Ethical Pick-Up Artistry
2011 23 Mar
UPDATE, March 2012: I have now released my book Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser, and people seem to like it. You can read more, see some reviews, and learn how to buy it by clicking here. And now for the original article …
As some of my readers know, I’m fascinated by the pickup artist subculture (a community devoted to advising men on how to seduce women). It’s a very mixed bag. My feeling is that there’s good advice in the community for genuinely kind shy guys. But sometimes, it’s so mixed with misogyny and cold-heartedness that wading through it feels like panning for gold in a sewer.
By the end of this year, I plan to release a book called Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser, all about my experiences in that subculture. In the meantime, here’s my attempt at a summary:
There are small communities of pickup artists all over the world, and there are message boards all over the Internet, and expensive pickup coaches are always popping up. Some of these folks are not so bad; some of them are really bad. Many have awful cynical and negative attitudes about people; many hold particularly awful stereotypes about women. And most of them care a lot more about what works (i.e. how to get their penis in someone) than about what’s ethical or how we can treat women like human beings.
A good friend of mine recently told me that he’s been reading the blog of a misogynist pickup artist who I absolutely loathe. I was appalled. I provided a detailed feminist critique of this guy’s blog. My friend listened and understood, but in the end he said, “I hear what you’re saying, and I agree with you. The guy is an asshole and his advice is permeated with terrible opinions of women. But a lot of it is really good advice, and I don’t know where else I can find such good advice about women.”
Here’s the thing: the current pickup artist subculture has a monopoly on effective advice for how to break down social interactions and talk to women. Not all of it works, but enough of it works that it draws guys in. As a pickup artist instructor once told me, “When I first found the community I was horrified by how sleazy and gross it is, but I had never had a girlfriend and I told myself: dude, if you don’t learn this stuff you’re gonna die alone.”
I’ve theorized that maybe feminists should provide good pickup advice, in an attempt to counterbalance some of the awfulness of the existing community. In the meantime, however, I figure the next best thing to do is to provide a list of less-misogynistic pickup artist instructors and sites, and a few very basic critiques.
First, the basic critiques. These are very, very basic; if you get me started then I’ll provide ten thousand more. But please, if you are going to investigate pickup artistry, at least keep these things in mind:
1) People are different. Pickup artists often say “women are all X”, “women love X”, “women all respond to X”, etc. Sometimes they are correct for the majority of women; sometimes they are correct for a minority of women; sometimes they aren’t correct.
The bottom line is this: Anything pickup artists say about women is not true for all women. Period.
(Corollary: pickup artists are sometimes wrong about men, too.)
2) Even pickup advice that works does not always work for the reasons pickup artists commonly claim it does. Here’s a nerdy scientific analogy:
If you put a large container (like a tall drinking glass) over a burning candle and trap the flame inside without fresh air, it will eventually flicker out.
In olden times, scholars believed in the existence of a substance called phlogiston. Supposedly, phlogiston was an invisible substance produced by fire; too much phlogiston would suffocate fire. Scholars believed that flames without fresh air died because they eventually produced enough phlogiston that it filled up the available space, thereby suffocating the flame.
Today, we know that this is incorrect. Flames require oxygen, and if they are trapped without fresh air, flames go out because they use up the available oxygen.
So, the phlogiston theory is wrong. But at the time, it fit reality better than previous theories about fire. It explained why fire wouldn’t burn without fresh air, for example; previous theories failed to explain that. People had observable reasons for believing in the existence of phlogiston. Nevertheless, phlogiston still did not exist.
In the same way, pickup theory has a lot of assumptions wrapped up in it, especially stereotypes about women. Pickup artists may have some good ideas about how to flirt, but many of them will try to convince you that those tactics work because women are dumb, childish, weak-willed, gold-diggers, inherently submissive, considerably more irrational than men, or whatever other gross stereotype you care to choose. Just because a pickup artist can show you how to flirt, that doesn’t mean the assumptions behind the advice are reasonable.
In short, don’t fall for the phlogiston trap.
3) Some pickup advice only works because it capitalizes on the insecurities of women who have low self-esteem, and can manipulate those women — not because those women actually want to have sex.
For example: some pickup artists describe using “freeze-outs” on women who say they don’t want to have sex. Here’s what the freeze-out looks like: the woman says no, the pickup artist says “Okay,” … and then he turns away from her and starts checking his email or doing something else very boring that does not include her. If candles are lit, he blows out the candles. If they’re playing a card game, he packs up the cards. Basically, he goes cold and ignores her until she agrees to have sex with him.
Here’s why this is fucked up: because women are inundated with messages that men won’t like us unless we have sex with them. If a guy we really like suddenly gives us the silent treatment because we won’t have sex with him, that’s basically calculated to take advantage of our societal complexes. And yes, it will probably work with women who have low self-esteem, or who have never experienced a relationship with a dude who respected them. It might have worked on me when I was much younger.
But just because it would have worked does not mean I would have enjoyed it or felt okay about it later.
(edit April 15: After much discussion, I want to note one thing. It is conceivable that lots of people have sex after being frozen out that they like; that still doesn’t mean the freeze-out was the most ethical tactic for having sex with those people. Also, is is conceivable that some people actually like being manipulated through the freeze-out; I don’t speak for all women. However, in my experience as a woman, the freeze-out would have worked on me because of low self-esteem and poor boundaries, not because of mutual desire. So even if there are women who are okay with the freeze-out, there are obviously women who find it manipulative and abhorrent. This means that other tactics that are more universally appreciated are more ethical than the freeze-out. This is still true even if the freeze-out is the most effective tactic for getting a person to have sex. Effectiveness is important, but it’s not more important than treating other people well. There’s more commentary on freeze-outs in below comments #261, 262, 382, and others, and also over here. end edit)
A fair number, though not all, of pickup tactics are just like that: they work, but they work because women are likely to feel pressured, or guilty, or anxious. Not because women are likely to feel attracted. This is another reason looking for ethical pickup artists is useful, because most of the evil tactics come from the genuinely misogynist ones. (For example, I pretty much have no truck with anything from Gunwitch, whose advice often reads like a textbook on date rape, and who once shot a girl in the face because she rejected him.) In the comments below, there is much discussion of specific tactics. Feel free to read and participate.
… Okay, so now that’s all out of the way. Here are some references:
I appreciate Hugh Ristik’s critiques and deconstructions of the pickup artist community. I don’t always agree with HR, but feminism and consent both interest him, and he has a much more careful and intelligent approach to those things than most pickup writers I’ve encountered.
SucceedSocially.com is a site full of thoughts on basic social skills, by a guy who’s studied a lot of pickup stuff but specifically does not identify as a pickup artist. Its goal is to get readers from socially below average to average. Seems pretty much pickup jargon-free. The author has also written an interesting article on detrimental attitudes one can encounter or internalize through the pickup artist community.
I really like what I’ve read from Mark Manson. A good place to start might be the post on his history of becoming a pickup artist. He often uses pickup jargon, but there’s not much in that post.
The Authentic Man Program has been recommended by a couple people I trust. Lots of pickup jargon.
ApproachAnxiety.com has various advice that only trips my misogyny-meter about half the time, and also usually features pictures of science fiction chicks. Seems light on pickup jargon.
Zan Perrion and David DeAngelo are often recommended as less-misogynist pickup gurus, but I haven’t looked at much of their stuff so I’m not linking to them. (Edit: There’s some criticism of DeAngelo in comments #114, #116.) But I am linking to Juggler at Charisma Arts because he wrote this advice post that made me laugh for five full minutes. Juggler, it should be noted, specifically does not identify as a pickup artist.
Over on the feminist blog Feministe, I once started a thread that drew 322 comments picking apart pickup artistry. Some of the comments are terrible, but many are interesting and perceptive.
I once got the chance to interview the famous pickup artist Neil Strauss, author of 2005 bestseller The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, and he was pretty cool. Here’s some commentary about the interview on Feministe.
If you’re unfamiliar with pickup jargon, welcome to the encyclopedia. Understanding pickup artistry may no longer be worth it to you once you realize how many acronyms are involved.
So seriously, buy my book Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser. You can read more, see some reviews, and learn how to buy it by clicking here.
Tags: advice, masculinity, pickup artists
I’m going to move a bunch of comments from the most recent masculinity thread to this one. Stay tuned ….
UPDATE: Okay, many comments have been moved from a previous thread. Comments posted after the above post was written start at #90.
I’ve been working on “Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser” (slow going). I have some thoughts. Link me to PUA fora or whatever if other people have already had these thoughts.
* PUAs give so-called shit tests too. They’re called “negs”.
* Although I have serious doubts that most women issue “shit tests” at the rate that PUAs assert, and I suspect that the real motivation of a lot of shit tests is to actually get an answer to the question or get some reassurance (e.g., “what do you do for a living” … really, TylerDurden listed this as a test? really?) or again, as noted upthread, to actually set boundaries (“we’re not having sex tonight” has NEVER been a shit test when I’ve said it, it’s been the goddamn truth), I’m starting to recognize them more often. But I think women give them at least as much to flirt as they do to test. Women who give more shit tests are better at traditional flirting. Shit tests make men attracted to you.
I think a lot of things get mixed up in debates like these. Questions that are way of getting to know the other, e.g. “What do you do for a living?”, statements about the speaker’s state of mind, playing the devil’s advocate because it’s interesting (I know I do it), arguments which the arguing woman actually wants to win, and the way some men end up getting ‘emasculated’ (damn I hate that word!) over the course of a relationship.
And when women who aren’t used to analysing their every word and action are confronted with it, and presented with the well thought out theory of male dominance and female shit-tests, they’re likely to find it every bit as plausible as the men who thought it up.
I think especially the case of women slowly starting to dominate a relationship, and perhaps simultaneously losing interest in their partner, can be just as well explained by the difference in how men and women tend to perceive power.
Women, from what I’ve read and observed, have a rather fluent concept of power, with hierarchies often changing rapidly depending on the situation, whereas men tend towards the more rigid concept that an alpha is an alpha is an alpha. The constant negotiations that often take place among women are one of the main reasons I often find socialising with them difficult, I’m just surprised so many men think women are doing it especially for them.
Clarisse,
hmm, I’m not sure that’s the appropriate equivalent. I’m not sure there is one, actually. The assumption about shit tests is that they’re supposed to test for “are you man enough for me”, but I actually can’t remember reading about value testing for women… Strauss or Mystery seem to say “leave if the interaction is boring”, but I can’t remember “character testing” routines. Women however, do seem to test more – a recent example includes a woman making an assertion about having a boyfriend (to a friend of mine) later explaining to me that she was single and totally liked it how I stayed and talked while he wandered off while I must have assumed she had a boyfriend, as that indicated I was interested in more than just sex.
As far as I understood “negs” aren’t there to test if women are tough enough to stay, but to a) pretend she’s got a lower relative value in your eyes than you assume she has of herself in comparison to you and b) demonstrate “active disinterest”.
I’ve never quite understood how that goes together with the mindset of “you’re the prize”. If guys actually *have* that mindset, they don’t need to lower any woman’s perceived relative value compared to themselves. So that whole neg thing does seem to come, if I may, from a strangely “beta” perspective, that is at odds with the prescribed “alpha” perspective.
As for PUA testing, I think there’s much more of a focus on “compliance testing” – which could also be called boundary testing, and I’d say, depending on how you do it and how you frame it, is a good thing in a situation where two people are only just beginning to understand each other – I reckon it’s a good thing to be able to read body lanuage and test she’s having fun and trusting you by, say, taking her hand to see whether she’s squeezing yours or not.
But I think it’s an interesting thought to assume that this kind of thing is part of the natural play. But I’d say that very much depends. As with all interactional stuff, pretty much all is fine in the low-risk early stages of a “relationship”, like lying about having a boyfriend to weed out guys. And I do think it is part of the script in some sense at that point. But as you know, I’m getting uncomfortable when this is taking further along, and women test by saying stuff like “I need to be careful being a girl on my own” and later tell you you “lost” them when you didn’t push them against the wall and kisses them. It’s probably true that that is, to a degree, part of the standard script, in the way that a friend once told me that she, as a woman, is expecting and requiring men to not just test for compliance but push actively (“we rely on you to do that, otherwise we can’t be gatekeepers”).
And then we’re back at the feminist induced double bind for guys – if you’re not doing it because you may be wrong and initiate something, say kissing, she’s not consenting to, even if only as long as it takes her to say “no” or turn away, you end up being dysfunctional in that respect for all women who do expect you to push.
Real quick, an example of LMR advice that only barely tripped my misogyny meter:
http://thesocialsecrets.com/2009/04/5-easy-ways-to-over-come-lmr-last-minute-sexual-reservations/
Clarisse,
What exactly? Language? Stereotypical assumptions about women and men in the situation? The “no doesn’t always mean no”, keep escalating, but “three nos” does part? That I don’t find misogynist, but wrong. As I once told a female friend who played the token resistance game with a guy she was really into and told him “fingers off” at that point because she didn’t want to appear “cheap” while she later said she really wanted his fingers on her (incidentally, same friend whom I quoted above with respet to guys need to push and girls need to be gatekeepers), if we should ever get in that situation, and she’d tell me fingers off, she shouldn’t expect me to keep pushing (as I’d probably wonder for two days if I had overstepped some line since I apparently forced her to say “no” to something I did.)
I can accept if girls don’t want to escalate to see if the guys they’re interested are able to perform the kind of masculinity they’re looking for, but there is a point where she’s as responsible for what’s going to happen as the guy, there is a point where the risks associated with making mistakes about reading her are no longer offset by the possibility of it being a test.
Basically, while I think assuming token resistance to saying hello, possibly even to being kissed, may be interpreted as a test – depending on a host of other situational variables -, when clothes are off and pants are down, that’s no longer an appropriate way to deal with things.
It’s not *just* her value, she’s playing with, she’s also playing with her pleasure. What guys would really need to do to deal with assumed token LMR would be to say, “ok, no problem, but you’re missing out as much as I do” – which is not the mindset apparent in all the advice, in my opinion.
And that brings us back to perceived scarcity and the individual and social perception of the value of male and female sexuality.
@Sam
How about not “bringing her back to logic” because “girls don’t think that way”, or portraying pregnancy as something which is mainly detrimental to a woman because it would affect her looks and ability to get dates? Something being wrong doesn’t rule out that it is misogynistic.
And what exactly is wrong with these alleged ‘shit-tests’? I ‘test’ people by asking them, sometimes hypothetical, questions to see how they answer, I bring up possibly off-turning facts about myself, and I get into deep political debates, because it’s a way of getting to know people better, and because I’d rather get fundamental disagreements out in the open from the start than finding out at an inconvenient time.
How is it that when a guy makes possibly off-putting remarks, or asks various questions because he’s read in a PUA manual that it will convince the girl that he’s not desperate for sex, and that he’s interested in more than her looks (even though he isn’t), the people who object are called feminazi prudes, but when a girl, all on her own and with no manual, do stuff to get to know a guy better and gauge what sort of person he is, she’s being mean and dishonest, and only looking for a macho-man to put her in her place?
The more I think about it, the more I believe so-called ‘shit-tests’ to be infinitely more healthy than almost everything the PUA community has come up with.
AB: Saying no and then expecting me to ignore that and continute is “shit”-test I’ve experienced. I didn’t ignore that and years later she asked me why I didn’t push further. She thought I was not enough into her since I didn’t ignore her initial no. I wouldn’t call her mean or dishonest. Whether she was looking for a macho-man to put her in her place I don’t know. I doubt it, probably she was just insecure and wanted an extra validation of her hotness based on a steretypical notions of male sexuality as described in so-called “bodice ripping” romance novels.
However, she was dangerous to both herself and me.
Even in hindsight when I now know I could’ve gotten laid that night and perhaps it could’ve evolved further I have no second thoughts on my decision to cease and extract myself from the situation when she said no. Her wanting me to push past her no simply made me and her incompatible.
This is not a very uncommon behaviour and this LMR notion of the PUA is not something they’ve pulled out off thin air in order to pressure women into something they don’t want to do.
The problem as I see it is that it’s extremely difficult to see the difference between the “shit”-testing no and the real no and this is dangerous for both parties. Perhaps the PUAs should rather frame the acceptance and adherence to the first no as the ultimate neg :)
Tamen said:
I’d be curious to hear what Clarisse and AB think of this example. They seem to comparing the concept of “shit test” to their own behaviors, and considering that characterization unfair and potentially harmful. While I understand that reaction, the concept of “shit test” is based on real behavior by other women with different sort of psychology.
Sam said:
I agree. Pushing through what seems to be “token resistance” could be harmful if the resistance isn’t actually token. Even if you think there is a 75% chance that the resistance is token, there is a still a 25% chance that you could end up harming someone. In the case of trying to start a conversation, the harm may be minor. But in the case of actual sexual activity, the cost of things going wrong is too great.
That’s why #5 worries me:
Attempting the same activity multiple times, when (a) she has said “we shouldn’t,” and (b) she hasn’t said anything or done anything to show that she has changed her mind, then pushing forward is just too risky.
Where things get complicated is in cases of ambiguous objections. For instance, “we should stop soon.” How soon is “soon”? Is she trying to stop it now, and having trouble coming out and saying it? Is it token resistance? Or is a conflict within herself that she might resolve in another couple minutes of making out? At what point should you check in to see if she wants to stop? That’s a lot of calculations.
Clarisse and Sam,
I’m with Clarisse on this one, though I think I’ll even go a step further: “Negs,” flirting, and “shit tests” seem to me to be really closely connected. I’m no authority on what exactly PUAs mean by “neg,” but it sounds to my inexpert ear like a way of describing basic flirting techniques. I’m not sure if “shit tests” are exactly the same (it sounds like “shit tests” are something you do during a relationship, as opposed to before, if I’m understanding this correctly), but they’re definitely on the same spectrum.
And for what it’s worth, I think Clarisse is right and there’s a reason why people use “negs” and “shit tests,” and it might be unproductive to criticize the tactic without addressing the underlying dynamic that makes both behaviors advantageous.
Hugh,
A bit like the “other side’s” version of Nice Guys, in that respect, isn’t it? I’m reasonably certain that I’ve seen exactly this tendency in some guys who see themselves in a feminist anti-”Nice Guy” rant.
But here,
I’d have to disagree–for that specific wording. “We shouldn’t” often precedes the word “but,” in my experience (whether or not the “but” is spoken aloud is another matter entirely). “We shouldn’t” isn’t “I don’t want to.” It can mean “I don’t want you to think I’m unaware of the way our culture looks askance at women who have sex on the first date” at least as easily as it can mean “no.”
My evidence is anecdotal, of course, but I’ve heard “We shouldn’t” a great many times, and I can’t recall a single instance in which it really meant “no.” (Though there were a few times when it meant “Only if you’re really sure that my significant other/employer/family/whoever won’t find out,” but while that can effectively mean the same thing as “no,” it’s not expressing the same sentiment).
I think a concept from law is useful here–and it sounds a lot like what you’re getting at. We’re basically talking about negligence here, aren’t we? Some of the standards for that involve (if I’m remembering this correctly)* multiplying the potential for harm by the severity of that harm, and weighing that against the severity of the measures required to avoid it.
But this might be assuming a level of objectivity that is not generally considered to be humanly possible.
*If there’s a lawyer present, and if I’m not stating this correctly, then my apologies for mangling the concept, and, by all means, correct me.
Haven’t read the replies yet (will do tomorrow) as it’s late and I’m just coming home from a fun (for me) night out with a female friend who was a bit unlucky tonight with respect to the guys who tried to chat her up.
Now, if I’ve ever come across a pretty much exclusively feminist reason for teaching guys how to be better at flirting/around women it is the one I’ve come across tonight: My friend said, and I’m sure she’s at least partly serious, that she believed the fact that she was chatted up by four sociallly awkward guys in a row until she felt we needed to leave, was due to the fact that *she’s* not worthy of the more attractive, more socially skilled guys – being hit on awkwardly and clumsily had a (probably, hopefully, temporary, but still real) negative effect on her self-esteem.
Sure, four in a row is a bit unlucky, particularly at the venue we were, but until tonight I’ve not considered it possible that an attractive woman could possibly believe that unskilled approaches are a reflection of their own social value.
I don’t think that’s how unskilled approaches are usually interpreted, but if my friend’s not a unique case, then this aspect really seems like a particularly feminist reason for teaching a “curriculum” in social/interactional skills…
Clarisse, Re: shit tests:
I assume flirty shit tests would not be serious, and whether the guy “passed” or not would be fairly immaterial. Its more to progress the interaction and have fun with the interaction than it is to make any judgment. And indeed, that would be more along the lines of negs, and absolutely I enjoy that kind of thing if it is done right.
But the “I have a boyfriend” test that Sam mentioned would most certainly put me off, because that seems indicative of more serious and problematic game playing. Had I been there for that, she would have auto-disqualified herself with that. Or at least she would have had to clearly demonstrate that she is not the game playing type after that display. But that is just me. I cannot speak for all men. Especially after my past experiences, I am very sensitive to and intolerant of serious game playing.
(But as a counter-example, a female friend of mine just broke up with her (briefly) boyfriend because he actually told her point-blank that he wanted her to play mind games, like threatening to break up with him, etc. But she is very much like me in this respect, and cannot stand such games, so it was clearly not a match. Thus she actually broke up with him. I cannot help but chuckle about that, at least a little.)
On the other hand, the kinds of tests AB is talking about do not strike me as problematic because:
1. They are things that she actually cares about, and
2. She is being honest about how she is testing (e.g. bringing up a topic to determine whether someone agrees with you about it is a lot different than lying about yourself to see how people react, or pretending to resist to see if someone pushes past the faux resistance, etc.).
My issue with (non-dishonest) dominance testing is not that women are testing. I mean, if that is really something that is important to them in a partner, then by all means. It is just frustrating to me whenever I start to feel like dominance is generally important to women, because it is not a role I am comfortable filling for the most part, so I feel disqualified. Tests are never fun when you fail them. ;-)
I do think that at some point in a relationship, “tests” need to stop, though. But at the beginning, of course you are feeling people out.
I’d be curious to hear what Clarisse and AB think of this example. They seem to comparing the concept of “shit test” to their own behaviors, and considering that characterization unfair and potentially harmful. While I understand that reaction, the concept of “shit test” is based on real behavior by other women with different sort of psychology.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. One study that I think you’re familiar with, HR, found that 15% of both women and men acknowledged that they routinely say no when they mean yes, and that 40% acknowledged that they’ve done it a few times. Self-reporting is admittedly not entirely trustworthy, but I am left with the conclusion that a group of people that is probably a minority but still significant actually says no when they mean yes.
What does this mean for people like me who don’t do that, and who get pissed off when other people don’t accept my “no”? I’m not sure, but I know one thing: it actively annoys me that those other people exist.
It also frustrates me that so many dudes encounter this occasionally and then generalize to “OMG ALL WOMEN MUST DO THIS”. It’s like dudes who discover female BDSM submissives and conclude that all women secretly want to be raped. It’s like the time many years ago when I discovered that my boyfriend was watching rape porn and immediately thought that this indicates all men are secretly predatory rapists who are barely held in check by society. sigh. what a mess.
I think it’s important and wise for people to assume that when a person says no they ACTUALLY mean no. When I’ve dated guys who indicated that they wanted me to push them past their “no” (yes this has happened to me more than once), I’ve informed them that it’s not gonna happen. I tend to think that people like this probably need to find a good BDSM framework and quit fucking around like idiots.
I often think that if everyone in the world would accept “no” as no, then this problem would not exist, because the dysfunctional behavior would never get the “no”-sayers laid and they would stop. I don’t think this is too strong an ethical burden to put on initiators (and therefore, usually, men). But just because it’s not too strong an ethical burden doesn’t mean they’ll do it.
I sometimes think that maybe people who insist on saying no when they mean yes deserve partners who are never going to take their no for an answer. If these demographics match up, then maybe they can leave the rest of us the hell alone.
BTW everyone, I TOTALLY INTERVIEWED NEIL STRAUSS TONIGHT, AND HE SAID THE WORDS “WE STILL LIVE IN PATRIARCHY”. Oh yes he did. Sincerely. Article forthcoming. for now I am mildly drunk and going to bed.
note: the swearing in the above comment is the result of intoxication and mild irritation, not actual anger, and especially not anger at anyone on this thread.
Clarisse:
I realize you were a bit tipsy when you wrote that, but… no. Just no. But I definitely share your frustration.
I had not thought about the kink angle before, though. I wonder if it really is just an unidentified kink that has somehow been elevated to “normal” status even though most people do not do it. Although I suspect the whole slut-shaming dynamic in our culture has something to do with it as well, especially in casual encounters. Because, you know, women would never willingly consent to casual sex. Not respectable women, anyway. (sarcasm)
As for what these faux-no people deserve, I think they deserve to have their no’s taken 100% seriously. Every time. They would hate that, and no one gets violated. Plus it would probably be hilarious. It is almost enough to make me want to seek out one of these (in my case) women on purpose. Bwa ha ha ha ha…
With the caveat of taking the circumstances of authorial inspiration into account, in regard to:
and:
And if saying “no” but expecting it to be taken as “yes” is actually part of how genuine, individual desire works for these people, and if this is different from what’s involved in BDSM — what then?
I can see good intentions behind these positions. But that doesn’t stop me from also seeing them as being borderline encouragement for the quarantine, humiliation and marginalization of individuals on the basis of how their sexuality works, so that others don’t have to suffer the consequences of their existence.
Sure, it’s a difficult issue. But still: what was that quote about fighting monsters, again?
Xakudo,
It is! Did that once, and it hasn’t stopped being funny to me. What was surprising was how so many people around at the time thought that I was being an asshole. For, y’know, not doing anything sexual with someone who said she didn’t want to.
…actually, now that I think about it, I feel like I’ve already posted the anecdote, maybe somewhere in the Megathread. (Actually, yes; I just went and checked. It’s #556)
@Sam — It’s not *just* her value, she’s playing with, she’s also playing with her pleasure. What guys would really need to do to deal with assumed token LMR would be to say, “ok, no problem, but you’re missing out as much as I do” – which is not the mindset apparent in all the advice, in my opinion.
Quoted for agreement. That’s the tack I take with explicit communication generally. I’ve been thinking about specifically writing a “why people shoot themselves in the foot when they say no but mean yes” post.
OK EXCITING QUESTION: What are hot ways to tell someone “I’m going to take your no for an answer and not continue unless you say yes”?
I have some ideas, but they’re not clear yet. Would love to hear more from others. I would say that when guys in the past have demonstrated that they wouldn’t continue past when I said no, it may have decreased their chances of getting laid with me that evening, but it massively increased their chances of seeing me again and having sex with me later. (This means this argument isn’t great for guys who are out for the notch in the bedpost. But those guys … I’m not sure what to do with them. They’re the same ones who will justify the freeze-out, i.e. silent treatment, as a last-minute-resistance-busting tactic. Ick.)
@AB — How about not “bringing her back to logic” because “girls don’t think that way”, or portraying pregnancy as something which is mainly detrimental to a woman because it would affect her looks and ability to get dates?
Yup. That was the stuff that tripped my misogyny-meter. Barely, since the guy seems to generally have positive intentions, to generally like women, and to generally be concerned with consent. But it’s still there.
@Tamen — Perhaps the PUAs should rather frame the acceptance and adherence to the first no as the ultimate neg :)
AWESOME.
@Motley — And for what it’s worth, I think Clarisse is right and there’s a reason why people use “negs” and “shit tests,
I think it was AB that said this, but I agree.
I’d have to disagree–for that specific wording. “We shouldn’t” often precedes the word “but,” in my experience (whether or not the “but” is spoken aloud is another matter entirely). “We shouldn’t” isn’t “I don’t want to.
I would agree with this sometimes, but I’d hesitate to encourage people to bowl past “we shouldn’t” unless they know that person really well. Like, certainly not on a first date. “We shouldn’t” doesn’t always mean “no,” but it could very easily mean “I’m not really sure about this and will get upset if you push me on it, OR I’m looking for a way to allow myself to blame you later if we get in trouble or I don’t like it”.
Some of the standards for that involve (if I’m remembering this correctly)* multiplying the potential for harm by the severity of that harm, and weighing that against the severity of the measures required to avoid it.
I might ask Thomas, or my dad. I wonder how the law deals with the fact that crimes affect different people differently (eg it’s going to be much worse for the victim whose car is stolen if the car is their last asset in the world, than if they’re Donald Trump). This may be applicable to boundary violations, although I write with great hesitance about rape affecting different people differently, for obvious reasons.
@Xakudo — As for what these faux-no people deserve, I think they deserve to have their no’s taken 100% seriously. Every time. They would hate that, and no one gets violated. Plus it would probably be hilarious.
I seem to agree with this instinctively. But ….
@Infra — I can see good intentions behind these positions. But that doesn’t stop me from also seeing them as being borderline encouragement for the quarantine, humiliation and marginalization of individuals on the basis of how their sexuality works, so that others don’t have to suffer the consequences of their existence.
Okay, that’s interesting. When you put it that way, it seems like some of the tactics that anti-BDSM feminists use to attack S&Mers, for example. Which I obviously think is messed up.
The reason S&M is okay is that it’s consensual — and specifically, that many of us talk about and care about consent, and create frameworks for it. But it’s not clear that the frameworks are necessary for S&M to be consensual. They just increase the likelihood that it will be.
I’ve thought about this principle before, but never written about it because it’s a scary line to walk as a feminist. I think of it as the “maximizing consent” principle — all we can do, philosophically, is maximize consent, not ensure it 100%. There are also ways we can maximize the perception of consent, which is important for legal or PR purposes (e.g. Kink.com’s practice of including videotaped interviews with models after their porn shoots, where the models talk about their experience and how they felt about it). But that’s a slightly different issue. But a lot of the time methods of maximizing the perception of consent (e.g., explicit Master/slave contracts) are also methods of maximizing actual consent (because the contract can’t just be shown to other people, it also gives the participants a space in which to clearly discuss and define their desires).
Again, I tend to think of people who want to be able to say no when they mean yes as closeted S&Mers who need to learn how to use safewords. But maybe some of them just like headgames, or whatever. Are there alternative frameworks for maximizing consent in that case? If so, what are they?
Infra:
Fair enough. These people need to be educated about how to get their kinks satisfied responsibly, they do not need to be quarantined.
But it reminds me of something a female tattoo artist I know said once. Apparently, for whatever reason, she has had a lot of kinky people come into her shop wanting to use her tattooing as a sexual service. Often she would not find out that was their intention until she was already tattooing them.
While I sympathize with these people trying to get their kinks met, they are not going about it in an appropriate/responsible way, and they are involving/affecting other people involuntarily. And I do not think it is entirely wrong to shame these people a bit for that inappropriate behavior. Not for their kink, but for the inappropriate behavior. I feel similarly about these faux-no people.
But, even so, you are right. More sympathy + problem solving, less shaming. It is generally a good rule to follow.
Motley:
Yeah, that is interesting. It is very similar to a (half) joke between me and a male friend of mine. If you make a pass at a woman, and she rejects you, then you are an asshole. If a woman makes a pass at you, and you reject her, then… you are an asshole.
@Clarisse:
Maybe this will answer that, or maybe it won’t. I haven’t been able to get my thoughts on this to a more concrete point, so this is an initial sketch. Though not one that hasn’t been on my mind for quite a while.
That having been said:
Over the years, I’ve come to conclude that it’s about neither BDSM nor head games, though I wouldn’t rule those things out in specific cases. Instead, I think that it’s about what I’ve seen referred to as embodied consent, something that could be considered as being distinct from, but not necessarily exclusive of, verbal consent.* (In my view, enthusiastic participation/consent is a subset of this; “my ‘no’ meant ‘yes’” relies upon a broader view of the same principle.)
It isn’t a matter of mind-reading, but one of reading context, body language and state, and certain aspects of language, such as prosody; it’s sexual negotiation with an emphasis placed upon pragmatics as a semiotic element. And that poses a significant problem for most of the frameworks that aim to maximize consent, I think, because they seem to rely upon, and aim for, semantic clarity. But an approach that emphasizes pragmatics — one that involves pragmatic competence as an element of sexual interaction — would require ambiguity for its existence.
So the problem we’d be faced with is the possibility that sending and resolving mixed messages is a perfectly valid form of communication, and not a failure to communicate properly — and that “my ‘no’ meant ‘yes’” is an expression in this particular communicative form. Accordingly, its risks would lay within the general domain of being able to properly craft, properly identify, and properly resolve those messages, something that (IMO) is more likely than not to be a matter of experience and skill.
If it isn’t a failure to communicate properly, though, then frameworks that focus upon clear communication are unlikely to have much positive impact: they would misidentify as a problem the fact that it’s in a different, if related, domain. What would be needed, instead, is the ability to intentionally and knowingly create an illusion, and effectively communicate the fact that it is an illusion, while not compromising its effect as an illusion in the process. That would be required for the facilitation of an interaction focused upon the demonstration of pragmatic competence, going back to the requirement of ambiguity noted above.
But that would require, in effect, training in deception — sexuality as stage magic, as it were — along with the ability to recognize and enjoy being deceived. And if I recall correctly, that’s one of the things for which seduction is roundly and nigh universally condemned.
Which is to say that the frameworks are probably already there. But they’re disavowed, for ethical reasons, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
—
* I think that there’s also an issue of taboo and transgression involved, each of which only makes sense in relation to the other. But there, we’re getting into Bataille’s territory, which is a subject far too involved to broach here. I’ll just say that I think that this is why it can seem to be similar to BDSM, even though it’s a different dynamic, and also that Bataille’s views on discourse would be relevant to the following points.
I’m not a lawyer but… what Motley was talking about isn’t a part of negligence as such, it’s a risk assessment method, part of risk management more broadly. However negligence often relies on deviating from established professional or workplace procedures, and so not properly performing a risk assessment could leave you vulnerable to negligence claims.
AB,
Even assuming your theory about fluid female power-hierarchies are correct, that wouldn’t change anything about the necessity to react to the “challenge”. Either she learns to be attracted to something else, or he needs to find a way to perform what she likes if the relationship is to be saved.
I can see the “logic” bit, but the pregnancy bit does sound (to me) exactly like something feminists would quote to explain why women are more careful, have to be more careful about casual sex despite all the advances in reproductive self-determination.
Also – what Tamen said – I’d only call a test a “shit test” if it seems designed to test for dominance by implicitly asking to ignore what has been explicitly said – they boyfriend example I gave wasn’t as good as the one about wanting to be pushed against a wall and be kissed after mentioning having to be careful as a “girl out on her own…”.
Xakudo,
I suppose that depends on why you are “failing” them. If you’re “failing” because that’s simply not you and you don’t want to be that way, than that’s all fair and well. But if you’re failing because you’ve been told that what you’d need to do to pass that test is immoral, then that’s an unfair double bind.
Clarisse,
I wonder if it could be when there’s no real alternative offered? Certainly outside of purely ethical discussions I believe that aligning self-interest with what’s appropriate is preferable to telling someone they need to behaive individually irrational for the greater good. I believe that’s the core of many of the problems guys have with feminist behavioural prescriptions.
Terminology can be tricky though – what does Patriarchy actually mean? I believe that most reasonable people agree that we live in a social reality certain features of which are “patriarchical”, but I certainly don’t agree with radical feminist “matrix”-interpretations of the term (which would, eg, rid women of their agency). I don’t think you agree with those either…
Also – totally looking forward to reading that article. He’s someone I’d really like to talk to about a couple of things, too. All the marketing stuff aside, he seems like an intelligent person (latin school and all). And reading his book did show me that change is possible, and in my position at that point that was already *quite* something.
Thing is – remember the Conley research, remember your position on the impossibility to disentangle emotional from physical pleasure, remember the value attribution thing, and remember when those situtations are going to arise – this is typically a *first* sexual encounter problem, not one encountered the second or third time people have sex, or even in a relationship (although, of course, they can be, but in that case I’d suppose the underlying reason is different).
So given that, I’m not sure whether the subjectively experienced value women are missing out on by playing with their pleasure compared to the subjectively experienced value men are missing out on by not trying to get around that LMR prior to a first sexual encounter will always be equivalent. I’m pretty sure it can be, given the right circumstances, but, in general, if the subjective value women experienced in that situation would be equivalent to the subjective value experienced by men in those situations, then I’d suppose that saying no would not have worked a long time ago – it would not have gotten the women laid, and that strategy would have died at some point. But it didn’t.
So I – and this obviously only relevant in cases of token resistance, not real nos – that a token-no does indeed help to extract additional pleasure/value from the interaction (likely by attempting to make him invest more, say emotionally or physically). It seems like a final “toll station” used to balance the perceived values of male and female sexuality (in the social reality we’re in).
So guys saying “ok, no problem” must in fact either believe (against everything they’ve ever learnt) or convingly pretend to believe that their touch is actually equally valuable (at this point, presumably prior to the transformation of an interaction of a man and a woman into an interaction of two people who are in a bilateral monopoly (unique) to each other).
Finding a hot way to get *that* done will go a lot further than just dealing with LMR, in my opinion.
I’m thinking of making a list of non-misogynist (or at least as non-misogynist as possible) PUA resources. Suggested titles/authors welcome ….
@Sam — So guys saying “ok, no problem” must in fact either believe (against everything they’ve ever learnt) or convingly pretend to believe that their touch is actually equally valuable (at this point, presumably prior to the transformation of an interaction of a man and a woman into an interaction of two people who are in a bilateral monopoly (unique) to each other).
Finding a hot way to get *that* done will go a lot further than just dealing with LMR, in my opinion.
I dunno if it’s that hard. I mean, PUAs do takeaways, right?
@Infra — interesting. I’ll have to think about that more ….
Also our old friend DanceDreaming has a pro-PUA comment here:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2010/04/14/dc-meets-americas-no-1-pick-up-artist/
Also this person has interesting observations about negs that I’m not sure I agree with:
http://aleksandreia.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/the-gift-of-fear-by-gavin-de-becker/
oh also –
@Sam — I can see the “logic” bit, but the pregnancy bit does sound (to me) exactly like something feminists would quote to explain why women are more careful, have to be more careful about casual sex despite all the advances in reproductive self-determination.
The pregnancy reasons are accurate, but it’s ridiculous that they’re the only reasons presented. Apparently, women don’t fear unplanned pregnancy because of the significant health risks, the considerable professional costs, the major emotional risks (agonizing choice over abortion, issues with keeping the child and taking care of it, etc), or the social stigma (which, while not as bad as it was in the 50s, still exists). No, we fear it because we will no longer be hot enough to keep a guy’s attention. Because being hot is (and should be) our main priority, of course. And also women with children are total hags, not that it’s those poor women’s fault. [/sarcasm]
Clarisse,
yeah, you’re right, sloppy reading. I just read “costs of pregnancy” and mentally replaced it with a paragraph like you just wrote – you’re right. The author actually only expclicitly mentions the potential visual consequences of a pregnancy.
Clarisse,
and takeaways are “hot”? Maybe I don’t understand the concept of “takeaway”, but you said above –
so my intuiition is that you don’t really consider takeaways/freeze-outs as a particularly “hot” way of saying “my sexuality is equally valuable, you’re going to regret this just as much.”
Clarisse:
I actually think some of what she says is spot on. Though I really tire of the “rapists do this, so if you do it too then you are following in their evil footsteps” insinuations. Rapists go grocery shopping, and drink in bars with friends, and strategically go to places/events to meet women. OMG! I must be doing evil things!
In any case, the extent to which I agree with her is the extent to which I think negs do not actually have a clear definition. Negging means different things to different people, and some variations of negging are absolutely, IMO, problematic. Or at least jerkish.
My own formulation of negging is effectively a synonym for “teasing”. Poking fun some at someone in a friendly way, like you would your guy friends or family members. And if you end up making her uncomfortable or triggering an insecurity, then you are doing it wrong. The intent is to have fun, and to keep the interaction casual and more equal; show that you do not view her as a helpless, delicate flower that if you breath on her wrong she will break; show her that you are comfortable with her.
But that is certainly not everyone’s formulation.
And as for PUA resources, I apparently haven’t dug as deeply into that community as other’s seem to have, but two resources I liked were
http://blog.authenticmanprogram.com (different approach, male and female advice)
and
http://approachanxiety.com (although it varies with respect to quality)
Clarisse said:
Rapists wear socks, too.
I agree with Xakudo’s exasperation about how feminists associate certain social behaviors with predators. It seems like a predatory context is just the first place where they’ve heard a certain behavior explained, so those feminists get a negative emotional association with that behavior… even if, out in the wider world, everyone and their dog does the same thing.
It’s just another case of nerdy introverts thinking that extraverted power-oriented behavior is eeeevil. No it’s not; it’s just another social culture (hence the “culture shock” that nerdy introverts get when they encounter it).
To me, it’s unsurprising that various forms of rapists, predators, and con men have effective social skills. Yet they don’t own those skills.
Xakudo wrote:
I have to agree with this. As much as the neg is referenced, I’m not sure that there’s any agreement about what it actually is, neg qua neg. But people understand what insults are, and at least some part of how they work; and they understand what teasing is, and at least some part of how it works. So the neg ends up defined as being somewhere within that spectrum.
Having used them from time to time, though, I can’t say that I agree.
Personally, I think that the original “neutral comment” explanation was close to accurate. But I’d extend that to say that, IME, a neg is the intentional production of an awkward moment — combined, when properly done, with staying calm about having produced it. Which in itself is just an extension of staying calm if and when you make a gaff in the normal course of things, as everyone eventually does. It’s the artificial production of the unavoidable.
It’s for that reason (again, IME) that proper calibration seems to be absolutely crucial when it comes to negs, and that they can’t and shouldn’t be employed as a general technique. They’re primarily about saying, before any heavy or challenging flirting starts, “I’m going to make mistakes. If you can deal with that, let’s continue,” and a lot of the time it isn’t necessary to make that explicit. If it looks like the expectations are high and there hasn’t been any genuine one-to-one engagement yet — everything has remained suggestive but superficial — then they can be useful; but if they’re more casual, then a neg is overkill, if not downright crude, and if the interaction hasn’t even gotten off of the ground, then it’s just presumptuous. The timing and circumstances need to be precise, and in that way, as odd as it might seem to be to draw this parallel, the neg is a lot like a first kiss.
The idea is similar to “show that you do not view her as a helpless, delicate flower that if you breathe on her wrong she will break,” but from a very different direction. That’s my take on it, anyway.
(For what I mean by “heavy or challenging flirting,” see the two interactions in this clip, especially the one starting at 5:05.)
Still, there’s the awkward… and then there’s the unsettling, the unnerving, the disturbing, the amusing, and the strange. The differences can be subtle, and I think that that’s one of the reasons why there are variant definitions of the neg.
