprise.

I can see how part of writing about your journey is that you must be willing to fake timelines, and to stick to your original format, because otherwise it’s gonna be a huge mess.
But if I have to choose between being a good writer, getting the most out of my material, versus simply doing whatever I want?!

Suffice to say I opened this new chapter in a new format, without feeling any obligation to pick up the “Lesson” structure from the previous post!
Nor the scene-by-scene approach, nor even necessarily talking about Basic Instinct.
Although I’m sure references to the movie will come naturally.

Either way the main reason of now writing off-the-grid, no longer following the movie Basic Instinct scene-by-scene, lay shortly after writing the first episode.
The scene-by-scene, and lesson-by-lesson approach of the first post, had been a training-wheel version of something about the Femme Fatale that was clear at a way higher level, soon after writing it.
And it is definitely a bit of a bummer….

Some of you may even remember the same thing being said about the movie Fifty Shades. That it was not Christian’s sexual preference to be dominant, that made him “the dominant” in his sadomasochistic relationship to Ana Steele:
It was his money.

He was financially dominant, he was a tycoon.
Which was an inequality that was much more potent, derailing and disturbing, than what the two had going on in the bedroom or playroom.

The same is true for Catherine Tramell, and any other Femme Fatale who adopts the position of Femme Fatale out of choice;
Not necessity.

I could write a whole book, of how tapping into your dark female powers can be a vital life skill, in particular when you’re already met with envy from other women and know the collective as such is not going to take care of you.

For more about turning Femme Fatale out of necessity, check this video essay: The Double-Edge of Beauty | Explored Through Malèna , based on the movie Malèna from 2000, but it is situated in 1940. The film stars Monica Bellucci portraying the tragic role of Malèna.

But for this series I am focusing on Catherine Tramell, who was no Femme Fatale out of necessity any more than Christian Grey was a sexual dominant out of necessity.
And she also had the same foundation to her top-tier position in the bedroom, as Christian Grey did. Which is;

Catherine Tramell is extremely rich.

So we can go over the movie Basic Instinct scene-by-scene, to see how in every scene she knows how to wield her power, play her cards, force others to break patterns, and in many other ways just succeeds where others would be intimidated and break to pieces;
But with her being someone who is worth over a hundred million dollars, the rest of her tricks and impressive set of psychological skills, are little more than add-ons.

It’s definitely not the case that money alone does the trick, but both Catherine as well as Christian also had first-class upbringings in privilege, not counting the first years of Christian’s life when he was still with his biological mother who could not protect him.
Another example of how power in the bedroom really all starts with having power, period. A power Christian Grey received from his adoptive parents.

The reason a woman like Catherine Tramell is a Femme Fatale by choice, a woman talking openly about her sexuality and exerting her sexual powers, that reason is simple;
She can afford it.

Her talents, although absolutely impressive and in other posts I will get back to Catherine’s psychological and spiritual qualities no doubt, but overall those talents do not matter.
We mortals would already get stuck at the level of how we fund our debauchery of sexual play!

Which gives us a lesson 5 after all, even though my blogpost was not set out to come with that:

lesson 5.
Being powerful is firstly a matter of having a lot of money

In a sense my journey to discover the heart of being a charismatic femme fatale like Catherine Tramell, came to a sudden halt the moment I realized it was first and foremost a money game.
Like the wisdom goes:

“Everything is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.”

So to understand what Catherine Tramell does, in the movie Basic Instinct, you might as well read about how to acquire money and power. 
Or, if you want to keep a bit of the myth, read the book “The Art of Seduction” by Robert Greene.
You can find many video’s on YouTube of him talking about seduction, which he describes as a high form of power.
A power Catherine Tramell definitely possessed, and even more so than Christian Grey.

Where Christian frequently pays for his anger outbursts and disturbing behavior, and Ana makes him wait and punishes him;
Catherine Tramell just walks right back into detective Curran’s life, after she has just pushed his buttons, suggesting the suicide of his wife was his fault, and after the time she broke up with him in a cruel way.

She never apologizes, never explains, and she gets away with it because she knows what Nick does want, and she gives that in a way and at a moment, where he will be unable to remember the pain she has deliberately inflicted upon him before.

In all probability, it was even the other way round!

Detective Nick Curran feels so warmly for Catherine being there and for providing what he needs most, because the last thing she has done to him before that was to hurt him!
In the words of Madonna’s 1990 Justify My Love;

Only the one that inflicts the pain, can take it away.

