A short history of the honey trap

The article explores the long history of "honey traps" in espionage, where intelligence services use sexual entrapment to recruit targets or compromise them for blackmail. Notable examples include Mata Hari during World War I, East German "Romeos" who seduced West German secretaries during the Cold War, and Soviet operations against British and American embassy officials. However, the effectiveness of honey traps varies by culture—the French, for instance, are largely immune to such tactics because extramarital affairs are socially normalized.