@Tamen
I’ve thought of something similar, namely that a lot of PUA terminology (though I’m admittedly not terribly familiar with that subject) seems to revolve around not acting desperate, and yet, when it comes to potentially violating a woman’s boundaries, or worse, accidentally rape her, men are advised to push forward in a manner I’ve mostly experienced with really insecure and desperate guys (and jerks).
I personally think it’s extremely sexy when a guy can demonstrate his interest while still seeming comfortable not having it reciprocated. Though I am admittedly not all women, the guys who’ve succeeded giving me that impression have pretty consistently been considered attractive by their surroundings, especially the female part of them.
@Clarisse
I get why you shot down commentaries in the creep thread, but did you have to do it right before I had a chance posting a 2 page response to AlezNovy? ;-)
Clarisse,
and, of course – even though I’ve only seen youtube clips of him – Zan Perrion, who also offers a Workshop for women. http://www.zanperrion.com
AB,
sure, and I agree (as mentioned above) that a number of PUA concepts seem to be at odds with the idea of “being the price”.
But, again, this comes essentially down to two things for a guy – one, believing or credibly pretending that his sexuality is equally valuable, which is really the opposite of what guys learn all their lives (and is possibly, to some extent, even biologically incorrect), and two, (and this goes likely hand in hand with the subjective value perception) choice, that is, to use a quote from Madonne, to have, and to believe to have, “the power of good-bye”.
Definitely not easy. Actually, definitely very hard.
AB,
“I personally think it’s extremely sexy when a guy can demonstrate his interest while still seeming comfortable not having it reciprocated.”
you do realize the slightly oxymoronic nature of that statement – “now that I see how you take my shooting you down, that actually makes you extremely sexy”…
@Sam
That depends on what your perspective is. I agree that from the perspective of a PUA, it’s irrelevant, because the PUA community was founded with one main purpose, to give guys access to a as many, and as attractive, women as possible. Many of them say so directly, by telling that the only reason they act, or avoid acting, a certain way is because it gets them laid, and that it is unreasonable to expect them to act according to any other motivation.
Right now, PUAs are throwing a lot of shit women’s way. To them, it’s irrelevant, unless women can prove that throwing shit is detrimental to their chances of getting laid. But for those of us having shit thrown at us, whether or not it’s justified is pretty damn relevant. I’m not part of any scene, I rarely frequent most places where PUAs practice their trade, I haven’t chosen to join any community, and yet, I’m the one who has to live in a world where my ‘no’ wont always be respected, and I’m the one who doesn’t have a choice about it.
PUAs and Rules Girls are like both sexually conservative and sex-positive people. They live in their own little world where only their goals matter. Someone from the religious right generally wont care about the shame and insecurity following inadequate sexual education, as long as they succeed in forbidding people to talk about sex.
And someone who identifies strongly as sex-positive generally wont mind prude-shaming, or women getting discriminated because of their appearance and having trouble in any area not related to sex, as long as the women working in the sex-industry are accepted (sorry Clarisse, just my personal experience). Exceptions exist, but they’re foolish to count on.
I don’t expect anything more from the PUA community. They’ve at least mostly been honest in saying that they don’t give a shit about the welfare of women, unless said welfare can get them laid. But considering how many complaints I’ve had to listen to in regards to feminism, without once resorting to “And so what if it hurts guys, as long as it gives women the edge necessary to achieve equality, it’s irrelevant”, I think it’s only fair that we can discuss whether these, imo, rather serious accusations against women are an uncomfortable truth, or simply a mislabelling of a more basic communication issue.
@Sam
Not really.
1: Perhaps I didn’t make it clear, but I was talking about seeming to be comfortable with being rejected, not actually finding guys I reject sexy because they took it well. Some guys have an air about them where you get the feeling they would handle rejection well. This indicates all sorts of good things about them and their character, as well as being very relaxing (one of the biggest turn-offs I know is being afraid of what’s going to happen if you say no, which, ironically, is more likely to cause me to ultimately reject a guy).
2: Sexual attraction and sexual advances are not something which is decided once and never chances. Guys who can go on with their lives after being rejected are more attractive, so I’m more likely to become attracted to them in the future. I realise there’s probably some nasty PUA stereotype about fickle women inspired by something like this, but right now, I’m done caring.
3: Saying no is not always a rejection. I often use it, or similar words, when I need a break or when I’m unsure. Guys continuing in spite of it often manage to make me go along, but only for a while, after which I reject them. Guys who immediately respect it are the types I want to see again. And just as before, there might be a PUA stereotype about that too, and maybe I’m a bitch for using words like ‘no’ when I just want him to stop for a while, not necessarily forever, but I don’t think it’s a halfway as unreasonable as “just ignore it the first couple of times she says no”.
AB,
and how would a guy exude “being comfortable with rejection?” without being actually rejected first – I can only think of the signals I mentioned above: visible choice among women, having the “power of good-bye” himself, demonstrating that he’s a scarce resource himself.
Totally understandable.
I’m a bit surprised that you seem to assume continuing contact after rejecting the guy. That, I’d say, seems to imply you’re talking about interactions within a social circle that will ensure the continued contact and make it easier to continue on a certain level of familiarity. I wouldn’t think you’d be very likely to see someone whom you shot down in a bar again later to tell him how attracted you are now that you’ve seen his being relaxed about you turning his advances down.
Again, if you are in the position that these guys are still interested in you at that point, cool. In my case, being turned down (which, admittedly, luckily happens rarely in the stages of the interaction I am good at, flirting – I’m not good at all at initiating kissing or physical intimacy, so I usually don’t do that, leaving the women confused if they don’t take the initiative themselves) certainly wouldn’t make me more interested in her, to the contrary.
As for this -
seriously?
As for the rest of comment #38, I’m really not sure what your point is. People here *are* having that discussion, in my opinion. We *are* already talking about the questions you seem to raise.
I’m the one who has to live in a world where my ‘no’ wont always be respected, and I’m the one who doesn’t have a choice about it.
3: Saying no is not always a rejection. I often use it, or similar words, when I need a break or when I’m unsure.
These aren’t mutually exclusive. I’ve done this too. If I say “no”, that doesn’t always mean “it will never happen”, sometimes it just means “I’m tired/sick/depressed/drunk/whatever and now is a bad time”, or it means “I want to get to know you better”. I usually specify fuller shadings of meaning, but sometimes it’s obvious from context, or sometimes it’s just not a good time to give a fuller answer. What “no” DOES mean is that the person should STOP in that moment. (unless we have a safeword)
So what AB’s trying to get across isn’t that she sends mixed signals, which it doesn’t sound like she does — it’s that she sets boundaries and wants them to be respected.
As for rejecting a guy and expecting to see him later, maybe I didn’t parse what she said the same way you did. I mean, I was out at a party on Saturday and saw a partner I’ve hooked up with before. He tried to get me to have sex and I cut it off after a little making out because I just was not at all into it. That doesn’t mean I never want to have sex with him again. And the fact that he didn’t push was important. If he had, I wouldn’t be willing to see him again.
I forget sometimes what I’ve said here, what I’ve said elsewhere, and what I’ve written in Confessions so far. To clarify my take on the earlier neg link (#25), I agree that different PUAs have different ideas of what the neg is; what I’m not sure about is the case that writer makes, where she claims that only misogynists defend the neg. I think it’s just that non-misogynists use it differently. Here’s a section from my Confessions draft:
At the same time, PUAs want to avoid “supplication” — basically, acting too needy or desperate or eager to win a target’s good opinion. Supplication includes doing stuff like buying a girl’s drink so she’ll talk to the PUA, or offering her too many compliments — a PUA never wants to start from a position where the target feels like she can take him and his attention for granted.
Hand in hand with this (decent) advice comes the idea that women are constantly throwing “shit tests” at men, which is sketchier. Supposedly, women are always giving men a hard time just to see how they’ll react. By saying things like “Are you a player?” or “What are you taking at school?”, for example, women supposedly aren’t seeking an answer (or reassurance), but are supposedly testing to see if he’ll supplicate. PUAs usually encourage each other to either ignore shit tests, or respond with something hilarious and unexpected.
The concept of shit tests gets unnerving when some PUAs label any pushback or questions as shit tests. While this can make for fun flirting, it’s weird when a PUA won’t answer or respect anything I say (example: “What do you do for a living?” “I clone humans”). I don’t know about you, but I usually ask people what they do for a living when I’m, uh, curious about what they do for a living. And that’s a fun example. A much more important example is that when I say “I don’t want to have sex with you,” I’m not testing; I’m trying to set a real boundary. (Seriously, “I don’t want to have sex with you” is cited as a shit test that should be ignored. No, seriously, many PUAs claim this.)
Related are “compliance tests”: the claim here is that women are always trying to get as much compliance (or supplication) out of a man as possible, and will lose all respect for him if he actually fulfills her requests. (Example: “Could you hold my drink while I get something from my purse?”) Many PUAs claim that the answer is to ignore or refuse the compliance test. In contrast, a PUA may offer a compliance test to gauge her interest (“Give me your hands, I’ll show you a magic trick” — if she does it, then she’s comfortable with some contact; if she doesn’t, more verbal game is necessary). In short, compliance tests are viewed as entitled and demanding when women do them, but as tactical and flirtatious when PUAs do them.
Perhaps the most widely-discussed and controversial PUA idea is the “neg” tactic, where the PUA subtly insults the target or gives her a backhanded compliment. Like many terms, its deeper meanings and usage vary from PUA to PUA — but it’s an especially dramatic continuum with “neg”. Some PUAs just see them as friendly teasing, a way of establishing rapport without supplicating. An example I found online: when talking to a sunburned girl, one PUA reports saying “I just wanted to tell you … your face is the cutest … shade of pink at this whole party.” (I think this one’s hilarious. It would totally work on me. If I were sunburned, that is, and hadn’t already read it on the Internet.)
Some see negs more strategically, as a way of passing the target’s tests or breaching her indifference (her bitch shield, if you will) — which they argue is necessary for targets who are very high-status, very beautiful, etc. Neil Strauss, a famous PUA and author of the bestseller The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, once wrote that
When you give a woman who’s often hit on a generic compliment, she will usually either ignore the remark or assume you’re saying it because you want to sleep with her.
When you tease her and show her that you’re unaffected by her beauty and demonstrate that you’re out of her league — and THEN let her work to win you over and ultimately REWARD her with your approval, she will leave that night feeling good about herself. Like something special happened and she connected with somebody who appreciates her for who she REALLY is.
In short, a neg will buy you the credibility you need to sincerely compliment her later.
That said, I don’t necessarily advocate negs; they are in many ways a temporary patch to stick onto your personality while you learn to possess real confidence and strength of character. XX
Manipulative? Sure. I’m not convinced it’s harmful, though. My one concern about it goes back to the “fake” thing — personally, I often react positively to guys who are blunt and seem unconcerned about offending me, because it makes me feel like they’re honest. So it’s a little scary to think of someone turning that around and using it as a tactic to seem honest, as Strauss implies, even if that person’s intentions are overall good.
But that’s a mild concern compared to how some PUAs use negs: they cite the neg specifically as a tactic to reduce the target’s self-esteem. The goal, in this case, is to say things that really hurt her — make her feel bad about herself so that she’s easier to take advantage of. Question them about it, and they’ll respond with something along the lines of “Those bitches need to be taken down a peg.” What’s especially alarming is that this can be a way of testing for poor boundaries and low self-esteem: if this girl lets me get away with saying crap that genuinely hurts her, what else will she let me get away with that she doesn’t like?
And as PUA tactics get ethically murkier, it’s more and more useful for unethical PUAs to select targets with poor boundaries and low self-esteem. Nowhere is this more obvious than when PUAs discuss Last Minute Resistance (LMR).
Clarisse,
need to run, more later, but briefly -
Probably not – that’s why I tried to explain what kind of rejection I was talking about (meeting someone new, rejection with a clear “no” or the time-tested “I *really* need to use the restroom now”, not a “look, I’m not in the mood right now, but DO come back in half an hour”). If people are already familiar with each other, then things are very likely different.
Clarisse,
As an aside, I was a little startled by that line. I’m probably not anyone’s idea of a sexual conservative, but I can’t actually imagine making out with somebody and not wanting to have sex with them. That seems really alien to me. I don’t know if it’s a subculture thing, a guy/girl difference, a me/you difference, or what. But it’s… weird, I guess, and interesting.
Seems like the sort of thing that’s designed to keep the local criminal-law attorneys employed…
I haven’t read enough of the relevant materials, so I’m curious: Does PUA “target-scoring” factor in the higher social value of partners with positive self-esteem? Or do they operate on the assumption that all partners are (all other things being equal) equally valuable, so go for the least risky?
Sam,
Out of curiosity, to what extent are you confident that that’s a coincidence? That connection sort of jumped out at me.
Xakudo,
I have more than a mild suspicion that women tell the same “joke,” only with the genders switched and “bitch” instead of “asshole”…
Motley,
I’m not sure what you’re asking. Is being good at approaching and flirting correlated to not getting rejected often? I’d say yes, sure. Or are you asking whether my not usually escalating as far as I could (occasionally should) is a consequence of feared rejection? If you’re asking the latter, I’d say it’s more of an inability that is more a consequence of being afraid to move without positive knowledge, that’s linked to my previouly explained psycho-sexual situation and, accordingly, also linked to a certain relative inexperience.
Clarisse,
Here’s an example from an interaction with a girl (saunagirl) I’ve been flirting with on and off for two years now. At some point in early 2009 we attend a concert with friends and for some reason I don’t remember she says, “I’ll never have sex with you, or, well, maybe if you’re the last man on the planet.” Then she takes my hand and we stroll through the festival fair for two hours. Then she mentioned in passing how she would never make the first move, to which I only replied “too bad, I don’t usually do that either…”.
So far her prediction was right, but I think the example shows that “I’m not having sex with you” can also mean something that’s not “I’m not having sex with you”. In combination with all of her behaviour (and I really do like her, she’s a good friend, just so that’s clear) that statement in that context very likely *was* a test to see how I’d react.
The “hold my drink” example is silly, of course. I think all of these examples are basically designed to explain to guys how to not be doormats, maybe exaggeration is a necessary didactic tool? I don’t know. As for compliance tests, I think their main focus is non-verbally gauging consent to further escalation, as far as I’ve understood. I think that’s something conceptually different from power-games in early flirting, although I agree that it can look similarly.
Sure. But for me that kind of defeats the purpose – if the idea is not to be learn how to be able to approach and flirt with someone you would like to get to know, but to find the easiest target by insulting ten other women first, then that guy may just as well ask for sex directly, don’t you think? If that’s the purpose, then signalling it will work on, say, 1/25 women, and it’s a lot quicker and less painful than insulting women. As someone said above, predators eat, too, but not all people who eat are predators, in fact, not a lot of them are (see also Thomas latest posts on ymy).
Clarisse:
That is not necessarily implied by what you wrote. Compliance tests are viewed as noncompliance tests when women do them (e.g. the woman is testing for your confidence/lack of supplication, or at the very least not complying will supposedly increase your attractiveness), but compliance tests are viewed as straight-forward compliance tests when PUAs do them.
But I agree that a lot of PUAs view many of these actions as entitled. And in some cases (asking you to buy her drinks, for example, or really any other case where it would not be normal/acceptable were the genders reversed) I agree. But in a lot of cases (e.g. your holding-her-drink example) it clearly is not entitlement. Or, at least, not in the bad sense of the word.
My immediate reaction to this is similar to Motley’s, though on further thought a lot of my reaction stems from prior bad experiences. When you date someone that seems to delight in turning you on and then denying you, even after you tell them you do not like it, you can develop some weird complexes.
(Thankfully, after subsequent positive experiences with more stable, predictable, respectful women, I have been able to regain my enjoyment of making out even if it does not necessarily lead anywhere.)
In any case, I can imagine cases where I do not really feel like making out and cutting it off, yeah. Though, like Motley, if I did want to be making out, I find it difficult to imagine being opposed to sex. At least, presuming I trusted the person, and presuming it was appropriate to the situation.
But in a lot of cases (e.g. your holding-her-drink example) it clearly is not entitlement. Or, at least, not in the bad sense of the word.
More later, but: Google Roissy’s post on that exact request. The major point of his post is that asking a dude to hold a drink is all about entitlement on a woman’s part. The post has over a hundred comments, as usual, and most of them agree with him, as usual. You could argue that not *all* PUAs agree with that reading. But a non-negligible percentage clearly do.
Actually, it occurs to me that the “hold my drink” example could be a bit on the entitled side if you are both sitting at a table, or some similar situation where there is a convenient place to put the drink. In that case, I would probably say, “Sure,” take the drink, and then really obviously put in on the table right in front of her. :-P
Although, admittedly, I would not be doing that as a pickup technique.
Xakudo,
but handing you a bottle or a glass could also be an IOI, no? I’ve only met American and Canadian women overtly worrying about someone putting something into their drinks while they’re going to the bathroom, but I remember the first time this happened (on a backpacking trip) and her giving me her glass of wine when going to the loo (saying: “make sure no one puts something in”) was a sign of trust in my book (and my inability to kiss her while lying on the beach later that night really had nothing to do with holding a bottle or not…).
That said, again, I think the main reason of all this is demonstrating that one is not easily being taken advantage of. Personally, I’m a kind person and I usually don’t mind making small detours to, say, pick people up and take people home. But most people are apparently not able to accept small favours without drawing conclusions about someone being a pushover. I remember one instance a couple of years ago when I was at studying abroad and didn’t attend a party because I was sick one night. Late that night a friend calls because a bunch of people had missed the last chance to go home and I was the only one who could still drive. So I went and picked them up, sick though I was. Sure they appreciated it, but guess what a girl wrote on my birthday card a little later – “don’t be so nice.”
It’s impossible to extricate oneself from those games when most people seem to play them, whether they actually want to play them or als feel they cannot avoid them. The possibility of moral hazard leads to adverse selection. And in a setup where being perceived as a pushover is one of the worst things that can happen to a guy, that adverse process is likely to be more intense than in most other situations.
I’ll still hold the bottle, most of the time, except in cases like the one you mention.
@Motley
Not exactly. Nice Guys are unsuccessful with women and blame women for it. Women don’t like that and answer back, enraging a lot of men in the process and getting called bitches and feminazis for it. Women who perform ‘shit-tests’ are extremely popular with men, probably more than all other women combined (hence why that behaviour is assumed as standard for the types of women PUAs are interested in), and they (the men who make the choice of hitting on women who perform shit-tests) blame women for it.
Both situations are alike, in that we have men having low thoughts about the women they want to have sex with because of a certain alleged behaviours (making shit-tests or wanting to date assholes). But they’re not ‘reverse’, they’re just variations of the same theme, men wanting to fuck women that they don’t actually like or respect, and feeling entitled to slander the entire female sex because of it.
Nice Guys and players/PUAs/jerks have always been two sides to the same coin, this is just a more obvious case.
@Sam
He can also just avoid being clingy. Also, you go by the presumption that the standard encounter must per definition being a guy in a bar looking for sex. It could also be a private party where people will see each other several times during the evening, or a case of two people being acquainted and interacting with each other over the course of months, or years, such as in the case of work, shared hobbies, dog-walking in the same park, mutual friends, etc.
Yes, because it is quite common for people to meet somewhere that isn’t a bar. Considering how much flak I’ve caught for focussing on sex and thereby presuming that men aren’t interested in romance and long-term relationships, I can’t really win, can I?
Presume that guys are hanging around in bars and hitting on women solely based on their appearance, and I’m insulting all the nice sensitive guys who just want a long-term relationship with a girl they’re really comfortable with, but presume that plenty of guys are just looking to hook up with girls in their surroundings whom they know and like, and suddenly my example is not valid.
That’s why I’m not looking for guys like you, I’m looking for guys who like me. Guys who wont cut all ties just because I wont fuck them, but who like me enough for my own sake to see sex as a bonus to, not the sole purpose of, our interactions. If I was just interested in sex, I’d go to swinger-club or put an add on the web instead.
Yes, seriously. You remind me of my first (and so far only, since it explains everything) theory about how the old stereotype of women being emotional/illogical and men being rational came to be. Most likely, some man (probably a Greek) concluded that since he didn’t understand women, it must mean that women didn’t make sense, and since women didn’t understand him, it must be because they were not smart enough for it, and his fellow men agreed and imposed that view on the rest of the world.
Your definition of ‘no’ seems to be: “I have spent lifetimes exploring my emotional life, to the point where I can say with 100% certainty that I do not, and never will, have any sort of relationship with you, ever”, whereas mine is the much simpler: “I don’t feel OK with what’s happening now, please stop”. And yet, you’re acting like I’m the one sending mixed signals or not understanding the obvious.
Actually, I don’t think anyone has discussed relationships since I wrote about it in post 372. Right now we’re mostly discussing definitions of shit-tests.
And sorry for being grumpy everyone, but I’ve been on suicide-watch for a friend since Thursday, and having women accused of dishonesty and caveman-thinking based on the opinions of PUAs, of all people, is just a bit too much right now.
AB,
I reckon we’re mostly talking past each other based on attributing different things to the same words, based on our respective experiences.
Now I don’t see how that’s mutually exclusive. I also don’t see what it has to do with the chances of seeing someone you turned down again and him still being equally interested in you. Also, possible additional cause of misunderstanding, I tend to assume “rejection” means “I’m not interested in interacting with you.” (which is the standard case in the setting I assumed) and you seem to assume a meaning of “I like to keep interacting with you, but I don’t want to have sex (right now).”
You’re right about my assumptions about the setting in this case, and I’ve tried to make them as explicit as possible above. You’re also right that the setting I assumed is not the only one – just the one I usually associate with “no” and “rejection” (however justifiedly, as in the case of my friend rejecting those four guys in a bar last Saturday night, see comment above).
Funny. Because it’s usually me who is explaining that to women who don’t think women and men can be friends ;). Again, though, if I’d be rejected before being friends (say, in a bar) I doubt that rejection would increase the chances of me liking the person.
As for the Greeks, I think the most likely reason they didn’t see women as full equals was that free older Greeks married women when they were very young and unexperienced, hence – even disregarding cultural aspects that made them responsible for the oikos (economics, household, private) while the guys were responsible for the polis (politics, public) – they were likely not intellectually on par in most cases. I suppose that’s how that idea got socially ingrained.
By the way, speaking of the Greeks in this context, as I’ve sais elsewhere -
If you read Foucault’s history of sexuality, I think it becomes apparent that, from a meta perspective, the existence of a seduction community can in itself be seen as feminist. The ancient Greek philosophers had elaborate pickup concepts, but only for pickup up of *free* men. Moreover, true eros *required* that freedom, consent (after the “pickup” process) was a necessary ingredient of the erotic. I would actually go as far as saying that this rational devotion to freemdom as a requirement of eros (coupled with the strange social inability to conceptualize women as equals, which may have been a consequence of age-disparate marriage patterns and differences in education) was a key ingredient of the socialized homo-erotic pattern in ancient Greece. It wasn’t just tolerated, it was the *essence* of the erotic, not because the philosophers preferred men, but because they had rightly understood that freedom (aka consent) is required for true eros, required to give the desire a transcendence of its own.
As for differences in approach to logic, I tend to think that there is a slight yet occasionally noticeable gender difference along the lines you outlined, not sure why, though.
I’m sorry to hear about your friend and wish you and him/her all the best.
AB, I understand you’re grumpy, but I think this for example:
That’s why I’m not looking for guys like you, I’m looking for guys who like me.
… was unwonted. Especially against Sam :P who of all the guys who have ever commented on this thread, is LEAST likely to do the stereotypical “I don’t like her but I’ll fuck her” thing.
Sam,
I suspect we do.
It isn’t, but you seemed to assume the whole subject was exclusively about picking up women in bars, and that my suggestion was therefore invalid.
I see. I tend to assume a rejection is just rejecting something, not necessarily rejecting all interaction with someone. There are people who go to bars just to have fun and meet people, not necessarily just for getting sex (though some of those people, like me, tend to stay away because we figure we’re not welcome). I wouldn’t consider it impossible that a guy would not have sex as his first priority, but would prefer to talk, flirt, or make out with a girl he found likeable and interesting, rather than eschewing her company in the hopes of finding sex.
Granted, while almost every guy I’ve talked to about these things have been quick to explain that guys are not always interested in sex as their main priority, they have also always assumed sex to be the main priority for both themselves and others in every concrete or hypothetical interaction with a girl, so perhaps the guy mainly looking to meet interesting people, and having sex as secondary, is only hypothetical.
I think women mainly think this because they’ve been told/showed (frequently by guys) that the man will want sex with the woman.
As for rejection, that’s a hard one. I’m not interested in one-night stands (nothing moral, I just have trouble enough enjoying it with a known partner, the thought of getting horny on command is wishful thinking for me), which leads to about two thirds of all guys thinking I should immediately reject every single strange guy hitting on me, instead of ‘giving them false hope’ and having them ‘waste’ their time flirting without getting sex. And about two thirds of them think it would be insulting to reject guys out of hand, and to assume every one of them were only after sex.
So I know that no matter what I do, the majority of guys will disapprove of it, and some of them will be downright hateful, from the Nice Guys who think everyone is entitled to an extensive interview as to come ‘under consideration’ as a potential romantic partner, to the PUA-types who think every second with me that doesn’t lead up to their penis in my vagina is a waste of time.
So I avoid clubs and bars altogether unless my friends invite me, and stay with them as long as I’m there, because I’ve listened enough to guys to know that I’m polluting the place with my very presence. Perhaps when I’ve grown old and fat enough for guys to lose interest in me, I’ll start to go out more, but then again, considering how guys treat old and fat women, that’s not likely.´
Luckily, I have both a boyfriend and enough male friends as it is, who managed to like me before I ever had to reject them, so I can flirt (with the single ones) or not flirt as I want, without fearing male disapproval for being sexually unavailable :)
I mainly mentioned that the hypothetical man was probably Greek because it seems many of our most misogynistic assumptions stem from that civilisation. My main point is that there seem to be a discrepancy in the way we judge communication failures/disagreements between men and women. In this case, even though my statements were perfectly logical, you seemed quick to assume inconsistency and mixed signals on my part.
The difference is that PUAs do not seek true eros and do not require basic freedom. There is no moral aspect in what they do. At it’s core, the seduction community is simply about teaching men how to get what they want sexually/romantically from women, and how much freedom is afforded to women is entirely up to the individual PUA.
If we lived in a society where women had as little freedom as in ancient Greece, the equivalent of the seduction community would be more likely to be guys exchanging rape strategies over the internet than guys fighting for female empowerment, since rape would be a quicker and more obvious way to get laid.
Notice that many of the qualities a good deal of PUAs ascribe to the women they want to pick up are extremely negative, and yet the attitude is often “You might think she’s the scum of the earth, but we assume you still want to score with her, so here’s a guide to how”. That’s no more true eros or basic freedom than deer hunting is.
Of course, individual PUAs have different morals, but the ones who treat women with fondness and respect often explicitly avoid certain PUA tactics, whereas the ones who dislike women tend to use every trick in the book.
I’m not sure what you mean, a difference in who’s the most logical, a difference between who’s assumed to be acting logically, or a difference in how the sex perceive logic? The lines I outlined were along the middle example, but I suspect you might be referring to the former?
Thank you, we’ve been to the doctor who’s given him a part-time sick leave and some sleeping pills, so I reckon he’ll be alright.
AB:
I’ve used PUA techniques to get a girlfriend and to keep her. I’m not much interested in your simplistic and one-sided “critiques” of PUA’s as I had already read some feminist “critiques” of it before I started doing it. It’s a toolchest, a useful one, and what I do with it determines what kind of person I am and nothing else. It must piss you off that it works, but really, that is not my problem, that is yours.
Clarisse:
You have some haters, and at least one “armchair” psychoanalyst:
http://www.inmalafide.com/blog/2011/03/22/another-sexually-emotionally-defective-feminist/#comments
@Clarisse
Point taken, I should have used more moderate wording. My apologies.
AB:
My sympathies. I was effectively on suicide watch for 3+ months last year with a friend of mine who refused to talk to anyone except me, so I can relate. An extremely stressful situation to be in, indeed. I hope things get better.
@Clarence
You seem to not have read the actual posts, much less understood who agrees with you and who doesn’t. I said: “At it’s core, the seduction community is simply about teaching men how to get what they want sexually/romantically from women, and how much freedom is afforded to women is entirely up to the individual PUA.
Of course, individual PUAs have different morals, but the ones who treat women with fondness and respect often explicitly avoid certain PUA tactics, whereas the ones who dislike women tend to use every trick in the book.”
This is pretty much exactly the same you say. They’re tools. Some PUAs use them to get girlfriends that they love, some use them to get sex from women who want the same thing, some use them to commit rape, and almost al of them don’t give a shit about how it affects women they’re not sleeping with.
Correct. And as I once said to my dad at the tender age of 11: “There’s a difference between having a problem and being a problem”. PUAs who say stuff like “Ignore it the first couple of times she says no” are the problem, but women like Clarisse and me who want our rejections to be respected are obviously the ones who have the problem.
Yes, AB, you have a problem.
The problem is you want a perfect world, and you intend to use the coercive power of the state to try to make it so while decrying individual men for working on a script they’ve been largely taught by women.
You will be taken seriously to the extent that you and Clarisse deal with the fact that many women do not follow your scripts, scripts that seem to be confined to a distinct minority of women.
That is not my fault, and I’m less inclined to care about how much of a problem it is for you when you attempt to blame it on a mostly non -existent and insulting (to a whole sex) “rape culture” meme.
If you want to know more about what I feel about such a concept you can read here:
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2011/03/philadelphia-sanctions-vigilante.html
And here:
http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2011/02/28/an-open-thread-from-picon/
I’m rather sick of being “thrown under the bus” because there’s “more important” battles being waged. Men in my cohort (45 and younger) have had to deal with that our whole lives. Clarisse at least responds with empathy and tries to understand some MRA and PUA concerns, you have mostly dealt out snark since you’ve came here.
AB:
When I am looking for a dating relationship I am generally looking for both things (mental/emotional connection, and sex/physical affection). Neither are a “bonus”. Both are requirements. So if I get the impression that sex is off the table, one of the two requirements disappears, and I am much less likely to stay in contact.
And I say this as someone who has many female friends, including ones that I consider attractive and would date if I sensed that they were interested (at least, if I were not taken at the moment).
But basically what is going on (for me, at least) is this: I already have my “just friends” needs met. Whereas–when single–I do not have my “more than friends” needs met. So if I meet someone, I am unlikely to make an effort to stay in contact unless:
1. They have something particularly cool or interest-perking to offer in terms of friendship (shared interests that are not common, for example, or uncommonly similar backgrounds/life-outlooks). This goes regardless of their gender.
2. They are a woman, and they want to date me, and I want to date them.
It is also the case that if I am attracted to someone, it makes friendship with them more emotionally complex (even if only on my side), so the value of the friendship has to be that much greater to offset the cost of the emotional complexity.
Also, if I express interest in someone and they reject me, it makes friendship awkward for me after that point, and that takes work to overcome. So unless I already know them well, the effort involved in getting over the awkwardness is unlikely to be worth it to me.
And finally, for whatever reason, women are simply less likely to meet point #1 above, especially in terms of “uncommon” shared interests. There may indeed be some sexist distorted perceptions happening on my end that contribute to this, but that does not account for the full extent of it.
I guess, in the end, this does not make things any different for you/women. Even if every guy were like me in these respects, I think you would still have the same complaint, and it would not be entirely invalid. But compound that with the fact that there are also some guys out there that actually do only fuck women and rarely befriend them… and it makes things even worse.
But I guess the point I am trying to make is that not all guys that behave this way are doing so out of any “women are pieces of meat” assholishness.
AB,
No it wouldn’t. I doubt a lot of guys would actively fight for women’s rights, but that’s a different matter from understanding the logical structure of “seduction”. In that society, as exemplified by the Greek example, the *seduction community* would likely be *gay* (and thus be a lot smaller), because, again, the very notion of a successful seduction requires “submission” from a subject, an equal with agency. Consent is *the essence* not the antithesis of seduction.
Let me repeat that, because it’s important: Consent is *the essence* not the antithesis of seduction.
That is not changed by certain questionable techniques and certain questionable characters who very likely don’t understand the concept of seduction.
To further elaborate on my stance on the seduction community:
I don’t begrudge PUAs their techniques in themselves, but I think it is extremely problematic how “but it gets me laid/but it doesn’t get me laid” are used as moral standpoints within the community.
People should be entitled to judge what PUAs say about women, or do to women, on its own moral basis. If technique is questionable (like the “don’t respect a no”), then it’s questionable, no matter whether or not it can be successfully employed to get sex. And its moral legitimacy should be judged on that. And if a statement about women is potentially problematic and/or offensive (shit-tests, only wanting alpha males), then the statement should be treated accordingly.
The history of psychology (as well as medicine, political science, physics, history, economics, etc.) is filled with discredited theories that have still been highly effective in their time. Though there’s little doubt today (among actual psychologists) that Freud was wrong about a lot of things, his work is still highly valuable and he undoubtedly helped a lot of people.
So if the seduction community comes up with a theory about women which only applies to 3 out of 10 of them, but is seen as a revelation by guys who use the technique suggested by the theory to go from being able to score with less than 1 out of 10 women to be successful with 3 out of 10……
It’s still wrong.
If the technique works on 7 out of 10 women, but, with at least 2 of them, for a different reason than the theory suggests……
It’s still wrong.
If it works on 7 out of 10 women for the reasons predicted by the theory, but only because the PUAs in question went after specific women found on specific locations and employed screening techniques to weed out the least susceptible ones……
It’s still wrong.
If it works on 7 out of 10 of all women for the right reasons, but end up harming them in the process……
It’s still wrong (albeit for a different reason).
If it works on 7 out of 10 of all women for the right reasons, but end up harming the remaining 3 if used on them……
It’s still wrong.
And if it works on 7 out of 10 of all women for the right reasons, and doesn’t leave anyone worse off in the process……
It’s still potentially problematic if presented as universal, rather than generalisation from which a significant amount of women deviate.
So when discussing PUA techniques outside the seduction community (having this sort of discussion inside of it would be good too, but I don’t have high hopes), certain questions are bound to come up. Does this theory apply to women in general or just the sub-set of interest to PUAs? Is this technique useful for a different reason than the theory suggests? Is this technique harmful? Is it beneficial to the PUA in the short term, but damaging to them, or society at whole, in the long term?
And these discussions need to happen in an environment where “But it worked for me!” is not given priority. Because it’s not about what works for PUAs, it is how the rest of us, are affected by it. Are the PUA theories valid knowledge which we should incorporate into our lives, or a bunch of pop evo-psych which we should debunk? Should we embrace the seduction community as a salvation for insecure young men, or learn its techniques merely so we can deflect them?
And again, whether or not PUAs have benefited from incorporating them into their lives is irrelevant, they obviously wouldn’t do it if they didn’t find any benefits. Plenty of wrong perceptions can be helpful to the people holding them (though often not for the rest of the world), and plenty of wrong actions can still lead to the desired results, theft to get money, rape to get sex, murder to get rid of a rival, etc.
So in short, I don’t have a problem with the general seduction community per se, but I do have a problem with its frequent inability to stray from the script of “I get sex/girlfriends from it” when talking about the effect it has on outsiders. No matter how much these things are said to me, it doesn’t change the fact that I may have to interact with guys who’ve read all sorts of stuff about women on PUA websites, whether I want to or not, and I think that gives me and others the right to at least discuss how we’re going to deal with that without PUAs begrudging us for it.
I have listened to plenty of guys tell about how important sex is to them, but the PUAs still chose to make the seduction community, they chose to publish their theories, they chose to advise others to follow them, and they have a responsibility for the validity of their statements and for how their actions affect others.
Eschewing that responsibility is bad enough. Insisting to fill up every conversation, even outside their own message boards, with snide remarks about how “I’m getting laid, you’re just a hater who doesn’t understand anything, I have a girlfriend now, you’re just jealous, why should I care as long as I get what I want?, it works for me, it fulfils my goals” is worse. And I don’t think we’ll get any constructive discussions about the seduction community until we stop having them on the terms of people who think the end, their end, justifies the means.
AB:
Wait, what?
Maybe we just have wildly different definitions of “flirting”, but to me flirting is something that is done to express interest.
I sympathize with your first paragraph that I quoted above, insofar as the guys refuse to just have a normal non-flirty conversation. In that case, indeed, your only two options are to flirt or reject. Personally, I think rejection is the appropriate course of action, presuming you are not interested. But I do see the double-bind.
But outside of that, I am really baffled that your idea of male friends seems to be guys with whom you can choose to flirt with or not as you see fit. Unless I am misreading you? But if I am not misreading you, then to me that is really disrespectful, and really makes me start to wonder if you yourself are not playing a part in your difficulty in making male friends. If a friend of mine regularly (and knowingly) flirted with me and it was not an indication of interest, I would tell her to cut it the fuck out.
I am also really baffled about your apparent frustration with finding male friends when, by your own admission, you already have several. How many male friends are you looking to accumulate? And do you expect to be able to flirt with all of them (that are single) as you see fit?
Okay, maybe I am grossly misreading what you have written. And if so, I apologize. But if I am not, then… really? It seems like what you want is a free pass to flirt whenever you want, with whomever you want (if they are single) and for guys to magically know that it does not mean anything (except when it does), and to just accept the flirting even if they only want it on the condition that it means something.
Wow! I intend to use the coercive power of the state to try to make the perfect world decrying individual men….? no, I can’t go on, this is just too stupid. I have never mentioned the state, or any laws. Nor have I mentioned any ‘rape-culture’. That is, as I understand it, a concept mainly used by American feminists, of which I am decidedly not one.
You seem to belong to the group of American anti-feminists, many of which, in my experience, are so convinced that feminists see themselves the sole as victims of male aggression, and therefore demand endless sympathy and understanding regardless of how much shit they spew out about others, that you have become convinced that you are now the sole victims of feminist aggression, and therefore demand to endless sympathy and understanding regardless of how much shit you spew out about others.
As I’ve said before, if I can go in as a foreigner, without any deep understanding of American feminism, and without using American feminist theories or buzz-words (like rape culture), and still be labelled a woman’s studies major belonging to specific branches of feminism, with specific goals and opinions that I have never expressed myself (like using the coercive power of the state), then something is wrong with the way you deal with gender in your culture.
Sorry mate, but those accusations are just waaaaaay to specific to not come from a background at least as dogmatic as you accuse feminism of being.
Oh sweet, haters. Just what I needed as I finish typing up my Neil Strauss interview. Well, he seemed to like me. I wonder if that gets me cred with them, but probably not.
I really appreciate your efforts to defend me on that thread, Clarence, especially given our recent disagreements. I try to do it myself on behalf of reviled writers I respect, and I know it can be really hard.
I’ll probably x-post this to that thread:
One thing I think is interesting is how different groups have deployed the “incoherent” accusation against my work. People who disagreed with me when I was writing about masculinity told me my stuff was “incoherent”. People who didn’t like the boundaries post that the haters are going on about have also criticized it as “incoherent”. One of my friends made me watch Glenn Beck the other night, and then sat around afterwards and talked about how incoherent it was.
I’ve thought about this a few times and my working theory is this: When people can’t see the pattern or understand the experience behind something, they call it “incoherent”. This isn’t to say that nothing is incoherent, but I’m pretty sure that for a non-negligible percentage of stuff that’s labeled “incoherent”, the viewer simply doesn’t have the experience required to parse it (and rejects the idea that such experience might be valid). This is why two of my most successful articles (the creep article, and the setting boundaries article) are called incoherent by totally different groups, and Glenn Beck, one of the most famous talk show hosts in the country but one with an audience primarily of non-urban conservatives, is called incoherent by urban liberals.
AB,
first of all, I believe you’re totally wrong about the originality of PUA concepts. It’s mostly a remix of scienctific and other information with a specific focus. Second of all, you’re trivializing the harm of “not getting laid” compared to other potential causes of harm. That’s not a very helpful when you want to make the people suffering from *that* see your point.
Third of all, as I said above when Clarisse, after citing research that a lot of people routinely say “no” in whichever words when they actually mean yes, stated -
- effectity *IS* an important element. The only correct practical implementation of the categorical imperative is no one doing anything, because all actions have unintended consequences and are thus questionable from a standpoint of a general rule. In other words, if we’re not going to kill ourselves, we’re going to keep hurting each other while trying to find an equilibrium – a practical implementation that people can lie with. And in this context *living with* implies that any solution to any ethical question needs not only be ethically acceptable, but also effective. If your answer and assumption is that using PUA techniques is morally wrong but will get guys laid, you’ll get a classic adverse selection: those who listen to you will stop being effective at getting laid, the others will.
Effectiveness, in this case, is a moral category, because if both ethics and effectiveness are necessary conditions, and only effectiveness can be satisfied, then effectiveness will win, hands down.
If your position were right, then, again, we should go and rejoin our respective teams. But I don’t believe it is. I very much believe that those dimensions can be integrated.
I’m here because I’m trying to do that, I’m here to talk about my perspective with people who have different perspectives, but it’s really necessary to accept their position as not a priori invalid or immoral, because in that case there really doesn’t need to be a discussion.
Xakudo,
I’m not sure of your context, or what exactly you mean by “flirting” or “interest,” but as far as I’m aware, it’s not exactly uncommon in our culture to flirt just for fun, rather than purely as the first step in a particular process.
This might be exclusive to older, married people (I don’t know how old you are, or if you’re married) but it’s something I’ve noticed a lot. Married women flirt with me all the time (usually more after they notice I’m married, rather than less) and they’re basically never doing it with the intention of it going anywhere. It’s a fairly culturally-accepted activity, as far as I’m aware.
Clarisse,
For what it’s worth, I think I can see what they’re saying. (also for what it’s worth, this is not a criticism)
Your posts aren’t essays. You don’t always have a pre-planned beginning, middle, and end–you’re not always making a “point,” so to speak. If it’s incoherent to just say “this is what I’m thinking, this is where I’m at, and this is what I’m wondering about,” then yeah. But so what?
Since you’re usually fairly explicit about it, I’m somewhat confused by the notion of “incoherent” being a criticism.
Weird.
Xakudo:
That’s fair enough. But it does depend largely on what you perceive to be the main purpose of interacting. When I’m at a party, I like talking to people. Sometimes we’ll flirt or take things even further, but I also like just talking to people. If I talk to an interesting guy who’s also attractive, and it becomes obvious that he’s not likely to want to hook up with me, I might not give him the same full attention as if things were about to sexual, but I’d still want to continue talking with him.
