Don Juan, Casanova and the Seducers

The myth of the seducer was probably conceived in the late middle ages, during the Age of Chivalry when, under the code, "only a virgin or another man's wife could be the object of chivalrous love"
However, chivalrous love very quickly degenerated into promiscuity and adultery; it is not difficult to see how knights could pledge eternal love (platonic) to his "Lady" and then dream of ways to seduce her. The lady herself probably longed impatiently for adventure and that was the beginning of the myth.

It was not until the time of Casanova that the myth became flesh and blood. Although men had been making love to other men's wives since marriage was first created (probably by the devil himself), seduction as an art form and a mythical adventure only came into its own in the seventeenth century, when Galileo proclaimed the sun the center of the universe and shook the Catholic church and every man's conception of the universe to their very foundations.
"If the earth is round and it revolves around the sun then why can't I make love to my friend's wife?' might seem like a non sequitur to some but it was a good excuse anyway.

Later, we see Don Juan ( a rather clumsy seducer) and much later still, Rudolph Valentino, Clark Gable and many famous and not so famous seducers and "womanizers". The Seducer never "took advantage" of women in the true sense of the phrase he was more of a facilitator- helping women to achieve freedom and satisfaction through sex. The fact that the seducer did not hold himself to a "code of honor" was simply an expression of his disregard for bourgeois conventions.

Who are the Casanovas of today, the mythical reincarnation of our old heroes? Have we abandoned the myth or has feminism made it meaningless?

"Friends Say I've Changed" 

In the beginning...

Was the myth and the myth was the beginning.

We have been creating myths since we first stood up right. First we imagined that our gods were the deer and bears we hunted and ate. Later, we turned our mythmaking efforts towards the heavens. The Moon was our sister, the sun our father and the creator of all. Much later after we had been living in villages and towns we started worshipping the law and Moses was given the Ten Commandments by Yahweh.

Now, more than 3,000 years later, we need new myths and perhaps a new religion. I won't even try to imagine what the new religion might be but I would like to explore with you, dear reader, the myths we are creating now in the early days of the new millennium. Come share your dreams, your fantasies and your myths and together we'll create a new world.