Coquettishness - The Coquette Strategy

The coquette is traditionally thought of as female, and certainly the strategy was one of the few weapons women had to engage and enslave a man's desire. The great seventeenth century french courtesan, ninon de lonclo, only attained real power when she made it clear that she would no longer sleep with a man as part of her duty. To day, coquetry is genderless. In a world that discourages direct confrontation, teasing, coldness and selective aloofness are a form of indirect power that brilliantly disguises its own aggression.