To me, flirting is fun in itself, and sometimes more arousing than actually being with a guy. I know many people feel the same way, but it seems that many people don’t welcome it, particularly not in women. It’s strange that we live in a society where we feel the need to constantly state how women shouldn’t be marginalised for wanting casual sex, even S&M sex, and yet women who like casual flirting are more or less told to keep their filthy perversions away from innocent men :)
Directly declaring “I’m not going to have sex with you” can have rather negative consequences. And it takes courage. I know some men say they’ve experienced negative consequences for not hitting on a girl, but usually, if you’re the one who wants to initiate and you lack the courage to do it, nothing happens. When someone initiates with you, and you lack the courage to reject them, something will happen and you will be held responsible for it. It might be better than never having people show interest in you, but it’s still not easy.
When I say that “I can flirt or not flirt as I want, without fearing male disapproval for being sexually unavailable”, it’s meant to be taken more along the lines of a woman moving from a sexually regressive society to a sexually liberated one saying that “I can have sex or not have sex as a want, without fearing being labelled as a slut”. It’s not an indication that the flirt/sex is forced, just that regular social norms (which have nothing to do with consent) are not in effect.
That’s funny, last New Year’s Eve a friend of mine told me how much he appreciated our 4 years of on/off flirting (I have permission from my boyfriend, long story), and how much he felt he could relax with me. He also has a lot of casual sex though, so he can go to bars and flirt without feeling like he lets anyone down by not being able to perform sexually with them, which I envy. Thinking about, he’s the guy who’s gotten me the most sexually aroused in years, despite that I’m not that attracted to him, and I think it’s because of his specific ability to make me feel like sex is optional.
I don’t have a problem finding male friends per se, though I sometimes feel there’s a certain filter you have to penetrate to get there. When I was younger, I sometimes deliberately flirted with guys I liked because, in my experience, many of them would categorise guys as potential friends and girls as potential lovers, so in order to get into the friend-category, I had to keep them interested long enough for them to realise that they liked my company. Not the most honest strategy (though still better than what was employed against me by miles), and not terribly healthy either, but it sadly wasn’t without merit.
Today, I’m mostly frustrated when men appear to use the same categories as the guys from my teenage years. I don’t mind the sexual judging, but to me, meeting a guy for the first time makes me go: Potential sexual interest first, human second. Not that their humanity is secondary, but more that sexual attraction is the first thing that registers, but if it’s not there, the guy just goes into the same (gender-neutral) category I put female acquaintances in. But with a good deal of guys, it seems to go: Potential sexual interest first, nothing second, when meeting women. Even if my ‘friend’ quota is met, that still bothers me.
@Motley — I’m probably not anyone’s idea of a sexual conservative, but I can’t actually imagine making out with somebody and not wanting to have sex with them.
Really? You’ve never started the sexual process “cold”, with the assumption that they would turn you on to the point where you would enjoy it?
In this particular case, I felt more obligated than I usually do for reasons I don’t want to get into here, and the guy kind of played on my feelings of obligation (to be clear, I don’t think he did this on purpose), and I’ve hooked up with him before and it was pretty fun, so I was like, well, ok. But actually I was mildly sick and very tired, and was dealing with a lot of confusing thoughts from the Strauss interview, so I wasn’t easy to turn on, and when I realized that I was doing it more out of obligation than attraction or expectation of enjoyment, I stopped and went home to bed.
(Which was not easy, by the way, but he specifically made an effort to not make me feel bad about it once he realized I really wasn’t into it, which is the reason I think he wasn’t aware of how he played on my feelings of obligation earlier.)
Does PUA “target-scoring” factor in the higher social value of partners with positive self-esteem? Or do they operate on the assumption that all partners are (all other things being equal) equally valuable, so go for the least risky?
Interesting. All I’ve seen is that they usually score women’s self-esteem by their hotness. A 10 is expected to have more self-esteem (and therefore be able to take more negs, for example) than a 7. Occasionally someone will write about how very hot girls sometimes have low self-esteem, but I haven’t seen a lot of that. Maybe the more experienced PUA theorists on this thread have more to say about that.
I have more than a mild suspicion that women tell the same “joke,” only with the genders switched and “bitch” instead of “asshole”…
Yeah, sometimes it’s a joke and sometimes it’s a serious conversation about how we’ve been inculcated with fears about rejecting men too obviously, because if you reject a man too clearly he might get angry, and you really don’t ever want a rejected dude who’s angry at you but sexually attracted on the same planet. In case we’ve all forgotten, the girl Gunwitch shot in the face was someone he had thoroughly groped, who rejected him, left the room, and was shot when she walked back in.
@Sam — Sure. But for me that kind of defeats the purpose – if the idea is not to be learn how to be able to approach and flirt with someone you would like to get to know, but to find the easiest target by insulting ten other women first, then that guy may just as well ask for sex directly, don’t you think? If that’s the purpose, then signalling it will work on, say, 1/25 women, and it’s a lot quicker and less painful than insulting women.
Depends on the demographic, right? I’d guess that the misogynists who promote aggressive LMR tactics and nasty negs probably aren’t the same guys who run in more promiscuous circles, and so the 1/25 chance you cite is a lot lower for them. Because more promiscuous circles tend to be liberal, social-justice-y, more feminist-leaning circles.
@AB — Women who perform ‘shit-tests’ are extremely popular with men, probably more than all other women combined (hence why that behaviour is assumed as standard for the types of women PUAs are interested in),
This is a theory I’ve been toying with myself for a while. (Note the anecdote earlier in the thread of the guy whose female friend made an online dating profile that she specifically wanted to be snide and filled with baggage, and that profile was hugely successful.) I’d be curious to hear more about how you arrived at it, though.
I think women mainly think this because they’ve been told/showed (frequently by guys) that the man will want sex with the woman.
Co-sign. If left to myself, I would still be convinced men and women can be friends just fine. Now, due to years and years of having people (especially guys) tell me that men are never friends with women if they don’t want to have sex with them, I’m a lot more cagey and distrustful. It sucks, especially since we also get so many messages that make us fear men getting angry or disliking us. Here are some example binds:
* If we flirt without much intention of follow-through, we’re slutty cocktease bitches.
* If we try not to flirt, we’re cold bitches.
* If we reject a guy before he makes sexual intentions crystal clear, we’re presumptuous bitches.
* If we don’t reject a guy clearly enough, we’re leading-on bitches.
* If we believe a guy who claims he just wants to be friends, we’re being stupid and playing into his game, because guys don’t really want that.
* If we don’t believe a guy who claims he just wants to be friends, we’re presumptuous bitches.
etc.
There is no moral aspect in what they do. At it’s core, the seduction community is simply about teaching men how to get what they want sexually/romantically from women, and how much freedom is afforded to women is entirely up to the individual PUA.
I completely agree with this. I’m pretty sure I’ve made this exact point before, haven’t I? Maybe I’ve only made it over email with pickup artists. Either way, I’m surprised at the amount of pushback on this thread. It seems like an obvious and established point to me: most PUAs don’t care about ethics, and the ones who do are often policed by their community. There is a minority of PUAs who do care about ethics, but they are frequently very careful not to be too overt about it when talking to other PUAs, because they sometimes get so virulently attacked for it.
I’m actually really curious about what the reaction of PUA groups to my Strauss interview will be, given that he says things like “men are the dominant group” and “we live in a patriarchal culture” and that men who hate feminism are probably afraid of powerful women (he didn’t actually say “we live in patriarchy”, sorry, that was a mild misquote). I wonder if he’ll get policed as hard as a lower-status PUA would.
@Clarence — I’m surprised by #61 … I also feel like you’re ascribing things to AB that she hasn’t said.
You will be taken seriously to the extent that you and Clarisse deal with the fact that many women do not follow your scripts, scripts that seem to be confined to a distinct minority of women.
Can you give examples of scripts most women follow that we don’t? AB isn’t S&M, so it’s not the same level of explicit communication. As I noted upthread, studies have shown that while there is a minority of women (AND MEN) who routinely say no when they mean yes, that’s a minority. (15%)
Here’s another working theory of mine: women who are more likely to give “shit tests” (which, again, is a concept I am very suspicious of, but let’s take it as a given FOR NOW) are probably also more likely to be in the minority of women who say no when they mean yes. If women who give shit tests are also seen as more attractive, and PUAs are only interested in the most attractive women, then it follows that PUAs are interacting with women who say no when they mean yes much more than 15% of the time. But it doesn’t follow that women who say no when they mean yes aren’t a minority.
As a side note, I continue to feel really represented by a lot of what AB says, so I’m still surprised that people seem to put us in such different categories. I guess I’m more diplomatic about it, but if anyone can pin down what’s different about our communication styles, I’m interested. (Not that I’m sure my communication style is better. I seem to be good at having coffee with PUAs and walking away with them thinking I’m totally fascinating, and me either cracking up or on the edge of a migraine, and them having no clue how much effort the conversation was for me, which might be a good thing, but also might not.)
Like, here’s something else I totally co-sign from AB:
Today, I’m mostly frustrated when men appear to use the same categories as the guys from my teenage years. I don’t mind the sexual judging, but to me, meeting a guy for the first time makes me go: Potential sexual interest first, human second. Not that their humanity is secondary, but more that sexual attraction is the first thing that registers, but if it’s not there, the guy just goes into the same (gender-neutral) category I put female acquaintances in. But with a good deal of guys, it seems to go: Potential sexual interest first, nothing second, when meeting women. Even if my ‘friend’ quota is met, that still bothers me.
And I thought #64 was an especially rational breakdown of this stuff, and mirrors my own thoughts pretty much exactly. It also echoes some stuff I’ve read from HughRistik, I think.
@Motley — Since you’re usually fairly explicit about it, I’m somewhat confused by the notion of “incoherent” being a criticism.
Yeah, that gets me sometimes too, especially for posts where I’ve explicitly stated that I’m not sure how to write about it.
The reaction to the setting-boundaries piece was funny. Some feminists told me that I was failing to acknowledge my past as an abused victim. Some non-feminists told me that I had failed to set boundaries and everything that happened was my fault. Whereas a much larger group of people left comments saying that it was massively reflective of their experience, and my favorite sexual partner sent me an email saying, “That post made me want to give you a hug.” This last group, I think, understood what the point was.
Sam,
The seduction community consists of many people. There are certainly enough of them suggesting tactics which amount to little more than bullying, and enough women reporting bad experiences with PUAs, for it to be unfair to not count them in when talking about the seduction community as a whole.
The consistent assertion made here that men shouldn’t be expected to ignore their bad experiences with feminism or statements from individual feminists when judging the movement as a whole goes both ways. You can’t just say that the bad elements in the seduction community don’t count, because none of them understand what seduction is really about.
And secondly, the concepts of freedom and consent have different defintions. PUAs might be interacting with women on a (theoretically) equal basis, but they’re not interacting with women on a similar basis. Many people don’t feel there can be complete freedom (and thereby consent) unless there is a certain degree of equality, and many people feel that “equal but different” doesn’t quite cut it. And I’m not sure I disagree.
Free men of a similar background and a similar status is a lot different from people who’re born significantly physically different, come from different backgrounds, and are operating under completely different conditions. I don’t know enough about ancient Greece to know if they identified men born under certain circumstances or with certain physical characteristics as belonging to a fundamentally different group of people, for whom fundamentally different assumptions could be made, but I doubt it.
AB,
“You can’t just say that the bad elements in the seduction community don’t count, because none of them understand what seduction is really about.”
They don’t count for the point I was making: That the existence of the seduction community is meta-feminist. And if modern feminists can largely ignore the radical, militant, history of their predecessors when defining their feminism, then I don’t see why people identifying as PUAs should not be allowed to do the same?
If you don’t believe in female agency, then what’s the point of debating for you?
They don’t count for the point I was making: That the existence of the seduction community is meta-feminist. And if modern feminists can largely ignore the radical, militant, history of their predecessors when defining their feminism, then I don’t see why people identifying as PUAs should not be allowed to do the same?
I agree that the SC is in many ways meta-feminist. I also think that it will be more useful to people trying to work out ethical game to recognize where the current community is fucked up, not less. There are feminists who point out areas where the current community is fucked up, too.
Clarisse,
right, I agree. But that, in turn, requires general acceptance of the idea that most men would like to have more rather than less sex with women they find attractive and that’s not opposed to women’s interests as such. Or if it is, to the degree that it is, that the male perspective is equally important as the female, when balancing the interests. Somehow AB’s aggressive style seems to give me the feeling that being sexually drawn to women is somehow inherently misogynist, so given my personal history of sexual shaming that may have triggered my being more defensive than usual.
@Sam
Only if you assume that by the word ‘seduction’, we’re talking exclusively about what went on consensually between free men in ancient Greece. But ‘seduce’ just means “to persuade or induce to have sexual intercourse”, “to win over; attract; entice”, to use the most sexual definitions. It doesn’t say anything about freedom or equality.
We use the concept of seduction for many things, not just what went on Greece, and there is a long history of it taking place under unequal conditions. I could find you several old folk songs about lower class men seducing maidens above their social station, or Christians rejecting trolls or witches trying to seduce them.
Seduction, according to modern use of the word, is, as I mentioned, “to persuade or induce to have sexual intercourse”. The seduction community is dedicated to that, or rather, to teach men to do it with women. That’s it really. You’re right that seduction loses a lot of its purpose if the person being seduced has no power to consent or reject (say, forced marriage or slavery), but that’s a far cry from saying the idea of a seduction community must per definition include complete freedom.
First, there’s a difference between the past and the present. Especially since the past contained so strong inequalities that several marginalised groups felt forced to become radical (in terms of violence and militarism, I don’t think feminism has anything on certain black rights groups).
Secondly, feminists who define their feminism are often acutely aware that it differs from that of other feminists, and they frequently fight among themselves.
Third, there’s a difference between feminists not being allowed to have their discussions in peace without getting flooded with accusations that because Andrea Dworkin said something 20 years ago (which the accuser is more likely than not to have misunderstood) feminism is evil, and feminists flooding other websites with comments themselves. I don’t go into PUA websites just to leave comments about how the whole seduction community is wrong, but I do retain my right to discuss it in non-PUA spaces.
And fourth, speaking of evil, I didn’t even call the seduction community evil. I said it has the main goal of teaching men to get what they want sexually/romantically from women, and that how individual PUAs handle this depends on their individual attitude. If you want to make a comparison, I’ll say that feminism has the main goal of eliminating inequality for women, and how individual feminists handle this depends on their individual attitude.
Compared to the attitude most American men seem to have towards feminism, my categorisation of the seduction community is downright generous.
Way to put words in my mouth. Just because I believe in female agency doesn’t mean I believe it can’t be compromised or circumvented. We have rules about certain commercials here, because it is assumed that they’re able to affect people in a way so negative that the welfare of those people takes precedence over the right to advertise. We also have rules against fraud, because it is acknowledged that it is possible to cause people to make incorrect judgements.
And that’s just the stuff that’s in the actual law. People find themselves in situations where they are put under pressure or unable to make optional judgement calls all the time. Many people are raised to recognise and respond to such situations, and many are also raised to either create or avoid creating these situations for others.
There’s a far cry from saying that women have no agency to recognising that we’re not all completely free and equal (or equally free), operating outside social pressures or expectations, or with compatible needs, a clear sense of where we’re going, and a mutual understanding of the people we’re socialising with.
We have rules about certain commercials here, because it is assumed that they’re able to affect people in a way so negative that the welfare of those people takes precedence over the right to advertise.
What kind of commercials?
AB,
I’m saying that “seduction” in any meaningful definition requires consent and consent requires agency. I’m not sure what you mean by “complete freedom”, I doubt there is something like “complete freedom”, including the notion of “unconditional free will”. What is required for all practical purposes and discussions about them is agency.
If you do believe women have agency to consent to interacting and, well, sex, just as men, then we don’t disagree.
ick. I looked at the haters link again. Somehow I managed to miss the worst of it the first time around. Clarence, I’m honestly puzzled … they call me defective in my sexuality, which means they think you’re defective too, but you seem inclined to debate them anyway. Doesn’t that bother you?
@Clarisse
(Warning, long). From several directions, actually. The first is a theory I’ve got that one sex is often more prone to exhibit certain stereotypical behaviours of the other sex, because they’re not warned/blamed for them.
For instance, women can sometimes be extremely rude about hitting on men, checking them out, or talking about them sexually, because our culture only teaches us that male sexuality is predatory and women are vulnerable. This can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but sometimes, men are truly uncomfortable and women don’t notice, because it’s not in our cultural script that women can even be like this, so they don’t police themselves in that aspect.
On the other hand, I’ve noticed that men are often more openly aggravated when someone is prettier than they are. A woman going on about how some girl is just fake and stupid and wearing makeup and can’t sing etc., will often be aware at some level that she’s either jealous/bitter, or at least likely to be perceived as such. But men can be extremely mean and petty, especially if their target is sufficiently ‘feminine’ – hence why the facebook group ‘Stop Prettyboys’ (started by guys) could get as big as it got here.
So with all the talk about women falling for manipulative sociopaths/’damaged’ guys, I couldn’t help wondering if men, who’re not warned against or blamed for it to the same degree as women, wouldn’t be even more prone to doing the same :P People exhibiting certain problematic behaviours can be strangely attractive, so with men not being (as) expected to police their behaviour in that regard, they’d probably be more likely to react to the attraction.
Secondly, I noticed that I had a lot of guys courting me in my disturbed teenage years (where I didn’t always feel like I could be honest, sometimes resorted to manipulation that I wouldn’t use today, and got flattered over things that were basically boundary violations), and not just for my looks. I don’t know why, but I suspect I had a certain attitude that I was ‘fair game’ in some way. I was also in more contact with guys who used these tactics, so that also enters into it.
Finally, I think women who play ‘the game’ are more likely to be immediately attractive to men. I’ve noticed that women who aren’t overly concerned with attracting men tend to go for comfort or (non-sexual) style over sex, whereas women who’re very interested in male attention tend to do the opposite. I suspect it’s often less about looking good and more about signalling sexual availability (hence why girls with gaudy makeup, visible thongs, and fat spilling out of overly tight low-cut jeans tend to get sexual attention without looking good), but it works. And they’re also more likely to exhibit stereotypically feminine behaviours.
Since these women are often both objectively attractive (goes with caring about appearance), more available in places like bars, and signalling sexual availability with both their looks and behaviours, they naturally constitute a much larger amount of PUA targets than average. They also exhibit more confidence which is always sexy.
(On a related note, that’s is one of the areas where I think guys are unaware of their own influence, concluding that certain women are naturally confident/alphas, when in truth, these women are getting a boost from all the male attention. Attend an all-female university study-group, and they’re likely to get a completely different picture of confidence and alpha-status ;)
@Clarisse
Mostly commercials for children, but I think adds for smoking have been banned too, and there are limits to what you can say in commercials, as to not mislead the consumer. For instance, you can’t advertise health benefits that aren’t there, and there are all sorts of rules for what you can call a product and how you can market it.
You can’t have images of fruit on the package unless the product contains a certain % of actual fruit (I also have a suspicion that soft drinks wouldn’t be advertised “with a twist of lemon flavour”, if the more obvious “with a twist of lemon” had been allowed), you can’t use a place where your product isn’t produced in marketing (e.g. leading the consumer to believe your product is from a farm, not a factory), you can’t call something ‘real juice’ if it’s made from concentrated juice mixed with water, etc.
I’m sad to see such skepticism, by both Clarisse and AB, about the existence of real friendship between women and (primarily single?) men.
Of course during much of my twenties I thought what I was pursuing was friendship, with sex maybe developing from it if it did, and maybe I was not so good at recognizing sexual intention when I had it below even my own conscious recognition. But that is a very different thing from being really insincere in the pursuit of the friendship itself, which I was not.
And really a lot of my irritation with the “nice guy” feminist discourse is that it provides a sort of twisty double bind for just this case, in which friendship from a man is necessarily “guilty” before proven innocent, and in which if he is attracted he must confess it (and know it!) or be guilty of some vague crime of the discourse. Please don’t explain that this isn’t what the feminist discourse actually is meant to imply, because it ends up there, though not in every case.
And I pursued plenty of real friendships without attraction on my part. But then again, if it were clear that the “nice guy” discourse was only about cases where the men blame the women, or resent women, there would not be this pushback. One can have lots of good, solid friendships, with both/all genders, and still want sex to have a place in one’s life. But sometimes this yearning on men’s part is confused with the idea that they do not value women for nonsexual friendship. That is very much not the case.
@Sam,
.
But then again, a fight requires some degree of agency too (otherwise, it’s just a beating or a slaughter). So does a trade. I’m not saying seduction is a bad thing, I’m just not seeing it as inherently feminist, given that, just like fights, or trading, it can be both beneficial and exploitative.
@Clarisse (in response to Motley):
When it’s phrased this way, I have to say that I might be similar to Motley when it comes to this. Not in the sense that I wouldn’t make out with someone without wanting to have sex with them, specifically… but I simply can’t start cold. Doesn’t work. There has to be enough desire before even the first touch occurs or things don’t start at all. Starting cold is about as erotic as cleaning a hair clog out of a drain, and nothing changes that.
On the same lines, I can’t have sex with someone I don’t like, or even consider it. It doesn’t matter how attractive they are, etc. The erotic component has to start before any physical contact, in the earlier interactions, or it just won’t happen.
(Pardon me while I cede the floor to my inner cynic.)
I can’t say that what I’d consider as ethics, in this context, is what others would consider as ethics, because when people talk about ethical behavior, they usually have a certain concept of the good in mind. I’m not sure that mine would match.
But the main reason why I don’t discuss it with mainstream PUAs, or on public PUA blogs or forums, is that I think that those things, in the main, stopped being about pickup (and definitely about seduction, my understanding of which is evidently very different from how other people are defining it here, as I emphasize the artistic qualities of the thing) a long time ago. Now, they’re primarily a sneering pseudo-defense of a selected group of ill-defined concepts. And in that regard, I’d have to differ with what AB wrote about PUAs who don’t care about women using every trick in the book. They don’t; they just use the same 5% (or less)* over and over again, and rehash it and shout about it, which makes it look like every trick in the book, because what they say is what people hear, and what they do is what people see.
And… honestly, that places me in a position of, on the one side, arguing against people who are simply committed to justifying their own ideas — which is always a losing battle — and, on the other, attempting to discuss things with people who usually associate me with that group, because they’re the ones they know of. So I stick with individual conversations. Even engaging with threads such as these is a rare occurrence for me these days.
In the end, I’ve tried discussing things with both groups, and I just got burned out. So at this point… I’m perfectly content to work on things, individually, with those of similar mind.
As for the rest?
I’m equally content to watch while the quasi-PUA scene is razed to the ground.
—
* Based upon the amount of SC material that I’ve read, listened to and seen over the years, I consider 5% to be a generous estimate.
AB,
Well, if my definition is correct, then it is recognition of both agency and consent as prerequisites of sex. Recognizing female agency, particularly in the realm of bodily autonomy, seems to me as inherently feminist.
Btw, your comment #82 does make sense to me, by and large.
@humbition — To clarify, it’s not that I believe men and women can’t be friends. I’m just much more cagey about it, and much less likely to believe that a guy just wants to be friends with me, than I used to be. A lot of my closest friends are/have been male.
I don’t mind sexual tension in my friendships. And a non-negligible percentage of my romantic relationships have been good friends who later seduced me. But the fear is that male friends secretly resent me for not having sex with them, but aren’t telling me and are bitching behind my back or building up resentment that could end in tears. I don’t know. Maybe being nervous and cagey about it has made me better at negotiating these situation (e.g. by bluntly making it clear that I have no intention of sleeping with a given friend), but I think it’s also made me less receptive to guys who probably would have been fine with being friends.
Interestingly, I re-met a guy at a party on Saturday who took my email address. In the past I’d offered to email him some resources and he said no. Recently by email he told me he rejected that offer out of respect for his then-girlfriend. It always surprises me when I come upon behavior like that. Even when I was devoutly monogamous, I would have been pissed if my boyfriend had told me I couldn’t chat by email with other men, and confused if he told me he wasn’t chatting by email with other women at all.
Right Clarisse. I am very worried that both sides of the “nice guy” debate, if you call it that, are together ruining the nascent institution of male-female “just friends.” I always thought one of the benefits of the new post-feminist world was that one could have good friendship relations across the genders. This was something the second-wave feminists back in the day really thought would be good for men to do — that male-female relationships would not always have to have sex as the unspoken elephant.
This causes certain dilemmas but in my life has overwhelmingly been primarily a Good Thing. However it depends on people taking responsibility of a sort — the responsibility that if sex hasn’t been mentioned, it hasn’t been mentioned. The uglier sort of Nice Guy has hurt that by implying the woman should read his mind (or should just have sex because of her induced martyr complex, that is really the worst of all). The most double-bindy sort of feminist anti-Nice Guy does read the guy’s mind (whether correctly or not is actually immaterial), and then blames him for not acting on his feelings, which in my opinion should be treated as his choice whether or not it really is (existentialism helps here). (Of course she has every right to come on to him herself if she wants, but that is a choice regardless of who does it.)
Of course it isn’t always easy to discern intentions or how to act on it. In the days of patriarchy, it was just understood that intentions were sexual unless proven otherwise. This was connected with manhood, i.e., you and that pretty woman are alone together and you did nothing, what kind of man are you? I always repudiated that kind of masculinity myself, but “nice guy” and “anti nice guy” are somehow conspiring to put it back. This of course also feeds into the whole ridiculous jealousy thing as well. The whole dynamic impoverishes everyone but especially men.
[this is the first comment of mine referencing the above post, previous comments have been moved from the last manliness thread, just in case there are unclear references above]
Clarisse,
sure. Although I have to say that I never had the impression that the actual *theory* goes a lot beyond purpose of life declarations like “survive and replicate”, which is actually hard to argue with. Apart from that, I always had the impression that the process works inductively, stuff is tested “in field” and then ad-hoc explanations about why things work are made up based on the assumptions, working knowledge, and prejudices of the respective author (so not much different from actual science, just with less interest in the causal structure, and more interest in the result ;))
I wonder what exampled you specifically have in mind, and what your alternative explanations are.
Again, I have to wonder about “many”, I’d go with “some” or “few” (but then again, you seem to have come across stuff in the course of your research that I haven’t seen). In general, I’d say that there are likely differences in *degree* and perception, as your own (more positive) take on the often citicized “neg” technique.
I wonder if you could give more specifics about what techniques you’re referring to. As I’ve already asked before – you mention the “freeze out” as a technique you find problematic for dealing with “last minute resistance”, but you seem to suggest “takeaways” (if I’m not mistaken) in a reply to my statment about how it will be difficult to find “hot” ways to communicate the value of male sexuality and risk of foregoing pleasure in that situation. Again, maybe I’m not as familiar with the difference between those two concepts, but as I understand it, these are similar. So, what would a “takeaway” look like in the situation you describe?
And really, despite not being really familiar with the situation, I do find it odd to ask guys not only to respect a “no” but to also to be totally relaxed and cool about it (disregarding all possible motives for using the LMR as a way of negotiating here). I mean there’s a difference between accepting a “no” and being ok with it and being relaxed or even being “happy” about it, and I think it’s a reasonable expectation that a guy who’s looking forward to sex with a woman will not be happy about her saying “no” in the last minute. And I believe it would be strange to expect that unhappiness didn’t find a way to communicate itself. To bee too relaxed about it may, I’d say, even indicate a certain lack of emotionality about the situation *and her*.
Clarisse:
This is really interesting, and it sounds like AB would agree with you. And, also, based on AB’s anecdote about her friend it sounds like a lot of guys agree with you as well.
I guess I am just weird. I hate sexual tension in friendships, especially intentionally played-up sexual tension. At least, in friendships that are intended to just be friendships. Because for me that is no longer friendship, but some weird half-way land sexualized friendship. And I guess I just do not deal well with that ambiguity. For me it is an emotional cost that I have to pay for the friendship.
Although perhaps some of this is coming from my experiences with my radfem ex. I got a lot of weird issues from that. And I am still working through a lot of them.
I think a lot of it comes down to me not feeling safe in those sorts of interactions, like I cannot stop the interaction if I do not want it. Hence my reading of AB’s comment as her getting to decide, regardless of whether her friends want the interaction or not. I think that is largely me projecting (angrily) from my experiences with my ex.
She would particularly get pissed off if my consent was contingent on whether it was leading to sex or not. She viewed it as me “obligating” her into sex (e.g. you turned me on, now you have to have sex with me). Which was not the case at all, and even after trying to explain it to her she insisted that I was doing something wrong and unethical. Arg. For me it was simply that at a certain point, and under some circumstances, I did not enjoy it without follow through (e.g. “if this is not going anywhere, then please stop“–very different from “you have to follow through”). Which she either could not, or refused to, understand.
And the ironic thing is that the more I felt like I was not allowed to stop it, the less I enjoyed it. It was like a horrible feed back loop. And by the time I got out of the relationship, I was really messed up and basically could not enjoy being turned on just for its own sake anymore. (Thankfully I am getting over that, with someone that is not an entitled abusive asshole.)
So… yeah, perhaps my anxieties from those experiences have spilled over to my reactions to flirting. There is a sense that I am not allowed to conditionally say “no” (e.g. ‘yes’, if this has a possibility of going somewhere, otherwise, ‘no’) on pain of being called an unethical person who is trying to strategically obligate women into sex.
I have a similar reaction to those people (both men and women) as the faux-no people (both men and women). If that is their world, then let them have it. They can suffer having no male/female friends. But they should leave me out of it.
Is it really fair to call it “playing” on your feelings of obligation if he was not doing it intentionally? “Playing”, to me, insinuates intent. I would rather say accidentally triggered feelings of obligation.
I should make clear that in my above anecdote about my ex, the things I was consenting to (or not) were not just “flirting”, but were often types of physical stimulation executed in bed, such as making out, nipple play, etc.
@Xakudo:
I’d agree that the way that sexual tension has been employed by people that we’ve known can seriously alter our responses to it. One woman that I knew ended up leveraging it quite a bit: she’d play up the tension, then ask me for a favor that she knew I was not inclined to agree to, such as intervening in her relationship problems or (in one particular case) giving her transportation across several states… and then blame my refusal on the fact that the flirting didn’t end in sex.
Because, obviously, that’s the only reason that I wouldn’t have agreed to do it.
Or she would become abusive, and then attribute my attempts to defend myself to my being angry about not getting laid. The same if I refused to flirt with her later on: it couldn’t be because of how she acted. It had to be, obviously, because we’d flirted but hadn’t fucked.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. I still enjoy sexual tension and erotic charge. But as a result of those experiences, and as a result of the reputation that I got for a while after them — and, in certain circles, still have — I won’t do it with a friend as any kind of long-term thing. IME, the longer it goes on, and the more consistent it is, the higher the risk that it’ll be used as a betrayal of trust.
There might be exceptions. But so far, when it’s been healthy, it’s either been intermittent or, over the short course, gradually faded away.
Reading some of this kind of makes me want to crawl under a rock. The older I have gotten, the less flirty I have gotten. In fact, I’ve mostly become hesitant to express any romantic/sexual interest until I know someone a little bit, which obviously hasn’t made dating any easier. And seeing how fraught with confusion and contradictions this conversation, and others I have read like it, are I can see that my reserved response is just one of many to this lack of much agreement on all of this.
If I am with a woman, and she says “no” at any point, I stop. I try and see what’s going on, but I’m not going to push. Game playing like saying no and meaning yes is a complete turn off. And I find comments like AB’s “I can flirt or not flirt as I want, without fearing male disapproval for being sexually unavailable” a bit troubling. Liberation here seems to be linked with being able to as you want, without concern for how others might take it.
If a man mistakes this “play flirting” as real, it’s his damned fault. If a man misses that no means yes, it’s his damned fault for not getting that he’s being asked to be assertive, possibly aggressive.
It’s confusing, and you know, a few of you were surprised by Clarence’s anger, but I’ve felt that as well. He may have misjudged AB, but I think his response is coming from the fact that the whole dating/sex/romance thing is a complete guessing game these days. And if you’re a man who sincerely wants to live a conscious way, embodying feminist ways of being in relationships, it’s even more confusing. I have rejected the old, patriarchal ways of approaching women, but have found that most of the time, the lack of a quick leap into flirting and fast seduction on my part lands me where I am: single. In fact, the female friends I have just happened naturally. There has been some sexual tension in a few of the relationships, but not all. However, I’m finding that when I’m out dating, it’s more like a job interview than a date. If there isn’t instant chemistry (whatever that means), and/or if I don’t show enough interest, and guess right about whatever signals are being offered, it’s over. No friendship. No potential girlfriend. Nothing.
To be honest, I don’t even feel articulate writing about all of this. I find myself weighed down by the baggage of men who act like assholes, and men who are clueless about women – and also by the constantly shifting sands of what is “ok” and what isn’t. The whole consent narrative, for example, which I have supported in the past – I remember commenting just a few months ago on a Feministe post about it – gets screwed up when people play games like no means yes.
And I also, like Sam, feel like male sexual attraction is completely put into question by some statements made in this thread. I mean, if I show sexual attraction – if that happens right away with a woman and I show it before I know her as a person first – it must mean I’m a teenage-regressive pig, right?
What a rambling comment that was. I’m going under that rock now.
@Clarisse
I have a similar problem. I was told that men would inevitably fall for their female friends, and I originally took this to mean that male sexuality was flexible, and if spending enough time with a woman he liked and trusted, a man would often instinctively start to develop feelings for her.
Later, I’ve come to suspect that perhaps it’s more that these men will only be friends with a woman if they’re sexually attracted to her on some level in the first place, since that happened to me a lot. The “potential sexual interest first, nothing second”, that I mentioned. But I mainly hang out with guys in larger groups where everybody sort of goes together, and I’m not sure I’ve ever had a male friend who’ve not been physically attracted to me yet, so I can’t judge. I recently had a conversation with a guy that made me suspect he liked me without being attracted. It made me all giddy inside :)
I’ve always wondered how to reject a guy. One the first times I did it, I explained quite logically that I couldn’t know how I’d feel in the future, but right now, I didn’t have those feelings for him. I was told by a male friend that I was stupid for encouraging the guy. Then I tried just directly telling a guy that I wasn’t interested, period, but when he continued to act like we were dating, I had to drag him outside and tell him that I really meant it and he needed to stop acting familiar and bringing me gifts.
But I also heard a lot about how hard it was for guys to get rejected, and how cruel girls were, so I never found the balance. Sometimes I wondered if, from a scale from 0 to 10 (where 0 was gently showing your lack of interest through body-language, and 10 was screaming that he’s a creepy ass-hole you never want to see again), guys would perceive anything above 4 as being too harsh, and anything below 6 as not being direct enough. I suspect it changes with age, but I still don’t know whether to get flattered or panic when a guy at a bar starts flirting with me.
You’re like a female Hugo Schwyzer, even when you’re talking about your own experiences you still manage to give the impression that you’re on the side of the other sex ;) And you can’t seem to get really mad at them, even when Clarence calls rape-culture a non-existent and insulting meme, your first comment to him after that is still about how you appreciate his effort (albeit in a another context). You’re also communicating in your native language, which I suspect is an advantage.
Most of all though, I think it’s because you’re settled and I’m pushing back. You’ve found your way in life and you’re mostly exploring out of curiosity and idealism. I’m curious too, but I mostly react because I see something which I can’t accept, and I mostly explore because I’m still searching.
You’ve also gotten a great sex life, whereas I’m in the same position as a many of the guys who complain to you, in that I want sex but often can’t have it, albeit for a different reason. I also have to deal with it from three sides, having the actual problem, having people actively work towards creating a culture in which I’m unwelcome and my sexuality marginalised, and simultaneously being told that my feelings don’t have any relevance. And that’ll be reflected in my posts whether I want to or not.
In fact, I’m a lot like many of your male posters, which I think is confusing. And I have this theory that people, Americans in particular, are used to brushing off people who disagree with them in debates about gender as feminists, basically categorising everybody as non-feminist, “not like those other feminists”, and feminazi, and dismissing the latter. I don’t register as non-feminist, and I can’t (or just don’t want to) pull off the “not like those other feminists”, so even people who don’t want to categorise me as feminazi still has no other category to put me in. At least that’s my experience, but it’s probably better suited for the feminism thread.
@Xakudo;
I’ve so been there, but on the other side. Knowing that if you get aroused for its own sake, the guy will inevitably demand sex, and you’re a horrible person for not being able to give it to him. And the more you worry, the harder it will be to feel aroused, and the harder it is to feel aroused the less sexual favours you’ll be able to give to a guy.
Until you can barely feel aroused, after which you start worrying about whether something is wrong with you and if you’re ever going to get your sexual feelings back, and the more you worry about that…… Horrible feed back loop.
Sam-
I think we can agree that there is a difference between disappointment, unhappiness and reacting in an entitled and pushy manner. I don’t want to speak incorrectly for anyone else here, but when I think of a man (or woman) taking rejection well, it’s not that they are completely stoic or pretend that it doesn’t affect them, but rather that they show respect for the decision (no guilt trips, cajoling or coercion) and they don’t just take off like there’s no damn point to speaking with someone if it doesn’t end in sex. I’d add bonus points if the person could maintain an overall positive attitude and not get hell of down on themselves. It’s not about denying understandable unhappiness, it’s about having confidence in your own value enough to not let it wreck your whole night (or make you want to wreck hers.)
I also wanted to come back to this for a moment:
This is a really interesting idea and I think it goes back a lot further than pick up, straight up into personal philosophy. The effectiveness-as-end-goal idea (what Lyotard calls the “Scientific Metanarrative)is certainly useful to an extent, but I personally balk at how frequently it’s relied upon in seduction circles. The main reason I think it’s problematic is that what we’re discussing here — having sex, presumably with our desired number and “quality” of partners — isn’t such a grand goal that it allows individuals of conscience to overlook other important stuff. I mean, I know first-hand how miserable unwanted celibacy can be, but it isn’t so dire a condition that ethical concerns, concerns about how you could hurt others can be tossed aside for merely practical “can this get me what I want” thoughts.
Which leads to the first part of your statement, Sam. I disagree that ethics cannot be satisfied. Perhaps I’m coming at it from a bizarro postmodern utilitarian standpoint, but I certainly do think that there are ways for men and women to interact ethically. Not perfectly ethically but certainly in a way that reduces harm.
If we accept that there are conditions that make clear communication of consent (those 15% who say that no means yes) and there are no direct and immediate ways to fix that, the only thing left is what we do in the face of it. I think we need to look past who is responsible, in terms of blame, for that kind of circumstance and start figuring out who is response-able, as in able to control their own reaction and what the ramifications that might have.
So, if you encounter a woman who you would like to have sex with who puts up LMR, you are now in a responding position. Knowing that there are chances that she is either rejecting you outright, setting boundaries you don’t necessarily know the extent of, or testing you or playing by a busted social script, you are the one in control of how you react. And I would argue, that in the face of all these pretty complex possible meanings and the cultural shit behind them, it would be pretty negligent to just pursue what is most effective in just getting laid.
While I would never blame any individual dude for all the social baggage around such a tough and complicated interaction, once they are aware of those complications, it becomes their responsibility to act ethically. And what I’m hearing from Clarisse and AB, and I agree, is that whatever else might be going on, a no must still be understood as a no, every time, even if it’s the wrong interpretation, even if you don’t get laid. (Because, seriously, who really wants to sleep with someone who expects you to assault them?)
A lot of my rambling in the above comment can be boiled down to broken down confidence. Many women seem to want confident men, but also men who have broken through the old patriarchal, oppressive ways of relating to women. And yet, when I’ve expressed confidence in who I am, have been bold enough to clearly express attraction in respectful ways, it’s taken as being too confident. Or I’m lumped in with every sleezebag who’s looking for a one nighter. When I’m move more slowly, feeling out the situation, I’m dismissed as not interested. In fact, I have been in situations where I have received clear signals of interest from a woman, but wasn’t sure if I wanted to go in that direction, so I didn’t react. Yet, the opportunity to do something later never came because I didn’t do anything right away.
Perhaps this is coming from being a mid-30s male who has had enough experience to create a lot of hesitation and some angst. But I do sometimes feel like where we are right now in sexual revolution – at least in terms of male-female attraction situations – is that women want to be free to do as they please, and men are either acting out shitty old narratives, or spinning around in circles trying to find anything to put a foot on.
And you know, god forbid a man doesn’t have sexual/romantic interest in a woman. I’ve been labeled gay more than once on that account. Which just goes to show how much our collective sexual narratives are really in need of some deep reflection. Because when women who claim to be invested in liberation and equal opportunity for all are relying on homophobic narratives to explain away a lack of attraction, there’s something screwy.
Another thing – in response to AB’s comment about rejection – I’m not sure how old you are, but I think it’s somewhat accurate that younger men don’t handle rejection well either. However, now that I’m a bit older, I’m finding that most women won’t even offer a rejection. They just disappear. You have a nice coffee date or dinner, they say let’s talk again, and then you never hear from them again. No response to your calls or e-mails (and I’m not talking endless attempts on my part). Just gone. The times I have had someone say to me, or write to me and say they aren’t interested have been refreshing. I appreciated the clarity. Instead of sitting around for a week or two wondering (I just had a woman write back after almost three weeks of nothing, and that’s not the first time that’s happened). So, when someone says “I’m not interested,” I welcome it. Maybe it’s not what I wanted to hear, but it’s so much better than guessing. When I know I’m not interested romantically, I do the same. And if I’d be open to being friends, I offer that as well.
To me, those who play games, and defend that, add to the already confusing situation we have.
@humbition
Oh, yes. I’m always puzzled when I read in the comments section of yet another Nice Guy thread comments like “Just just ask her out for dinner already!”
Wait, can I not have dinner or a movie with a friend anymore?
(Oh, well, a Nice Guy discussion in a PUA thread. Might’ve been better placed in the other thread.)
@AB:
And, of course for guys it’s just the same as for women: People are different
Indeed, that surprised me too. Especially since I felt that was pretty close to what almost made the other thread break down in the #200s.
I’m not sure on this… but I’m coming to the conclusion that, when it comes to why things are so confusing, one of the big reasons is because desire isn’t as constant a thing as it might seem to be. But by that I don’t mean that people have different preferences, orientations and tastes. I mean that desire itself might be something that’s structured differently in different people. That, just as biological sex isn’t a strict binary — and it’s worth noting that taking that view inevitably leads to intersex individuals being “fixed,” if not worse — neither is there homogeneity in how we desire.
