Sdumo Mtshali as Jonasi Gomora in The Polygamist. (Image: Courtesy of Netflix) While it is the darker and more damaging currents that sweep along the narrative in the 22-episode hit Netflix South African supernovella The Polygamist, what women also recognise is the art of seduction of the classic isoka, the playboy, the casanova, Don Juan, the Lothario, the Romeo.
In real life Giacomo Casanova was an 18th Century Italian “explorer” who wrote a memoir about his many female lovers. He moved on each time to a new house, hence “casanova”. Across the globe and on the internet, serial seducers like the fictional Jonasi Gomora (S’dumo Mtshali) wreak their damage, leaving shattered women and children in their wake.
There is the British true-crime series, the Tinder Swindler, where one victim of Israeli scammer Shimon Hayut, Norwegian Cecilie Fjellhøy, lived her life as if it were a Disney cartoon. She parted with huge sums of money Hayut seduced out of her.
All her life Cecile, a successful woman in her own right, dreamed of a prince on a horse with a bunch of flowers and a proposal of marriage, lifelong fidelity and family devotion.
A tall, handsome man who would focus on her, satisfying every emotional and physical need, be a “best friend”, a husband, a father and a “provider”. For men like Jonasi this Hollywood fantasy is emotional velcro.
They shrug on the suit, slap on the cologne, buy the flowers and sparkly things, arrive with baby oil, whisper the things you want to hear and, hey presto, you’re on like a scone. Nyathi has explicitly said her original novel was about men who “pervert” traditions to suit their own lives. The debate rages on.
Same goal different approach
As women, we have all encountered that smooth-talker who appears and manifests in every culture across the universe. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to note he is indeed a stereotype. Stereotypes provide shop-ready personas for the lost and the lonely, which is why they exist.
Jonasi was shaped by his father and – as we tragically witness, his gentle son, Menzi (Wonder Ndlovu) has his heart broken on so many occasions he can only survive by becoming as ruthless as his father. Relationships become transactional and weaponised.
But not all seducers who use routines like Jonasi are bastards. Many are just ordinary men hanging around the boardroom table, the restaurant, the bar, the airport departure hall.
That’s why women are talking about the meaning of relationships across the globe as expectations change and definitions of parenting roles have softened. The pushback is the “tradwife” resurgence in the US, the surgically altered woman so favoured by the Maga cult.
The art of seduction
Physical proximity and intimacy is something many Western nations guard with Karen-like alertness. Stand too close to someone in a queue in Holland and they will let you know. Try it in the Woolies in Constantia in Cape Town and you will get the same.
However, under the blue skies of rural KZN it is not uncommon to see two men, friends young or old, holding hands while strolling. Arab men are frequently seen holding hands, and this is considered a sign of respect between friends.
Encountering two white Afrikaans men holding hands in public, unless you are in a gay bar Green Point, is as unlikely as spotting a three-eyed albino squirrel. So too the English-speaking white boys from private schools who prefer rugby to express physical closeness. Here the approach and performance towards women is often awkward and “charming”.
The Polygamist is in isiZulu but Jonasi’s approach to seduction will be familiar to any woman at the persuasive receiving end of being wooed, never mind by a Zulu man, but a confident black South African man.
We confine our examples to adult encounters, of course, where power imbalances are not necessarily out of kilter. It is all part of the social banter we need to learn, sometimes to protect ourselves as women, sometimes to have fun in the rebuff.
As a young man Nelson Mandela – tall, athletic, handsome, stylishly dressed and a qualified attorney who boxed and loved fast cars and socialising – was a babe magnet. Even in his later years he did not lose the habit of respectfully “flirting” with adult women.
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The pick-up lines
The pick-up lines across the world are all ingenuous, cunning and creative, and as women we have heard many before. For example: “I have been watching you all night. You know, I have always liked older women. Tell me more about yourself.”
In a small Mayan village near the ruins of Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, he might be leaning against a tree near a church, whispering: “You are beautiful, marry me.”
In the rose-tinted corridors of Petra, the ancient city in Southern Jordan – the Bedouin handlers who inspired Johnny Depp’s Kohl-eyed gypsy-boy look – call out in several languages – French, German, Italian, English – to the myriad female tourists as they clop by on their muscular horses.
One: “Bonjour madame, voulez-vous monter à cheval?” (Good day, madam, would you like to mount my horse), and they go weak at the knees. Bedouin men are described as being “highly skilled at offering captivating hospitality”.
Sadly these “desert romances” quickly fall apart when Western women realise these guys are serious tribal patriarchs who live in rudimentary caves with no running water or power, and love it, having done so for centuries.
The age of emojis and dick pics
Now that the Madlanga Commission has revealed that all WhatsApp or emails, whether deleted or crushed inside your device and drowned in a dam, can be retrieved, the contemporary equivalent of “courting” – the “dick pic” – may have just reached peak exposure.
Many contemporary players have resorted to suggestive emojis and shots of the family jewels (who can forget Malusi Gigaba) instead of wine, roses, song, chocolate cake, bubble baths and baby oil.
Male peacocks know the value of an elaborate courting ritual. They engage in “lekking”, fanning their gay, colourful tail feathers to attract interested females. Where some of us grew up you added a double, stainless-steel exhaust pipe to your Ford Cortina.
Always important to bear in mind is the black widow spider. The females are twice the size of the males, so they approach the web with caution, shaking their butts elaborately to indicate they are only in the vicinity looking for a shag and are not trapped insects to be devoured for lunch.
Remember, Jonasi Gomora encountered his black window in the end. DM