The editorial staff of our magazine spoke with a relationship psychologist to understand the phenomenon of the femme fatale.

On the subject of femme fatales, films are made, novels are written, poems are dedicated. They often become the center of scandals, general jealousy, social intrigues and the cause of divorces of couples. Rare are the men who can keep a woman close to her for a long time, and when they lose her, they are long to not be able to come to their senses and assume what has happened. Moreover, this separation is most often accompanied by financial losses, betrayals, uncertainties and, consequently, a broken heart, even a life. A man who has managed to "hang on" to the relationship with the femme fatale, condemned to permanent stress, but who, like a drug addict, wants only one thing: to increase the "dose".

How to explain the phenomenon of the femme fatale, how do these representatives of the beautiful half of humanity differ from their normal female compatriots, what are the main signs of the femme fatale and which men are inclined to become victims of this type of exquisite abuse? We asked Yulia Levkovskaya, a relationship psychologist, goal setting coach and founder of the HLP app, for a detailed explanation.

Femme fatale: from angel to bitch

"The main characteristic of the femme fatale - comments Julia Levkovskaya - is one hundred percent self-confidence and absolute conviction that she is capable of falling in love with any man. She is brilliant, often beautiful, she lies skillfully, she has a good ability to adapt, she is a talented actress, she is easily given the images of the angel to the bitch, which she does not fail to take advantage of any situation. She has a high level of intelligence - continues Julia - a prerequisite for the ability to manipulate others (and not always men). She is distinguished by her intelligence and ability to understand, at least at a basic level, the "main agenda" of men's interests: sports, politics, culture, science, which makes such a person an easy interlocutor in the male society. She quickly knows how to turn a man's life into an attraction or a vacation (illusively, of course, but the victim does not know it yet).

 

The femme fatale


"Julia Levkovskaya is a relationship psychologist, goal-setting coach and founder of the HLP app.

Such a woman differs from her female compatriots, - continues Julia Levkovskaya, - by excessive self-confidence, an easy attitude to life in combination with a certain egotism. She is an actress, a seductress, who knows the male psychology and knows exactly which "buttons" to press. If we talk about the portrait of the potential victim of such a cute predator - says the psychologist - at the forefront of the social and financial status of men (he earns money on the principle of the remainder, as the owner of the company, executive or heir to the capital). This man is no stranger to entertainment and vacations. He is often a party animal and a lover of colorful life. He is distinguished by a slight naivety, a certain romanticism, a certain dreaminess. Such a man likes intrigue and balancing in relationships: he rushes from one extreme to the other on the principle of "hot-cold".

The femme fatale attracts such men by the fact that today she is passionate, in love and adores - says the psychologist - and tomorrow she is cold or even disappears from the life of the loved one for an indefinite period. Thus, she constantly arouses interest and "plant" a man on the "emotional needle" and dependence on her. To all of the above, it should be added that her appearance can rarely be described as mediocre. Therefore, she feels at the top in a male society, which is very flattering to the man. The presence of such a woman nearby increases his self-esteem, he perceives his companion as a trophy, decorating his wall of honor - concludes psychologist Yulia Levkovskaya.

To illustrate the type discussed, we decided to turn to famous biographies of women who, by their fate and relationships with men, represent a certain quintessence of all that is described above. These heroines can, without a doubt, be classified as notorious femmes fatales. 

Femme Fatale Amber Heard. I crossed Johnny Depp off the list of rich men.

During his 32 years, the famous "daughter of Denmark", but in fact - a girl from Texas, became famous for not so many roles, although their account of the actress more than forty, and stories in the press. At first, the tabloids made their headlines about her affair with Johnny Depp (at the time, the actor was in a relationship of several years with Vanessa Paradis), then announced an engagement and a secret marriage with Johnny Depp, and finally the whole world was shaken by the noise raised by a scandalous divorce with the same Johnny Depp. Along with the central plot of the biography of the actress, the media has revealed from time to time details of her relationship with photographer Tasey van Ree and model Marie de Villen. The actress often displayed her bisexuality to journalists. During the divorce proceedings, Amber filed a lawsuit against the famous six zeros, which, in her own words, was ready to indulge in charity. While Amber's divorce settlement and legal fees took Depp from being Hollywood's richest and most powerful actor to a devastated, alcoholic celebrity, Amber became the most anticipated actress at all the year's social events and the actress in line for the big box office hits.

 

Gabor. A Hollywood lioness with Ukrainian roots.

Ms. Gabor married and divorced every three or four years. Her divorces earned her millions of dollars, rare jewelry and real estate: "I'm a natural-born housewife. When I divorce another husband, I get his house back," she joked in her many interviews.

The platinum blonde with nine marriages and a sparkling sense of humor liked to say, "I don't know anything about sex, because I've always been married. But in this, Zsa Zsa Gabor was clearly a bit of a disappointment. The brilliant socialite, known not only for her film roles, but also for her high-profile scandals, her romances with heads of state, millionaires, diplomats, actors and actresses, the "Golden Globe" for "Most Glamorous Actress" for 1958, as well as many winged aphorisms about love and luxury. Her list of high-profile relationships includes affairs with John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Howard Hughes, Henry Kessinger, Frank Sinatra, Sean Connery, Conrad Hilton and his son - Conrad Hilton Jr., Greta Garbo... In short, Ja Gabor is one of the key personalities of American show business and social chronicle of the twentieth century.

Moreover, the famous sentence "Men love with their eyes and women with their ears" belongs to him. For her love of amorous adventures and ostentatious luxury followed the whole world, the paparazzi dreamed of it almost as much as Princess Diana, a few decades later - so the girl was raised in a bourgeois Jewish family in the capital of Hungary. Her mother, Joly Gabor, born Janci Thieleman, came from a family of jewelers who lived in Drogobych (now Lviv region). It was she who steered her eldest daughter in what she thought was the only right direction: becoming an actress. However, the other two daughters of "Mama Jolie" also shone on the screens in the 50s. It is worth noting that Zsa Zsa - the only one of the three sisters - gave birth to a child, and this by accident. Rumor has it that the socialite's pregnancy was the result of a rape committed by Conrad Hilton (founder of the Hilton hotel empire), who was her official husband at the time. Her daughter Francesca Hilton would die at the age of 67, 13 months before Ja Ja Gabor herself died. The mother will never know the death of her daughter: the ninth husband of the socialite was too protective of her psychological health.

Brigitte Bardot. And the devil created a woman

"And God created woman"... Of course, at that time, God, or as the Roman church claimed, the devil, created Brigitte Bardot. Legendary actress and sex symbol of France in the years 60-70 of the 20th century. Her filmography has more than forty roles, of which barely three are visible at first glance, but the novels and fashionable innovations of the famous BB are still discussed today. Her image is repeatedly copied for numerous photo shoots in the glossy media. It's her name that comes to mind when one thinks of 60's pop culture, and Serge Gainsbourg's single Je t'aime... Moi non plus ("I love you ... I love you - too, no"), marked in the early 70's by a quasi sexual revolution in France and qualified by the pope as "pornography", was written by a famous musician just for Brigitte at the time of their brief romance. In the "record" of the actress - marriage with director Roger Vadim, actor Jacques Charrier and billionaire Gunther Sachs, novels with actor Jacques-Louis Trintignant, a composer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, musician Gilbert Beco. Of all the men in Brigitte's life, only a few managed to be the initiators of the rupture. One of them is Trintignant, who finds Brigitte superficial and decides to leave her. In most cases, the actress goes from one relationship to another, leaving behind a broken male heart. However, she managed to break the heart of her own son, born from a marriage with Larger. According to the actress herself, it was always difficult for her to love Nicholas, because she never felt like a mother.