So what might be playing games to some might be both natural and necessary to others. Similar to what Clarisse wrote in regard to the haters, that this can seem like a game might, at least in some cases, reflect an experience that the observer is simply unable to understand.
I’m not saying that all game playing would, or could, be explained this way. But wouldn’t it be an anomaly, given how much variation there is in every other aspect of the human organism, for variation of similar kind to be absent here?
And what would that mean for an ethic?
AB:
I cannot speak for anyone else, but in my case it is more along the lines of your former interpretation. Although I very much disagree that it is inevitable, as some of my female friends are simply not what I am looking for/attracted to in a potential partner/lover/whatever. But certainly some of my friends I could totally go for, and I have fallen for one or two friends in the past, including one that I did not initially find notably attractive (I say ‘notably’ because most women are attractive to a degree).
Fair enough. That actually sounds consistent with what may have been going on from her side (I can only guess at this point). I may be interpreting the weirdness in our sexual relationship too harshly due to her abusive behavior in other areas of our relationship.
I am curious, though, how your experience was in terms of your partner’s behavior.
In my case, I basically started out just confused as to why she would get me turned on, and then not want to do anything. It was not something I was equipped to understand at the time, I think. “Making out in bed” equaled “time for sex” to me at that point. It is also the case that certain things she did she knew were shortcuts to getting me really horny, because I had told her.
So she would ‘start’ things (in my thinking), and after a few minutes I would try to escalate, but she would stop me. And it confused me, and (especially due to other things going on in the relationship) felt like she was purposefully trying to frustrate me, or at the very least did not care that she was frustrating me.
So I started trying to make it clear that I did not like being turned on unless it was going to lead to sex (which was not entirely true, but it was close enough in context). And she did not take well to that.
From my perspective, she was being really entitled (e.g. “I can turn you on whenever I want, even if you do not like it!”). And, honestly, to a degree I still think that is true. She can turn herself on whenever she likes, but to do so with me in the process requires my consent, and my consent required knowledge about her intent.
And I was not being vindictive about it. I was not trying to rob her of her sexual needs. I simply genuinely disliked it when she did it, and I felt like she was completely disrespecting and disregarding that (which made me dislike it even more). As if the fact that she did enjoy it somehow trumped my dislike of it, and that she therefore did not need my permission.
I think there was also a degree to which I felt shamed for the way my sexuality worked. As if the fact that I did not enjoy it meant that I was some primitive neanderthal pig (toxic male sexuality strikes again!), instead of it just being that our sexuality worked differently, but both were valid, and this was thus something to be negotiated and worked out. So I felt defensive in that regard, too.
Whoops, messed up a blockquote tag there. Starting with “I’ve so been there” and ending with “Horrible feed back loop.”
Should have checked the preview…
Actually, to be honest, I still do not understand how someone can be turned on in a situation where sex is appropriate, and specifically be opposed to sex.
To me, a large part of being turned on is experiencing a desire for sex. Similar to how a large part of being hungry is experiencing a desire for food. In both cases that is not all they are (there are a variety of physical/mental sensations), but it is an identifying characteristic.
But having said that, there are plenty of circumstances where I can imagine rejecting sex despite being turned on. But being in bed with a person with whom I regularly have sex is not one of them (save, perhaps, if I need to get up early the next morning and thus need to sleep, or if I am really angry with them, or something like that).
And I do enjoy (now, after recovering somewhat from my previous experiences) playing with arousal etc. without it necessarily leading to sex. But I just cannot imagine being opposed to sex.
I am genuinely curious how this works for other people.
This is certainly possible, and even if it weren’t a hardwired difference in desire, wanting to play games with consent and language and whatnot is not necessarily a problem. Insofar as it doesn’t fuck with any body else, which is where the problem comes in. The folks who believe no is yes are doing an active disservice by making both individuals they meet and the culture at large think that they are numerous and normal, and that causes problems for people who emphatically mean their no and want and need strong verbal boundaries to be respected.
An analogy (apologies to Clarisse if it is off the mark or offensive): It is totally fine for a person to be a sexual sadist, to seek partners to engage in that kink with. But I doubt that anyone would argue that doing so with a partner who is completely unaware (and therefore unconsenting) would be ok. You can’t treat everyone in the world like a masochist just because it is your personal preference that they be into that. That is essentially what I see with the people who play head games: it may be their thing, and I’m not telling them how to get off, but to play games with consent without previous communication and agreement is causing real harm, and is pretty clearly unethical.
(Also, can someone help with the proper tags for line breaks? I’m trying everything I know, including “br /” html (carrots omitted), and I’m still formatting like an asshole. :/ )
Double returns work for line breaks (ie, you don’t need to signify them with HTML). I fixed some earlier comments.
Thanks, Clarisse.
Hiya,
Well, the PUA stuff I've checked out reads like badly written Sales Manuals.
One thing in Sales that is not mentioned in the PUA stuff I've seen is "qualifying a prospect." That means asking questions and listening to the replies. It is said that the best sales people are great listeners.
I've also read some of the lay reports on PUA websites and it seems like they are going for bragging rights more than anything else.
I originally read the article on the Gunwitch shooting on Femniste, it just seemed most of the commentators there wanted to shut down other viewpoints by accusing someone of "mansplaining."
Rock On!
Stoner With a Boner
My head is spinning after all that. I normally don’t even bother to read threads with more than 50 comments (unless I already started reading it and want to catch up with the latest). But it’s also spinning because the philosophy behind PUA feels so alien to me.
Here’s where I’m at:
Rejection screws me up pretty badly, so out of self-respect I’m not going to chase someone who has said they’re not interested. Maybe it’s a test, and maybe it’s not, but really? I can’t be bothered trying to find out. I’m worth more than that. And the sort of woman who is going to play games with me and test me – we are NOT going to be compatible anyway, so I’m better off if she thinks I’m not worth it, too.
The “compliance tests” stuff seemed weird to me. Why wouldn’t I be helpful, unless it’s actually going to put me out in some unacceptable way? It shows nothing about my manliness or dominance!
The other thought I’ve had as I was reading through the OP and comments, is that I’m curious what people (especially those who know PUA stuff) make of this episode.
AnneBonney,
thanks for your reply. There’s actually nothing in your reply that I disagree with, but here are some qualifiers.
I agree. But as I noted in the first of the manliness followup threads and here (http://www.realadultsex.com/content/shorter-no-sex-class-paradigm#comment-17675) and above, believing in one’s own sexual value (compared to that of the respective woman) goes pretty much against everything ever learnt by most men. We can be valuable as individuals, but the socially attributed and individually perceived value of our sexuality is lower than that of most women (and very likely the woman in position to say “no” at that point). Say what you want but there’s a reason having sex is considered an achievement for men but as “giving it up” for women. Sure that’s fucked up and as I have repeatedly said, reducing that imbalance would probably the most effective feminist strategy ever deployed, but it’s still true. Sure, as I’ve said above, she’s playing games with her pleasure, too, if she’s playing a token “no” game. But her expected utility (since you’re a utilitarian) from a purely sexual encounter is likely not equivalent to his.
I agree. But at the same time, on a purely personal level, this moral meta-logical duty discourse, like Clarisse’s statement above about it not being too much of a burden on guys, with its seeming disregard on effectiveness really reminds me of the kind of my mother’s “don’t ever push a girl” feminist shaming that is, not only, but to a non-trivial degree, responsible for delaying my psycho-sexual development to the extent where I am now some sort of chimera, a guy whose best female friend tells him that he’s unfair for talking women wet and letting them stand ther, but who’s also been involuntary celibate for more than a decade, who’s still close to unable to initiate a kiss for fear of reading her wrong. Even disregarding the general moral duty – ignoring effectiveness as a category can be, I’d say, a moral failure in its own right (something I should probably tell my mother, rather than you, but as a general reminder, it fits here, too).
Totally agree. That’s what we’re here to discuss, at least I am. And as for bizarro points of view, I just mentioned my bizarro perspective…
Again yes. But also again – denying effectiveness it’s right in that debate will is, in my opinion, a moral failure and is creating harm in its own right.
True again. Same qualifiers.
AnneBonney (AB?):
Quoted for agreement.
I tentatively suggest that games are great as long as:
1. Everyone involved knows it is a game.
2. Everyone involved has the tools and resources necessary to opt out of the game if they do not like it.
In practice this will sometimes imply explicit negotiation prior to game playing. Especially for things that are otherwise questionable consent-wise (like faux-no). But I do not think that necessarily has to be the case with every kind of game.
However, this is all very abstract, idealistic, and future-looking. And unfortunately it does not propose or provide any solutions/strategies for real people who want to participate in the dating/sex/whatever scene right now.
And I think that is what Sam was trying to get at. There is “Consent Utopia(tm)” where everything would be great, and then there is the world we live in right now which is far from that. And the advice for people who want to be dating and having sex right now (while maximizing consent) is going to be different than the advice for people who are happy to wait until Consent Utopia(tm) comes about (even if it never does).
@AB –
This might be a language barrier thing. But my observation, both of my own friendships and my observed friendships, is that sexual interest and personal appeal have some links.
For my own experience – I have very good friends who I wasn’t at all attracted too when we first met. The evolution of the friendship has lead to me considering the fact that hey, they’re really fun to hang out with, maybe they’d be really fun in bed as well.
I would say that falling for/developing feelings for is probably inaccurate or misleading in terms of the masculine experience of developing physical interest in a friend. Those phrases come with implications and context about deeper emotional experience. I think it’s much more common for the increased interest to be a very shallow, very physical thing.
To go for a cruder analogy. Some of my friends use a ‘hotness scale’ that ranges from Bush Pig to Undeniably Hot. It’s obnoxious and juvenile and all kinds of politically incorrect – but the system of rules for the scale is the part that relates to the conversation – which is to say that at first blush, it’s a purely physical rating system. But there are adjustment criteria for awesomeness, sexual adventurousness and miscellaneous other non physical criteria.
This is male sexuality at I think it’s most unfiltered and tacky. It’s a completely juvenille system for ‘scoring’ the desirability of ones conquests and contrasting them to the conquests of your friends. It’s the kind of thing that guys mostly don’t talk about around girls, or the presence of any adult who’s respect they value. But it’s still got a model built in to allow for the fact that a good friend is more desirable.
I would describe that as characteristic of the nice guy ™ syndrome. A douchebag using false friendship as a stalking horse for sexual agenda. I’m cynical – but I seriously doubt the sincerity/strength/genuine nature of any friendship that’s predicated on sexual attraction. But I certainly think there is increased attraction towards a genuine friend for many guys.
AB and AnneBonney are different commenters, for the record. Previous comments from AnneBonney are available on the Feministe Gunwitch thread.
David DeAngelo is awful. Pretty standard-issue exploitive, manipulative, sexist “PUA”. I’m horrified that reputable dating sites take ads from and steer men towards people like him.
I used to be very shy, and I have Asperger’s Syndrome, and I spent a good chunk of my life going out on a limb working for feminist causes like prevention and treatment of rape and domestic violence. Yet at 34, I’ve never had a girlfriend, and no one including 14 therapists or the leaders of Seattle’s sex-positive community can figure out why. It’s brought me to the brink of suicide many, many times. For a couple years I blogged about it recounting what I tried, being willing to try virtually anything anyone suggested, and having nothing ever succeed. Next month marks 6 years since I had sex–I’ve had it 5 times in my life, first at 27. On OKCupid, many women openly acknowledge that if a guy didn’t have sex before 25, or has never had a relationship, he’s automatically disqualified from them. One woman assumes all the others avoided you for a reason, and it just snowballs. I know men in their 50s who’ve never had sex or romantic relationships. Who’d want to live like that? In straight men, feminism seems to be mutually exclusive with relationships and sex. I’ve been left deeply disillusioned with feminism for years. The personal used to be political; now when I bring up mens’ concerns I’m mocked and marginalized. Where do you think men are going to go if feminism ignores their issues? How can you achieve equality between two groups of people if you shut one of them out? If women reward –> encourage men for being sexist/to be sexist, especially insisting equality is somehow unromantic and re-romanticizing chivalry, what hope do we have of ever reaching equality? I know the pickup/seduction stuff works, I just can’t bring myself to be enough of an asshole to use it. I try to date on and off, but I honestly hold no hope of experiencing love or sex in my life. So much for all the feminist work.
@AnneBonney:
Interesting thing is: based upon the people I’ve known who prefer that kind of interaction (something discovered by conversation, I should emphasize), they usually believe this as well. But two problems tend to crop up. One is that recognizing this doesn’t change the way in which desire seems to work for them, and the mismatch between the two eventually results in self-hatred; the second is that they seem to find overt and clear negotiation of consent to be more difficult than ambiguous negotiation, at least based upon the the partners that they choose as a result of it (based upon their disclosures). What seems to be the case is that, yes, they’re able to clearly say yes and no — but this comes at the cost of being less able to evaluate the character of their partner (respecting clear statements of consent, of course, doesn’t necessarily bring other positive characteristics in its train), and they’ve regularly stated that the partners that they’ve gotten involved with in that way have been universally worse than those with whom they got involved through ambiguous negotiation. (Disclosing the fact that it was a game before engaging in it was similar thing: by making it overt, it became more difficult to do.)
Several eventually decided that this meant that they simply couldn’t engage in sex without harming themselves or other people, and concluded that either they shouldn’t have sex at all — because of who they were — or that making sure that they were the ones suffering was an acceptable price to pay. More penance than price, really: paying in pain for being as they are.
I’m not sure what this means for resolving the problem. But I am sure that it’s worth pointing out that the clear-cut solutions aren’t clear-cut. They come at a cost.
@Jon:
I agree: DeAngelo, as far as I’m concerned, did more than anyone else — including Mystery — to make the PUA scene into what it is today. He’s the one primarily responsible for promoting the idea that seduction could be distilled down to sound-bite concepts and proven by skims of pop-sci books.
He might not have been responsible for promoting some of the concepts themselves, especially in their current forms. But he definitely and fundamentally changed the way in which they were presented and understood. And he also provided a far from critical framework for the presentation of other people’s ideas through his interview series and seminar formats, lending credibility to them by association.
There are certainly authors whose work is, in direct effect, much more destructive. But DeAngelo’s effects were lasting and affected more than his own material. He altered the course of the SC as a whole.
Jon,
I can imagine your pain. I feel for you.
@Xakudo:
For me, that analogy is entirely appropriate. It’s just more nuanced.
If I’m hungry, I’m experiencing a desire for food. But that desire is usually a specific craving, maybe for a particular kind of food, or for food that’s been cooked in a particular way (or not at all), or for food with a particular kind of texture, or a particular combination of flavors, or a certain aroma, or even a certain look. With a particular hunger, other foods won’t satisfy, and can even bring on discomfort or nausea in the attempt.
Arousal, eroticism, sexual contact — those are no different.
And that applies to specific acts, as well: even when the desire is for PIV, for example, it can be for a specific variety of PIV. Different speeds, different rhythms, different positions, all of which affect sensation in a way that’s much the same as how aroma, taste, texture and the rest vary with different foods and methods of cooking.
It’s a matter of what, with that hunger, will satisfy the cravings of the palate.
Sam-
I think this might be where our minor disagreements on this subject arise, and I think it also ties into what Xakudo is describing as a “Consent Utopia”. I’m not saying that this is not the current state of affairs: yes, there is slut shaming and yes, there is a higher relative social value for sex for men. But you state that negating these facts are an integral part of feminist practice, and I agree. So my question then becomes when does stating the current situation also become complacency? And what can we actually do to make that reduction?
To me, it’s clear that the first (and I’d argue most important step) is on the personal level. You and I both see the devaluing of male sexuality and the incorrect valuing of female sexuality as unjust, but other than recognizing and acting against those ideas in our own personal lives how are we going to do anything about it? For men, I think this is going back to the confidence in the face of rejection: even though on a cultural level they are supposed to measure themselves by women’s responses to their sexual advances, the ones who don’t actually have better responses from women.
I know it goes against how you’ve been socialized, and I know that is difficult, but approaching dating and sex and gender relations conscientiously and fairly in a patriarchal system is going to be pretty fucking terrible sometimes. While I sympathize and want to help men make it less difficult, I don’t see the fact that navigating these things is less easy then just blindly following you socialization as a good enough reason not to do it. Not least because of the fact that most women aren’t offered that alternative. Which, Infra:
I wasn’t implying that the obviously ethical thing to do wasn’t costly or difficult. Often it is, and often we as individuals and as societies value things just because they’re hard.
But, frankly, the when the cost of not having as much sex as you’d like (and I know for some that may be zero sex, but I would submit that there are other factors going on there than just confusion about consent) weighed against possibly coercing someone else into sex, I don’t see how people would not see that as a reasonable cost. While efficacy of pick up methods should be reasonably considered, I don’t know how they could be given the same weight when we’re talking about how awful the other side of the equation can get.
It’s that willingness to elevate their own desires above the wellbeing of others that gives PUAs their bad press, and a lot of times they deserve it. Sex is a collaborative thing, two (or more) people’s complex wants, needs and “can’ts” are in play. Using an effective tactic that reduces your partner’s ability to engage honestly or freely denies that, and that’s what I have a problem with. I’ll be blunt: if getting laid is more important than hurting someone else to a particular person, that person should not seeking sex.
That said, Sam, your personal bent on this is something that I’ve heard from a lot of guys especially in seduction circles. I accept that in their desire to mitigate some of the bullshit that happened to them, the women who’ve raised us gave a lot of hard and fast rules that seem less than practicable. But the converse of that is (and here I’m talking about other dudes I’ve talked to in depth, not you personally) the fear to escalate physically is never only because of a rigid adherence to boundaries. There’s a lot of failure or inability to learn social signals (or sometimes a lack of desire to), there’s a lot of fear of rejection, there’s a lot of homosocial stigma. All together, yeah, that’s a pretty difficult headspace to try and ask some one out from, or move in for a kiss, or whatever the case may be.
But it’s not all the same problem, and it’s not all a feminist-sourced problem. And I think that there is a lot of practical advice that is given (and could be done a lot better, I think) to overcome those things, without compromising a commitment to valuing consent and acting in an ethical way. I can think of some right now, but don’t want to presume this is the place for that sort of thing. (This is a fairly theoretical, meta conversation. Also, it’s kind of late and I’ll revisit some other stuff in the morning.)
@AnneBonney:
I should clarify something: I’m not approaching this subject from the perspective of a PUA. I’m approaching it from the perspective of someone who’s watched close friends tear themselves apart over this issue.
It isn’t about getting laid. It’s about making sure that I don’t have to bury the people I care for before their time.
Moderation notes:
1) Please don’t gratuitously attack feminism or claim that feminism is the whole cause of anything. There’s no way to prove the latter argument, and the former will just cause discord. If this degenerates into a debate about the supposed evils of feminism, everyone loses. It’s a red herring.
2) I like Clarence and I think he usually debates in good faith. He also usually makes an effort to be more positive than he has in these comments.
3) Due to some recent trolling, comments are on a stronger moderation setting than before. Sorry, no help for it.
4) If anyone is curious about the actual intent behind the word “mansplaining”, here’s a good article about it. But again, please, let’s not get into feminist words or feminist tactics or the so-called evils of feminism.
Clarisse said:
I think there is some overlap between shit tests, and “negs,” but mostly I think they are different phenomena. Even if they might superficially look the same, they serve a different function when done by men or women, in highly gendered interaction. More on that later.
I think a lot of Mystery and TylerDurden stuff looks weird because it comes from the LA club scene. In a highly materialistic scene, a man’s job is a way of qualifying him and ranking him. Nothing wrong with that, except that some people’s ranking system may be rather superficial. By answering that question in such a scene, a guy is simply giving her the key to ranking him based on his job without even knowing him. There is some objectification going on: as if a man asks a new female acquaintance “what is your cup size?”
Of course, in other social contexts where women are less materialistic, “what do you do for a living?” could be a perfectly benign getting-to-know-you question, without an objectifying component.
Yes… and plenty of PUAs know this! You and AB seem to be under the impression that PUAs use “shit tests” solely as a term of condemnation. But that’s not true at all (except perhaps for certain sorts of PUAs, like Roissy’s readers). PUA language has tripped you up again.
Years ago, I’ve seen PUAs considering certain types of shit tests to be IOIs (“Indicators of Interest”). Plenty of PUAs know that some “shit tests” are a form of flirting. That’s because “shit test” isn’t always a bad word. In his book, Mystery even drops the “shit” prefix.
AB said:
First, as I explain above, PUAs in general don’t regard tests as “mean and dishonest.” Yet I do think you are pointing out a real double-standard in how status/dominance behavior is perceived from men or from women.
Remember, in PUA world, women sexually prefer men who take charge. A man taking charge is giving a woman what she is believed to want from a sexual partner. A woman taking charge is then more of a challenge, because then the guy must take charge back, or fail to be considered as a potential partner. I think there is some truth in these dynamics in mainstream culture.
AB,
It sounds like I’ve missed a bunch of memos about what pickup is really about.
Perspective of “a PUA”? Which one?
What qualifies you to judge the purpose of the seduction community?
And many guys also say that they are looking for relationships. Or improving their social skills. Your picture of PUA motivations is skewed.
Because people only act out of one motivation at a time, or something? Wait, what?
While I agree that some of the practices of PUAs have a negative effect on women, other practices have a positive effect on women. What’s the net effect of the practices? We don’t know.
Who says this? Can we get some primary sources here?
It looks to me like you have come to a particular opinion of pickup based on what you’ve been exposed to, and you can only explain what you’ve seen by the hypothesis that PUAs “don’t give a shit about the welfare of women.” I question that conclusion, because over the years I’ve seen so many PUAs express caring about the welfare of women. Heck, we have Ross Jeffries, the god-father of the community, giving the maxim “leave her better than you found her.”
PUAs are people, too. Not caring about the welfare of others at all is hard on human hardware.
I suspect that for the most part, PUAs do care about the welfare of women. They just believe that the welfare of women is sufficiently aligned with their interests.
Even if you want to be completely cynical, ask yourself this: is it psychologically easier to practice pickup believing that you are harming women, or to practice pickup believing that you are offering something great to women? I suspect that most PUAs would prefer to believe that they are God’s gift to women, rather than that they are harming them. Even if it wasn’t true that pickup probably has a positive or neutral impact on women overall (my personal belief), and pickup was mostly harmful and zero-sum… we would probably see PUAs deceive themselves into thinking that it was good for women!
What is most disturbing about pickup is not that guys who genuinely don’t give a shit about other people find refuge there (because those guys were probably like that already)… but that guys who genuinely do care about women get saddled with biased and inaccurate ideas about what the welfare of women probably is.
If you want to argue that PUAs’ views of ethics are skewed, wrong, biased, or whatever, then that’s totally fair. Arguing that PUAs in general don’t care about the welfare of women is biased and hasty.
Clarisse said:
I think that most PUAs do care about ethics. The reason I think that is because I believe that most people care about ethics, and I don’t see any reason that this behavior suddenly changes when men become PUAs. It’s hard for human beings not to care about ethics.
Caring about ethics, and holding a particular form of ethics, are two different things. If you mean “PUAs don’t hold an explicit form of feminist sexual ethics,” then I would agree. But by that standard, most of the male and female population doesn’t care about ethics, either.
Saying that PUAs “don’t care” about ethics reminds of MRAs saying that feminists “don’t care about men.” What that claim really means is that “feminists don’t care in the ways we think they should care,” which is different from “feminists don’t care.”
If you want to say that many PUAs have ethical errors and confusions, I would agree. But that’s a different argument. Having ethics, and having the right ethics, are not the same thing.
There are some cases where ethical questions fail to come up for PUAs, which should. But that’s not necessarily because the PUAs “don’t care.” There is also a lot of hype in the community about how beneficial pickup is to women, and how women require particular behaviors. Consequently, certain moral questions might never be raised if certain behaviors are never considered potentially harmful in the first place… even when a PUA does care about women.
I agree that PUAs rarely talk explicitly about ethics (e.g. using terms like “ethics” and “morality”), which is different from not talking about ethics at all, and from not caring about ethics.
Also, how much “most PUAs” care about ethics depends on how we define “most PUAs.” Does “PUA” refer to self-identified PUAs? If so, then maybe it’s true. I don’t identify as a PUA, so then my interest in ethics won’t be counted. Many men with pickup background don’t identify as PUAs (e.g. Mystery, who identifies as a “Venusian Artist”). In fact, many of the most emotionally healthy guys with pickup background tend to not identify as PUAs: they get in relationships, and drop out of the community.
If we use a broader definition of “PUA” that includes any man who has had a brush with pickup and gotten something from it, then we end up including guys like your father, who do care about ethics.
On Nice Guys ™: I don’t think Nice Guys ™ are off-topic for this thread, especially given examples like pickup adherent George Sodini, who insisted he was a nice guy before writing a manifesto ranting about how women were ignoring him and then shooting three women. But in case anyone’s missing context, here’s a good summary of Nice Guy theory. Yes, there are difficulties with it, but this is where a lot of the feminist discourse starts from:
http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/niceguys/coin.shtml
On feminism and sex: Again, I really don’t want this thread to rehash old arguments about feminism or to become a feminism-attacking thread. For one thing, it will drive me personally up the wall. But I really have to object to the idea that feminist guys can’t get sex.
On Snowdrop’s example: Snowdrop, thanks for reminding me about the comparative sanity that is the BDSM world. I think a lot of my interest in pickup comes from the fact that I enjoy flirtatious games and I like having frameworks to think about them, but at some point it’s important to have an actual conversation where people are honest about sex, and that’s the part that BDSM covers and pickup ignores.
HR, can you give an example of PUAs discussing ethics without using words like “ethics” and “morality”?
One more before I go to bed:
@Nathan — However, now that I’m a bit older, I’m finding that most women won’t even offer a rejection. They just disappear. You have a nice coffee date or dinner, they say let’s talk again, and then you never hear from them again. No response to your calls or e-mails (and I’m not talking endless attempts on my part). Just gone. The times I have had someone say to me, or write to me and say they aren’t interested have been refreshing. I appreciated the clarity. Instead of sitting around for a week or two wondering (I just had a woman write back after almost three weeks of nothing, and that’s not the first time that’s happened)
I know this is tough, and I sympathize. As a writer, I would absolutely love it if editors would respond to my emails more, but they usually don’t. Most of the time, when I sent article pitches, I get no response. I don’t even know if they received it. If I manage to get experience with an editor, then I can learn how long a silence from that editor means “no”; otherwise, I’m guessing. For example, I pitched one site something like 5 times before they published me, and the editor didn’t respond at all to any of the initial pitches, but when she received the one that interested her, she responded within hours. That was how I learned that if I don’t get a response from her within a day, she’s not answering. Some editors are better about this than others, and I respect the ones who answer all my emails a hell of a lot more than the ones who don’t. But the ones who don’t probably save a lot of effort and mental energy by not composing responses.
As a woman who has to reject people romantically, it can take a lot of mental energy. It’s actually difficult to tell someone no directly. It takes investment of time and effort, and a lot of the time, what you get for your trouble is that the guy will just take your kind rejection as a signal to keep emailing. I’m not saying you do this. I’m saying that it happens often enough that literally the most effective strategy for making sure a guy will leave me alone is to ignore him. It’s really frustrating to put effort and emotion into a compassionate rejection, only to have the guy email me back insisting that we really ought to get together, etc, etc.
As someone who spent two years overseeing applications to a housing cooperative, I was responsible for telling people they had been rejected. That was at least as exhausting and hard as the above.
Bottom line: rejecting people is not fun, either, and you can’t rely on them to respect your boundaries. The most effective strategy for rejecting someone, if your goal is to be left alone, is actually to be silent.
Oh, also, rejecting guys by ignoring them is 1000x more effective on the street, too. By email it’s actually way easier to compose a nice rejection and have him listen. Out on the street, in a club, etc? It’s almost impossible to get rid of some guys without being incredibly cold and harsh. Believe me, I’ve tried rejecting guys with warmth and a smile. Sometimes it works, but a fair proportion of the time, they take it as a signal to persist and even escalate.
Possibly by chance, I had an anonymous commenter reply this morning to a post from last December, and re-reading that post I realised that a lot of it is relevant to this discussion. In essence, in it (and the comments) I talked about some PUA-style advice that I had developed on my own (and that I saw reflected in amongst the other advice given @ links in the OP). (That I struggle to put my own advice into practice is beside the point!)
Clarisse @ #126:
This outline actually made me LOL. The reason being that it is exactly the same as He’s Just Not That Into You‘s explanations for why men behave in the ways they claim mean “he’s not that into you”.
Rejecting someone is tough, therefore (men) go out of their way to avoid doing it directly (and one of the key ways of doing that is, he doesn’t call you).
I think that HJNTIY functions from a similar set of principles as PUA advice often does (and actually seems to advise women to reject men who don’t follow those kinds of script!) In fact, in Chapter 1 the “This is what it should look like” (discussed at the end of my post) seems to demonstrate the “shit test”-type stuff in action (it also shows one way in which PUA game playing can have consequences for non-players). As I noted there, and in my earlier comment in his thread, that type of testing is a complete turn-off for me.
@AnneBonney:
I think what’s going on is often a sort of negative/positive feedback loop. People who’re able to take things in strides and be optimistic about it are much more likely to be met with approval from their surroundings. But people are often only able to take things in strides after getting a sufficient amount of approval.
So those who have ‘it’ – confidence, optimism, emotional fortitude – often get further encouraged by the positive reactions of their surroundings. And those who don’t have ‘it’, but are always desperately looking to save their last shred of self-esteem, end up acting in a way which is off-putting or sets them up for abuse, which just makes it even harder for them to develop confidence, optimism, and emotional fortitude.
I’m reminded of a Danish photographer named Jacob Holdt, the writer of a rather famous book called American Pictures, who set out to enter the KKK (he’s also a member of both Amnesty International, Critical Muslims, and the KGB) and explore why they act as they do. He wrote a passage about hate which I think is relevant here. I believe there is an English version somewhere, but I’ve only been able to find the Danish one, so this is my translation (and highlights). Sorry in advance for the mistakes.
“Later on, I began lecturing tours in the USA, and often picked up hitch-hiking klan members. On these infinitely long drives, I got a good opportunity to experience the human behind the façade of hatred. For the façade was, as always, an incredibly closed and dispirited face, of the type which immediately repels other people with its hostile expression. But since I had already experienced the same patterns in the most damaged blacks, and, for instance, female rape-victims a long time ago, I intuitively knew that the people we discriminate against are those who have already been discriminated and damaged before.
It is easy to love women who exude trust and an extroverted love because they have always met the same. But I am almost always blown away by the hostility and closedness I experience in many rape victims in the USA, who we then further discriminate against as overweight when they try to eat themselves out of the pain. I regards to racism, I had learned a long time ago that what we discriminate against is not skin-colour, but pain – as it manifests itself in a despaired cocktail of anger and hostility patterns in the outcast.”
OK, it was a little off topic, but the pattern is the same. Confidence and the ability to handle rejection well are not created in a vacuum. People who have positive experiences are more likely to become confident, confident people are much more likely to have the kind of positive experiences that will make them optimistic, and the people who despair every time they hear a no are much more likely to get a no from their surroundings.
I fully agree with this. I also found he link you posted earlier hilarious and sad at the same time. The comedian’s response is perfectly sane: The woman wants him to risk committing rape in order to satisfy some needs that she is not able/willing to state, and he is, naturally, uninterested in that. But despite being perfectly sane, it is also perfectly unusual, as far as the pop-cultural portrayal of men goes, which is the sad part.
And it goes back to the Nice Guy double standard, that women’s attraction to men whose behaviour is non-constructive and ethically questionable is cause for blame, but men’s (including Nice Guy’s) attraction to the female counterparts is completely understandable, and is even used as further reason to blame women (e.g. they’re the ones acting unreasonable, they’re the ones who made the rules, they’re the ones sending mixed signals, men are just adapting to their behaviour etc.).
I think we need a debate that isn’t just about how men can get the women they want, but also explores which kind of women men actually want. There are plenty of men telling about bad relationships and/or feeling exploited by women, but there is a remarkable lack of discussion about why these women are so appealing in the first place, and what men would benefit from looking for in a partner.
Clarisse,
As a writer, I’ve also been through hundreds of rounds of silent rejection. It rarely hits me that much any more, but that probably is because I’ve been on the other side of the table as a editor doing the rejecting.
You know, I have had other women tell me the same thing about silence/ignoring as the best response. In person, especially with a stranger whose hitting on you – that makes sense. I have done the same myself in bars and clubs. Even though I, personally, would rather have some honesty in person, I understand the challenges that can come with an in person rejection, and so I wouldn’t expect one from a woman.
However, if you actually set up a formal date, go out, tell the person you’d like to see them again, and then disappear – that’s childish in my view. Sending a two line e-mail saying you’re not interested, thank you for the date shouldn’t be too much to ask for. Having someone e-mail you repeatedly in response can be dealt with by deleting unread. That’s where I support ignoring. It seems to me that your choosing to invest time/energy into those subsequent e-mails, and then using the draining effect of that to defend offering nothing to all men who you reject. If someone was intent on causing you trouble, a two line rejection e-mail isn’t going to make any difference in the long run. However, for those guys who wouldn’t cause you trouble, that e-mail is just being respectful.
Again, I think context is important. Some random dude in a bar who you give your e-mail address to after a few drinks is different from a man who you formally go on a date with to explore if there is something there romantically/sexually.
I don’t think a single, brief e-mail, followed by silence if he persists, is too much to ask for the guy you went on a date with.
On a different note, while I disagreed with Jon’s blaming feminism for his lack of relationships, I felt he made some important points, especially this one:
“If women reward –> encourage men for being sexist/to be sexist, especially insisting equality is somehow unromantic and re-romanticizing chivalry, what hope do we have of ever reaching equality?”
I have run into this myself. And I can imagine some of these seduction advocates are coming from a similar place, seeing how more aggressive flirting or deliberate play on a woman’s sexual energy has “worked,” whereas being more respectful of boundaries, waiting for signals, etc. hasn’t gotten them anywhere. Some women seem to want it all – a man with feminist sensibilities who can also take charge all the time, treat her like a “lady” in the old school manner, be the breadwinner, always be confident and strong, and yet somehow also be sensitive. Perhaps a few of those guys exist, but most of us will fall far short of that.
Oh, and I’d like to address AB’s men blaming women comments above. I don’t know about the other guys here, but I’m not writing what I am to blame women – I’m writing what I have experienced.
The points I made to Clarisse about e-mail rejections – men need to hear that too because we are just as likely to ignore or game play about rejection. And I know for myself, it took awhile to learn to pay closer attention to what’s happening, to see some of the more subtle cues like how a woman is holding her body while with you, or what she’s saying and not saying. Overall, I think men fail to pay enough attention and see things that might help them understand situations better.
As I said above, I think most men are either acting out old, sexist scripts (with mixed results) or spinning around in circles (with poor results mostly). We could probably do with having more deliberate conversations between ourselves about all of this, but that isn’t happening enough. However, it would be nice if men bringing up some of their struggles and confusions in feminist circles wasn’t so routinely dismissed as with labels like mansplaining, “what about the menz,” “trolling,” etc. Because in the end, there’s as much confusion as clarity and the more conversation and considering together, the better.
I remember reading an essay by bell hooks talking about a man she dated who was an outgoing black male feminist, and who found himself routinely skipped over by women who chose the more stereotypical macho, sexist dudes. And one of bell’s responses to this was to interrogate her own desires, and notice how sometimes she, too, had conflicting wants from a man. Now, bell hooks is quite piercing and direct in her views about sexism, racism, classism, and other isms. But reading this essay, and seeing her willingness to expose those personal contradictions, and also argue that it might be harder for men who actually try to embody feminist principles because of the very fact that we all have grown up in patriarchal societies. She deliberately pointed out that just like the many men who have conflicting loyalties – displaying sexist behavior/views – that many women also have conflicting loyalties – especially in the realm of personal relationships because they haven’t really examined deeply the makeup and origin of their desires.
I cannot tell you how many times I heard or read the lines “I want to be swept off my feet,” “I want a man who is confident and in control,” and “I believe chivalry isn’t dead” coming from women who otherwise come from feminist frameworks.
Far from blaming feminism, I’d argue within the various feminisms, there are the tools applied to broader social issues that could also be applied to interpersonal dynamics. But both men and women seem more willing to defend their positions, and deny the confusion and frustration of those on the “other side,” than actually take a deep look at their personal narratives and recognize that growing up in an oppressive society impacts and harms everyone.
Nathan, I’m not defending anything, I’m explaining how rejection is hard in all contexts and people usually avoid it as much as possible. As Snowdrop noted in #129, men are also encouraged to reject with silence.
I read an interesting paper lately on patterns of rejection (Kitzinger 1999) that made the case that rejection, in almost all situations (not just sexual), is usually tacit or talked around:
In sum, then, careful attention to the details of naturally occurring conversation shows that it is conversationally most unusual to ‘just say no’. Rejections and refusals are commonly delayed and indirect and follow a typical pattern which generally includes delay in responding, some kind of prefacing of the refusal (with words like, ‘well’, or ‘ahhh . . .’), a palliative remark, and some kind of account aimed at softening, explaining, justifying, excusing, or redefining the rejection.
The study was in the context of rape prevention and included this paragraph. To any readers who are likely to get angry about feminist rape prevention language — please just skip this and respond to a different comment:
In the present study, conversational analysis has made clear that there are normatively understood ways of doing refusals which are generally understood to be refusals, and consequently we believe that there is no reason why feminists concerned about sexual coercion should respond to men’s allegations of their ‘ambiguity’ by taking upon ourselves the task of inventing new ways of doing refusals. As feminists, we have allowed men (disingenuously claiming not to understand normative conversational conventions) to set the agenda, such that we have accepted the need to educate women to produce refusals which men cannot claim to have ‘misunderstood’. This, in turn, has led only to an escalation of men’s claims to have ‘misunderstood’, to be ‘misunderstood’, and, in general, to be ‘ignorant’ about women’s (allegedly different and special) ways of communicating. Men’s self-interested capacity for ‘misunderstanding’ will always outstrip women’s earnest attempts to clarify and explain.
So, here are the questions that follow from this for me.
1) If people normatively refuse things in avoidant and unclear ways, why are we so insistent that sex should be different?
My hypothesis: because the people talking about it either aren’t consciously aware of normative refusal patterns, or think that normative refusal patterns are also screwed up and “should” change. Also, because sex is so stigmatized that people routinely claim sex is “different” in any given context — even when it’s not in practice.
2) If both women and men are likely to say no when they mean yes at the same rate (15% of both genders do this, as I noted in earlier comments), then why are women getting so much more blame and being stereotyped so much more than men for doing it?
My hypothesis: because men are more often in the initiator role than women, the 15% of women doing the no-means-yes thing just comes up more often than it does with men. But even then, 15% is just not high enough to explain why this is a common stereotype, and is not recognized as a minority preference. So this could also be partly because — as I hypothesized earlier — women who are likely to say no when they mean yes are also more likely to be popular with men, thereby making men think that women do it more often than we do. It could also be partly because, as the feminist scholars in the above-quoted study suggested, many men have a vested interest in claiming that women are more unclear than we are.
Another thought. I would be very cautious about asserting that people who use the “say no when meaning yes” pattern necessarily prefer it that way. It may be that they’re just in a minority who likes different patterns of communication, as Infra suggested in #22. But it could be that some of them are looking for something else that they have most frequently found, so far, through that kind of behavior.
I can attest that I played a hell of a lot more verbal games, and was much more unpredictable, while flirting before I got a handle on BDSM and started practicing it regularly. I can also attest that learning how to communicate directly was not easy and in fact I was somewhat resistant to doing so (partly because of BDSM stigma, but partly because of general sexual stigma — I felt incredibly anxious about discussing sex with my partners).
Based on my own experiences, and on those of other people who have learned to communicate more directly around sex/BDSM, I’m inclined to think that explicit communication is in the “hard but ultimately worth it” category for a lot of people. And so, while, again, there may be people who really just won’t ever want to do it, I’m really not sure the most productive approach for the “we don’t want to talk about it directly” demographic is always going to be “oh, you don’t want to directly communicate? well, okay, we’ll make excuses for you and try to find ways around it!” I’m actually really grateful to past partners who forced me to articulate things clearly, though the early partners who did it kind of freaked me out.
As a final note on explicitness, though, I do recognize that if explicit communication is hard, then it’s going to be hard for people to adopt it even if it’s beneficial. I’m a fan of promoting it, but I know it’s not something we can assume for most people. And I am certainly not perfect at it myself. I sometimes fail to reject people clearly, I fail to set boundaries, I fail to explain things, I take an improv vs. scripted approach, etc. I don’t talk explicitly to everyone I have sex with.
But BDSM frameworks, explicit frameworks, have been the most helpful thing in my life for getting the kind of submission/pain/drama I need, without dating someone who actually puts me through the wringer. That has to be relevant, I maintain that it has to be relevant to all this, I just haven’t figured it out completely yet.
One thing I like about discussing PUA stuff is that it’s the greatest available database of actual dating behavior, rather than idealistic or stereotypical assertions about dating behavior. I think some PUA assertions are wrong and fucked up and based on stereotypes. And I think that when PUAs offer pseudo-scientific explanations for things or make misogynist assertions about “why” women behave the way we do, then it starts getting especially ridiculous (hence the phlogiston assertions in the above post). But I am a fan of trying to figure out what people are actually doing. It seems like that can only help, not hinder.
It seems clear that both women and men are adapting their behavior, at least somewhat, to what they think the opposite sex wants. PUAs make claims that they’re just doing what women want (with “women” meaning “conventionally attractive nightclub extraverts”), but I’d bet a lot of the women they talk about are doing things they think men want.
What seems to be emerging as a theme in this thread is both sides saying “The desires of men (or women) force women (or men) to act this way!” I guess it just seems like we should all keep in mind that (a) people are different, (b) no one can make you do anything, (c) this isn’t easy for anyone.
Sam, on takeaways:
When I review the definitions of takeaways vs. freeze-outs, it’s true that they have some similarity. I guess I think of takeaways as more harmless, as an expression of “okay, this doesn’t match my goals right now, have a nice day!” whereas I see freeze-outs as more hostile, an expression of “oh really? you’re going to be that way? fine, I want nothing to do with you,” but without walking away or otherwise removing the hostile energy from the interaction.
When I think about takeaways, I think about someone in a bar being like: “Okay it’s late, gotta go home!” and allowing the other person to convince them to stay. When I think about freeze-outs, I think about the example I gave in the above post, where the PUA has set up this whole romantic thing, and the girl says she doesn’t want to have sex, and he removes all the romantic stuff and turns away from her and starts checking his email. It just seems like … takeaways leave someone feeling good, and freeze-outs leave someone feeling bad.
