Psychology | Seduction, comedy, storytelling, and orgasms

The link is anticipation created by absence.

Tom X Hart
Sep 6, 2018 · 2 min read

Seduction and sexual excitement partly work by holding back, because in holding back we create an opening and the other person falls into that opening. We create an open secret that the other person is compelled to explore with their imagination, and this exploration is as exciting and interesting as love itself.

This is also the essence of storytelling and comedy, which both serve to build our anticipation to levels of greater and greater tightness before offering relief. We know where the comedian is going with his story, but he’s going to string it out for longer and longer to cause more and more delight. We know that the horror story terminates in the murder of the lead protagonist, but the storyteller strings out the termination with more and more details.

We can’t stand it, but we have to keep going.

This suspense, as with the anticipation of orgasm during masturbation or sex (though particularly the former), serves to take us to the highest edge of excitement. This is not the ecstasy of orgasm, which is itself a kind of completion. The joy of anticipation, the joy of suspense, has its own quality altogether – and it is connected to neuroticism, because we are denying that which we really desire and we are denying it to ourselves (“I can’t watch!” she says, as she carries on watching the horror film between her fingers).

And this is why people prolong their courtship rituals and avoid sex, it is why we hide Easter eggs to find at Easter, and it is why we enjoy a very long and elaborate comedy routine that ends in a long anticipated humiliation (the comedian, through his meaningful silences, heightens our anticipation).

Tom X Hart

Written by

West Midlands, UK

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade