Seduction as a manipulation tactic uses flattery, charm, and excessive attention deliberately to build a target's trust and affection, lowering their guard before the manipulator asks for something or moves against their interests. The emotional reward of feeling valued or admired is often strong enough that the target overlooks red flags they'd otherwise notice, precisely because those red flags would mean giving up a feeling they've come to want.
George Simon's clinical observation is that this tactic works on its own timeline — the charm typically precedes the actual harm by enough time that the connection between them isn't obvious when the harm eventually arrives. Robert Hare's research on psychopathy adds a further layer: for some people, the charm isn't even strategic in a calculated sense — it's simply how they operate, a practiced social mode aimed at getting what they want with no attachment behind it at all.
Simon describes a boss, Mr. Jackson, who charmed and flattered an employee, Mary Jane, building her trust and loyalty while covertly working against her interests behind the scenes — by the time she considered leaving, she had to plan quietly for the possibility of retaliation. Hare's book describes a similar pattern from a different angle: Elsa, who dated a man who quickly professed love and pushed for fast commitment while draining her finances, and Ted Bundy, who faked injuries with a cast or crutches specifically to appear harmless and trigger a stranger's instinct to help. In each case, the charm wasn't incidental — it was the entire mechanism.