But again, there’s a lot of similarity, and maybe PUAs would disagree with my analysis.
“As Snowdrop noted in #129, men are also encouraged to reject with silence.” And I also did in my comment – so I really hope you’re not lumping me in the “blaming women” group here.
And my point about short e-mail rejections is that they offer a shred of common courtesy towards someone, while minimizing the struggles that come face to face. I almost always opt for a short e-mail rejection as well, out of avoidance. In fact, I’m thankful for the distancing, abstract quality of e-mail, that offers an out with another where I can show a little respect for the time I spent with the person, while still being clear about where I stand.
The internet is actually allowing us the option of modifying our approaches to rejection, instead of digging in our collective heals around avoidance and offering silence.
“2) If both women and men are likely to say no when they mean yes at the same rate (15% of both genders do this, as I noted in earlier comments), then why are women getting so much more blame and being stereotyped so much more than men for doing it?”
This is a fair question. And I think you’re right that men probably think women are doing this more than they are. I’m not sure what all the reasons are behind this, but I’d agree that some men might be operating on a stereotype about “teasing” women (or however you want to phrase it) that needs to be discarded.
“It could also be partly because, as the feminist scholars in the above-quoted study suggested, many men have a vested interest in claiming that women are more unclear than we are.” In my comment above, I said I felt that many men don’t pay close enough attention to verbal/non-verbal cues from women. That we aren’t generally trained well, and can get tunnel vision when we have sexual/romantic interest.
However, this “vested interested” talk is questionable. In fact, my first take on it was to take offense – so I’ll just say that to give you an idea of how a man might initially react to such phrasing. As I sit with the study comments, I have to wonder:
How much of it is men expecting/demanding women to change their refusal/rejection approaches?
And how much of it is women who are actually ambiguous, even after a man has paid attention and dropped off what he would expect from a woman rejecting him?
I think the study language above makes sense in cases of rape/sexual assault – that men need to be much more aware of changes in behavior/comments coming from a woman in a sexual situation.
However, when applied to a general situation where a man has interest in a woman, but she doesn’t – it’s troubling.
“As feminists, we have allowed men (disingenuously claiming not to understand normative conversational conventions) to set the agenda, such that we have accepted the need to educate women to produce refusals which men cannot claim to have ‘misunderstood’. ”
1. A lot of men don’t really “get it” that rejection is often subtle and offered in indirect, delayed responses and other cues. And even if they do “get it” in some social contexts, the intensity of sexual/romantic attraction adds an element not present in other social situations. Now, I’m not saying this should be an excuse, but the tunnel vision effect of attraction has to be considered as part of the picture.
While you say this “because sex is so stigmatized that people routinely claim sex is “different” in any given context — even when it’s not in practice.” I’d disagree. It’s different for most people not only because of the stigma, but because of the biochemical shifts that attraction produce. Perhaps you’re experience and interests have brought you to a difference place with sexuality, but I doubt that a majority of people would make a statement like yours quoted above.
“This, in turn, has led only to an escalation of men’s claims to have ‘misunderstood’, to be ‘misunderstood’, and, in general, to be ‘ignorant’ about women’s (allegedly different and special) ways of communicating.” I agree that some men operate on a victim mentality around all of these relational issues. And that this mentality produces excessive requests and demands on women.
However, I also think some women totally misunderstand male actions in situations. When beliefs such as men just want sex are so prevalent, how is it possible to be fully understood if you are a man who doesn’t just want sex? Or if you’ve just met a woman, and you’re trying to guess at what she might find attractive, and you make a mistake and it turns into “you’re such an asshole” because that behavior – something as simple as holding a door open or touching her arm – reminds her of abusive dudes from her past?
I often find these conversations are very ungenerous towards both men and women in general. We sit about theorize about how the other group is abusive and manipulative – and some of it is true – but in the end, there’s very little acceptance of the fact that in every relational situation – a certain amount of human error and confusion are at play.
I have a number of thoughts that I don’t want to lose track of in this fast-moving conversation.
Re no-means-yes: I have a study filed on my computer somewhere (Muhlenberg and someone?) from a few decades ago, which has much higher rates for this than the 15% mentioned now. Also there is literary evidence. Basically, Infra’s concerns aside, there is every reason to believe that the percentage of this is going downward, which would be a success, and a very positive one, for feminism. Though I have to add that this does not mean that I think most of the sex that happened when this was a bigger social norm than today was non-consensual.
About “nice guy” — no, I don’t want to discuss it in this thread. I don’t actually ever intend to discuss it again except in a very meta way, i.e. I only talk about the talking about it, never about the “it.” Because I think “it” is a non-phenomenon, a spandrel, a Platonic epicycle, a phlogiston, an “ether” of the type Einstein made unnecessary, a humour theory of human dispositions…
So what is real? AB, in comment 130, took my breath away. The self-reinforcing feedback cycles that confirm confidence, on the one hand, and reinforce, while they discriminate, against pain, on the other. I am going to read that comment over and over.
I remember seeing American Pictures, as a slideshow by the author, when it came out. I was hugely impressed and moved by him, and now I am even more so.
Discrimination against pain itself — if we keep these feedback cycles in mind, we will understand the dynamics of what is going on. And that is why compassion is the only key to wisdom, and snark, however clever, only pours gasoline on all the fires.
Finally re Anne Bonney comment 119 — “I think that there is a lot of practical advice that is given (and could be done a lot better, I think) to overcome those things, without compromising a commitment to valuing consent and acting in an ethical way. I can think of some right now, but don’t want to presume this is the place for that sort of thing.”
If not here, where? If not now, when?
Or write it somewhere else, and link to it. It’s the quintessence of the topic, “Ethical pick-up.”
Re: studies, the one I’m citing is Sprecher 1992. The findings were something like 15% of both men and women offer token resistance regularly, but 40% have done it a few times. I think I’ve seen Muhlenberg cited as supporting the 40% “occasional” figure, so it could just be not that the figures are going down, but rather that the “occasional” figure is sometimes confused for the “regularly”.
and yeah, one last thing —
@AnneBonney — co-sign to what humbition said. You wrote:
And I think that there is a lot of practical advice that is given (and could be done a lot better, I think) to overcome those things, without compromising a commitment to valuing consent and acting in an ethical way. I can think of some right now, but don’t want to presume this is the place for that sort of thing. (This is a fairly theoretical, meta conversation. Also, it’s kind of late and I’ll revisit some other stuff in the morning.)
I mean, it seems like this is the only place for it. Unless there are lots of other ethical pickup artistry threads out there.
Anne Bonney,
I’d say they’re an integral part of feminism to the extent that they concern women. To the extent that men are concerned, they are a *theoretically* integral part, but one that is practically largely ignored to say the least (and often violently contested even by modern feminists, say, Amanda Marcotte in her reaction to Clarisse’s Creep essay). If anything, it’s a blind spot of feminism, and, to a considerable degree, a failure of feminists to measure their own actions by the yardsticks they use for others (this accusation is then usually dutifully rebutted with explaining the dynamics of oppression and a hint to check one’s privilege, at which point we’re entering problematic axiomatic territory and it’s hard to keep a discussion alive if people aren’t willing to work on finding common axiomatic ground – and that’s fucking difficult).
I believe that’s pretty much all we can do. For feminists that would, I believe, imply to do what Clarisse does – at least occasionally challenge myths of rationality about men and male sexuality, and to not try to have their ideological cake and eat it, too, by saying that, theoretically, “men aren’t that way”, but acting, including in discussions with men, as if they are. Sure, one has to pick one’s battles, but in *this* context, I don’t believe that those feminists who do think it’s a problem are usually sufficiently willing to pick that fight. Clarisse is really an example of communicative openness, in that respect, and I guess it’s at least to a significant degree because she has had her own problems with feminism and it’s gender discourse hegemony.
Totally. And this is one of the things that are entirely counter intuitive and feel almost paradoxical. This is also one thing that I think I read about first in “the game” – where Strauss is explaining how it was hard to go out again after a successful evening because the previous night would almost inevitably force him to go into the bar with expectations he had to fulfill. It just really requires a lot of mental gymnastics to *know* on a meta level that you’re going out *with a specific purpose*, and still not expecting anything when actually going out (“just for fun”). It’s “let go of what you want so you can get it”. And it’s really partly oxymoronic, and a difficult mindset to get into, but it’s totally true.
Why not? Most women seem to do that.
That’s why I say what’s really needed is a more reasonable approach to balancing opportunities and risks, and this is something that I think is not being modeled well in the feminist “consent”/Schrödinger’s discourse that is mostly about reducing the risk of instances of unwanted attention without giving any consideration to the initiator’s problem of having to create some – any – attention to begin with. Risk and possible reward must be balanced in a more appropriate way – as I said above in #7 with respect to assumed “shit tests” and token resistance: When the risk of making a mistake (false positive) is relatively low – depending on a host of other situational variables – when it’s mostly about the possibility of making someone uncomfortable, say, when saying hello, possibly even when moving in for a kiss , then opportunity/effectivity can and possibly should be considered as a more important variable than it currently seems to be the case, precisely to *avoid* situations in which – we all agree – it cannot be considered as equally important: when the risk of a false positive, making a mistake, the other side of the equation, is too important.
While I believe that risk/reward model will be assumed by a lot of feminists, even when talking about flirting/consent, it is, verbal generalizations that don’t make the balancing strucutree explicit are among the biggest reasons for misunderstandings (even though it may be “duh” for many feminists to assume that everyone they’re talking to will understand that they don’t mean “don’t ever say hello to a woman you like if you meet her at the bus stop”, when they talk about street harassment. Yet that’s what a lot of guys who care about *their* opinion will hear. I think it would be totally possible to come up with a PUA glossary in sociological/feminist lingo and vice versa.
Not all is a feminist-sourced problem. In my case I’d give feminism about 40% responsibility, the rest being Religion (40%) and a minor case of OCD (20%). Thing is, the feminist guilt has proven to be much more difficult to deal with than the other aspects. Not sure how that’s different for others.
Please be as specific as you want to be/can be.
“(even though it may be “duh” for many feminists to assume that everyone they’re talking to will understand that they don’t mean “don’t ever say hello to a woman you like if you meet her at the bus stop”, when they talk about street harassment. Yet that’s what a lot of guys who care about *their* opinion will hear.” I almost never strike up conversations with women on buses, that I pass on the street, or even in coffee shops any more because the possibility of being taken the wrong way is too easy, and I’ve seen enough sleazy guys approach strangers to know I don’t want to stir up that kind of energy. Women might consider that more aware men carry the baggage of knowing what sexist men do, and that impacts how we act, perhaps to the point of excessive holding back.
@Clarisse:
It tends to move toward explorations along those lines, yes, even when it’s a genuine thing. It’s just the other way around, with them: what they’ve found through that approach, they try to seek out in other behaviors, even if they don’t necessarily fit them and even if they don’t necessarily enjoy them.
Because… they are a minority, and they know that, and they’re well aware of how the needs that they have affect other people, especially because of the other assumptions out there. (Hell, they’re even aware that writing without disclosing whether or not they’re using the most accurate pronouns isn’t entirely honest.)
Aside from convincing themselves that they’re ok with being something else, there aren’t many viable options.
(On a more general note:)
But this is something that, in hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have brought up. Sometimes the things that you’ve learned in the past are still the most accurate — and here, it’s that we’re best off hoping that we’ll somehow stumble across each other, keeping this in private, taking care of our own.
My latest thoughts about some of the ideas and stuff going on in this thread, and relating to some of the material linked in the OP, developed into a full blog post, over at A Femanist View.
The short version is that although, personally, I have to reject the scripts implied by PUA theory (if I follow them, I lose even if I “win” by their standards) some of the concepts surrounding attitude and confidence I saw at some of the resources linked in the OP tie in with how I feel able to be confident of asserting my own “victory conditions” and saying “this is what I need to see”. (As an aside, in a funny way I wonder if in PUA terms I would not be happier playing the female hand in terms of what matches my personality?)
I’m sorry I haven’t come back to respond: I’m sick so a little foggy-headed, but I wanted to toss in a few thoughts about ethical PUA techniques. I started writing some out when I realized that my understanding of how to meet people, attract them and engage with them on a romantic level is actually counterproductive to the typical pick-up MO. I started this itemized list of how I think one could start conversations with strangers in public, how to handle parties and bars, but it all came down to this: I don’t want dudes who just want sex approaching me. Like, ever. The very minimal requirement is for you to want to have sex with me, and in order for that to be true, you have to give a shit who I am. This is not apparent in a lot of stranger interactions, and it is certainly not the norm in pick up.
It seems so rudimentary to say something like compliments must be sincere and without strings, but I feel like that is actually lacking in seduction discourse. Mostly because it’s an inner game thing, a state of mind where you want to get to know people or just make them feel good. You want to tell a girl you are attracted to that you also like the book she’s reading in a coffee shop? Great, go for it. But if you saw an unattractive girl with the same book, would you start talking to her too? Are you starting a conversation, or are you starting a seduction routine? Because I think it’s usually pretty clear to “the target” which one it is, and guess which one is less likely to 1) be respectful and non-objectifying and 2) get results.
But I think about that POV and that attitude is pretty much 180 degrees from a PUA mindset, where one specifically tries to meet women for sexual/romantic purposes, where one is already approaching with a goal in mind. I don’t think that is entirely ethical, respectful or effective to start with. I guess in my mind, you’ve got to be friendly before you can be seductive, and I don’t know how you do that within a seduction community set of standards or goals. (Of course there are going to be slightly different parameters for night-life type stuff, though the assumption that women in bars and clubs would stay home if they didn’t want men’s attention is old and busted as hell.)
Other random thoughts: don’t ever approach when the other person has no outs. That shopgirl/waitress/barista has a job to do that includes being nice to you even if she is uncomfortable. It is unethical to run game on her while she’s working. You have no clue if the woman on the public transport has a long or short ride, so you should approach extra carefully, I would say only after you’ve made substantial eye contacts. Surely dudes get people just making uncomfortable conversation on trains; add to that awkwardness a whole layer of socialization that makes bluntly refusing an advance difficult and/or dangerous, and you have a problem. (Let’s face it, there are some seriously unsavory people on buses sometimes, so women have good reason to be wary.)
When trying to escalate physically, I think if you have a preexisting flirtatious rapport it is ok to touch or try to kiss, provided that at any indicator of no you stop, apologize and talk it out. If you think you’re getting hell of body language IOIs but she says no, you trust that. If you get no verbal feedback but her body language is uncomfortable or trying to get away, you have to listen. Making a pass at someone you’ve been talking to for a few hours isn’t the end of the world for anyone if you’re wrong, provided you don’t keep pushing or get defensive or entitled or any of that bs. With proper context and accurate reading of that context, this is not such a tough thing, I think. And everybody’s wrong sometimes, you brush yourself off and make sure you two are still cool.
There were some other things that I was thinking of that I’m forgetting now that seemed less duh to me, but honestly part of the reason I have never just gone all out lady-guru and written this stuff down before (outside of my forum involvement) is that I don’t understand the LA club scene or how to land 100 top models in a year or whatever. I think what techniques and advice I have are for treating women like regular humans, and I have been repeatedly told that that doesn’t work to achieve the goals many PUAs set for themselves in terms of status and attractiveness of partners (I’m not entirely convinced). If anyone can speak to that, I’d be happy to hear it.
Sam-
I think you have a point, but I think your parenthetical there is an issue. Because you can’t have a conversation without accepting it’s context, and a major component of feminist conversations has been under threat of derailing and co-opting by “men’s issues”. There are places and ways to discuss this, but they aren’t always and everywhere (even though you and I agree that there should be more such conversations).
Err, I was referring to the fact that femininity-within-patriarchy is composed almost entirely of paradoxes, and that navigating the best personal way to perform one’s gender will almost always be at odds, if not with personal ethics and self-expression, with other components of the How to Be a Real Woman script. Are you really suggesting that most women engage with femininity completely on a surface level, without interrogating those problems? I would disagree completely.
I also agree with your assessment of the risk/reward situation, but I worry that a woman’s understanding of that risk and a man’s are at times so completely different that there’s little to be done. The fact that there are men who would assume that the majority of the women they meet think no is just a bit of foreplay shows that. From the woman’s perspective, the risk of coercing sex clearly outweighs the reward of having sex no matter what, but there are many, many men for whom that doesn’t hold. How do we have that conversation in a productive way?
I also want to cosign Clarisse on this:
because, Jesus, it is hard. Not least because women are often taught the awful double whammy that sexual aggression and willingness to breach boundaries in men is a compliment and that sexual connection isn’t valuable unless partners “just know” what we like and our boundaries are. Just overcoming that shit was a huge hurtle for me, and I’m still not in a place where I can be entirely assertive and/or verbal about my needs beyond that.
I know there are some other really awesome intraconversations happening, but I’m not in a Place to say anything other than I really appreciate this thread, and the general civility and goodnaturedness here. So thanks, y’all.
Clarisse,
you say in #125,
and I think you’re spot on here. Whatever I’ve seen of pickup material was exceedingly unspecific on that. Maybe someone who’s read more can point to something that actually deals with sexual escalation in a useful manner, but as far as I remember the only thing approaching a detailed account of that part in the game was the story about pouring oneself a bath in her appartment and the “dual induction massage” to induce threesomes. Apart from that, I don’t remember any advice going past a kiss close, except for the advice about handling LMR you mention. Again, maybe I’m just not sufficiently informed, but since you mention that, it does strike me as true. The focus on “follow the flow” seems like a stark contrast to the often verbatim advice given for earlier stages of an interaction. Actually, I think that the advice given by Charlie Glickman in response to your creep article (http://www.charlieglickman.com/2010/10/sex-tips-for-men-how-to-ask-for-sex) was more specific and broken down than anything I can remember reading in the game.
Maybe there’s an idea…?
Also, I guess your differentiation between takeaway and freeze out makes sense, although I do believe that making someone feel they miss you is not necessarily an asshole move, in my opinion. I guess it will also depend a lot on the performance.
@Sam:
The DiCarlo Escalation Ladder was specific to that. Formulaic, and not necessarily something that I’d recommend, but it put forward a framework that (ostensibly) covered the most comfortable ways to move from kissing, to caressing, to nudity, to sexual activity. Though not in stages that were that sharply divided.
I’m pretty sure that there have been others (by Love Systems, maybe — i.e., Mystery, Lovedrop and Co.). But it’s been some time since I’ve reviewed them, and I don’t recall being terribly impressed. But if I can recall where I Placed them, I’ll see if I can find the time to do another listen.
AnneBonney,
more later or tomorrow, but as a sidenote, I wish that -
had been the feminist message I was exposed to. That would have made my life a lot easier (I heard: “be wrong and you sexually assaulted her, you and your toxic touch.”) So if you could spread that talking point of yours, I’d be personally most grateful :).
I believe that treating women you’re interested in sexually like regular humans after meeting them but before knowing them is a bit confusing because if you’re interested in a person sexually, that person is *not* just a regular human. It’s a *special* human.
That said, I believe treating women like “regular people” is indeed very effective for attracting them – I think the closest thing in pickup lingo would be to treat her like your “bratty little sister” – but it is also, I believe, very difficult once one is attracted.
It is also important to know when to *stop* treating them like regular people and make them aware of their special status. I do believe that the SC is by and large right about the necessary sequence of attraction to work (she must be attracted to him before he can reveal his attraction to her, or it will not work and potentially even result in a case of “premature sexualisation” creepiness.)
Still catching up, but just briefly, Clarisse:
And:
I agree with the latter paragraph. But I wonder if the former will not make the latter a bit trickier, especially given the background of a lot of the guys on here. “Nice Guy(tm)” discourse is a really sore spot for me, at the very least. And if we use the “Nice Guy(tm)” label then I am much more likely to rip into the problems with the discourse than I am to discuss the numerous and different real-world phenomenons that are commonly equivocated (often in harsh terms) under that label.
(Perhaps “Nice Guy(tm)” deserves its own thread…?)
The Kitzinger and Frith study convinces me that people (particularly men, since they tend to be initiators) should be educated about the difficulty that others have saying “no” in sexual circumstances. That finding is consistent with my own experience having difficulties saying “no,” which becomes an issue more often as I’ve gotten more attractive and received more sexual advances.
This study does not convince me that men already know the difficulties that women have saying “no,” and are using claims of “miscommunication” in an insincere and self-serving manner. The latter claim is sexist speculation from the authors.
Whoa there. Kitzinger & Frith could be correct, but they haven’t made their case in this article. They argue:
Kitzinger and Frith are assuming that sexual communication follows the same norms as normative conversational patterns, yet their own analysis gives reasons to doubt that notion. They admit that they have no clue what acceptance by women of sexual advances looks like:
So we know that people in general have trouble saying “no.” Yet women in particular also seem to have trouble saying “yes” explicitly, based on the above. If women’s “no” and “yes” look more similar to each other in a sexual context than in non-sexual contexts, wouldn’t that make a greater chance of miscommunication?
Kitzinger and Frith’s study on women’s refusals in sexual contexts, and people’s understanding of refusals in nonsexual contexts aren’t sufficient evidence to support claims about men’s understanding of refusals in sexual contexts. To be able to make such claims, we would need to do a study on men asking them how they interpret certain scenarios in the abstract, or information about how women communicate acceptance of sexual advances.
Citing Kitzinger and Frith, I found a another study which seems to agree with their conclusion that miscommunication isn’t a big factor in sexual violence. Yet this paper actually studied both men and women, so maybe the authors aren’t talking out of their asses about men’s understanding of women’s sexual communication, unlike Kitzinger and Frith on that particular subject.
Let’s keep this thread, at least, constructive (as it has been) and, dephlogisticated.
As in, no Nice Guy TM further on it.
I sort of brought the latter up, by way of suggesting that that particular phlogiston concept, both in its “MRA” and “feminist” mirror-forms, was messing up the novel and beautiful institution of het male-female platonic friendship. Which at least I didn’t call ptolemaic friendship.
But, the thread in which I brought it up was the Manliness megathread, which is where I thought I was until the posts in question were brought over here.
Because of its particular paradoxes, and because of the unique kind of safe space that has existed in the manliness threads, if we must discuss Nice Guy — and I do suggest we try not to — then perhaps we should do it back on the megathreads.
To go back to something SnowdropExplodes said,
out of self-respect I’m not going to chase someone who has said they’re not interested. Maybe it’s a test, and maybe it’s not, but really? I can’t be bothered trying to find out. I’m worth more than that. And the sort of woman who is going to play games with me and test me – we are NOT going to be compatible anyway, so I’m better off if she thinks I’m not worth it, too.
I had this moment recently while hanging out with a guy I know. He’s a pretty attractive guy, and I kinda hooked up with him once, a long time ago. Since then, every time we hang out he’s specifically noted to me that he’s not interested. He says things like we’re not sexually compatible (because I’ve gotten much more into BDSM since we got together), he says things like I’m not his type, etc. I’ve found it sort of stings, but, you know, ok, he’s trying to keep me at arm’s length, fine.
I should note that he’s what PUAs call a “natural”. He has really great game. He told me once that he’d read PUA materials and found them wanting, and when I asked why, he provided a number of tactics/critiques that I said “Oh no, those are in some PUA advice, you just never saw them there because you got bored and didn’t read deep enough.” He recently moved to a new city, and all our friends talked wryly about how he met his new girlfriend in the airport (true story, and representative). Ahead of the curve.
So anyway, I like this guy and I’m attracted to him, but I always write him off and when I flirt with him it’s very mildly, because it seems like he’s been at such pains to tell me he doesn’t care for me that way. But the most recent time I saw him, I made some joke about marrying his brother (to get citizenship to their country of origin), and he goes, “Oh, but I’d be so jealous.”
I was stunned. I was like, “But you’re not attracted to me! Every time I see you, you make a point of telling me you’re not attracted!” and he just looked at me with his eyebrows kinda raised, and I blinked, and we changed the subject.
So I guess that whole time, he was actually specifically trying to play me, by saying he wasn’t attracted when really he is. What it actually did was make me write him off. I was thinking: why should I humiliate myself by signaling my interest when he’s so obviously trying to fend me off? Why should I waste my time thinking about him when he’s clearly not into me?
I deleted a brief comment I just wrote because it occurred to me there might be privacy concerns for the person I discussed. If anyone noticed it, that’s why it’s gone now.
Today I remembered a novel I read in elementary school/my early teens (I’m not sure when, and I don’t remember the title … I used to read about a book per day back then, so it’s hard for me to recall details …). It was some young adult girl novel in which this young teen heartthrob who stars as an edgy, dangerous character on a TV show moves into the main character’s town and starts going to her high school. She ends up dating him, and she’s so thrilled and awed, but after a while she starts feel frustrated with the relationship, I can’t remember why. He’s a nice, sweet guy, and at one point towards the end she says something like, “Why aren’t you like your character?!” and he gets upset and he’s like, “Why are you making me into that? That’s not me.” Then there’s a scene where he actually goes into character, and acts like a cold jerk, and by the end of it she’s like “Oh God, I actually didn’t want that at all.”
I really wish I could remember the title of this novel. It seems like it was trying to deal with some of these themes quite explicitly.
@HR — Yes… and plenty of PUAs know this! You and AB seem to be under the impression that PUAs use “shit tests” solely as a term of condemnation. But that’s not true at all (except perhaps for certain sorts of PUAs, like Roissy’s readers). PUA language has tripped you up again.
Okay. You certainly know more about it than I do, so if you say there are lots of PUAs who see shit tests as okay and not bitchy, then I believe you, though I’d be interested in a reference that paints them as neutral, if you’ve got any handy.
This does bring me to the problem of PUA terminology though, which is one I usually don’t talk about overmuch, but it doesn’t seem irrelevant the way many PUAs try to make it. When metaphors like “target” are used, and words like “bitch” are prevalent in PUA phrases (“bitch shield”, “hot bitch” — yes, I know many guys say HB is “hot babe”, but a non-negligible proportion use “hot bitch”) … I mean … this is not morally neutral speech, here. The metaphors we use can have a measurable effect on how we consider problems, solutions, approaches, etc.
You could argue that this is just how most men talk/think, and is not exclusive to PUAs, but that doesn’t mean it’s not sexist. PUAdom may not be worse than the rest of the world, but I’d think an ethical PUA project might want different terminology.
And many guys also say that they are looking for relationships. Or improving their social skills.
I dunno, man.
The social skills, yes. The “relationships” thing is often invoked by less-misogynist PUAs, but I’m not convinced it’s the main motivator for the majority of PUAs, or even for a large percentage. It seems like it’s something that non-misogynist guys will say when they want to convince outsiders that the community is a good thing, but it doesn’t seem like something most PUAs themselves will say. (Neil Strauss, while speaking at a bookstore before I interviewed him, told the audience this: “Sorry to the women out there, but I have to say, only about one in a thousand men who approach me for advice are asking because they want a relationship.”)
But here’s a counter-argument to the above: guys may simply be less likely to admit that they’re in it for a girlfriend, because that would be unmanly and they’re likely to be labeled a pussy. So again, I dunno.
@Clarisse:
Agreed… with the caveat that I wouldn’t attribute this completely to misogyny, at least in Mystery’s case, which is where much of the terminology originated. I think that the basic terms had a different source, which was then combined with a (more) misogynist spin.
What needs to be kept in mind is that, as was stated in the earlier editions of his work, Mystery used “venusian arts” as a specific parallel to “martial arts.” Given that, and given my readings of the texts in question (in translation, of course) in parallel with reading the Venusian Arts Handbook, I think that some modeling upon the Sunzi bingfa, et. al. is far from unlikely. That’s especially when factoring in the emphasis that he places upon Dawkins’ survival & replication argument as theoretical backing. (Not to mention upon the possibility of dying and leaving nothing behind.)
Taking that into account, “target,” “shield,” “test” and so on become par for the course, and other things, like using “HB” ratings, would parallel military lingo. That doesn’t justify it, of course — it begs the question of why a military framework would be used in the first place, even conceding that works like the S.b. aimed at winning without conflict — but it does shed some light on why the terms might have been chosen.
(Incidentally, the textual tradition in Warring States China, represented by those texts, was associated with tales of weaker men defeating powerful warriors simply by the possession of a text, which, IIRC, was sometimes given by a female immortal; the aristocracy, on the other hand, often condemned it because of its use of deception and duplicity. Parallels with the SC, there, in a way.)
@Nathan:
And I think you sometimes underestimate how hard that respect is to give. As a concrete example, I have a friend who worked for a couple of years in Paris, during which she got a boyfriend. When she was going back to Denmark to study, she didn’t intend to continue the relationship, but he did, and she kept her plans a secret. I even think she knew she was eventually going to discontinue the relationship when they went to Denmark to visit her family together, but she still let him spend money on a plane ticket rather than telling him not to bother. When she was home for good, and he called her from France for the first time, she told him that she was not interested in a long-term relationship, and I thought she was a kind of a jerk for it. She ought to have told him face to face back in France as soon as she knew she was going to go home and study.
But the guy wasn’t just hurt, he continued to call and call and call. We lived together at the time so I got a taste of it, constant calls with angry accusations. And she felt obligated to answer him. Every. Single. Time, spending hours walking around while trying to explain herself in French. At one point, she even gave the phone to me and told me to say something, because he’d accused her of being with a guy and refused to believe she was with me, and she felt she needed to prove it. He also threatened to seek out her parents, knowing where they lived from the previous visit, which made her desperate to try to talk him out of it.
Perhaps he would have reacted better if she’d told him face to face, but after experiencing his reaction, I suddenly understood why she hadn’t felt comfortable breaking up with him in a foreign country, isolated from most of her social network. And part of it was her own feelings of obligation. She was just not able to just ignore his calls, she wavered between answering because she felt she owed it to him because she’d broken up with him, and answering because she was afraid he’d do something desperate if she didn’t calm him down.
So it’s not really as simple as disrespect or thoughtlessness (though especially the latter probably plays a big part), it’s also about fear. And just not answering is not as simple a task as it’s made out to be. A lot of times, women (and probably men too) feel obligated to continue answering, and they try to cut the guy out completely in order to circumvent their own feelings of guilt and responsibility, and because there’s always the tiny chance that the guy will take any response from them as an excuse to go nuts.
I’m really on the fence in regards to expressions like “reward men” when it comes to sex. No offence, but it seems like women’s sexuality is disproportionately seen as a tool for affecting men’s behaviour, rather than a tool for women’s own pleasure. It’s like the Victorian ideal that women’s job in life was to encourage men to do the right thing, and men’s job was to do it – e.g. “she helped me become a better man, she saved me from myself, she made me who I am, she drove me to , she’s the woman behind the man” etc..
When I was in my late teens, I heard a somewhat older guy complain about the lack of independent and intelligent girls who weren’t shallow and helpless, and my first thought was “You should have thought of that earlier, like when you were a teenager and all the guys wanted shallow girls who would let themselves be dominated and play helpless to make their love interests feel better about themselves”. I didn’t say anything because I realised it was rude, but nonetheless, I was advised to deliberately play stupid and helpless at the age of 15, and I’d never before (or since) got as much male attention.
Boys and girls teach each other a lot of things, and far from being a one-way street of women affecting men, I’d say that, if anything, it starts with girls getting taught by boys (since girls start being interested in romance earlier, and also tend to seek more male approval in general than vice versa). That’s not to place the blame with one sex only, but to illustrate the absurdity of expecting women to take responsibility for teaching men, without offering the same in return.
The message of a lot of male posters here seem to be “Women need to do the right thing, even when it goes against their short-term goals and what they were taught, in order to eventually reach a point where men have been sufficiently encouraged towards an egalitarian and respectful approach to women”, while simultaneously expecting sympathy for the attitude “You can’t expect me to eschew what works for me right now”.
When Clarisse refuses to humiliate herself signalling interest to a guy who’s acting like he’s trying to fend her off, and SnowdropExplodes decides that his own worth is too great to go to chase after a girl who can’t be bothered to show interest in return, they’re both doing their part rewarding and encouraging honest and respectful behaviour. I think the least one can do before going on to blame others for ‘encouraging/rewarding’ sexist behaviour, is to take a similar stand.
I think you need to read my post closer. I mentioned the blaming of women because it is inconsistent with what we expect of men. My point was that we need more balance. We need more men like SnowdropExplodes in order to turn the tide. Despite how I feel that a lot of mainstream culture (and a lot of PUA culture) is limiting women’s agency, the official attitude still seems to be that men are helpless pawns in a game decided solely by women.
It’s not just that we blame women for not prioritising the right things in men, while accepting that men value little more than physical beauty and sexual compliancy in women, but also that, by doing this, we’re largely ignoring male agency, painting men as the sort single minded kinds of beasts that the very same men often complain about being portrayed as. We need to be able to discuss which types of women (that is, which sort of personality) men actually want to be with, and we need to empower more men to say “I’m worth more than that” when confronted with, say, a woman who wants them to rape her without asking, on the off chance that she’s turned on by it.
@Hugh Ristik:
That’s fair enough, but the term doesn’t have to be condemning to be considered negative. Goreans say all sorts of supposedly positive things about women that few would consider compliments, and so do social conservatives. The same holds true for stereotypes about men – blaming women for getting raped is outwardly sympathetic towards men (painting them as the real victims, or at least as less to blame), but plenty of men find it insulting. And I share Clarissa’s observations about terminology.
I did say, repeatedly, that it was up to the individual. The point is that the seduction community is not an ethical movement, it is about teaching men to get what they want sexually/romantically from women. It contains everything from rape-manuals to guides about making women relax and giving them a good experience. It’s basically a room filled with guns, knives, ropes, cuffs etc. They can be used for hunting and providing, for law enforcement, self-defence, practising for fun, non-lethal duels, kinky sex, threats, kidnapping, violence, murder, and dozens of other activities. The room itself has no ethics, and the people in the room have no common goal except gaining access to the tools in the room.
In fact, when PUAs do discuss anything resembling ethics, it is almost always focused on defending people’s access to said tools. The Gunwitch articles were a good example, they contained everything from people defending his actions or denying that he did it, to people advocating locking him up and throw away the key. But the main focus was always on defending the seduction community itself, from “The bitch probably had it coming, and feminists are so unreasonable for attacking the community because of it” to “What Gunwitch did was wrong, but feminists are so unreasonable for attacking the community because of it, and the way I said something bad about Gunwitch proves how unreasonable the feminist attacks are”.
While it would be interesting to see how the seduction community would have reacted if it hadn’t been attacked (and every feminist capable of seeing the resemblance will be able to empathise), the fact of the matter is that the only ethical/ideological stand on which the PUAs were consistent, was in defending their community against outside attacks. I believe it was Infra who said something similar, that discussions in the seduction community was mostly about justifying its own existence.
I agree with pretty much all AB says at #155, and I think it brings up an important aspect of pick up that has never sat well with me: the ultimate goal, to have more frequent sex with more partners who more closely fit a very narrow standard of beauty, is problematic in my mind. I don’t ascribe to the idea of “leagues” or whatever, but isn’t the basic idea that there are certain types of women, who aren’t usually attracted to certain types of men, that can be seduced into sleeping with them against their usual judgments pretty entitled behavior from the start?
I personally have had to kind of grow up and recognize that the Venn diagram of who I am attracted to and who is attracted to me has significant portions of non-overlap. Having typified Nice Girl (TM) behavior in the past, I felt pretty pissed off about this and often held on to negative ideas about the men who wouldn’t give me the time of day AND the women they preferred to date. The only thing that got me towards any sort of healthy equilibrium is letting go of the entitlement behind those attitudes, because nobody is obligated to fuck anyone, for any reason, and if I wanted that to be accepted about me I had to accept it in others.
This doesn’t seem to be a realization that is valued among PUAs. Except for women. When I asked PUAs what it was I, as a woman, could do to be more attractive to more and “higher quality” men, the answers ranged from changing significant aspects of my appearance or personality to “nothing, hot girls are just hot”. Yet, there is this entire industry thriving on never, ever saying the same to men. I believe it’s a function of male socialization that leads them to that kind of entitlement, and I think that’s kind of a shitty place to start trying to engage your fellow humans.
Compounded by the fact that there are significant cultural rewards for men who are attracted and attractive to the straightjacket ideal of feminine beauty (and homosocial stigmas for those who don’t stick to those patterns of attraction), this actually becomes a big hurdle for the seduction community. I don’t want to tell anyone to have sexual partners that they don’t want, or to whom they aren’t attracted, but in the face of the hegemonic beauty ideal, aren’t we all a little too removed from we as individuals find sexy and too enmeshed in a culture that only offers up one specific sort of beauty to really know what we want or why we want it?
@AB:
It was more about the public PUA scene, specifically; there are private communities where things can be a bit more variable, if for no other reason than that there’s a familiarity with a broader swathe of material. But overall, yeah, I’d agree when it comes to both cases.
Since you mentioned Reyes, though:
I’ll admit that I didn’t come out condemning that. However, that was due to a perspective that I’d gained through experience. I simply couldn’t justify contributing to a view that, based upon what I’d learned, I saw as dangerously mischaracterizing the situation. By entering that argument, I would have done so.
(Trigger warning for that link. The “overwrought” reference is to a different post there, which was more vent than information.)
@AnneBonney:
I think this is really important, and something I thought about myself, especially when reading Roissy’s test. It is a well-known psychological phenomenon that better results are pretty much always achieved by imprinting on people the things they can work on, rather than focusing on what can’t be changed. For instance, the mere act of telling girls that men are inherently better at math than women will cause their math scores to fall, whereas explaining to them how attitude and practice accounts for more than it’s given credit for will improve their abilities greatly. And that’s just in the short term.
A lot of PUA terminology feels incredibly disempowering to me, because it treats me like a constant, born with a certain value that will never change (except gradually fall as I get older), whereas men can take control of their own destiny. It even treats my desires as being more under the control of men than myself, which just makes me want to learn PUA techniques so that I can reject them to prove that I’m still the one deciding who I want to be with. The main thing PUAs (and men in general) tell me is “don’t even bother”.
And I while I can see the reason for not focusing on the inevitable, I also seriously think PUAs underestimate how much of a man’s appeal lies with his appearance. Running my male friends through Roissy’s test (I know it’s not representative of all PUAs, but it’s pretty illustrative), the guy most popular with women is in omega territory He’s not dominant, he’s polite and thoughtful, he rarely takes the initiative (except the initiative to leave the main area of a party in order to go help in the kitchen), he doesn’t make a lot of money, he doesn’t have a car, he can’t bench press a lot, he would never use negs, his main skills are archery and miniature painting, he plays WoW and D&D, and he looks so gorgeous even my dad has commented on it.
AB – I get the sense you see me as arguing in support of the PUA, seduction tactics that are the focus of this post. And perhaps also supporting whatever unconscious sexist approaches men are using to attract women, which Sam seems to have done to some degree. And I’ll just say – if that’s what you think I’m arguing – you’re wrong.
The whole seduction routine seems like another game to me. I’ve never been a pickup artist, and really could never be. I’m not “smooth like that,” nor do I think that kind of approach will attract the kind of partner I want to be with. Although I might initially be attracted to a woman on a purely sexual level, I’m not a person who can just get into bed with someone. That initial attraction dies if I’m not connected to a woman on more personal, intellectual and emotional level. So, I could never pull off the whole PUA thing because it feels shallow and too much like a game.
You’re friend’s example is quite complicated. And I think it’s also very different from what I was talking about, where you spend a couple of hours with someone, or maybe go on a few dates, and then decide you’re not interested.
I don’t know what I would have done in your friend’s case. Being isolated like that presents a lot of challenges, and perhaps there wasn’t any good way to break it off until she left.
But I find it interesting that repeatedly I have heard the “ignore him” approach being supported here, and yet there also seems to be a struggle to apply that. It’s an interesting contradiction – I’m not blaming your friend for feeling “obligated” because I have felt that before, but I don’t understand why she felt this way for so long, given that the guy was in another country.
“The message of a lot of male posters here seem to be “Women need to do the right thing, even when it goes against their short-term goals and what they were taught, in order to eventually reach a point where men have been sufficiently encouraged towards an egalitarian and respectful approach to women”, while simultaneously expecting sympathy for the attitude “You can’t expect me to eschew what works for me right now”.” I’m not sure where you made the leap that many male commenters on here are expecting to be educated. Hell, I’m saying that men need to pay more attention. I’m saying I am trying to model the behavior I’d like to also receive. The rejection e-mail comments I made were about people you barely know – whom you have spent little time with.
With more complicated situations, where you have a longer history with a person, I know it’s much harder. I spent several months during grad school being stalked by a classmate who mistook a friendly gesture as a sign of interest. I fumbled around for weeks, trying to show her and tell her I wasn’t interested, but eventually I just got creeped out when she’d show up at my favorite coffee shop, sit and stare at me for a half an hour, and then stomp out when I didn’t do anything. It took a good two months of complete ignoring before she gave up and moved on. I’m aware these kinds of situations are experienced by women much more often than men, but since I’ve been through it myself, I get it that when you have more of a connection with someone, that makes rejection a lot harder.
But I also think that living your life making decisions on the off chance that a man or woman will completely flip out, stalk you, and get aggressive is kind of troubling. Men have it easier than women in this regard, but I think it’s worth really checking into the fears we have around these issues, because more and more, people seem to be walking around, afraid and disconnected to each other. And then we sit around talking about our frustration that those on the “other side” don’t understand us, and won’t make the effort to figure it out. When the reality is that a lot of us are just too guarded and scared and pessimistic to open up enough to actually get a clue.
“No offence, but it seems like women’s sexuality is disproportionately seen as a tool for affecting men’s behaviour, rather than a tool for women’s own pleasure.” What I saw Jon saying in that statement I quoted was that some men and women – even amongst declared feminists – are acting out the old Victorian narrative with highly “positive” results – i.e. that they hook up, or become a couple, or whatever. And he was saying “Why isn’t this being questioned more? Why is it that this old stuff is still working so well, even as we’re supposedly in a more egalitarian place?” I didn’t see him defending that “reward” standard, and I’m certainly not defending it.
Neil Strauss interview:
http://timeoutchicago.com/sex-dating/12914409/neil-strauss-interview
more later ….
AnneBonney,
this is, for once, something I entirely disagree with. I do have a suspicicion that *a lot* of feminist criticism is, at least subconsciously, actually more about an elusive disdain for the supposed male desire “to have more (as an extension of any) sex with women they like” than it is about the sexist language aspect. That *is* at least mental policing of male desire. And I think that a lot of the women who feel that disdain are aware of the problematic nature of their feelings, because so much of feminism is about freeing women from being sexually policed. That’s not to say that the nature (and all the varieties) of male desire cannot be discussed, it should, and I suppose we all agree that non-hegemonic versions of male desire aren’t particularly well-established culturally, but this, in particular, is an aspect where the feminist discourse hegemony of the gender discourse is problematic, because it *normalizes* the female perspective and others the male perspective without realizing the extent to which it is happening.
