Boys had followed Felicity Marvell around like a pack of dogs since she was ten. She had never done anything provocative to attract them. After all, at that age even the most precocious girls are not sure what’s what let alone know how to allure and seduce boys. Yet there they were, jostling each other to sit next to her, sending her notes, giving her candies and ribbons, and just ogling.
As she grew into puberty, the train of boys became longer and more persistent. The could not keep away from her, and were more solicitous and eager with her than any other girl in the school. As a high-school teenager, she was the most sought after, the most desirable, and the biggest prize; and she had done nothing to deserve it.
It was then that she understood the nature of sexual attraction. Some girls like herself were simply born with some combination of looks and natural allure that were as irresistible as pheromones in the animal kingdom. She gave off a potent, primal perfume just like female bears, bees, and foxes. There was nothing conscious about the boys’ reaction to her. They picked up her scent and were ineluctably driven to mate with her.
Felicity was an extremely intelligent girl – not in any academic sense, but in an instinctive one. She was uncanny in her understanding of others’ intent, desire, frustration, and ambition. She almost knew what her friends were going to do before they did, so alert was she to the subtle signs and signals that everyone gives off.
The other singular characteristic that most defined Felicity was her utter lack of need and dependency. As much as the boys in her class wanted to be with her and as much as the girls wanted to be her, she was indifferent to both of them. It was not that she was asexual; but only that she thought that the particular mating behavior in New Brighton was redundant, uninteresting, and distracting.
At the same time she learned what had in an earlier age been called ‘feminine wiles’. If men were so vulnerable to an attractive, alluring woman’s charms, then they could be easily manipulated. Gone were the days when women seduced gullible men, lied to them about pregnancy, quickly concluded a desirable marriage, and dealt with the consequences of their actions later and usually to their advantage; but feminine wiles had a modern-day incarnation.
Rosalind, Beatrice, Cleopatra, Portia, and Viola were women of Shakespeare’s plays who ran rings around men; and far more intelligent than they, got exactly what they wanted. More often than not the prize was a less-than-stellar man; but Elizabethan times being what they were a good match was all that could be hoped for.
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Portia thought her suitors fools, and she and her servants laughed at each prince who came to guess the secret of the three ‘caskets’. She fools her intended in the guise of a male lawyer, tricks him into indiscretion, then forgives and forgets but is never bested.
These strong women had no delusions about men and understood sexual dynamics perfectly. Men would always pursue women; and women would always put them off, patiently judging, assessing, and winnowing to make the best selection possible. Despite the common and current assumption than women were powerless, nothing could be farther from the truth. Women in patriarchal societies used their wits, their wiles, and their charms, and their intelligence to get what they wanted.
Ibsen’s women were no different. Hedda Gabler, Hilda Wangel, and Rebekka West were all determined, savvy women who knew exactly how to best men every time.
Felicity was dismissive of feminist cant. As far as she was concerned women needed no help whatsoever, no protection from so-called predatory men, no leg up in the corporate world, no social nudge. Men had only their physical strength going for them and that in today’s world meant next to nothing.
Lucky Felicity was gifted one more unassailable attribute – a silver tongue. While she never needed it with men since she already enough power over them with her irresistible sexuality, she saw that with it she could manipulate both supporters and competitors. An attractive woman displaying intelligence, wit, humor and especially charm is and always has been insuperable.
She always said that she had never met a man who would not succumb to flattery by a beautiful, graceful women. Their instinctive attraction to her dulled their otherwise cautious and suspicious attitude. Every time Felicity complimented them on their acuity, mental agility, insight, or intelligence, their resolve melted away. They were helpless, and very happily so.
Women were more difficult because it was an even playing field. Although Felicity was smarter than most, her friends and colleagues were no dummies. Moreover, there were no serious sexual dynamics ever involved between women. Catfights – bitchy jealous disputes between women – of course occur, but among a lesser-qualified and intelligent group. Felicity and her crowd were all cut from the same cloth – seductive, smart, and aware of their power. To win them over, it was all silver tongue.
Smooth-talking women is very different from men. Felicity knew that obvious compliments would not work; but appeals to sisterhood, community, responsibility, and ambition in a male-dominated world would. She was just as easily able to quietly and gently bring women into her fold as men.
An article recently appeared in a progressive journal by a beautiful woman who was tired and aggravated by the unwanted attention she received by men. She yelled ‘Foul!” and rallied her feminist sisters to her cause. Beauty and seductiveness were no reasons for men to make advances towards women. “What?”, said Felicity. How ignorant and stupid. How could this columnist who had been dealt the one hand all women want – natural beauty, sexual allure, and personal appeal – complain? Wolf-whistles are simply collateral distractions from a beautiful woman’s real purpose. She can do anything she wants with no one’s help, but simply has to put up with expected, harmless, and unimportant male attention. It goes with the territory.
Felicity Marvell had it all – brains, beauty, an instinctive and natural sexual allure, and a silver tongue. Feminists wore her out with their talk of the glass ceiling, restrictive college regulations to corral men’s predatory behavior, and women’s absolute right to dress as provocatively as they wanted. They were off-base, trapped within politically correct models of behavior, and retrograde and ironically paternalistic in their demands for a more gender-correct society.
The few men and women who saw how agilely Felicity engaged others for her own ends either applauded her determination and uncanny savvy or criticized her for her amoral and dismissive behavior. I have always been one of her champions. She indeed is a remarkable woman who has realized her God-given gifts and used them to her advantage in a highly competitive world. No eleventh commandment was inscribed in Moses’ tablet concerning forthrightness; but the unwritten rule of justice, law, government, family, and civil society is to use what you’ve got. The only consensus in America is that it is a sin not to use it.
Adversarial relationships are at the heart of both capitalism and Communism. Marx’s Dialectic was based on the opposition of Thesis and Antithesis; the Law presumes that the ‘truth’ will emerge after contradicting arguments are presented; and the Market insists on competition to weed out inferior services and products.
Fooling everybody is indeed the goal of all three spheres of activity; and one is foolish not to realize it. Felicity is my hero.
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