A two-step process within the Art of Seduction (Chapter 5 Stir Anxiety and Discontent), which Catherine Tramell knew, mastered and had turned into an artform. 

Which brings us to lesson 6 of being a Femme Fatale:

lesson 6.
Inflict hurt, then be unavailable, letting your victim suffer on their own.
Reappear at a moment when their hurting (due to you or something else) is at an absolute peak.
Be the balm on their wounds.

Discovering the deeply seated capitalist motive behind the Femme Fatale, and the fact that Robert Greene had already written extensively about her (and his) power of seduction in his book The Power of Seduction, was detrimental to writing for this series….

And I was already toying with the thought of abandoning this series, when for reasons still not clear to me, I suddenly snapped, popped, transgressed, moved, INTO ALIGNMENT.
Purpose.
Peace.
And knowing.

I was now no longer writing about a Femme Fatale;
I had become her.

Like I said, I cannot reconstruct it, but it was as if from one day to the next, I was suddenly everything I had always wanted to be, and what I told myself I “should be”; Yet that had never stuck.
And now I was it, without even trying.
There were no thoughts in my head that I had to be someone or something, no positive affirmations, no nothing. 

It was coming from within, and all the answers of who the Femme Fatale  was, the part of Catherine Tramell that had fascinated me so much;
Those answers were already within me.
Because I now was, what I was previously just researching, clip by clip, book by book, and YouTube video by YouTube video.

And the story of who I was, and why I did what I did; 
Why I will always live alone, or in a social setting that will allow me to play this game, and will never bind myself to one man sexually-
was shown to me, in a story that I have named “The Asparagus Season”.

That what I want from my sexuality, is like eating just the tip, of the White Asparagus. I don’t consume the whole thing.
And I know that with my taste I need to know everything there is to know;
When and where can I get Asparagus, and if there are times the tips are extra juicy?
How can I purchase and prepare them, in a way the tips taste the absolute best?
How can I show up (hungry, but not too hungry!), in a way I am able to enjoy them the most?

I was shown that what I have done, ever since I knew I only wanted the best sex with men I am completely in love with- or I don’t want sex at all- is learning all about it that I can!

To continue the metaphor, I have learned a great deal about this tip of the asparagus.
Where it grows, when it’s ready, how I can prepare it, how I can vary with it;
How I can show up ready to enjoy it the most, ritualize it, and plan for it.

However, I do not have an asparagus field. I am completely dependent on what I find, and I know that asparagus are expensive and that society believes you should eat the whole stick.
That it is even unethical, to only eat the tip.

So I have competition from people who promise to consume the carefully grown White Asparagus wholly and ethically, including processing the wood-like bit on the stems.

The sex shown in Basic Instinct, between Catherine Tramell and Nick Curran, is a treasure, a jewel, a piece of art.
It is a performance, it is a seduction, it is the interplay of two people bringing their best.
And with so much talent on the scene, naturally, what they harvest is something entirely different to garden-variety-sex.

For a Femme Fatale, me as Femme Fatale, and for Catherine Tramell when she was with Nick, sex is the thing we only want the best of the best of.
Like eating only the head of the asparagus, and not even bothering with the rest.

This type of sex requires huge investments, in all ways, and she may have to go without it for the rest of her life.

But that will never stop her from dreaming about it.

lesson 7.
Like the tip of a White Asparagus, sex is your highest form of art.

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~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

“I know who you are,” the young woman said evenly.
She wouldn’t or didn’t want to meet their gaze.
She looked at the water as if deriving composure from its tumult.
“How did he die?”

from page 23, Basic Instinct, Richard Osborne 

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Introduction to this series

Welcome reader.
I am studying the wisdom and lifestyle of the Femme Fatale, because this has been the closest to the lifestyle I have chosen.

The Femme Fatale stands for being a solitary, sexually active woman, who sees the men in her life as equals and the relationship, friendship or affair as playtime, where they challenge each other.

I will investigate the lessons of this archetype using the movie Basic Instinct. This series will contain spoilers, and will probably also be incomprehensible if you have not seen the movie.

I have no idea how long this series will be.

My ultimate goal is to rewrite it and publish the lessons as a short manifesto.

But until then this series will be the long-form version of the lives and loves, of The Femme Fatale.

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lesson 1: become a woman without small talk

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Over the years I wrote many things about Basic Instinct’s Catherine Tramell. But despite three decades of conclusions in the media, that Catherine Tramell was the killer;
The only thing I have found her guilty of is that she refuses to engage in small talk.