And whatever the individual experience of men who do want to have more sex with more women from whatever narrow attractivity range, their desire is not immoral, entitled or whatever *in itself*. They may act in an entitled way because cultural practices allow them to do so, but to criticize the desire itself is to shame male desire for being apparently different from male desire. And that is not ok.
It certainly has to with socialization. But, to be honest, in my opinion, the most important reason is that women appear to not care about physical attractivity to the extent that men do (regardless of what potential reasons for the difference). In most studies looking at attractivity, men are much less selective about their sexual partners provided their perceived attractivity is above a certain threshold (a male 9 (using the one digit composite value scale for illustration reasons only) wold may have a cut off value at a female composite 3, but all women above that perceived threshold would have a shot at sex with him. Women are more selective, even with respect to the standard deviation of the relative perceived attractivity of their partner (say, a female composite 9 wouldn’t go for a composite 4, but require a composite 5.5). But women are apparently more flexible with respect to the composition of the composite value: a male visual 4 could beome a 5.5 by being confident and fun or by having social status. Men are apparently much less willing to increase the perceived composite attractivity of women due to non-physical criteria. And that certainly makes it harder for women to improve their “game” than it is for men. I think the most important factor that could raise the composite value for women would be signalled sexual availability, but that is, alas, a factor that is culturally perceived as problematic, leading to all kinds of double binds.
So, yeah, attraction-wise, (particularly including an age component) men do seem to have it easier than women.
But that doesn’t justify shaming men for their desires as such.
Clarisse,
I really enjoyed the interview. He seems to mirror a lot of the things we’ve been talking about in the masculinity posts, like the way men feel their sexuality is shamed, seen as threatening, and policed and how the “lens of being successful with women” is a/the way for men to grow personally, because it’s the focal point of masculinity. On the surface, the Simone de Beauvoir comparison seems so bizarre, but on the other hand, given his perspective at the time maybe it’s really more comparable than it may initially seem. I mean, the second sex has sexist notions about women that would probably make most of today’s feminists cringe and yet it became the starting de facto starting point of gender analysis. And *would we really have had this discussion if Style/Strauss hadn’t written the book*?
One minor quibble though-
this does sound a bit like “feminist” equals “ethical”, which I think is not true. Not all feminism/feminists say is ethical, and certainly not all non-feminist advice is unethical or misogynist. Having more feminist input with respect to matters of dating/interactions would certainly be great, but feminist approval is not necessary for something to be ethical. I for one don’t identify as neither feminist nor PUA, yet I do think that I am concerned with the ethical nature of this kind of interaction.
@Xakudo:
It varies from partner to partner. Some keep going until you say no, and then continue a short while later until you give them another no. This makes me so uncomfortable that I start looking for ways out. Some try to accept it, but I can’t help beating myself up over disappointing them. The best times are when the guy doesn’t seem to have planned it, or doesn’t expect it to go far, where he’s just sort of exploring with me for its own sake, rather than having a fixed goal in mind.
Try to imagine that every time you think even a little of food, someone comes up a starts force-feeding you porridge mixed with ground beef, until your stomach is physically hurting and you throat starts burning with the acid of your own vomit. Eventually, you might still feel some hunger, but it’s mixed with such negative associations that you’d rather abstain from eating at all. I think the 4th comment in this article says it rather well: http://hugoschwyzer.net/2011/03/24/but-hes-supposed-to-want-it-more-the-damaging-expectation-of-higher-male-desire/#comment-580136
Sam-
I don’t think I’m doing that. I’m not terribly interested in causing shame in anyone, but I am calling for an investigation into male desire, especially considering the willingness men and women have for interrogating female desire.
I mean, look: a dude comes into the PU scene and says he would like to pay X thousands of dollars to Y number of gurus to learn how to sleep with 50 different women who all look like Megan Fox(maaaaybe one or two can look like Angelina Jolie). I don’t think it’s out of line to ask why that is.
We live in a culture that aggressively polices male desire already, in favor of upholding a racist, heterosexist, fatphobic, ableist ideal. Depending on the particular dude, I don’t think it would be more limiting or shaming to say “Hey, you don’t have to do want that if you don’t want to, and you don’t have to live up to those standards if you can’t/don’t feel like it.”
I don’t speak for feminism, but I brought it up because yes, this concerns me. Not just because I am as a women being constantly told to bend over backwards to cater to this male desire, but because men don’t seem happy with it either. Plus, for all women are told to “settle”, it seems messed up (not in a bitter, personal way btw, in a sociological way) that the seduction community exists to provide men the narrative that they never have to settle in the same way. That’s not an entitlement at its core?
You got very specific there, and if you have citations I would love to take a look. But as it stands, with not particular science to look at, I doubt the conclusions you draw from that data. I think it’s just as likely that men’s desires are more rigid than women’s because men, unlike women, are told that they can be less accomodating, and that there is active social pressure to make men’s desire conform in specific ways. I doubt very much that that is an unlearned trait.
That said, I know we live in the culture we live in, and there is no way to filter out those social pressures from men’s desires. But I do think before one embarks on a journey to bed those 50 Foxes, he should think long and hard not just about what he wants, but why he wants it. And I don’t think that is off limits in a discussion like this either.
@ Clarisse:
That interview is fascinating. Mr Strauss’ reply to “what would women do to have good game?” sounds a HUGE amount like some of the advice in HJNTIY. I think my thesis that the Greg Behrendt book ties in with PUA is holding a lot of water.
There were some interesting points made along the way, especially his talk about fears (PUA fear of feminism, and feminist fear of men’s uniting under PUA or whatever, and his own fears motivating his writing).
@ Sam:
I think that you are confusing implication with equivalence. I read Clarisse’s statements as having the underlying assumption that: “ethical, therefore (“ontologically”) feminist” but not necessarily as saying (as you seem to have understood) “(labelled as) feminist, therefore ethical”. The first implication holds because treating women ethically as human beings is kind of the fundamental point of feminist, so acting ethically towards women is acting “feministically”, even if one does not identify as feminist (it doesn’t follow that all self-identified feminists or feminist allies act feministically, alas – any more than self-identified Christians all follow the ethic brought to us by Christ, according to the Gospels).
I don’t even know where to begin because my problem with pickup is a problem with notions that are rejected by everyone on this site (and by people like Neil Strauss.)
Things like:
Women don’t want to be independent, they want you to make them feel like helpless little girls on an emotional rollercoaster.
Women can never accomplish anything substantial; they are all stupid.
The only thing a real man wants is an endless supply of hot girls. Men don’t actually love and care for women, unless they’re weaklings.
Women are easier to control when you make them feel like dirt. So do that! All the time. Especially about their bodies.
God, how do you negotiate with someone who thinks in those terms? How do you communicate “this is bad” to someone to seriously can’t see that?
@AnneBonney:
I’m not convinced that the focus placed upon conventionally attractive women, in the community, is necessarily about desire. Partially, yes. But I think that it’s also heavily influenced by the belief that conventionally attractive women can get any man that they want — which means that the more attractive that a woman is, the more meaning is attached to being involved with them. The more attractive the woman, the more the suggestion that the man with her is, in some way, exceptional.
That’s hardly something specific to the community, though. I just think that the emphases placed upon social proof, etc. make it more prominent, to the point of elevation to a principle.
@AnneBonney:
Exactly. And I’d also like to add that it seems strange to me as a woman that I have to accept it when men say that they (not just them personally, but a large part of all men) are looking for closeness and connection to women, not just shallow sex, while simultaneously being told that men are primarily judging women on appearance and sexual compliancy and expecting them to do otherwise is shaming.
In regards to whether or not appearance is so important to men that they wont even start seeing someone as more beautiful after finding out that they’re a really cool person (which I thought was almost universally human), it is foolish to ignore the cultural component. Women from one culture frequently rate appearance as more important than men from another culture. The same holds true for time periods (American men from the late 30s rated appearance as less important than American women in the mid 90s).
Women in our culture are frequently shamed for valuing appearance in a man, just as men are shamed for not valuing it enough, or for having a different taste in beauty than mainstream. And similarly, women who don’t live up to the current ideal of beauty are shamed more than their male counterparts, and astonishingly enough, there is also a good deal of shaming going on against men who primarily appeal to women based on looks.
While female sex-symbols might have their share of female critics, they also have huge female fan-bases, but male sex-symbols, from Zac Efron to Orlando Bloom, rarely inspire anything more than a mild dislike from men. Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, and Leonardo DiCaprio have only achieved male acceptance by getting older and demonstrating other qualities for women to be attracted to than appearance. And I think that, on some level, many men fear to be treated like they treat women, causing them to be immediately put off by men who’re mainly pretty (and attractive to women based on just that).
To me, it seems like a lot of PUA culture is really just about confirming that men (at least the kind of men who seek out the seduction community) still hold the most advantages, and cashing in on that as much as possible, rather than trying to change anything. (And again, I know it’s varied, but with Sam, who’s supposedly progressive and non-sexist, pretty much confirming it, it doesn’t seem reasonable to assume it’s an isolated tendency).
@SnowdropExplodes:
As an aside: this kind of de facto identification is something that I’ve found can be highly problematic, even though the intentions might be good. An impression that can result from it is that the ethical position one takes isn’t ethical in itself, but ethical because it’s shared with feminism; and that can lead to the interpretation of “feminist, thus ethical,” even though this wasn’t the original intent.
When someone then challenges feminist principles, those challenges become associated with casting doubt upon one’s ethical commitments, even if the challenges aren’t to fundamental principles, but to specifics of theory. And in the end, this can produce hostility toward feminism as a whole.
@ Infra:
I think you have a fair point there, and I wasn’t suggesting using such identities in actual discourse or debate, although it may be useful for understanding a person’s interpretation of an act as “feminist” or “not-feminist”. So I was trying to dig down into the differing interpretations of Clarisse’s statement in the interview article and find their source.
My intention was “ethical in itself, and because of that, something with which feminism can agree”. If I did not communicate that clearly, that’s my poor wording.
The lack of clarity was probably mine. ;)
I didn’t mean to imply that you were making those connections, only to highlight where it can cause problems. That comes from my own experiences, as well as from observation: that kind of slippage contributed to a non-trivial amount of bitterness on my part some years ago.
I was able to overcome it, over time, by becoming aware of that process and taking it into account. But still, it’s better to highlight where problems lie, and adjust for them, than attempt to fix them after the damage has already occurred.
Infra–
Precisely. This is exactly what I’m saying, and I’m not okay with it. I don’t think selecting partners for status, or deriving self-esteem through social proof, is a healthy thing, for individual men and women, or for out society as a whole. I think it only props up systems of oppression that hurt people who don’t conform, and that even those who do manage to meet those messed up conditions are less happy/okay than if there were none.
And I do think the general pressures coalesce in the seduction community at a much higher rate; namely, I think the demand for pick up would be much, much lower and the men who seek it out would be much, much happier to begin with if we didn’t (as a culture) construct hegemonic masculinities where the status and attractiveness of partners were integral for feeling like a “real man.”
Also, I think this goes to a point (that I personally hold to, and welcome being challenged on) that everyone has certain limitations, even in dating. Doesn’t matter if I do everything “right” — weigh only 103 lbs, get plastic surgery, change my personality to whatever is most en vogue at the moment — I’m still 99% sure I’m never gonna fuck Brad Pitt, or even a look alike. So am I really doing myself a service by making all those changes with the specific goal of bedding that one or that type of man? I think not.
I’m all for helping and teaching both men and women to relate to each other better, to have more fulfilling sexual and personal relationships, but there’s a hyperbole in both the marketing and the goalsetting for the seduction community that I think, left unexamined, can be harmful. It hurts me to think of all these men subsuming themselves, changing themselves trying to reach things that they maybe never will. I guess that’s why I personally have focused on the parts of the community that are inner game based, because I think that there is more good to be done there; I really liked that Straus recognized in the interview that that is where there is the most value in seduction. But even so, becoming a better person just to get pussy seems pretty bluh, to me, and I think needs to be undertaken seriously and with a lot of thought.
Basically, patriarchy is a like a goddamn Saw movie, and all I want is for everyone to get out alive.
@AnneBonney:
Can’t say as I disagree, except for this point:
IMO, it may be about feeling like a “real man,” but I think that in even larger measure, it’s about understanding why people choose as they do: the old problem of the relationship between act and intent. I think that there’s some overlap when it comes to a man seeing himself as a “real man” and a man knowing that a woman is involved with him for a particular reason, regardless of what that reason might be. The debate tends to come down to which reasons are more persuasive than others, more justified, or more valid.
Status and attractiveness are only two of those explanations, and that’s why I have my doubts about whether or not addressing these issues would reduce the demand for pickup, or increase happiness in general. Alternate explanations would need to be advanced — and, more importantly, they would need to make sense in the context of individual experience in order to displace them. (I’m inclined to see this as one of the reasons for the rise of inner game: that relationship to individual experience is inherent, which isn’t the case with outer game techniques.)
That alternate explanations don’t seem to fit the bill, from what I’ve seen, seems to be one of the reasons why pickup persists.
Infra–
That’s entirely possible. But I think we can agree without those status pressures, perhaps other motivations — that partners compliment each other well, that they respect each other, that they are just very sexy in each others eyes regardless of beauty standards, that they just make each other happy — could be given more preeminence, no? I guess my feminist utopia just has people being together because they, apart from conditioning, just damn well want to be.
Now, I want to clarify that I don’t think this is only a dude problem: I personally have torpedoed relationships I was in because I felt my partner wasn’t ‘high status’ (namely, conventionally attractive and/or intelligent/educated) enough. In a vacuum, they might have been good matches for me, but as it stood, I was increasingly uncomfortable because every time we went out in public I heard that Joe Jackson song playing in my head (“Is she really going oooooout with hiiiim?”). Here’s the thing though, I thought that was a personal failing and really fucking unfair to those guys. Part of the thing I’ve learned from my time in the seduction community is to listen to those thoughts before I get involved with those kind of guys, because going out with them when I have mixed feelings is a dick move.
So, I get it, I really do, but I think without that willingness to self-reflect, I could have easily inferred that those men are just universally unattractive or worth my time (clearly not true, because I was attracted enough to sleep with them) or that it’s totally fine to think uncharitable thoughts about my partners while always keeping an eye out for “better” guys. [/tmi]
@AnneBonney:
We’re not in disagreement in terms of what would be preferable and beneficial. I’d disagree about those motivations becoming preeminent if we were able to remove the status pressures, but only because I’m not convinced that the relationship involves that kind of clear, mutual inhibition. IME, status, respect and sexiness (to take just those three) seem to have a complex interrelationship, dependent on how each of them is understood by the individual.
Anyway, I should make it clear that I’m not arguing against what you’re saying, just pointing out that we’re probably dealing with a complex system, one dealing with how and why people believe what they believe. And complex systems, unfortunately, have a tendency to go in unexpected directions when subjected to a high-level approach.
This, I think, is the crucial factor: not just the emergence of self-reflection, but its emergence from within the individual themselves.
But it’s also the crucial problem: because, insofar as it emerges from within the individual, there’s a part of it that isn’t amenable to external control.
And so… right back to the notion of complex systems.
There have been some moves in the seduction community for more inclusive notions of beauty. For instance, I’ve seen men encouraged to aim for women who are attractive to them, regardless of whether they are a “10″ to other men. Even in the context of the rating system, you will often see PUAs using language like “she was an 8 for me“, which emphasizes his subjectivity.
You guys might be familiar with one of the main guys championing these ideas: he went by the name “Gunwitch.”
… and this would be precisely what I was getting at in the first paragraph of #176.
AnneBonney, Infra,
Again, I’ve never been really involved in the seduction community beyond reading “the game” and some of other material that’s floating around on the internet, but reading about the possibility of a transformation from shy introvert to the world’s leading pickup artist was definitely significant for my personal “journey to myself” (which included a lot more reading (ncluding theoritical feminism, starting from de Beauvoir, Foucault, down to anthropology, evolutionary biology, basic neurobiology, *positive psychology*) and a lot more than reading (personal psychology). Being shown that change is possible was truly mentally liberating after more than ten years of involuntary celibacy and given my issues with sexual shame, that I’m not sure it’s possible for me to adequately convey the feeling.
So, yeah, I bet there’s morons out there who believe paying 5,000 Dollars will allow them to bed 50 women who look like Angelina Jolie or Megan Fox. But those guys probably need to learn basic logic and not just flirting. I’ve always thought that the introduction to Elana Clift’s thesis about the Seduction Community (her brother got involved – https://webspace.utexas.edu/ejc329/ElanaCliftThesis.pdf) captures the essence of my impression of the SC. But as my exposure has been limited and Clarisse has, again and again, posted links to material that I found repugnant, I can apparently only say this for myself.
I’m all for investigating and understanding male as well as female desires and in the case of the morons who believe stuff like you mention, it *is* a good question to ask why this is what they want. But at the same time, there has to be an acceptance of that desire as *real* and ethically ok. Not starting from that point of view would be similar to what a German feminist once said (and keeps repeating) that women with a submissive sexuality are “collaborators” in patriarchy. When we talk about the way society is dealing with desires and integrating them into narratives and meta narratives, we need to be clear that we DO accept the desire itself as real and that there is nothing inherently wrong with it.
And there’s nothing *inherently* wrong with wanting to have sex with 50 Megan Foxes, it’s just something that’s very likely bound to make the person wanting it unhappy.
I agree that female desire is often unfairly criticized (say by “nice guys ™”) and shamed. But, in my opinion, that’s just as much a problem as shaming men for their desires. One isn’t better than the other, and both should be avoided as much as possible.
And, for what it’s worth, I thought that the woman who finally kissed me after all those years did look (at least to me) like a Hollywood Star, and the fact that we were able to become involved to the extent that we did had certainly *A LOT* to do with the fact that I had begun to feel worthy of the attention of women who a look like Megan Fox or Angelina Jolie, that I had begun being able to abstract from physical beauty in the way Infra is explaining in #167.
When a very popular and beautiful girl demonstrated her interest in me in the equivalent of High School, I didn’t believe that I was worthy of her attention, I thought she must have been joking. We later became friends, but never more, and apart from my general issues with sexual shame and the fear of my allegedly toxic male sexuality, the belief that I wasn’t worthy of her attention *because of her beauty* was a decisive factor in keeping us apart (I doubt it would have worked out due to my other issues, but it’s still worth mentioning).
So, if you deduct the marketing hyperbole, you may well be dealing with a guy who’s afraid to speak to the cute shopgirl when he’s paying 5,000 Dollars “to bed 50 Angelina Jolies”.
AB,
and I think that, on some level, many men fear to be treated like they treat women, causing them to be immediately put off by men who’re mainly pretty (and attractive to women based on just that).
I suppose there may be a certain truth to that.
“(And again, I know it’s varied, but with Sam, who’s supposedly progressive and non-sexist, pretty much confirming it, it doesn’t seem reasonable to assume it’s an isolated tendency).”
I’m not sure what exactly I’m allegedly confirming, AB. I have repeatedly stated my special position, my personal issues and my personal history. For all my privileges and my willingness and ability to actually work on myself and my apparent attractivity, citing me, a guy who was kissed for the first time around age 30, as an example confirming male privileges in the dating realm does make the argument a bit surreal…
AnneBonney, again,
Sure, there are limitations, but wouldn’t it be great if those weren’t about people not feeling *inherently* unworthy of the other’s attraction, but only about the logistics of not being very likely to meet?
Totally. That’s why we’re doing it.
But even so, becoming a better person just to get pussy seems pretty bluh, to me, and I think needs to be undertaken seriously and with a lot of thought.
I can only say that wanting some pussy at all was a big motivator and certainly helped me get through my depression. Again, I can only say that I believe it seems to be hard for women to understand the perceived importance thereof.
But that’s a circular problem, because stated like that it totally begs the question: what are the criteria that make them attractive to each other, which, on a meta level, becomes the question of what we *ARE*, if stripped of cultural imperatives.
I think it’s an important question, though, as it picks the debate up ;) at the intersection of feminity, masculinity, and humanity as such.
@SarahC:
Back in the ’90s, I knew a woman who worked for the Department of Corrections in sex offender treatment (as well as therapy and support for victims, both men and women in both cases, which was the context for most of our talks), who was also one of the few people who had a decent record in rehabilitation. The thing that she used to emphasize was that the development of victim empathy was the determining factor: with that, you had a foundation to change the behavior and prevent reoffense, so long as the treatment was combined with things like proper identification of risk factors and an effective structure for aftercare.
Without that… there wasn’t much hope.
People like those are much the same. Condemning the behavior doesn’t work; pointing out that it’s unhealthy doesn’t work; and introducing them to different frameworks doesn’t work, either. Not unless they’re able to connect the pain that they inflict with the pain that they experience — and move, from there, to a commitment to preventing it.
If you’ve ever seen The Woodsman: the changes that Walter went through are the kind of changes that need to happen.
As for how to do that outside of the criminal justice system and the therapeutic process, though… I sincerely wish that I knew how to make that easier, into something that could be more widely done. Recognizing when those moments of empathy occur, intervening then, and working to build a something similar to risk factor identification and the aftercare process is the most accessible part. But that requires dealing with people that most people don’t want to deal with, and focusing on nurturing the humanity that emerges through those cracks. It’s work that requires a kind of willingness to engage that, from most people, is just too much to expect.
You have to know the dark, and be able to willingly endure it. It involves pain; and people avoid that for good reason.
Clarisse, to answer your questions about how PUAs discuss ethics and shit-tests, let’s go on a little field trip to mASF. I did an archive search on “shit test” and looked at the first few pages.
You’ve wondered whether some of the behaviors that PUAs often call “shit tests” are really tests. Well, PUAs ask exactly the same questions, are there are many “was this a shit test?” threads. From here:
Another poster laid down the law on him:
The terms “jerk” and “dick” are words of moral disapproval. Notice how even though her behavior is called a “shit test,” the conclusion is that she wasn’t doing anything wrong, but rather that he was being the jerk.
Furthermore, notice how meta this discussion is. The original poster questions the “common wisdom” in the community. Many experienced PUAs are very self-aware and thoughtful; it’s not just Neil Strauss and I.
Remember the Rule of PUA Criticism: “Every criticism of the seduction community was first made by a PUA.”
I don’t have time to comment extensively but I did want to pick up on one point … the women’s attractiveness point, the idea of inclusive standards of beauty.
I don’t really like the idea that men’s sexuality is generally more focused on stereotypically “hot” women, and that it’s more unusual/more difficult for men to be attracted to non-conventionally attractive women than to conventionally attractive ones, as opposed to the way attraction works for most het women. But it could be true, and if it is then I don’t really feel comfortable shaming men for that. (It seems like gay men frequently exhibit similar attraction patterns to straight men, in terms of being considerably more attracted to younger partners and more, shall we say, sculpted partners. I seem to recall reading somewhere that lesbians have written critiques of ageism in gay men’s attraction patterns.)
There’s evidence for sexual fluidity but there’s no evidence for being able to consciously change sexuality. Maybe changing culture can change sexuality. There’s no evidence for this and I’m extremely reluctant to police art, porn, whatever based on a weak hypothesis, especially if the goal is to police sexuality some more; fuck that. All the anecdotes (and sexuality scholars) I’ve encountered have said that sexual fluidity appears to happen in a way we can’t control and don’t understand. The ex-gay movement shows us that even people who are very motivated to abandon homosexuality simply cannot meet with success, and will become disillusioned witnesses against the programs that tried. What good is shame for influencing such a force?
But is it such a problem that attraction patterns are like this? Well, it sucks for conventionally unattractive people. I have a lot of sympathy for this (as my frequently-noted fears of aging show). On the other hand, a lot of things about sexual attraction just aren’t fair, and if we start insisting that people are obligated to have sex with people they’re not attracted to, that’s not right either.
I think the real, and important, problem comes in when people (especially women) who are attractive are given more social power in other areas, more likely to be promoted, more likely to be seen as competent, etc (studies show that blonde hair is most universally attractive to men and that blondes make more money on average than other women). Some famous misogynist, I can’t remember which one, is on record as saying that feminism is about giving unattractive women more power in society (even leaving aside its massive misread on feminism, this statement assumes that unattractive women don’t deserve any power in society, which is obviously fucked up).
People aren’t very good at watching their biases in general, and so when I say that men generally suck at watching out for how biased they get about attractive women, I’m not trying to say something specific about men. It may be that women are less biased by conventionally attractive men because our hormones just work differently. It seems like the focus should therefore be on de-biasing people to think that attractive people are better at things that have nothing to do with attraction.
As a side note … I recently read part of a book by Lisa Diamond called, I think, Sexual Fluidity, which floats the hypothesis that women’s sexuality is simply more fluid than men’s. This isn’t to say that we are able to consciously control our sexuality, or that we don’t have sexual orientations, but apparently the implications of the available research is that women kind of just … have more room for sexual evolution. (As a corollary, one hypothesis of the book is that certain people are just more fluid than other specific people, too.) It’s not at all clear to me how strong the difference is (and it may not be clear to researchers either), but if the difference is generally strong, then the implications for feminist theory about cultural influence on sexuality are interesting: The common (and, I think, quite justified) feminist idea that culture/experience influences sexuality might simply be more true for women than it is for men.
Now let’s move on to a crazy discussion of shit tests, which has a moral dimension. It’s pretty long, so I’ll run through some highlights.
The original poster communicates early on that he isn’t looking for anything serious (he clarifies that in a later post), yet after they have sex, she asks if they have anything special, and “why me?” He takes that as a shit test:
He wonders if his own communication was unclear:
Notice that even though initially he thought it was her making the “shit test,” now he is wondering if he made the real “mistake,” and he is questioning his own communication.
As an aside, this is the opposite of the “PUAs are looking for insecure women to prey on” hype train that’s been starting up. Actually, he tried to screen her for self-esteem by testing her with compliments, but she failed his test, then acted dramatic about “specialness” when he thought he had made his lack of long-term intentions clear… so he stuck her in the “let’s just be friend with benefits zone.”
In a followup post, he clarifies his approach:
He gets some pretty interesting responses.
Now for a very interesting remark from that comment:
“Not your fault?” It’s almost as if this is a discussion of ethics, even though the OP never explicitly asked if he did anything wrong, the readers implicitly understand that he is looking for moral guidance, not just practical guidance. He advises:
Sincerity? Concern about leading her on? From PUAs? Never.
This original poster responded to her “why me?” question by saying “you caught my eye,” but this response gets some criticism from another poster:
“Devalued?” That almost sounds like… a moral criticism! Notice that this poster understands the “shit test” exactly a request for reassurance. Another post continues the “reassurance” theme:
PUAs “going against PUA theory”? Who woulda thunk it? As I’ve been saying for ages, PUA theories/language, and what PUAs actually do, are not the same thing.
After receiving these replies, the OP concludes that he read the situation wrong:
And here we have all the things that PUAs are criticized for supposedly not doing: willingness to admit that he was wrong, a meta-level questioning of PUA theories, and an expression of empathy towards the girl. It’s almost as if PUAs are human beings with moral compasses.
Side note: during that whole Privilege Denying Dude internet meme, there was one that featured Privilege Denying Dude saying, “I’m just not attracted to fat women … why should I be expected to hire them?”
@HR, thanks for the analysis. Real quick though –
Remember the Rule of PUA Criticism: “Every criticism of the seduction community was first made by a PUA.”
and
PUAs “going against PUA theory”? Who woulda thunk it?
But doesn’t it mean something that when people have these moral discussions, they see it as opposing the prevailing mores of their community? No one here is arguing that all PUAs are assholes, people are just arguing that the community standards are fucked up. Your examples here seem to support that, not contradict it.
@Clarisse:
A quick note regarding Diamond’s book: I thought that the conclusion that she drew about women’s sexuality being more fluid than men’s was premature. AFAIK, there simply haven’t been any studies of men’s attraction patterns that are similar to the research that Diamond did. (I’m open to correction on that.)
I’ll just note that I’ve experienced changes similar to the ones described by the women that she interviewed.
@Hugh:
Actually, I think that the closing comments from the OP are some of the most revealing:
What this suggests, to me, is a perspective of “This doesn’t apply in all situations, but it’s what I’ve learned, and it still applies in most, so it’s what I’m going to stick with. If it causes harm, there are other people who will pick up the pieces.”
Point being:
I’m not saying that moral compasses are absent, but there are multiple ways to interpret those comments, and some of them suggest that those compasses are pretty damn weak.
Clarisse said:
Actually, people who criticize PUAs, including in this thread, do a bad job of distinguishing between PUAs personally, and seduction community standards. See this comment by AB:
Here’s you:
Taken literally, these quotes are about the beliefs and behaviors of PUAs, not just about seduction community standards.
If the “prevailing mores” are criticized by experienced PUAs on the most popular PUA forum in the world, perhaps they aren’t quite so prevailing. Although PUAs criticizing community mores identifies a problem in the community, the very act of criticism changes those mores over time.
This discussion reminds me of a difference I’ve often noticed between feminism and feminists, and how feminists are often more empathetic and humane towards men than some academic feminist theories would indicate.
Political ideologies can often spin out of control, but a lot of the time, the humanity of the members of the movement can help keep the ideology in check.
Infra said:
That’s not the moral I take from it. The moral I took from it was:
“I failed to recognize that this situation was an exception to the general rule of shit tests, so misreading it wasn’t my fault… but now I’m better equipped to identify situations with insecure and inexperienced women and know how to handle them.”
He never says that he is going to stick with his past approach.
The thing is, he already took measures to prevent her from harm. He told her very clearly that he wasn’t looking for anything serious. She took responsibility for that risk. She had informed consent to the situation. So it’s not like he was being reckless or negligent.
A moral standard of “take no action that might cause harm, even when the other person has given informed consent to the situation, because of the possibility that they might have some hidden vulnerability and insecurity” would paralyze anyone holding that standard.
If someone wants to say that such a moral standard is necessary for men to avoid harming women in dating, then fine. But if so, let’s do away with maxims like “treat women like human beings.” Such a practice would not be treating women as human beings, it would be treating them like children.
Yes, when people recognize that their partners are inexperienced and insecure, they should attempt to avoid harming them. Yet how much responsibility can we place on them, without getting patronizing to the other person? I hate the idea that men must treat women like experienced chess players treat beginners, giving a constant stream of “are you sure you really want to do that?”
Thanks to PUA ideology, he failed to realize how insecure and inexperienced she was, so he didn’t know how to handle her wishful thinking that things would enfold counter to their agreement. His response was a bit callous. Thanks to mASF, he now knows better. Hidden within the support from his mASF bros was some pretty sharp words, like him making her feel “devalued,” and being “uncalibrated.” Pickup was part of the problem, and it was also the solution.
The other part of the problem was the sex-negative culture that gave the woman such a narrow view of sex outside defined relationships, giving her the wrong expectations in this situation. I see this situation as analogous to an inexperienced “nice guy” getting hurt by a woman because the culture had given him the wrong expectations.
I don’t want a standard where if a man gets hurt from his unrealistic cultural expectations, it’s the man’s fault, and if a woman gets hurt from her unrealistic cultural expectations… then it’s also the man’s fault!
Don’t hate the player, hate the culture.
Btw, this situation does show a need for female game. If the woman had known what she was doing in this situation, maybe she could have turned it into a relationship.
Sure. What are your interpretations?
@ HR:
A lot of the things you describe as indicating ethical criticism did not come across that way to me. They could just as easily be interpreted as being technical criticisms (that is, the equivalent of a soccer player’s, “it’s my fault that I missed the goal, I screwed up my run-up and so got a bad kick on the ball”, and asking his coach or team-mates for advice on how to score next time). It may just be my reading of it, but it felt more like analysis of a chess game than of an ethical quandary.
For example, you take at face value:
But to me this appears to be not about actually being sincere. It’s about performing sincere in such a way as to snare the target, so that the discussion is simply about the relative merits of “softly, softly, catchee monkey” versus standard traps. It doesn’t say, “be honest and truthful”. It says “get the message across”, and that’s what politicians do (yes, I believe “politician” is a dirty word!). It says “she will interpret it the way you want her to”.
I had similar issues with all the quoted examples you gave us.
FInally, in response to Infra reading:
as
you claim that:
Is sufficient “measures to prevent her from harm” and “[telling] her very clearly that he wasn’t looking for anything serious.”
That is not how I would read that type of statement. In fact, given the interpretations suggested by that OP and the commenters, I would suggest that it could easily be taken as a signal of emotional availability in the long term. My point being is that it does not read as an honest statement of disinterest, but as having some subtle “no means yes” implications.
In fact, from what I read on some of the PUA links in the OP (and, bizarrely, in a guide on how to write dialogue in erotic novels) he made an elemental mistake by using a qualifier on his statement, to wit: “right now“. That single phrase creates a completely different impression in the mind of his target. (It seems to be a mistake in PUA game terms for a different reason: qualifiers are described as “beta” formulations; in erotic/romance novels, you have to keep your male protagonist from using them so he seems believable when he sweeps his lover off her feet)
@Hugh:
In my reading, “Still, I feel it’s better to err on the side of alpha behaviour in general” was a pretty clear indicator that he planned to do so. Though I’d say that it also suggests returning to it in a “purer” form. (Cf. first analysis, below.)
I wouldn’t deny that — it’s his response to recognizing the fact that harm had been caused that’s problematic for me. “Oh well, she’ll get over it and find some sweet AFC provider to bring her flowers” gives the impression of callousness.
It might be accurate to say that he came to recognize that some of his behavior was callous. But I think that it’s also accurate to say that, by the end of the discussion, this hadn’t changed, except in terms of how/where it was directed. Which is something that I see as being of dubious value in establishing ethical conduct.
Although I’d agree with this to a degree, there’s also the issue of the way in which the individual responds to the recognition of consequence: the question of agency. This statement is akin to some arguments regarding patriarchy, in that way, and is, IMO, subject to the same criticisms.
Some examples, a couple of which have already been similarly interpreted by SnowdropExplodes:
I didn’t see this as questioning his communication, but as saying that he had compromised his player vibe by engaging in actions that he should have known better than to do; i.e., the confusion arose because he was off of his game. I don’t think that this is too uncharitable an interpretation, given some other parts of the post, such as the reference to having sex on the third date as a “bad sign.”
If anything, I think that this is an example of what AB has repeatedly mentioned: being willing to have sex with someone even if you don’t like or respect them. It doesn’t challenge the idea that PUAs prey upon low self-esteem women; instead, it suggests that such women will find themselves in a “good for a casual fuck, but not for anything more” category.
If the response had included ruling out casual FB as well, it might have communicated something different, like the decision not to get involved with low self-esteem women due to the possibility of exploiting, even unintentionally, their vulnerabilities. But it didn’t.
(I should note, here, that the tendency to interpret these things as indicating LSE, instead of, say, a history of unsatisfying relationships — which is not exclusive of high self-esteem, unless we’re assuming that HSE people never get into bad ones — is fundamentally problematic.)
Not entirely problematic, but inclusion of “she’ll interpret it the way you want” raises the question of whether it’s sincerity for its own sake, or for the sake of effectiveness. So it could be considered to be moral conduct, sure. But perhaps for the wrong reasons.
Taking this as a reference to ethics completely overlooks the fact that it was in response to why she did not have an orgasm.
It’s reassuring someone about their sexual performance, not moral evaluation.
As far as the thread overall, I wouldn’t say that it’s bereft of ethical and moral concerns/advice: Prognosis’ reply (which you quoted) was far better in this regard than, say, FrancoPUA’s numerous ones. But even with that, I think that something Prognosis wrote comes into play: he’s probably younger than most, and probably deals, as a rule, with women who are less experienced. I wouldn’t rule that out as an element of why his position had more of a moral and ethical focus.
In sum, my point is that I don’t think that that discussion establishes the kind of moral or ethical stance that you’re suggesting, at least to the degree that you seem to suggest. What it does suggest, to me, is what’s been a commonly-stated observation: more ethical individuals, such as Prognosis, exist. But they’re rare.
And as a closing remark, I’d like to point out that the thing most indicative of a lack of moral/ethical concern was the fact that one particular part of her text message — “Anyway, I’m OK. Ummm… I may be ok.” — was met with essentially no address whatsoever.
If there’s anything that should have raised a moral concern, it’s that.
When someone responds to you by saying something like that, you need to pay attention.
Snowdrop Explodes,
this is a bit off-topic I suppose, but that guide to writing erotic novels, do you have a link? I’m trying to get better at explicit verbal sexual communication/ escalation, and this seems like useful information ;)
Hugh, Infra,
I agree, but I think I also read an implicit, “I need to learn how to become better at distinguishing those situations in which the standard stuff doesn’t work” – which, actually, is apparently not that easy, since it sort of is what almost cost Neil Strauss his relationship in “The Game”. It seems there’s both a recognition of a moral problem *as well as* a “technical” weakness in his approach – his approach was based on the standard set of assumptions (which every intiation is logically based on) and was carried out with the standard set of expections but apparently he wasn’t able to “calibrate” and “recalibrate” appropriately when the approach became an actual interaction. He seemed unable to read her when she exhibited behaviour did not match the expected behaviour.
I think from the “leave her better than you found her” point of view it seems clear that this specific application of the standard assumptions and techniques did not work. And I think it’s a fair question whether, or to which extent, the guy’s inability to appropriately react was based on a community-instilled belief in “having all the answers.” In essence, this would be the question to which extent the advice presented is taking Clarisse’s OP point #1 into account (not all women/people are equal). Clearly, a lot of the advertising doesn’t do this sufficiently, and there seems to be, in the quotes presented, a recognition that there also isn’t much actual adice about identifying and clustering personality types and underlying motivations, and the need to potentially completely give up on scripts. I’ve always seen the latter as the moral of “the game” (as a cautionary tale), but I’m pretty sure others have not interpreted it that way.
Clarisse,
I think that your interpreation of the exchange is valid, but I didn’t have the impression that it was mostly about something going against “PUA mores”, but rather about recomminending something that goes against a (seemingly narrow?) definition of PUA *techniques* (like appearing dominant – “Still, I feel it’s better to err on the side of alpha behaviour in general. Just not in this specific case…”).
What annoyed me most about the exchange was the end:
if he realised his own lack of communication skills are mostly responsible for her assumed crying, he should at least send a text messgae apolgizing without raising her potentially still existing hopes.
@Sam:
I’d agree — there are several replies in which Yarbles specifically says that he wants/vows to learn how to screen better. But it’s difficult to say whether or not that reflects a moral concern, especially given the different contexts of that same response.
Or… well, I should rephrase that as a stable moral concern.
Mostly, that’s because there are moments when Yarbles seems to recognize the need for the creation of a better experience, but then moves back toward trying to fit this into his established framework. The impression that I get is that he’s attempting to suppress his ethical/moral concerns, at least until and unless he’s able to let them out without compromising his general frame.
I finally poke my head in the new post’s comments, and all the topics I find interesting and want to reply to have mostly been left behind. :-(
AnneBonney:
I find this unrealistic, in a “sex isn’t different” way. I think it’ll always be true that most people will consider the status effect when they, say, date a particular person but also that most people will consider the status effect when they take a particular job.
@Clarisse:
My experiences would suggest them women are no less biased when they get the chance; we just live in a world where they don’t get it as often.
via Clarisse:
via Hugh Ristik:
I’d say, even more specifically, that it reminds me of the theory/practice differences some bloggers brought up in the similarly-topiced “Let’s discuss Fucking While Feminist” that happened quite a while ago (in Internet time, anyway).
I also thought AFC was kinda “Eh, that behavior sounds like what I want to be.” based on these excerpts. Then I googled its meaning. :-(
@ Sam:
It was in amongst the “Writers Resources” part of the Erotic Readers & Writers Association archives (annoyingly, sorted primarily by year rather than topic or author name, so you have to go throgh it fairly slowly). I think it was in one of the articles by Laura Burton, but can’t remember what year. There’s a lot of good stuff there, though.
I’m not sure if Burton’s article is exactly what you’re looking for, but you may well find other authors in amongst the archive that will give you what you need.
Infra,
possibly. But if so, that really takes us explicitly back to the question of how effectivity and ethics are related, as I mentioned above. Clarisse and AnneBonney say – ethics are more important, even if you don’t get laid. This PUA says “I need this to get what I want, I’m sorry if it hurts someone else, I try to become better” and I’d say effectivity is a necessary condition for any ethical approach. Maybe not effectivity according to some arbitrary standard, but effectivity that does make a difference in the lives of the guys who do this.
Oops, “Louisa Burton” in #195, not “Laura Burton” – Laura Burton, IIRC, is actually a television celebrity!
@AllSaintsDay — all the topics I find interesting and want to reply to have mostly been left behind. :-(
Eh, just cite the comment number and go back to the topic. It’s what the rest of us do :P This particular thread is moving too fast for me too, really ….
On another note, I love this comment from the Feministe Neil Strauss thread:
My question to a guy who finds PU helpful in that way is this: in your game, are women PCs or NPCs?
@HR — You guys might be familiar with one of the main guys championing these ideas: he went by the name “Gunwitch.”
You mean no one is an unmixed bag?! Shut up, you evil PUA demon.
Just kidding, as Juggler would say.
OK, I have no time, but I did want to say this:
poor thing is probably crying now. Oh well, she’ll get over it and find some sweet AFC provider to bring her flowers.
While I have mixed feelings about HR’s deconstruction, and I agree with a lot of the criticism (he could have done a lot better), I also think that people often say things like this when they do legitimately feel bad but need to remind themselves that nothing is permanent and the other person will survive. I do wish that there were more focus in that mASF thread on how things got messed up between those two, but at the same time, sometimes people just make mistakes. I dunno. Maybe I’m a heartless bitch, but I had a similar situation come up recently, and when I was talking to my best female friend afterwards I said some similar stuff (“he’ll get over it …”) And I don’t think I’m failing to take accountability for how I acted, and how I could have done better … though maybe I am.
@Clarisse:
Depends on how you said it, I’d wager. There’s “he’ll get over it,” and there’s “he’ll get over it and find some [pejorative reference] to [stereotypical thing].”
I think that the most accurate equivalents, here, would be “woman who won’t stand up for herself” and “stroke his fragile male ego.” In a similar situation, I’d consider that to be similarly callous.