 

Anna Pavlova. Prelate of St. Petersburg.


In 1909, in St. Petersburg, the biggest rumor is the arrest of a brilliant dandy and favorite of the great light, Baron Dandre. Rumor has it that the baron left his entire fortune to his concubine, the ballerina Anna Pavlova, and was remanded in custody for embezzlement. The fate and freedom of the famous ballerina in love depended on her testimony in court, but no one knew if she wanted to interrupt their Paris tour to participate in the investigation : There were rumors of her new romance with Mikhail Mordkin, the first ballet beauty of Russian Seasons in Paris, while the official Victor Emilievich Dandre, in whose care the ballerina had lived for several years and at whose expense all her stage costumes had been purchased, was caught in a bribe while ordering the construction of the Okhta Bridge. In St. Petersburg, Baron Dandre sympathized, but Pavlova condemned: she was described as a "predator, who sucked every drop from a rich lover, then flew to Paris. But the ballerina was already dissatisfied with Paris. Instead of going to Russia to save the old boss, Anna Pavlova breaks the contract with the famous Diaghilev and goes to America and London with a new lover - Michael Mordkin.

Anna, the illegitimate daughter of the St. Petersburg banker Lazar Polyakov and the laundress Lyubov Feodorovna, who from childhood knew the hatred of her stepfather, the contempt of her mother, who considered the girl a burden, and the early departure from a good two-story mansion of her mother bought with money "out of shame", was not before the tenderness of the calf. Training at the Imperial School of Drama was for Anna salvation and a ticket to the "big life". After the first performance, where the young ballerina was forced to shine in trampled pointe shoes and an old tutu, Anna had many patrons who were happy to pay the bills of the young dancer. Anna's mentor became Matilda Kshesinskaya herself. Soon, one of the patrons bought the talented girl the expensive title of ballerina, which at that time rewarded only illegitimate daughters of members of aristocratic families who wished to link their lives to ballet. Anna shone in St. Petersburg in a society of prominent artists, representatives of the imperial court and bohemia. Later she left Russia for good and became world famous. However, many lovers and admirers accompanied Anna until the end of her life, even after the ballet celebrity married the aforementioned Baron Dandre. He would become her manager and the indirect cause of her death. Dandre, once a survivor of disgrace and poverty, forced his wife to perform out of greed, even when ill. One of these performances ended with the death of the legendary ballerina from pneumonia.

Matilda Kshesinskaya. The emperor's lover.


"She perfectly took into account the strengths and, above all, the weaknesses of men, those eternally searching Romeos, who say whatever they want about women, and whose women do whatever they, women, want," said Vladimir Arkadyevich Telyakovsky, director of the imperial theaters, who, however, was powerless to characterize the scenic talent of the dancer Matilda Kshesinskaya. The director of the theater described frequent meetings and even coded messages from the highest levels of government with the ballerina. Sergei Mikhailovich Romanov, president of the Russian theater and commander of the artillery, was always talking about the whims of his opposite number: "We have an excellent ballet and a terrible artillery", people joked in the high society of the time. Sergei Mikhailovich lavished his beloved with jewelry, including an impressive collection of Fabergé, and real estate: next to his dacha in Strelna, Romanov built a power plant, because "Malenka was afraid of the dark. Matilda chose another Romanov - Andrei Vladimirovich, cousin of Nicholas II - and in 1902 she gave birth to her beloved son. It was to him that the ballerina married during the revolution, already in exile in France. Matilda joined the imperial family and even obtained the title of Grand Duchess Romanovskaya-Krasinskaya. In exile, the former lover of Emperor Nicholas II and some of his relatives opened a ballet studio where, according to rumors, "the grand duke watered the floor with a watering can so that the girls would not slip in their dancing shoes. The ballerina, the beautiful "apple of discord" of the Romanov family, went on stage for the last time at the age of 64 and, as expected, received a standing ovation. Thus, we can conclude that the suspicions about Russian women are justified.