Torture your consumer?

Was looking through a couple of my books yesterday and came across The Art of Seduction,
a purely Machiavellian look at how to court, or better yet manipulate someone into falling for you. Despite its' somewhat dark nature the book does make a couple of valid points, which I prefer not to get into. However, what I was thinking about was how this might provide some sort of new perspective on branding. I guess you'd have to read through the book to figure out what I'm babbling on about. Basically, what if the consumer wasn't boss? What if we played hard to get with the consumer? What if we sent mixed signals? What if we weren't always available where expected? What if we contrasted the utmost satisfaction and pleasure with a tad of disappointment possibly even pain? What if we appeared to be an object of desire by creating triangles?

Yes now that I am re-reading through this post it does seem a little bizarre but not obscene enough to delete.