@ Clarisse:
That linked comment is excellent – it’s like a video-game nerd version of Kant’s Categorical Imperative (in the formulation “Treat others as an end in themselves and never merely a means to an end”). That makes my philosophy nerd heart glow as well as my video game nerd heart!
I think this is a fair comment, and I wonder how much of my reaction/response to the remark was based on prejudice or preconceptions of the type of person saying it, and how much on the actual content of the rest of the message. I do think that “AFC” is a loaded term implying contempt (each of the three words in the acronym carry subtle implications of “not good enough”, or not-so-subtle in the case of “chump”). I am having to remind myself constantly of my rule that, “if there’s a way to take something that isn’t offensive, take it that way” with a lot of these PUA statements. (That rule concludes, “…because if they are genuinely offensive, they will soon leave you in no doubt.” Some PUA sites definitely leave no doubt!)
Snowdrop,
thanks for the link, btw.
Clarisse,
yeah, totally love Maggie’s comment, too!
@AB:
A couple of clarifications:
First, when I say “sex” I don’t necessarily mean intercourse. If a partner wants to play with arousal, but I am not up for it unless it leads to “sex”, a hand job (or oral, or whatever) is plenty sufficient in that case. Basically anything to get me off, so that I am not in that uncomfortable turned-on-with-no-outlet state. IMO if my partner wants to use me for her enjoyment (playing with arousal) than it is not unreasonable for me to ask for something like that in return (within reason).
In your case it sounds like there was not much explicit negotiation going, though…? I can imagine myself doing something similar as what you described, especially when I was younger, because I would presume that the continued activity meant that you would want to continue (or be up for continuing) intercourse at some point, and it was just a matter of waiting or getting you turned on enough, or something like that. In other words, the presumption on my part would have been that your actions indicated an intent for sex, so any rejections would interpreted as “not yet” unless activity in general also ceased along with the rejection.
It sounds like a lot of the problem is just a big disconnect between guys and women…? I think a lot of guys are probably like my younger self, where the idea that anyone would intentionally initiate arousing activity without wanting to have sex is just… completely foreign. Like cooking food and then throwing it away. Maybe professional cooks do that, while practicing, but no normal person would.
I think if guys understood that is what is going on (and as long as they are not shamed for how their sexuality works or for their needs), then it would open the door to mutually beneficial negotiation, and happiness all around. Instead of what seems to happen right now, with women constantly feeling forced into doing more than they intended, and guys constantly feeling teased/rejected.
Tangentially related, very funny, and touching on some of the topics covered in the comments so far, is the latest “Basic Instructions” from Scott Meyer: How to Be Friends with an Attractive Woman when You’re a Heterosexual Man.
I fully agree that there are multiple ways of interpreting many of the comments in that thread. Due to the norms on pickup forums of avoiding being “preachy” to other men, and engaging in self-aggrandizement towards yourself, I would expect that moral discussions, and admitting mistakes, would be presented in a muted manner.
SnowdropExplodes:
I think you’re absolutely correct that the advice is to perform sincerity. But that doesn’t contradict actually being sincere. Why kill one bird with one stone, when you can kill two?
I do worry about the possibility that this advice might encourage PUAs to self-deceive themselves into sincerely signaling more relationship interest than they feel. (Note that this is a much more complex criticism of PUAs than any of the common ones.)
You doubt this statement:
I completely disagree. Actually, as far as norms go for people show relationship disinterest, his statement reads as pretty damn blatant.
As the Kitzinger research found, people have trouble making direct and explicit refusals, and one refusal strategy is “not now” to make a permanent refusal. As you point out, there was potential for “no means yes,” but interpreting his resistance as “token” was done at her own risk. She took the risk, and she struck out. But if someone sets a boundary, and you push it, that’s often what happens.
Even if his statement did open up the possibility for a relationship in the future, they never even got to the long term, so her hopes were incredibly premature. He clearly told that he wasn’t interested in a relationship during the timeframe where they were seeing other. As Kitzinger suggests, people shouldn’t have to voice an explicit and permanent “no” to be understood as refusing, and this principle applies to emotional boundaries, not just women’s sexual boundaries.
Infra:
I have trouble believing that next time this guy goes out with a Korean woman who seems potentially inexperienced or insecure, he is going to do exactly the same thing as in this situation. Yes, he will err on the side of “alpha behavior” when he has a lack of knowledge of the woman’s psychology, but this experience has helped him fix his lack of knowledge of certain types of women.
I agree with Clarisse’s interpretation of this comment: it’s exactly the sort of thing that someone would say who genuinely feels bad, but who is trying laugh it off. Don’t forget, this guy is posting on a macho, misogynistic, and male-biased forum, so any admission of a mistake is a big deal.
I agree with AB that some men indeed do this, and men probably do it more often than women. I’m not sure whether it is occurring in this example. He never says he doesn’t like or respect her. Not wanting a relationship with someone is not the same same thing as not liking or respecting someone… even if you think they have low self-esteem.
I have plenty of friends who I like and respect, but there is no denying that they don’t have the greatest self-esteem. Some of them I would have sex with, if I thought that the end result would be positive for both people, and I would think this if they gave me informed consent to non-relationship sex.
Merely someone having low self-esteem is not sufficient reason to believe that they cannot consent to non-relationship sex without it being potentially harmful to them. To presume otherwise is to infantilize them. Even though they might prefer a relationship, many people will take “friends with benefits” over being single, so it can still be a win-win.
The fact that someone consents to having sex with you is evidence that they expect it to be a win-win. However, if you have concrete reasons (in addition to low self-esteem) to believe that the result would be a net negative for them (even if they’ve given explicit verbal consent to a purely casual arrangement), then in that situation, you should have pause.
You’re right, I didn’t read what he was quoting.
Infra said:
Ah, Franco. He is a major figure on mASF, and a lot of the ideas about shit tests come from his theories. I agree that his responses seem least useful, but after hearing the story he tells about recent tests he was getting, I start to see why he thinks this way.
This guy grew up in post-Fascist Italy, and lives in Eastern Europe, if I recall correctly. The woman he was dating had gone through two rich husbands who she controlled completely, based on his description. He believe that she has attachment issues with men due to abusive behavior by her father, who would do things like kill cats in front of his wives as a threat if they ever strayed from him.
It’s quite plausible to me that Franco’s theories are reasonable based on the experience of a rich, older man in Eastern Europe. It’s quite possible that in such a cultural context, gender relations are much more adversarial, and he really does have to worry about women trying to take control of the relationship and placing him a “provider role” if he shows long-term interest.
I’m not sure how well Franco’s experience generalize, and I experience some culture shock reading his posts, since the women I date don’t yell at me in restaurants.
Even in Franco’s posting, there are some moral concerns. Enchanter comes along and tells him that the way to handle these sorts of tests is to give the woman complete emotional leadership. Franco worries about consent issues (he says a part of him would feel that he was “raping her” if he took completely responsibility for her emotions), and he doesn’t want to treat her like a child. Enchanter argues that emotional leadership isn’t the same as treating her like a child, because a child doesn’t have the choice to walk away, while she does.
These dynamics sound a lot like a 24/7 BDSM master/slave type of relationship, except the gender dynamics are so adversarial that communication and safeguards are hard to put in place.
Like the case of “negs” being spawned in Los Angeles, certain theories of shit tests seem to hail from Eastern Europe, and other cultures with more traditional gender dynamics than the white middle-class US. This seems like another case of PUAs overgeneralizing based on phenomena that are real, while white middle-class Western critics of pickup often completely dismiss their arguments out of ethnocentrism.
Snowdrop:
It is interesting that his response to “You’re the only guy in the office who’s never hit on me,” essentially amounts to, “That’s because I’m married and I also fear your impact on my employment.”
As a “safe” guy who has some experience with such comments from women, I honestly do not think there is a good response. Though the annoyed part of me wants to come back with, “And by bringing this up, you have made things as icky and awkward for me as he did for you.”
Sam said:
His lack of communication skills played a part, yes, but let’s take a closer look at where he thinks he might have miscommunicated:
Is it just me, or is he placing a lot of responsibility on himself? After explicitly telling her that he isn’t looking for a relationship, I’m having trouble damning him for unclear communication after going out with her more than once a week, and taking her out to sushi.
How much was her confusion actually his fault? There was clearly some wishful thinking on her part, and probably some cultural differences (given that she was Korean). Perhaps she isn’t used to the hookup culture that is the reality for young people in the US nowadays.
This seems a bit analogous to a situation in which a female friend told her male friend that she wasn’t looking for sex with anyone, but he got his hopes up anyway. Then he misinterpreted her hugs as possible sexual interest, and asked her if there was anything sexual between them. She was like, WTF? because she thought he was cool with them just being friends. He got hurt.
Does she owe him an apology for hugging him too much while knowing that he was interested? Does he owe her an apology because he engaged in wishful thinking, got himself, hurt, then made her feel guilty? Or both?
Hugh and Snowdrop:
I agree with Hugh. I do not know how much more explicit you can get than to actually directly say, “I’m not interested in a serious relationship right now.”
I mean, really. If that does not communicate what he intended (i.e. the literal meaning of the sentence), then I have no idea what does.
@Hugh:
Then maybe we’re using different terms here. Staying with the same approach, to my mind, isn’t the same thing as precisely repeating one’s behaviors: the latter, IME, is impossible, even for those who attempt it. There’s always some amount of variation that occurs over time, as the result of experience. The question is one of whether or not there’s been a fundamental (but not necessarily radical) shift, and, in terms of that, I don’t think that that case could be made for it happening here.
Among other points — this being something that goes to my earlier response to Sam — I see Yarbles’ statement that he needs to “start learning how to make a woman feel special without supplicating” (my emphasis) as supporting this.
Taking the comment in isolation, I could see that interpretation, though my early statements about the pairing of a pejorative label and a stereotypical behavior still apply. (Which means, to clarify, that I’m interpreting this as a kind of statement that occurs in a wide variety of situations, not as something specific to the forum, much less to Yarbles himself.) But in the overall context, especially in relationship to the discussion of “providers” with FrancoPUA, I don’t find that interpretation to be persuasive. Nor have I found it persuasive when encountering similar situations, statements and discussions IRL.
As for not forgetting: I never lost sight of that.
I’m not saying that it necessarily is, either. What I was saying was that I don’t think it gives the impression that you were claiming — that it counters the claim that PUAs prey upon low self-esteem women — but instead gives the impression that low self-esteem women, if a PUA did become involved with them, would find themselves restricted to the casual FB category.
This might not necessarily happen, and might, in point of fact, be the exception to the rule. But again, that’s a different issue: I’m simply claiming that it gives an impression different from, and more negative than, the one that you advanced.
But I suppose that we’ve pretty much reached an impasse. I don’t think that, at this point, either one of us is going to find the other’s arguments persuasive enough to adopt, even if we might find them persuasive enough to consider.
Anyway, seeing as I mentioned Franco, I should also mention this, as an aside:
It certainly could be. ‘Course, it’s also possible to overlook the possibility that the critics aren’t necessarily middle class, and haven’t necessarily lost their strong and personal connection with their Eastern European (to the best of their knowledge, Cossack) heritage, or with the ways in which their upbringing was affected by it.
Monoliths. Gotta love ‘em. ;)
I am fascinated by this thread. I’m in the process of writing a pick-up book for men, as a feminist. Rather than copy the whole entry here, I’ll just link to my blog where I discuss why Feminism and the Pick Up Artist community should care about each other.
http://spitfiregrrrl.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/why-feminists-and-puas-should-care-about-each-other/
@HughRistik
I suspect this is aimed at least partly at me, and I’m going to have to give you the same criticism I gave Clarence. You seem to have an extensive theoretical framework and some very specific notions about the people who disagree with you. I suggest you check my comments (all of them) again.
@Hugh Ristik
I’m not sure it has quite as much to do with an actual concern. Italians are known as the biggest sexists in Europe (both stereotypically, according to themselves, and according to people who interact with them), and Italian men tend to have considerable Madonna/Whore complexes. Eastern Europe isn’t exactly known as a good place for women either, but it’s possibly more adversarial than the traditionalist Italian patronisation. So the guy might have gotten the worst of both worlds (in terms of attitude and relationship towards women, not necessarily in terms of what he likes).
I’m very careful about reading anything into it when men complain about women taking control, because I’ve found that, contrary to most complaints about oppression, it’s almost completely random in terms of actual experiences. I saw an interview with a group of men somewhere in Africa once, and they sounded very much like MRAs, despite living in a an area where one of the biggest obstacles towards female education was girls being raped on their way to school and then forced to marry the rapists.
The men had openly misogynistic attitudes (“A woman is a like a can, you buy it, open it, eat what’s inside, and throw it away when empty”), but still expressed much of the same concerns as men in the Western world, to the point where I almost expected one of them to start complaining about men not being allowed to be men any more. I’ve personally experienced a lot of men joke (in that “it’s funny because it’s true”) about women dominating the relationship (it’s actually a stereotype several hundred years older than feminism) with no basis, and similarly talk about how they feel marginalised as men, often with incredibly little reason.
That’s not to say men don’t have actual concerns, but I’ve read complaints about women ‘dominating’ areas in which men outnumber them 2 to 1 all my life. It often has less to do with actual female dominion, and more to do with which attitudes people are raised and encouraged to hold about women. Honestly, if I heard that an Italian man complained about women trying to take control in a relationship, no matter from which country, my first thought wouldn’t be “He’s Italian, he probably has a rational reason to worry about women taking over”, it would be something a lot less flattering.
Also, why is he dating a fucked-up woman (no offense, but she does sound like she’s still mentally unblanced from her abusive childhood) whom he doesn’t trust? He doesn’t sound like the sort of person who’s interested in rescuing her with his love or anything like that, so why does he bother? If a woman dated a man with issues, and constantly worried that he would act abusive towards her, she would be called a bitch, idiot, and the reason women still haven’t achieved equality, but here you act like it’s just narrow-minded liberals who haven’t shown the proper understanding of the cultural context.
@Hugh Ristik
I think that if you’re using PUA techniques to make women attracted to you, especially if you’re good at it, you do have a responsibility. People can be persuated or pressured into doing a lot of things we’d like to think they have control over (e.g. the Milgram experiement), and if you know a lot of compliance techniques you can’t be completely callous in how you use them, regardless of how much you technically allow your targets a free choice.
I think it’s cowardly and irresponsible to hide behind “But she’s an adult, she could leave if she wanted/you’re denying women agency”. If you seek out knowledge about which buttons to push in order to make someone attracted to you, or long for your approval, and use it without worrying about what the other person want, and then casually dump them when you figure out they can’t give you what you’re after, then it’s problematic no matter how you twist and turn it.
@Clarisse
I think it’s the other way around. It’s not so much that conventionally attractive women are given a lot of power in non-sexual areas by men especially, but more that less conventionally attractive women are treated as sub-human by men especially (the misogynist was Rush Limbaugh). It relates to the way PUAs use the terms alpha, beta, and omega, to mean something very different for men and women and go far beyond who’s simply socially dominant in a given group.
I’ve tried being both highly conventionally attractive (teenager, bulimic, wearing tight revealing clothes etc.) and considerably less so (overweight, depressed, wearing bulky clothes), and the difference with which I was treated was so scary it left with me deep-seated fears of ever growing old or gaining weight again. Not because I wont be able to get with the guys I want, but because it will affect me socially and professionally to a much bigger degree than if, say, I got a minor brain injury. And I wasn’t even that unattractive.
Even though I fought the bulimia to some extent, I still don’t actually consider it a disorder, just a logical and effective strategy in response to the way society works. I once asked my doctor for a couple of sleeping pills, just to help me get a better sleeping cycle, and when she refused, I asked her if she truly thought taking a couple of pills would be worse for me than all the side-effects of not sleeping at night for months, and when put like that, she gave me 12 pills on the condition that I didn’t use more than that in 6 months (it’s almost a year ago, and I’ve still not used them all). I’d say a moderate degree of eating disorder is the same, it’s not good for you, but it’s better than being fat (or rather, being treated like it, especially by men). And that’s a problem.
@AllSaintsDay
That has been my experience too. And the guys I know who’re sufficiently good looking are also met with many of the same reactions as good looking women. Maybe the bar is higher for men (though on the other hand, men also do considerably less to alter their appearance into something more conventionally attractive), and good looking women are certainly more likely to be taken as representative of their whole sex, but it’s still a lot more similar than I’ve seen it given credit for.
@Clarisse
I don’t think the problem is so much with “Oh well, it ended badly but I suspect she’ll get over it and find what she’s looking for”, it’s more with “She’s probably very upset right now but I’m not going to do anything about it except using a mostly derogative term for any guy who’d be willing to actually date her”.
@Xakudo
I don’t think it’s just a problem between the sexes. I’ve met guys who like foreplay as an end onto itself too, and men with low sexual arousal are far from unheard of. I think the majority of men never find themselves in a similar situation, and thus doesn’t develop the same anxiety, but that’s not the same as saying it’s strictly gender-based.
@AB:
A read of the reply within which those statements occurred might shed further light on the dynamics involved in the situation. It’s far more disturbing than the limited description given would suggest (which is why I’d also attach a probable trigger warning to reading the reply).
@Clarisse
There’s a difference between being consciously able to change one’s sexuality, being able to discover new parts of one’s potential sexuality, and being able to change a culture which affects one’s sexuality. But I think this is more relevant with women than men, since women are starting from a mostly blank (or actually negative) sexual slate.
For example, it wasn’t much more than a decade ago that I read an article in a men’s magazine about sexuality, speculating on why girl-on-girl was so hot for men when women had zero interest in boy-on-boy. That was conventional wisdom at the time, the article didn’t even explain that it was so, it mentioned it like a fact (because it was considered such in mainstream society) and gave suggestions for the reasons.
Now, yaoi is extremely popular, girls are buying T-shirts with “double-team Edward/Jacob” on them, and a large part of all fanfics are about male characters in homoerotic relationships. If the potential for women to enjoy this didn’t need some kind of cultural encouragement, it wouldn’t have been unthinkable not long ago, but if there was no potential, it wouldn’t have become this popular now.
It’s not unthinkable that there are other areas in which we’re equally blind to female sexuality. And to male too, but I haven’t seen as dramatic a shift among men, probably because they already have a tradition for being sexual creatures, they don’t have to figure it out almost from scratch. I still hear about (American) girls who think masturbation is only possible for boys.
I personally know I suck at enjoying sex. My fantasies are disjointed and lack connection to real life, and finding out what I like is extremely hard. Not to say that there aren’t plenty of women with no problems, and plenty of men facing difficulties, but it doesn’t appear to be equal. To go back to the yaoi example, it has taken me quite some time to learn to enjoy it, because the erotic material I’ve been exposed has mostly been centred on male sexuality, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have the potential for enjoyment, just that this potential needed some support.
It’s kind of like a woman I heard saying that when she was a child, the vast majority of all stories, and all the ones she was interested in, had male protagonists, so she learned to identify only with male characters, and today, she had trouble identifying with female characters in a story and would never play them in roleplaying games, despite identifying as female herself. She probably didn’t lack an ability to identify with her own sex from birth, but it’s a real phenomenon for her now. For me, it’s a bit similar, in that I identify more with men in my sexual fantasies, and yet I’m neither transgendered or lesbian, and I can feel that there’s a disconnect there because it’s not my sexuality.
To get back to the PUA issue, I think there’s a conflict of interests between feminists and the seduction community, because feminism is about giving women the same options as men (not just in the sense of what they’re allowed to, but also what they’re exposed to and encouraged to), and PUA techniques almost always rely on using existing male advantages. I suspect that if our culture gave the right encouragement and left more room for it, women wouldn’t respond as much to those scripts.
Infra
This is why I don’t read PUA message boards. Every time I’m starting to feel a little better about the seduction community, I have the misfortune of being confronted with actual PUAs. A woman who said anything like that would be labelled as sick and misandrist, and I’m not sure it would have been unfair.
Hugh Ristik, Clarisse
- re “owes apology”.
Well, I said *IF* he realised her crying was, in his estimation, largely his fault, then I think it would be better to apologize.
However, I really had to learn to not automatically assume something is my fault, to understand there’s only so much I can do about other people’s reactions, and that their reaction, including possible crying, doesn’t automatically mean I have done something wrong – or that he has.
I stick with *if* he realized it was legitimately his fault (and it does sound like that) he should apologize. That’s all.
I have a plane to catch (SAN FRANCISCO I LOVE YOU) but I did want to say this:
I think there are two questions to deal with when it comes to ethical PUA. One is criticism of the current community, and one is what a better community would look like.
The current community has lots of issues, and there are lots of critiques to be made; on the other hand, it exists in a sexist and rape culture-y context (contexts, I guess, since it exists in different places), and it’s arguable that on the whole it’s not that much worse than the mainstream in those contexts (I personally would argue that some PUAs are better, and some worse; HR and NS and others are on the better end, Roissy and Roosh and others are on the worse end). Commentary about the community can get bogged down in “it could be worse” “but it could be better” a lot.
The second question can’t be taken completely in isolation from the current community, but it’s kind of a more creative one. It seems like for Question 2, that’s where you start trying to come up with better vocabulary, which may include discussing what the issues are with current vocabulary and where current vocabulary came from, but would also put those issues to the side a little bit. That’s also where you talk about what the best thing is to say to someone if you don’t want a long-term relationship. (As a side note, in my emotional escalation theory, I wonder if “I don’t want a relationship right now” could be seen as an emotional escalation shit test?) It’s where you concede that the current community is fucked up but has good aspects, and try to figure out what the good aspects are in themselves rather than comparing them to mainstream society or taking things in context within the community.
Also note that comment #211 was just approved, from a woman who’s writing about pickup and feminism.
@ HR:
Do you see that that also applies to the discussion earlier in this thread about pushing past an initial “no”? I think also it is hard to say “she took a risk” if she did not perceive there to be resistance. You heard resistance, I actually heard an invitation (see below).
I heard something different from you in that statement, then. What I heard was, “Not yet, but I am open to persuasion if you stick around”. I heard an open-ended timeframe and a “if you play your cards right” (coupled with, thanks to mention of ex-wife, “you can be my healer”). Frankly, it came across to me as the sort of “neg” I saw described on some of the PUA links as used to hook someone in, and given the situation and assumed personality type here, it could scarcely have been pitched better for such a target.
If you’re going to play “hard-to-get”, as a lot of PUA advice seems to indicate, then you can hardly blame the other person if the one thing you say that is genuinely saying “I’m not available” gets confused for just another “maybe later, if you’re lucky”.
Well, indeed. But if people actually use “hard-to-get” tactics (both genders) then telling the difference between that and a genuine “no” is made harder, which makes it impossible to be sure unless there is a clear, explicit, permanent “no” expressed. (Of course, a permanent ‘no’ can be rescinded later if circumstances and perceptions change). That is one of the fundamental problems I have with PUA, that it hinges on “hard-to-get” as a tactic, and thus blurs the lines for signalling (lack of) consent.
I see at least two issues here. Firstly, you and I seem to have very different bases for our interpretations as regards language and relationships. Secondly, you seem to be predisposed to presume in favour of PUA, whereas I am strongly predisposed to presume against unless clearly demonstrated otherwise.
Harmony, welcome!
Clarisse, enjoy San Franisco!
@SnowdropExplodes:
I’m inclined to side with Hugh and Xakudo when it comes to signaling that he had no interest in a relationship (though I’d differ from Xakudo in saying that there are clearer ways of saying it, such as “I’m not relationship material” — they’re just difficult to voice without introducing negative associations, given the image of male sexuality as exploitative). But that’s the case only when considering the statement on its own. The problem came in later, and it goes to one of the things initially quoted:
If he started out by saying “I’m not interested in a serious relationship right now,” but then started acting in a way that he knows does signal an interest in a relationship, then it’s perfectly reasonable for her to get the impression that he might not have been interested in one initially, but now, as a result of meeting her, is changing his views. Either that, or the impression that his statement about not being interested in a relationship wasn’t a genuine one in the first place.
So the problem wasn’t with the initial statement, and it wasn’t with playing hard to get. It was with what he did afterward, which made a clear statement unclear.
But I suppose that this only raises further questions about his motivations. If he clearly stated that he wasn’t interested, yet, in spite of knowing better and in spite of consciously working to project something different, acted in a way that could indicate that he was, what was actually going on here?
I’m not saying that he was interested when he claimed that he wasn’t, as the situation could probably be interpreted either way: as an affectation that was undermined by genuine behavior, or as a genuine statement that was undermined by normative habit. But when taking this into account, I think that there certainly was cause for doubt and confusion on her part.
@SnowdropExplodes:
(Adding on to the previous comment.)
Something was bothering me about your interpretation, but it took me a bit to put my finger on it. It’s this: adding the “right now” qualifier is, in the main, the only honest way to make the statement as a way of describing the speaker, as distinct from describing a goal. To say that this is open-ended is to say that the speaker’s life is open-ended, but still has the qualities that it has in the present, and I fail to see how that’s a bad thing.
It might not be the kind of explicit statement that would set fully defined limits to what can and cannot occur, especially over time. But instead of this being unclear, a neg, playing hard to get, etc. — isn’t this one of the main ways in which we acknowledge and communicate our humanity?
Infra said:
I would make a case for some sort of shift occurring, when he says:
Ladies and gentlemen, I think this man has learned something! You could interpret his words as being purely about practicality, but I don’t see why we should interpret them that way.
His mistakes in this situation didn’t stop him from fucking her. If he only cared about adding bedpost notches, then why would he even by bothered by how she feels? His concerns make the most sense if he cares about more than maximizing the number of women he sleeps with. Yes, he could want a repeat performance, but he has already gotten most of the validation merely from sleeping with her once.
I don’t see any contradiction. I think we’ll just have to disagree on this point, and it looks like others in the thread disagree with both of us about it, too. It’s interesting that no two people in the this thread seem to see that conversation that same way.
I think we’re having another terminology issue. PUAs (like many other men) indeed often get involved with women with low self-esteem, and often those women end up in the FB category. I don’t support categorizing this situation as PUAs “preying.”
There could be some “preying” going on if a PUA knows in advance that sleeping with an insecure women could lead to a net harm for her. Yet that conclusion requires evidence beyond mere insecurity on her part. As I argued in my previous comment, people who aren’t well matched often have win-win situations by having short-term sexual relationships. The fact is that plenty of women with low self-esteem prefer to be in a friends with benefits situation over being single, even if they prefer a relationship to either of those; this is true of people with low self-esteem, also.
Newbie PUAs are insecure themselves. It’s not uncommon for beginning PUAs to have substantially less dating experience than women in their peer group. Yet nobody worries about innocent, insecure young PUAs getting used for sex, used for validation, or sucked into unhealthy relationships by insecure women. Is that really because the power differential is so big… or because the lion’s share of the ethical duties are being placed on the man even when both people are inexperienced?
(trigger warning for relationship abuse describe in the mASF post)
AB said:
Reading his story, I did have to wonder at her side of the story. I agree that men with particularly sorts of masculinity might have different idea about power and equality than I do.
The reason I brought up his background is because the sort of traditional masculinity he has might attract women with certain sorts of traditional femininity, leading to adversarial relations.
He’s dating her because he doesn’t realize that he can get with someone emotionally healthier. He begins his story by describing her as a “real woman.” He says that this is the sort of behavior that he is used to. He likes her otherwise, and talks about feeling himself falling in love with her. From here:
I’m not sure how much his experience generalizes to Eastern European women in general. My theory is that with his ultra-macho masculinity, he is unknowingly selecting for certain sorts of women. You say:
Actually, he says that he is very interested in being relational with her, but he fears that if he does, then she will immediately try to railroad him into marriage… and soon he will find himself paying her bills and fixing things around the house, while she loses interested in sex. He worries:
He explains that relating more on an emotional level with her might contrast with the traditional masculinity he believes she expects:
Enchanter advises emotional leadership, containing empathy:
Franco replies:
Here is how the interaction concluded:
He would like to relate to her more on an emotional level and express more empathy, but he is afraid that if he gives an inch, she will take a mile.
I am willing to accept his theories as plausible about women in the demographic he dates, but I would be very cautious to apply his theories to the sort of women I date. I actually feel a bit sorry for him.
AB said:
With great power, comes great responsibility, yes. The question is, how great actually is the power of PUAs? How much of a power advantage do PUAs typically have over the women they date? How much is pickup an unfair advantage, and how much is it an equalizer? As I remarked earlier to Infra, beginning PUAs are generally at an experience disadvantage.
I am skeptical that the average PUA actually has a significant power advantage over the average woman he goes out with. Experienced PUAs could easily have advantages over many women, but they will often aim for women who are more popular and experienced, negating that advantage.
I don’t see pickup techniques as in a special moral category, because they are mostly replications and extrapolations of what many people are already doing. As a result, it’s quite possible for non-PUAs to be on an even playing field with PUAs. (The main exception is hypnosis or NLP-based pickup, which doesn’t have strong analogues in naturalistic dating behavior, and people are less likely to be aware of it and prepared for it.)
PUAs, especially in marketing materials, can get really arrogant about pickup. Yet in my own interactions with women, I’ve still had some humbling experiences that showed that I was hardly in charge at all.
I completely agree with you that if someone is substantially more experienced and influential in dating, then they should take additional care with the other person. My view is that actual evidence is necessary to establish a gap in dating skills that would lead to the shouldering of that additional responsibility.
Unless you have reason to believe otherwise, the default assumption should be that the other person can watch out for themselves. Here are some examples from my recent experience where I actually did identify cues that people might have trouble watching out for themselves:
I recently met someone who is very interested in me, but who has thrown up a bunch of red flags:
- She isn’t very social (not inherently a red flag, but it makes me think she would have difficulty asserting what she wants)
- Very unhappy with her life (the first time she called me after I got her number, she told me everything that was going wrong… then she apologized for dumping it on me, which made it worse, because it showed that she couldn’t restrain her negative emotions even when knowing better)
- She talked about periods in her life where she has craved touch, which makes me think that she is very emotionally isolated and vulnerable. I might worry that she would use sex with me as a way to get physical intimacy that she is missing, and I’m not sure if I would feel comfortable with that.
- She said that she wasn’t looking for casual hookups at this point in her life. (Not a red flag in general, but a red flag for us having sex, since I think the chances of her being able to get me into a relationship are <10%.)
Unfortunately, she and I have great chemistry, good conversation, and I think she's very intelligent.
I'm in a similar situation with another girl, where my interactions with her have been great, but I've heard things from a friend of mine that give me doubts. She had a threesome with him and his girlfriend, and afterwards, apparently she was really attached to him and practically wanted to marry him. He said that she was really insecure and lost. I normally don't like to rely on gossip, so I might get to know her better and try to get a better sense of whether she could handle m, but I think the information is ethically important.
I think that I could sleep with both of these girls, and have a reasonable shot of leaving them better than I found them (more likely with the second, than with the first). The problem is that there is also a nontrivial chance of them getting hurt, because I don't think they can handle me.
The funny thing is that I would totally be friends with both of these girls, but I'm a bit worried to hang out with them, because I have strong chemistry with both of them. I don't know what happens if I'm alone with one of them and she starts touching me.
I'm not holding back merely because I have pickup experience, and they are insecure. I'm holding back because they have shown specific cues that gives me doubts about producing a win-win situation. Even though I think I could create win-win situations, I think I could create even bigger win-win situations with more emotionally healthy women, with a smaller chance of drama.
@Hugh:
This is actually one of the major reasons why I approach ethics in this context in the way that I do: without a strong and evident moral/ethical basis having been established, views of the PUA scene could easily feed into a victim-blaming mentality. In the absence of some admission that a majority of the individuals in the scene are ethical, the negative, exploitative or abusive experiences that these men might go through — especially younger men, teenagers in particular — could be interpreted as just punishment.
In order for that to be avoided, arguments establishing an ethical character in the community need to be more than plausible: they need to be convincing. And I think that that needs to happen in order to move more members of the scene toward a more ethical position as well.
Just quickly – on the “right now” significance, I’ve written a blog post at my place about how I feel about it all because it seems like a tangent here and I had quite a lot to write about it. Short version: I feel like an alien sometimes!
@Hugh Ristik
And that’s one of the many reasons the seduction community, if it wants to be egalitarian, beneficial, feminist, progressive, and/or have any ethical purpose, should include more discussions about what men actually want out of a relationship, and why they’re attracted to the women they’re attracted to, rather than just being about teaching men to blindly pursue something which they have no idea why they want or whether it would be good for them.
Are you sure he just doesn’t care, or hasn’t considered that maybe all this drama isn’t as satisfying in the long run?
Exactly, he doesn’t trust her. “She’s going to do bad things to me if I let her” is a textbook example of distrust. Not to mention that the whole idea of women all needing to be dominated by men and yet have an urge to try to dominate the men instead, leaving them fundamentally unhappy, until a man comes in and takes charge and refuses to let himself be influenced by her is…. the main point of the Gor books.
That’s one of the biggest disconnects for me in regards to the seduction community btw. In practise, it’s all about male control, finding the right buttons to push to get what you want, set the pace, be the one to define the basis of the relationship. Many of the suggestions are no different than the kind of sales techniques that can leave customers wondering “why did I even buy this?” afterwards, and they’re so calculated that they make almost everyone who isn’t either heavily misogynistic, anti-feminist, or desperate for sex, reflectively coil back in disgust.
The ideology is also frequently extremely patriarchal. It’s stated how women want to have sex with a man because he is an alpha, while a woman is an alpha because men want to have sex with her, leaving women with no influence on even their own hierarchy. There are conservative anti-feminists who wouldn’t even go that far. And I’ve already mentioned other, similar, claims– women will rapidly lose value after they turn 25 while men can easily grow twice as old and still have some of the best years ahead of them, women are born with a set value while men can control their own fate, men are providers while women need to be provided for etc..
And yet, when it comes to explaining and justifying themselves, women are immediately established as these all-powerful creatures who ruthlessly pursue their agenda to control men. Every single time I’ve heard a PUA (barring Neil Strauss) explain why PUAs act as they do, it’s always some variation of “women made us/them/me do it”. Always.
It’s rare to see someone consider that maybe the sexual standards in our culture are mostly set by men and (some) women have just adapted to it, or maybe the women who’re willing to go to the lengths necessary to look like the PUA ideal of beauty are also often shallow, manipulative, deeply insecure, and/or in need of a provider to pay for the upkeep of their appearance, or maybe some/many PUA techniques work because they exploit existing male advantages And if it is considered, it’s always only after the obligatory “women made them do it” (the first person parts tend to disappear in these contexts). Always.
I don’t, really. He’s well off financially, doesn’t seem to have any traumas to battle, is pursuing a deliberate strategy in order to have sex with attractive women, and have successfully managed to rid himself of most of responsibility other people have to deal with.
Sure, he might be stupid, he’s almost certainly shallow, and it’s obvious that his view of gender screwed up, but it’s hard to feel sorry for him when he gleefully, and repeatedly, falls back on “Oh well, I would have done all the right things if women hadn’t been so screwed up. Being me is so great!”.
I swear I will participate more in this thread soon, I’ve just been busy. I did want to add to this, too –
maybe some/many PUA techniques work because they exploit existing male advantages
It seems to me that any ethical PUA community or theoretical framework would have to include some pretty serious grappling not just with female dating advantages, but with men’s. And not just with those advantages, but with rape and its consequences and aftereffects. Hugh, if you can provide counterexamples then I will concede this point, but I would be surprised if any PUAs anywhere have ever publicly discussed problems like rape survivors freezing up, which is one serious problem with (for example) LMR tactics. I mean, I’d say that the enthusiastic consent standard in general would be pretty key for an ethical PUA discussion.
Except that PUA is affective, emotional power to influence when men no longer have social and economic power and are so rarely naturally desired. One requires choice instead of desperation in order to have a range of ethical choices in selling oneself, which is what PUA is. So I regard the discussion of male desire as moot, I already choose what I desire, and those women hold themselves aloof. Sometimes I can be chosen by someone else, though. Wishes, horses, etc.
AB,
Sure, AB, women’s sexual preferences have nothing to do with male behaviour and directly as well as inderectlly influencing the male hierarchy (aka patriarchy), it’s just an “alpha male” conspiracy against expendable “beta males” and sex&womb-probiders.
See, I hope that you don’t actually believe in that sort of ahistorical feminist conspiracy mythology/anthropology, but you almost sound like you do.
Social systems are not always functional, and the one often described as patriarchy certainly has a significant number of dysfunctional aspects, but saying that women and their sexual choices have nothing to do with anthropology/cultural anthropology is a bit, well, problematic. It’s the feminist version of creationism, if you will – God made man and gave him woman and patriarchy.
Of course, both women’s and men’s decisions are influencing each other’s decisions: doesn’t mean all decisions and that people don’t have a “free will”. But we all influence each other. The world is freaking Heisenberg effect ;)
Clarisse,
yes, and yet I would like to add that this should be done carefully. Remember how contested a term like “rape culture” and how feminist terminology is often used to shame male sexuality. There’d have to be a noticeable difference in both terminology and (apparently) underlying assumptions about male sexuality for this to work, in my opinion – remember how difficult some of the discussions about these issues were in the manliness series.
Yes, but it also needs some serious definitional/conceptual reworking, as not least the discussion on yesmeansyes shows.
AB:
Sure, sure. And, in fact, as I noted before, now that I am in a relationship with different dynamics, I myself am able to enjoy it for its own sake. A lot of what made me hate it so much was that I felt forced (or tricked) into it, like I did not have a say in it. The ability to ask, “What are your intentions with this?” and then decide whether I want to participate or not based on that is critical. And being blocked from doing that is often internal and cultural, not necessarily something enforced by a partner. (Although in my case it was partner-enforced as well.)
But I think that is not so different from your side, no?
So I suspect in reality there is more of a cyclic-downward-spiral effect going on, probably on both sides, with each side reinforcing the other. I would not be the least bit surprised if your perception of the experience would line up with my ex’s, and if my perception of the experience would line up with your ex’s. And, increasingly as we keep discussing, I think there is a lot of validity to both sides, and in fact I think that pretty much exactly the same thing is happening on both sides: people grow to hate things that they feel forced into.
And that is why I say that getting things out into the open, and allowing for explicit negotiation, would be helpful. If I am not in the mood for arousal-on-its-own, and my partner is, then that suggests that some kind of negotiation should take place, instead of me feeling forced into it. And, similarly, if your partner feels like having sex, but you do not, that also suggests that some kind of negotiation should take place, instead of you feeling forced into it.
I have been thinking hard about the second question since it was presented. Two things come to mind regarding the second question. The second thing kind of touches on the first question as well.
The first is basically to go right back to Kant’s expression of the Categorical Imperative as “Treat everyone as an end in themselves, and never merely as a means to an end”. I think this would be a core principle of ethical PUA. The way it is often framed at the moment, PUA seems to treat women as a source of something that the men want (typically sex, but not necessarily exclusively) and offers techniques on how to extract this from them. It seems to treat women as a means to an end, but not as an end in themselves.
The ideal would be to see women as existing at the centre of their own story, with their own motivations and desires.
I would not go so far as to say that this never happens amongst PUA (I am sure HR can point to examples where it has), but the language and slant of the advice seems to be towards the “means to an end” point of view much more often than not. Engaging with women as the stars of their own show, and not only a bit-part in your own, should be the norm rather than the exception.
In a way this dovetails with the thoughts I have regarding my second point, which is that PUA to me very often looks less like “artistry” and more like “artifice”.
That is, it is not “art” as in a skilful musician has an art, but “art” as in “artful dodger”.
I find so much of it to be about presenting a mask or charade with the aim of producing a desired impression and response in the audience (or “target”), and how can one know that it is safe to drop the mask and reveal one’s true self, if “attraction” has been established only on the basis of that mask?
This leads to situations like that presented by HR in #224, of which he says:
Where artifice is the mode of engagement, how is it possible to avoid this sort of thing from happening? It might not have the particulars of this situation, but it surely must lead to a mismatch of medium- to long-term goals, and to a situation where (as HR describes) a person feels obliged to present a false mask in order to obtain what he wants from another, who wants very different things and as such is not really genuinely attractive to him (despite feelings of attachment). In #224, the subject is afraid to drop his mask because of what he fears lies behind his partner’s mask.
Part of this I think results from the way in which I feel that PUA is at best a special-case theory (or a handful of them), and to become truly useful, it needs to become a general theory. The special case is based on a particular type of personality in the “target”, and a narrow range of masculinity representations. The advice consequently seems to be based upon teaching men to perform masculinity in particular ways and to engage with women from that basis, thus producing the “mask”. A general theory of PUA would be able to take someone whose natural personality is not “alpha male” (a term I hate and reject as meaningful anyway) and, instead of requiring him to perform it, would offer advice on how to present his “flaws” (as compared to performative masculinity) in the best possible way so as to attract a compatible mate. It would also teach much better how to engage with a much wider range of personalities in a potential partner.
I notice that PUA terminology talks about “genuineness” or “congruence” (synonymous terms, that seem to have been borrowed from person-centred counselling) but very little of PUA seems to be about possessing congruence as I learned it in my “counselling skills” course. The parts of PUA that do promote this, I seem to have already absorbed, but I feel like the rest is telling me to be other than I am in order to get what I want from women. In other words, “artifice” and “means to an end”.
Actually I’ve been doing some thinking along the lines of what SnowdropExplodes is saying. But it is a bit more complicated.
Wanting to be loved for one’s flaws is one thing. And it can happen more than people think (even to men). On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with real self-improvement if the flaws are really flaws.
(Though come to think of it, to use the incentive of romance/ a relationship as an incentive to “self-improvement” sets up the whole dynamic of “being worthy,” which is another whole trap in itself.)
What is at stake isn’t so much “will she love me for my flaws” as, “to what extent are these flaws, flaws in the first place.” What bothers me about “the pua-lingo culture” goes back, in other words, to its vision of masculinity as such. As far as I can see, it validates the narrowest cultural straitjacket of masculinity, by casting this as “what women want” (and no doubt many women do want this — and making matters worse, some of these women are feminists, and hypocritical about this).
This came up in a dating blog that was mentioned on the emporiasexus site. The “shit test” was basically, in those examples, a test as to whether the man would be dominant and stoic — and unsentimental even about the relationship. The term of art is “alpha.”
Now, some things that are included in alpha are things which every mature person should aspire to. Others are things that will be possible for some but not others. Others are things which are actually restrictions on the ability of a person to be fully human.
And still others — “alpha” is unfortunately a relative term that conjures up winners and losers, and frankly, I’m not so very interested in any project which redistributes who is a winner and a loser in a society which still validates that society is going to be composed of winners and losers, and that there is nothing wrong with this. In any world I want to build and work toward, everyone, ideally, will be valued.