She’ll do jokes, she’ll do irony, she’ll do sarcasm and she will not hide her intelligence.
She will overtake another car in a curvy road, driving at full speed next to a cliff, and she has convicted murderers as friends;
But she does does not engage in conversation without substance.

For Catherine, interaction is a game that can only be played with people who raise the stakes together with her.
People who immediately understand life is too short to play it safe.

But I am getting ahead of myself, because that last bit, about the Femme Fatale or Catherine Tramell, having an actual connection to life being short, and the inevitability of death?
I didn’t realize that.
Not until yesterday.

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lesson 2: play with death

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Yesterday, I wrote the post “Why Femmes Fatale are so powerful“
And the Why, is because they are not afraid of death, and train themselves to be in its presence.
Catherine’s reckless driving and choice of company, are not just signs of how powerful she is;
They are the reason she has that power.

She trains herself to never be afraid.

Catherine acknowledges fear of any kind takes away your autonomy and that if you want to play life at the level she does, you have no other choice but to overcome them.
And this will automatically influence your desire for small talk (lesson one), because the purpose of small talk is to give yourself and the other a sense of safety.
Which contradicts the unspoken rule that she, as well as detective Nick Curran, and also other femme fatales live by;
That we are all responsible for conquering our own fears.
Including our fear of death, our fear of being rejected, our fear of being excluded, our fear of not belonging, our fear of being outcast.
Our fear of being thrown into jail.

And the perfect way to train that, is to refrain from small talk, in particular in situations where the other person has more power than you do.

Small talk and social skills are functional if you need them to survive. But applied habitually without being mindful of what your endgame is, small talk and being social become a cover up of a deep existential fear that no spiritual practitioner will want to miss out on.

Learning to be with someone without small talk, is a spiritual practice much like meditating is.

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lesson 3: Treat Fear as an obligation to rise

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Femme Fatales and those playing at her level, can distinguish between good and bad, and desirable and undesirable.
But they also recognize that before acting, before doing anything about it or doing something in pursuit of getting it;
The fear to never be able to attain a certain outcome,
or the fear to suffer a certain loss or doom,
must be met first.

“the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933

The Femme Fatale notices fear (of rejection, of loneliness, of poverty) and recognizes her first job is to accept all realities that might happen.
And being okay with it.

Just like a player in sports, she must keep her cool in order to play her best game.

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lesson 4: only play with those who play with you

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On the deck of Stinson Beach, overlooking the ocean, Catherine Tramell disempowers the two detectives by not being moved by their presence, nor by the news that her lover has been murdered.

In a later scene in the police station she does the same thing with a whole team interrogating her.
Leaning back into her chair, not hiding behind a lawyer, she tells a completely transparent story, taking away all their intimidating power and instead making them uncomfortable.

But to Gus, Nick Curran’s partner, she cheerfully says “Hi Gus.”
Even when she has just asked Nick:
“Why doesn’t Gus like me?”
To which Nick has replied:
“I like you.”
“You do?” she asks.
“Yes. Do you want to go upstairs and have a drink?” 
“I didn’t think you’d ask me.”

And it is after the following scene in Nick’s apartment that she walks down the stairs, cheerfully greeting Gus as he comes up, carrying pizzas.

Catherine has not complained to Nick about lack of warmth coming from his best friend. Being cold-shouldered by Gus was merely an interesting conversation topic to her.

This illustrates Catherine only plays with those who have moved themselves into the game with her. She respects that Gus wants to keep to himself and does not hold grudges.

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lesson 1-4: recap and practice

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Catherine’s opening scene reveals lesson one to three, which are all related:
lesson 1: become a woman without small talk
lesson 2: play with death
lesson 3: treat fear as an obligation to rise

Small talk and the larger desire to be part of a community, is how we cover up fears, including our fear of dying. 
Being a Femme Fatale means understanding you must be completely okay with death, isolation, loneliness, pain;
Before you act and do anything to prevent it.

The coolness Catherine displays in the opening scene, displays a mastery of the deepest and most primal of human emotions.
It displays, what we all know under the term:
Enlightenment.

And the scene in Nick’s staircase where she stays polite to Gus, gives us number four:
lesson 4: only play with those who play with you

Catherine is kind to Gus, and also to her two friends who are both convicted of murder; Roxy and Hazel Dobkins.
There is no judgement of Gus’ choice to not like her, nor is there judgement over her friends being murderers.

Whether she is with friends or foes;
Catherine is transparent, open, and unjudgmental.

Her dominant spiritual practice is to be at ease, whatever happens.

It is that which she has trained, and it is that what we can learn from her.

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~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living