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First, some people actually treat their marriage vows seriously. More than you'd think actually and any billionaire can easily divorce their wife and find a model to shack up with.
Second Hot lady spies are actually harder to produce than you think otherwise this would be more common. You need someone who can plausibly be introduced to the target, is hot enough to make them forget themselves and seduce them, is controlled/smart enough to get useful information and the hardest part actually agrees to do all this most stunning women have better things to do than be spys/hookers.
America supposedly stopped honeypotting with their spies for a few reasons:
and related to @MayorofOysterville s point
Conversely, Stasi and KGB had more success with honeypots because of the inverse. As a side effect of centrally planned economy, intelligence service work was one the high prestige occupation with great benefits in the country (rank, remuneration, housing, access to high-end party stores) and ability to travel (buy Western items that were rare due to central planning). Political indoctrination perhaps helped, but it was one of the materially better things to do.
I don't know how modern China compares.
Granted, my understanding is that honeypots were secondary. Most infamous intelligence coups were due to personal ideological motivation (Kim Philby, Rosenbergs), money (Ames, Hanssen), personal workplace grudges (surprisingly many of the Soviet defectors) or combinations thereof (Stig Bergling).
I think this might be counterproductive. I think maybe a 7/10 can fly under the radar, but is still cute enough to get a guy's attention. Then have her do an emotional spearfishing of the target with the equivalent of a psychologist with the target's psychological profile on their lap speaking into their earpiece. She can be whatever the target needs; smart enough to listen to and understand his work, or be comforting while his wife ignores him, show possible acceptance of their fetish etc.
I think that's how we see a lot of these chinese honeypots come through with cute looks rather than stunning looks that would just draw attention ('why are you working in engineering again?'). For the 'hard mode' ones anyway. Pretty easy to drop a superhot escort in at someone's hotel bar and wire up their hotel room.
Apparently the French, Russians, Chinese and practically anyone not from the Western sphere are still running them. The French are doing it... well probably because they're French.
I might suggest a rather different reason for this. "Cuteness" is very psychologically disarming.
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Yeah, I think few men can resist the attention of a young woman who is cute (but not stunning) and who manifests strong romantic interest in them. Probably it doesn't hurt that a lot of these honeytrap agents are trained to be great in bed.
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"Mademoiselle, we would like you to sleep with a foreign politician."
"Already on it! On y va!"
"And listen to him talk about his work."
"Je suis obligée?"
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I mean the immediate issue I'd see with America trying to use honeypots for other countries/cultures is that extramarital stuff is way less of an issue in the vast majority of other country/cultures, especially if it's of the 'powerful man with a sidepiece' variety.
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Sure but that's what I'd call "normal human temptation." We can resist that. But china has a billion people, and state resources to push them at us. That's not just "take your marriage vows seriously," that's "pray to God to save you from the temptations of Satan."
Also Western women range from 3 to 8.1 and Asian women range from 8 to 11. This is an undisputed fact and if you argue with me then you're wrong.
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