So it comes down to masculinity. Do you build your romantic/ sexual success on standardizing yourself into a type of masculinity that is ultimately limiting? (but it may be freeing for some people!) Do you build it on trying to be “the best you you can be” (but this brings up “worthiness” issues)? I think, in an erotic context, you should build it on freeing up your own erotic self, on self-acceptance and learning to play, and the like. And pua contains these elements, too, from what I understand.
@ humbition:
That’s exactly what I was getting at by specifically saying “‘flaws’ as compared to performative masculinity”. Not flaws as such, but merely ways in which he falls short when measured against a particular standard of what a “real man” is like.
Snowdrop, we’re in substantive agreement. But I am trying to move away from an (often feminist) rhetoric in which “masculinity” as such always has a negative valence, and this is why I modify it the way I do. I think this rhetoric double-binds men.
“Performative” masculinity is just anybody’s masculinity in action. It could be “our” presumably wider masculinity too.
As for your suggestion we look at women as agents too, via the Kantian imperative. Who can argue? Except,
To look at yourself from the point of view of someone who rejects you is maybe the hardest thing to do. If this rejection is actually tinged with contempt, it can be positively corrosive and harmful. Sometimes I think the “defect in theory of mind” that Aspies are supposed to have, doesn’t have to do with their neurological deficits as such. Sometimes I think it is a refusal to take the point of view of someone else who wants to annihilate one’s own Self. All those “helpful” folks who want one to be what one can never be, in order to meet their minimal criteria for acceptance…
A lot of people beginning their romantic/ sexual lives come into them with this kind of history, usually from bullying. Then they are asked to face rejection which is often couched personally.
This I think complicates the Kantian task.
Humbition:
“A lot of people beginning their romantic/ sexual lives come into them with this kind of history, usually from bullying. Then they are asked to face rejection which is often couched personally. ”
Thank you, thank you, thank you, a million times, thank you.
@Xakudo
I think there is one difference. I was told by a boyfriend that he would prefer if we stopped what we were doing if it wasn’t leading to sex, and I accepted that. I was also told by a guy that if I didn’t want to continue, he would need to relive himself, and I helped him by touching, kissing, and blowing in his ear while he masturbated. I don’t think not sharing a feeling has to be the same as not acknowledging it. That was what your ex, and mine, missed.
@ humbition:
I think we are in disagreement on the meaning of terminology here. I understand by “performative”, a definition to the effect: “that which is performed for the benefit of an audience (i.e. society at large).” This carries the implication that it is performed not as a genuine expression of oneself, but so as to conform with other, societal, pressures. This ties in with the way that I have seen “performative femininity” used in feminism (like Brownmiller’s famous line, “All women are female impersonators”).
So by “performative masculinity” I mean precisely the same as you mean by “the narrowest cultural straitjacket of masculinity”.
I don’t feel that masculinity always has a negative valence in feminist discourse (although it does in some branches of feminism), and I define quite happily as masculine – but not in the terms that society in general puts on masculinity.
This feels like something else (although a question I have thought about a lot recently). I am not talking about looking at oneself from the point of view of someone who has rejected you, but rather from the POV of someone who may or may not be going to reject you for perfectly sound reasons, and understanding that those reasons don’t make you a worse person.
It’s essentially seeing the way one’s own actions impact on others rather than acceping others’ attitudes (or expressions of those attitudes) to impact negatively on you. It’s less about a “Kantian task”, although that was a useful way to explain the ethical basis of it, and more about one’s own understanding of self and other in an affirming way both of oneself and of others.
I may need to go away and think more about this, I might have the makings of a rich-making self-help book in this (based on my own self-development along these lines)!
It doesn’t mean there isn’t an obligation to be bedrock ethical, which for many will relate to “a personal sense of honor,” another redeemable concept that gets a lot of badmouthing. I think an egalitarian and compassionate sense of honor can exist, one which treats women, and men, as human beings on principle. Even when one does not fully understand why they do what they do.
And yes, I mean, a sense of honor compatible with culture-ordinary sexual and romantic pursuits.
But one’s first duty is to oneself, yet men are taught (as part of the “patriarchal” male role) not to validate their own pain. I am not arguing that they should look to women to assuage it, in particular — and I am especially not asking women to take it on themselves to do so! But there can be too much of asking someone to see the validity of another’s point of view. Sometimes that just strips the emotional gears.
Compassion begins at home.
@humbition
I think we can all agree on this. Though I’d be curious if people could point out which aspects of PUA culture they see as focused on it.
I think it’s too simplified to put the contrast between traditional masculinity and everything else. Some of the most romantically successful and desirable guys I know are nice guys. Polite, helpful, fairly quiet, smaller than average, non-aggressive, etc. And they have always been popular with girls. One is even in a relationship where his girlfriend is working and partly supporting him while he goes through college, and yet the most pervasive view among his friends is that he should dump her because he can do better.
The issue is that a lot of guys seem to conclude that the only reason they get rejected is a failure to exhibit traditional masculinity, because it’s the only alternative they’ve been given. They seem to to have trouble understanding that while it’s perfectly possible for guys to combine softer or more feminine traits with being desirable, that’s a far cry from saying that every guy not exhibiting traditional masculinity will be desirable.
I think it’s simpler than that. Developing ToM requires recognising yourself in others, and when the difference is too great, there’s not a lot to recognise. Even aspies exhibiting ToM will often not be able to describe it, because they don’t, as a rule, count on others having feelings, experiences, or abilities like themselves.
It complicates it, but it doesn’t negate the need, nor the responsibility. As I just wrote to Xakudo, I don’t need to share a feeling that cuddling and petting has to lead to sex in order to acknowledge and respect it. I don’t even need to have good experiences with guys expressing those feelings (believe me, I don’t), I just need to decide that I’m better than that. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
I like this thread. I have only finished about a 3rd of it, but I’ll definitely come back when I have more time. It’s nice to see a shift from “PUA is a misogynistic scam that doesn’t work” to “It doesn’t matter if PUA works, it’s (mostly) unethical”. The Seduction Community and PUA are extremely rich topics. I’d like to see more specific concepts like “Negs” and “The Friend Zone” get dissertations or even entire scholarly journals dedicated to them.
Clarisse,
remember when you said that any ethical analysis of the Seduction Community would have to be viewed through a feminist lense? I followed your comment thread about the interview on feministe.com, and actually occasionally tried to comment, but it is apparently impossible to have a reasoned conversation there. This recent comment seems representative of the mood -
Whatever feminist ethical lense you had in mind, it really shouldn’t be that one.
AB:
Note sure what the “one difference” you mention is. It sounds to me like we are in agreement. What you describe above is exactly the kind of openness and negotiation that I am suggesting would be good.
@Xakudo:
I meant a difference in attitude between your ex and me (and probably between you and my exes too). Feeling a certain way, or wanting a certain thing, or not understanding a certain perspective doesn’t give you the right to not respect it. It’s the same with PUAs btw, and one of the reasons I don’t buy most of their excuses.
AB:
Sure, there is plenty of problematic stuff in PUA culture, and it absolutely deserves to be criticized for that.
On the other hand, PUA culture is the only thing that ever told me that it is okay to hit on and flirt with women, and that doing so is not disrespectful or tantamount to harassment. It is also the only thing that gave me clear, actionable advice on how to do that without making the recipient uncomfortable.
So although I do not (and likely never will) identify as a PUA, PUA culture has nevertheless had a definite positive impact on my life. So I am very loath to deride it in whole.
And for that reason I really appreciate these threads, and Clarisse’s attitude about all of this. I think my mix of reading feminist blogs and PUA literature actually gave me a far better, more useful, and more beneficial education than either one would have alone. PUA alone may well have led to a lot of problematic behavior on my part. But feminism alone would have worked (and for a long time did work) primarily to keep me in my shell, afraid to express my sexuality in all but the narrowest of ways for fear of accidentally harming someone or being “that guy”. So for me, at least, PUA and feminism are/were highly complementary. The fact that they conflict so much is, IMO, actually really healthy and useful.
@ Xakudo:
I think (based on anecdotal evidence) that a lot of women, based on their encounters with Pick-Up Artists in action, would seriously question or outright reject the clause “without making the recipient uncomfortable” in the above statement.
Reading the rest of your comment (#246) it sounds as though your approach is already one of working towards the type of “ethical PUA” (ePUA?) that the OP was talking about developing, and it highlights very strongly the need for such an “ePUA” framework.
Incidentally, what for you are the criteria for “clear and actionable advice”, and how does that differ from the advice you got from sources other than PUA? If we have an idea what people should be aiming for with work on ePUA, it would help.
Regarding PUA/ePUA: wouldn’t using a framework like that just create a different version of the AFC/rAFC dynamic?
@SnowdropExplodes
I don’t know if this is how Xakudo means it, but I’d say that speaking precisely, I find his statement accurate. Any time I’ve tried to find decent advice on how to hit on and flirt with women without making them uncomfortable, it’s only been available from PUAs. However, it was mixed with a whole bunch of advice that didn’t do that, and I got uncomfortable enough that I never hung around long.
More than anything else, I’d probably say “What is an appropriate place and way to attempt to meet women that will lead to sex, a relationship, or both?” The answer would need to both stand a reasonable chance of success, and not require unduly much from the man (that is, he shouldn’t have to “man up” and approach a woman amongst a large group of her friends, shouldn’t be required to spend money just for an opening, especially in a way that could easily be taken advantage of, &c). That, of course, doesn’t hit the “e” part of it, but I feel like that’s more of something that women should be answering than men. My best attempt would be that it should be something that doesn’t unnecessarily risk boundary violations, and something that makes a woman feel like she’s being valued as a person, not just for her looks.
Just a thought… isn’t this discussion starting to conflate two different issues?
On the one hand, we seem to be dealing with the question of whether or not pickup (knowingly or unknowingly) exploits injuries and injurious circumstances, showing little or no regard for their nature — something epitomized in the freeze-out and brought up in point 3 of the post, and something that can be addressed through education regarding the circumstances that might be involved in any given person’s life. But on the other, we seem to be dealing with the question of whether or not pickup can be brought into accord with a specific ethical framework, as shown in the references to the second formulation of the categorical imperative, to being genuine instead of using a mask, and so on.
Is addressing the second necessary for addressing the first?
And can the first be sufficient, if particulars of the second do not occur? From a Kantian perspective, I doubt that this could be answered in the affirmative, given the first formulation of the imperative. But doesn’t point 1 of the post pose a problem for the use of that formulation in the first place, given that we are in the domain of particulars when it comes to this subject?
Infra said:
Too bad we aren’t at a place where people analyze tiny bits and pieces of the PUA phenomenon at a time. Someday..
@ SnowdropExplodes: I understood Xakudo’s use of the phrase “clear and actionable advice” in that context as something other than “be yourself”, “just relax”, “there are plenty of fish in the sea”, “be nice” and “be the person you’d want to date”. Some of those are actionable, but none are clear. I’ve always wondered how I could not be myself. Is “be yourself when approaching someone” supposed to mean that a person shouldn’t exaggerate and be eager to please? PUAs come right out and say that; no guessing at the true meaning needed.
It’s an interesting issue (that needs its own book chapter!) because “clear and actionable advice” is a subjective concept, but I still expect most people to agree about what doesn’t fit the criteria of clear and actionable (flirting) advice. Also, I’m worried about the people in the feminist community who aren’t interested in ethical, clear and actionable dating advice because they think that self-reinvention through dating advice is inherently flawed and creepy… that’s probably its own book. None of them seem to be here, but that could be one reason why this advice is missing from the mainstream feminist community.
@ Infra:
I am not sure that it would. It might be that some of the less savoury PUA types might want to characterise ePUA types as rAFC, as a defence mechanism of their misogyny but without knowing more about the basis of your question (that is, how you think ePUA vs PUA produces AFC/rAFC), I don’t quite understand the question or how to address it.
Re: comment #250, I think that the first issue you mention (avoiding exploitative treatment of injured folks) is a special case of the second (using an ethical framework). You talk about a “specific” framework, although I do not know for sure which specific framework you think that is. I think my comments have been looking at avoidance of harm as the fundamental principle: not only avoiding exploiting previous injury, but also avoiding the producing harmful situations. That was the sole reason I introduced Kant, not because I think the whole thing should be built on Kantian ethics but because I think that that particular element expresses the idea I am getting after here – that we see others as people (capable of being harmed, and who should not be harmed), not as objects to be used. I am actually coming more from a humanist, person-centred counselling perspective (hence my concern about use of genuineness/congruence) so my basis is more Carl Rogers than Immanuel Kant. (I will have to look again at Rogers and see if what he said gives me more clues about ethical PUA.)
I would say that the first issue can be addressed without the second, but that it is not sufficient to do so if we wish to claim a version of PUA is “ethical”. I think that answering the second issue is sufficient to answer the first (and if we claim to have an answer to the second that doesn’t answer the first, then we still haven’t answered the second).
@ Guestina:
Well, I happen to think that “self-reinvention through dating advice” does sound creepy and inherently flawed – although that reaction does depend on what we mean by “self-reinvention”. But I am very interested in clear and actionable dating/flirting advice! I just want it to be dating advice that does not require me to reinvent myself, but rather that responds to the nature of my selfness and the nature of the other person’s selfness in a way that is mutually beneficial. PUA seems to me to be a “special” theory, by which I mean it takes only a limited range of male selfness and female selfness to produce its results, and a lot of the advice is telling men how to perform the specific range of maleness that they know works (what mathematicians might call reducing the problem to one that has already been solved). In other words, PUA seems to me to say precisely, “you cannot be yourself and be successful.” Ideally, an ethical PUA would produce advice that adapts to different types of selfness, possibly producing different clear and actionable advice dependent upon the individuals involved – that is, clear and actionable advice on how to be successful while also “being yourself”.
@SnowdropExplodes:
Probably the best way of putting it is that, personally, I’m looking for an approach that would allow (substantially) divergent ethics to coexist, on the basis of enabling communication over and about what can be identified, by all groups, as problems in need of address; I see this as being different from recommending, adopting or agreeing upon particular principles in order to establish a set of behaviors that would be classified as ethical, even if the groups eventually came to hold certain principles in common. It’s a matter of emphasizing heterogeneity — and working to preserve it, as far as is possible — while pursuing agreed-upon effects.
So by “specific framework” I mean a particular combination of principles, regardless of whether or not they can be traced back to a specific thinker or tradition of thought.
I was getting at a similar thing with PUA/ePUA being similar to AFC/rAFC: wouldn’t the latter, in each case, be someone who has abandoned (or is in the process of abandoning) the old, destructive or counterproductive beliefs and principles embodied by the former? In using that kind of structure we run the risk of encouraging a split, instead of a modification — something itself suggested by the use of the qualifying term — if it’s rooted in principle instead of heterogeneity and communication. IMO, it invites the development of exclusion and enforcement, even if it’s in the name of the good and the right.
And in addition, it would be relatively easy for the ePUA category to be redefined by people in the PUA scene as “relapsed” rAFCs, which could make it a difficult label to adopt and prevent any carry-through of influence into the scene as a whole. My suspicion is that, overall, using that kind of label would simply reinforce or worsen existing hostilities.
@ Infra:
I can’t follow this argument. How can you agree upon effects unless you have some principle or framework that enables you to determine whether the effects are desirable and ethical to pursue?
I think you are pursuing a chimera, frankly, when you say that the idea is to modify the community rather than split it. Change can only happen if people want it to, and the impression I have is that a substantial proportion of PUA (I would not be able to say whether it’s a majority or minority proportion) would be strongly resistant to any shift that would take away the shield for their misogyny that PUA currently seems to provide (that is, any shift that actually made PUA sufficiently ethical). As I mentioned before, yes – I think some PUA would call ethical PUA “relapsed” rAFCs, but I think they will do that anyway, regardless of the term or the framework or the “embracing of communication and heterogeneity”.
I think a split is inevitable if we want change, and competition in the market of ideas is the only way forwards. Does that “reinforce or worsen existing hostilities”? Quite possibly, but I don’t see a way to avoid that. My feeling is that a radical (i.e. at the root) approach is needed, because to me it looks as though PUA as it is, is already too infected with misogyny and other harmful ideological stances and its structures are informed by that. Splitting is the only way to create a healthier approach. My fear, of course, is that the core market for PUA-type advice may be predisposed towards misogyny and will consequently be more attracted by unethical approaches than ethical ones.
A note, though – I am not interested in anyone adopting a label. I introduced “ePUA” as a useful shorthand for discussion, not as a single, concrete thing that people should say they are or are not a part of (which seems to be the assumption behind your fears of “exclusion and enforcement”). I am solely interested in people adopting the methods and ideals (which, yes, should be as broad as possible) and thus doing PUA in a more ethical way.
@SnowdropExplodes:
By drawing upon things like shared experience, narrative and the development of empathy. Common outcome, multiple paths.
As for it being a chimera… [shrug].
IME, it’s worked when other approaches have consistently failed; if there’s one thing that should be obvious from the history of blog discussions on this subject, it’s that the approach usually used simply does not work. And it should be noted, too, that what I’m suggesting here is precisely what Clarisse has been facilitating through this and the other masculinity threads, as well.
Which have also succeeded where the usual attempts have failed.
Use establishes it that way, especially when the shorthand parallels the terminology used by the community being critiqued. Again, an observation gathered from experience.
Snowdrop, infra, everyone,
that’s oddly Hegelian for someone who brought up the categorical imperative as a measure of things. Infra’s point is totally in line with the categorical imperative, which is mostly about lack of contradiction (hence often tautological).
As much as I believe the first formulation (and merely by extension, the second) is an appropriate way to start looking at balancing interests, any “strong” rationlity requirement sort of requires “noumenal” knowledge of all other people’s perspectives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noumenon). And that’s a bit of a problem given that Kant himself denies the perceptability of noumena. That, of course, is logically totally consistent with Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, which (correctly) declares all humans to be autopoietical (or closed) sensoric systems. As such, we require empirics to build mental representations of what our sensors perceive – we can never understand/see the “things in and of themselves”. We’re always operating based on our subjective interpretations and assumptions about all other closed systems.
And that implies that the categorical imperative will work as a starting point in the first formulation, even in the “humanity” version of the second, but that it becomes, much, much harder to use it the more assumed specific the assumed preferences become. Since we’re all closed systems we’re logically unable to *not treat something we cannot even understand in itself, something that is always, for ourselves, a representation of sensoric impulses, as an end it it’s own right* – bizarrely, that sort of follows from Kant’s own points.
Which also means that your point above is contradicting your point about the second formulation of the categorical imperative – it is not, in and of itself, to get to a moral position that has to logically be agreed on by everyone. So you end up with the question you’re trying to answer: What does it (in practical terms) *mean* to treat someone not merely as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.
Of course, infra is right, as “ethics” as such is an empty term, and a lot of contradictory “ethics” are compliant with the categorical imperative. But you’re right with your Hegelian objection above – in this point. I think it’s impossible to decide on what should be considered appropriately ethical in this context without appropriately defining “ethical”.
For example, as I alluded to above, I believe that the general mood in the feministe thread – and I am not sure to which extent it can be generalized, but I do have a hunch it can – is not particularly ethical in my book, as it demonstrates a lack of willingness to even consider the other person’s perspective.
As for pickup/advice on social dynamics, I think one of the main problems is particularly related to knowledge, and awareness thereof. I suppose the main (practical, as opposed to theoretical, as no “knowledge” can change the impossibility of actually understanding any other position than one’s own) question is to which extent *authenticity* is possible when there’s awareness of social and conversational structures, because the aware person, in a way, becomes their own Heisenberg observer, and thus can *never* be truly authentic anymore. Hence, rational, as opposed to intuitive, knowledge, makes interactions inherently less authentic than they would be absent knowledge.
And from this follows what I consider the most decisive question in the PUA/ePUA ;) context – that I’ll illustrate with the following thought experiment:
Imagine two guys who are behaving exactly identical except for the fact that one guy has never heard of “social dynamics” and the other has read every book on the planet” and has understood the structure of every interaction he’s been in since. Their performance is creating the exact, same results in terms of attraction and the women they’re chatting with are having a wonderful time.
Should (and if so, how so) the learned/emulated performance be subject to stricter ethical standards than the natural (unaware) behaviour? I think it logically follows from the Heisenberg point, but it really feels wrong to me.
What do you think?
Snowdrop,
I think the point here is not to tell people they can’t be themselves, the point is to tell them that a) most people’s self concepts aren’t as clearly defined as they believe (which is totally true) and b) that most people’s self concept includes and, partly, relies on ideas and behaviours that are *considered* as defining the self but may not *actually* be defining it – while they may well be harming these people when it comes to the things they would like to pursue. I think a lot of the potentially problematic nature of that advice comes from people’s interpretations with respect to what they consider to be “themselves”. And I think it’s logically correct to say that someone who is subscribing to the effectiveness/efficiency goal presented (“be successful”) and *has already tried* to get to that point by *not changing anything* (“being themselves”) will not achieve the desired effectiveness/efficiency goal.
Oh, and something I would like to add, since it mirrors Clarisse’s reaction to reading some pua boards (“empathy break”). My personal reaction to reading the feministe thread about the interview was an increasing desire to go on an “empathy break”.
I think it demonstrated once again how lucky we all were to find a host for the manliness/seduction debates who is actually interested in a discussion and doesn’t merely want to explain to other people how their perceptions and ideas don’t really matter.
Thanks, Clarisse!
I don’t think an “ends vs means” approach is going to be workable. How can one even separate them in the heat of desire? In defence of all things hot and sweaty, I would like to leave space for the kind of seduction that resembles gay “rough trade”.
I would prefer something along the lines of Dan Savage’s “campsite rule”, which he originally proposed for older people dating younger. Leave people in better shape than you found them. It has immediate ethical appeal, and so might be something easier to hold the PUA community to.
SnowdropExplodes & Guestina:
Yes, precisely. (Although to nitpick: being clear is part of being actionable.)
I think I mentioned this over at RabbitWrite as well, but “be yourself” is a really great example of non-actionable advice. It is good advice in the sense that it is important and true. But it is also totally unhelpful.
It is like telling a beginning art student, “Just express yourself.” While it is good advice, it is typically unhelpful and unnecessary. The art student already wants to express themself. What they need is to be given tools and to be trained in techniques to enable them to express themselves in the ways that they want.
I am a highly sexual person, and I will almost certainly have sexual feelings/desires for the women I am interested in. With that in mind, how do I “just be myself” in a way that is inclusive of that? Because that sexualness is very much a part of myself, and in fact is a very important and relevant part of myself in the topical circumstances. That is the kind of advice guys are looking for, and PUA culture seems to be the only place offering it.
“Be confident,” “relax,” etc. are other laughably non-actionable pieces of advice, for reasons that I like to think are pretty obvious. And they often conflict with “just be yourself” to an extent, depending on the person, and depending on what is meant by “yourself”.
What I find useful about the PUA community is that the advice is much more specific, and also quite varied. “Do this.” “Do that.” And from that cornucopia of advice I can pick and choose the things that make sense to me and that fit me. A lot of what is so valuable about the PUA community is simply that there are a lot of ideas, and I can try them on and experiment until I find something that is comfortable and fitting for me.
And, actually, that is the other thing that PUA culture did for me: it encouraged me to experiment and permissioned me to make mistakes. If I accidentally make someone uncomfortable, or unintentionally push someone’s boundaries in an unwanted way, that sucks (and I should try to make up for it precisely as much as a woman should in reverse circumstances). But it is also a learning experience, and it does not make me an evil misogynist proto-rapist.
I meant to catch this earlier, but Clarisse’s discussion of “freeze outs” as an LMR tactic isn’t quite accurate. Clarisse, since I showed you some of that material in the first place, you’ll have to forgive me for getting really nitpicky about it’s interpretation, especially when it’s being used to make a claim of sexual predatoriness.
I don’t think that the discussion of LMR tactics advocates what she says, but I do think it’s a reasonable worry that some PUAs might get those tactics wrong and do what she worries about, and LMR tactics are discussed in a way that might lead them to be executed in toxic ways, even if the actual behavior advocated isn’t inherently toxic.
Good so far…
Actually, this is 180 degrees backwards from how the behavior actually works. One of the suggested alternative activities towards sex is to start playing a game of cards, not to stop one. That makes the “freeze out” interactive, so it makes no sense that it’s even called a “freeze out” in the first place.
From the Love Systems manual that I think Clarisse is basing her discussion on:
Clarisse turns that into:
But that’s absolutely not what the passage is saying. The only thing that suggests being cold is the term “freeze out,” which isn’t even used by Love Systems (it’s used by Mystery, the originator of the technique). Now, language is important, so if Clarisse thinks that a “freeze out” is about being cold, maybe some PUAs do, too, despite the nuances that Love Systems adds. Yet we also need to consider the actual behaviors advocated.
Starting a game of cards is not “going cold and ignoring her.” Taking a break from the romantic and sexual elements is not “going cold and ignoring her” (unless it’s done in a passive-aggressive way). Checking email a a few minutes then reinitiating physical contact is not “going cold and ignoring her” (unless it’s done in a passive-aggressive way).
Even though what Love Systems is advocating isn’t inherently harmful, what I don’t like is that it is still goal directed towards sex. They don’t use the term “freeze out,” which is an improvement from Mystery. Even though I like Love System’s language of “taking a break,” they are still framing it an an LMR tactic. Yet when you think about it, taking a break is often an excellent idea for both people in a situation where one person doesn’t want to go any farther sexually.
Normally I’m not opposed to tactics, but I worry that being too goal-directed about LMR tactics (and the term “freeze out”) could result in passive-aggressiveness, or resentment seeping through. I think “taking a break” is an excellent idea, and people should do it upon refusal more often… and not just because it could lead the other person to change their minds.
“Calculated” implies intent. It’s true that taking a break from sexual activity could have the “effect” of taking advantage of a woman’s insecurity about being liked, but Love Systems does advise reassuring her in the above passage. I think that most PUAs, and most men in general, are simply unaware of these complexes, and are not calculating to take advantage of them. I think that since men are less often in the position of having to put on the brakes, they have trouble understanding the difficulties that some women have doing so.
What’s curiously missing from the discussion of LMR by both PUAs and feminists is the man’s emotional state. His sexual desires are discussed, and the woman’s sexual desires and emotional state are discussed. Yet the man’s own emotions and comfort are missing.
The masculine role of initiator expects men to keep barreling forward towards sex. But how does he feel about that? In Mystery’s discussion of LMR tactics, he suggested that when encountering LMR, you should just act like your arousal circuitry was just turned off. Reading that made me wonder, how do I actually feel when I’m initiating, and someone refuses something? What are my options for how to proceed, and how do I feel about those options?
I’m not sure that Mystery is advising “faking” a reaction; instead, he is completely agnostic about whether your reaction is fake or real. In a way, this is scarier. Even advising men to fake something would be acknowledging their emotional state. Instead, Mystery subcommunicates: “here is what you need to do to succeed sexually… how you feel about it doesn’t matter.” Mystery cares much more about how the woman feels than about how the PUA feels.
As a result, the discussion of resistance towards sex is approached ass backwards. The focus in this discussion is to figure out how the PUA can still lead the situation towards sex; what’s emotionally healthy for him isn’t acknowledged. For instance, PUAs talk about “takeaways” or “freeze outs” (aka big takeaway) in response to sex as a way to change a woman’s mind.
It’s kind of a ridiculous notion that if a man gets refused, he should stay in bed and try to figure out what she wants to do (when she doesn’t suggest an alternative, and when she will probably look down on any attempt by him to verbally communicate about what she wants, if she is a mainstream heterosexual woman)… or get stuck in an infinite loop of cuddling and/or making out for rest of the evening. No thanks!
If you are messing around with someone, and they don’t want to further, what are the options?
1. Ask them “why.” This is generally a horrible idea that could make someone feel pressured, so I’m not going to discuss it.
2. Escalate to some other activity. For instance, if someone doesn’t want to have sex, then instead see if they want to have oral sex. I don’t like this solution, because it could feel pressuring for the other person. It’s like a salesman trying to sell you one model after you refuse another. In the case of BDSM, there may be a large menu of activities, so it could be easier to find something that both people want to do that hasn’t been done yet, but vanilla people have less options.
3. Continue doing something that both people are comfortable with, such as making out. This can be just fine, but it depends on mood. Unfortunately, if you’ve already been making out for a while, then more making out could be physically or emotionally frustrating to one or both people. Furthermore, if someone refuses a new activity, that might suggest that they might want to stop soon. So while making out, you have to deal with the stress of figuring out when to stop. If you keep going and they stop the making out, then you’ve made them refuse you twice, which sets a bad precedent.
4. Cuddle. It can be a good option, but it has some of the same drawbacks of kissing. Furthermore, it leaves you in a limbo situation. Should you keep cuddling, or should you try to start something physical again? If you keep cuddling, you might get frustrated, but if you try to make things sexual again, you don’t know the other person’s comfort level (asking permission doesn’t solve this problem, because asking permission is a sort of sexual advance).
5. Ask them what they want to do. This is a great option if you have a partner who is good at sexual communication, which means “probably not” outside of certain communities like the kink community.
6. Have a conversation over something else. This can be a good option if you both people can easily switch from sexual activity to a conversation, but not everyone’s brains like to do this. Furthermore, if one or both people are feeling any frustration, then conversing is going to be tougher.
7. Take a break. This option is starting to look more and more attractive, especially in situations where you don’t have good communication. If they say “no,” and now you don’t know what they want to do, and you can’t productively ask them what to do, then why not just take a break from the sexual/romantic stuff? Here are some advantages:
- If you are feeling any emotional frustration or momentary resentment from getting refused, then taking a break gives you some time to clear your head and get over it. The other person also gets a chance to clear their head, and decide what they want.
- Giving both people a break to clear their heads can actually set up conversation better than trying to immediately jump into conversation right after the refusal.
- Both people avoid sexual frustration from continued cuddling or making out.
- By stopping everything, you don’t have to worry whether the other person wants to continue being sexual, and you don’t make the other person refuse you twice.
- You don’t incur the costs of asking the other person what they actually do want to do (which makes you look unconfident if you are a man with a mainstream heterosexual woman). Just assume that they don’t want to do anything more right now, and let them correct you if you are wrong. If you have to figure out when to stop cuddling or making out, why not just stop everything sexual in the first place? You can always reinitiate later, if you think they will be open to it.
- If you are no longer “in the mood,” then it’s entirely authentic and appropriate to stop doing romantic and sexual stuff, and instead to do something nonsexual. If so, then should be doing this to protect your own emotional health and bodily sovereignty (rather than continuing cuddling or making out from a feeling of obligation)… not as a tactic to still turn things into sex.
If PUAs are taught that they can value their own comfort with sexual activity that doesn’t move towards sex, and that they have the right to refuse for the sake of their own emotional health and bodily sovereignty, then I think they would be more likely to “take a break” from sexual activity in a way that is authentic and positive, rather than coming off as passive-aggressive and cold.
When a PUA encounters refusal of some sexual activity, we should encourage him to ask himself: do I want to continue making out? Do I want to cuddle? Or do I want to take a break? Yes, he will consider in the back of his head how his response will influence her interest in having sex later, and he should consider her feelings about his response (and not act cold, harsh, or passive-aggressive), but he should also be thinking about himself and what he is comfortable with.
So far, what I’m describing is externally identical to what Love Systems advocates. But the internal aspect is different. I’m suggesting that the PUA connects with his own comfort about proceeding with sexual activities other than the one refused. If he wants to take a break, then he will subcommunicate that it’s about him watching out for his comfort levels, rather than about trying to guilt her into doing something that she isn’t comfortable with.
All I would add is that the break should be initiated with positive emotional energy, especially if it’s not a collaborative activity (e.g. checking email). Other ideas for breaks: using the bathroom, taking a walk together, or going to get food together.
Hugh:
Yes, absolutely. And I think this ties in with the discussion AB and I were having earlier. It is really important, I think, for men to value their own comfort levels as well, and for them to know that it is 100% acceptable for them to stop things if it is uncomfortable/frustrating/whatever for them.
I do not necessarily think a guy should pretend to be all cool and happy if he is not. That can be unhealthy, and can ultimately lead to stronger negative feelings later on.
Though I certainly agree that one should not be passive-aggressive about it. And I think that we should do our best to own our feelings and be realistic about their validity.
But, having said that, I also think that encouraging guys to stop things if they find a situation frustrating/uncomfortable/whatever, and telling guys that this is totally 100% acceptable behavior, will actually go a long way to head off negative feelings like that in the first place.
In my personal experience, at least, most–if not all–of the nasty/resentful feelings I got from such situations was due to feeling trapped. Even when I did stop things, I would feel like I was crossing some line of unacceptable behavior by doing so, which also led to feelings of resentment.
Anyway… in general, I relate closely to your entire comment. So, seconded.
@ Infra #256:
What is “the approach usually used”? And by what measure has your approach “worked” by comparison?
Again, by what measure have they succeeded? What are “the usual attempts”?
I have not been able to get into the masculinity threads because they each got too long too quickly and I could not keep up with them. To get involved there, I would need some kind of a summary so I can understand in general what was discussed and look deeper if there’s something I don’t understand in the summary (and comment somewhere if I feel I have something to add).
But I would say that I see discussion of masculinity in general as being much more mutable a subject than PUA, which I perceive to be relatively resistant to modification of the type that seems to be the topic here. I may be wrong about that, of course, but that is what it looks like from here.
Okay, I can see that. So what terminology would you use for the difference between PUA as it is now, and the desired end goal (whether achieved by split-and-contest or by modification)?
Those do not sound like actionable terms to me. For a start, what if I have very little shared experience or narrative with others in the discussion? That seems to me to be part of my whole problem with PUA as it stands – it relies solely on “shared experience” and thus generates a monocultural approach to dating techniques that is inappropriate to me. It actively prevents me developing a sense of empathy with PUA (as I have observed and noted when analysing my responses to Hugh Ristik’s quoted examples). Finding agreed-upon effects on that basis seems to me to be what PUA has done, and it seems to have failed. Time to try something different.
@ Sam (#257):
That’s a misreading of what I was saying. I was trying to say first of all “what is the question?” And I thought that at least a part of the question was something similar to the 2nd Formulation.
However, I already said that although I like the wording of the 2nd Formulation, I don’t mean to bring Kant in in any serious way (and certainly not in terms of basing the discussion on pure reason!). I am really approaching the issue much more from the awareness I have of Carl Rogers’ work as the founder of modern “person-centred” counselling.
I disagree that knowledge automatically makes one less authentic. Knowledge can be used to portray one’s authentic self in a particular way, or can be used to create a false impression of oneself. If I were to follow the advice of PUA, then I would be creating a false impression of myself and therefore be inauthentic. I want pick-up advice that allows me to portray my authentic self with the best opportunity of success.
I have already disagreed with your Heisenberg point, but the question deserves an answer. The aim being to see the interaction as having a positive effect (mentioned a few times in this thread as “leave them better off than you found them” – without tracking all the way back through the thread, I see Sagredo @ #259 accredits the phrase to Dan Savage), then I think outcome is more important here. But I think intent also plays a part, which is why I dislike using knowledge to project a false impression (i.e. action based on intent to deceive).
I think a big part of what I am looking for is a way to say that we should not be talking about “better off” by my estimation, but by their own, and that seeing that as a goal (i.e. seeing their benefit from their perspective, as far as possible) is going to be the basis of good ethics in some form of PUA. This comes out of Carl Rogers’ conception of empathy in person-centred counselling.
(Incidentally, I think ethical forms of PUA should also have the outcome, “Leave yourself in better shape than when you started,” also).
@ Hugh Ristik (#261, #262)
I think the quoted passage from “Love Systems” is actually great advice and I have to admit, it goes against my preconceptions of PUA (as a result, I went and looked up the manual on Amazon, but at £70 per volume it’s a bit steep!)
I kind of agree with this, but I think it should be added that, insofar as PUA is based on empirical data, that its techniques are calibrated against a world in which women respond based on these insecurities and pressures. So the methods, while not consciously “calculated” to exploit them, nevertheless do exploit them, and have been constructed in such a way specifically as to do so, because that is what leads to “success” in the sense of getting to have sex with women.
I agree with the “subcommunication” analysis, and I think it is one of the things that can lead to structures with negative outcomes in PUA for women as well as for men. (It looks like a specific example of the issue I have with feeling PUA asks me to be inauthentic.) However, I think that Mystery (based on all the references I have seen in this thread) does not care how the woman feels, except inasmuch as it results in a barrier to success; overcoming the barrier (rather than having her feel okay) seems to be the point of concern. Although I again qualify this statement by referencing my preconceptions about PUA.
Maybe it’s because I do have a background (i.e. kink) where communication is expected, but I really struggle to think of a way in which it is ethical to end up in bed with someone (intending to have sexual contact with them) without first establishing good communication about sex.
Definitely! I like this a lot.
Wow… a lot of catching up to do. Incidentally, it looks like Clarisse and I may have been in SF at the same time. Huh.
Clarisse,
Nope. Can’t even really imagine what that would be like. Put another way, there’s nobody I’d make out with that I wouldn’t have sex with. (The reverse is not true, which is sometimes lots of fun, but that’s a different story.)
I don’t know whether this is due to having a high sex drive, or a low interest in making out for its own sake (rather than as foreplay), because I have both traits. Both probably contribute.
Though the idea that someone else could turn me on through actions or effort or something feels almost as alien, but in a weird way–in that I know it’s true, just it doesn’t quite feel like it could be true.
Hmm. I’m struck with the suspicion that the phenomenon of the “hot girl with very low self-esteem who’s therefore basically invisible to men” is apparently also invisible to PUAs–or that it’s just folded into their concept of hotness. Hotness is social status, but social status is also hotness, I guess. Odd.
Another random suspicion: That a few centuries of that kind of “joke” passed before the serious conversations became common. I suspect that’s where men are currently–joking about things they really want to be able to discuss, but can’t. A few centuries behind women, in terms of having a framework for discussing gender issues (which is to be expected, obviously, because gender issues weren’t as much of a problem for men).
I almost laughed out loud when I read this, but then it occurred to me that you might not have meant it as a joke. On reconsidering, I’m mostly convinced you’re serious. Which is even funnier, actually.
Anyway, that’s… quite a claim. I think you might be missing a few important qualifiers in there.
(This was to Clarence)
This puzzles me. How much of a problem do you really have, talking to people who think you’re sexually defective? If you think someone else has a defective sexuality, does that preclude debating them? Should it, for them, preclude debating you?
I imagine you can see why I ask… :p
Guestina,
A lot of what comes up in this thread is carried over from a few previous ones (I think the opening comments in this one were moved from a different thread). If you’ve got (a lot of) time, you might find the others worthwhile. I suspect that linking to all of them here would get caught in a spam filter, but I think they all have “manliness and feminism” in the title of the post.
Sam,
Given the part I’ve bolded, what difference would be made in this case by applying stricter ethical standards? If nothing’s going wrong, either by loose or strict standards, I’m not sure whether it matters.
I don’t know how good an analogy this is, but consider martial artists. If you’re accomplished, and you get in a fight and someone gets seriously hurt, you’re often going to have a lot more trouble in court than if you were a complete novice.
But if no one does get seriously hurt… I’m not really able to distinguish between the lower and higher standards.
SnowdropExplodes,
Hah! Since you’re the guy who most recently started a Kant discussion, I was waiting to see if you’d catch that one too. I’m quite pleased.
Motley, you goddamn tease! Were you at the same conference? Wait a minute, are you the guy I hooked up with last night?
@Sam:
And it’s too bad. In my opinion, any sort of “ethical pick-up artist” community which doesn’t somehow include women’s voices is lessened by their absence. Earlier in this thread, there was some discussion of how women use silence rather than reject men explicitly. There was nothing said that really surprised me, but the discussion would have been incomplete without women’s perspective.
@Sagredo:
But that’s why you have both grand, overarching principles (categorical imperative) and specific, hard-line rules (sexual activity requires the informed consent of all involved). But in addition to specific rules, you should, in my opinion, afterwards reflect on your actions to try to find any failings. For example, I know that I’ve had subtle biases in the way in which I judged people that I didn’t realize until somewhat later. Ethics can be hard, but that just means that we need to think about it, not that we should just give up.
@Hugh:
I think this is an interesting point about PUAs. I’m not versed in pick-up culture, but I’m struck by how much of the vocabulary seems designed to suppress any vulnerabilities on the part of the practitioner. Dating becomes “the game,” so rejection is no longer personal, but just because you didn’t know the rules. Everything gets labeled by an acronym and analyzed purely on tactical grounds. There was a comparison to martial arts earlier in this thread, but the jargon also reminds me of a video game.
@SnowdropExplodes:
By “approach usually used,” in both cases, I mean the emphasis upon principles: discussions of being genuine instead of using artifice, treating people as human beings instead of objects, countering transactional sexuality, et. al. In the four years or so that I’ve spent reading various critiques of the pickup/seduction scenes, I’ve found that approach to be representative, mostly covering the same ground with slight variations in emphasis.
All that I can say is that I’ve engaged with individuals in the community on a personal level and approached the subject through reference to personal experiences, examination of how events can relate to technique (as in how a history of sexual assault could produce what looks like LMR), and so on, instead of approaching it from a principle-based argument, and it’s resulted in alterations of perspective to which some individuals were previously resistant (based upon, e.g., the comments that I’d seen them make in other, related discussions). To give details beyond that would go into information that I’ve agreed to keep private, though, and I won’t betray those confidences. So take it as you will.
WRT this and the manliness threads, there have been comments — in this thread and the others — about the discussion being more accessible than others, and as providing some hope for the possibility of constructive dialogue. Sam’s comment @ 258 is one example; a perusal of the other threads will reveal more. I’d also refer you to the recent exchanges between Xakudo and AB, which, again, are one example of an exchange that has happened a number of times through these discussions, and of a type that refers heavily to personal experience and narrative instead of primarily to principle.
I’m not aware of any other discussions of these subjects that have been remotely as substantial as what’s occurred here (unless one combines a much larger number of posts into one discussion), nor of many that have managed to address them as deeply without involving a much more substantial degree of overt hostility. If you know of some — then, by all means, reference them.
No argument when it comes to discussions of manliness/masculinity covering more ground and being more mutable, in ways, in large measure because pickup/seduction is a more specific category. But there is substantial overlap (toxicity and such), and it also relates to the following point.
I tend to use the general terms “pickup” and “seduction” to cover those areas, with PUA and SC used to refer to the body of material (specific techniques, books, seminars, etc. and the people who focus on discussing them), with “public PUA scene” and “PUA/MRA intersect” used as ways of referring to areas that focus on a limited subset of ideas (those that have trickled down through leaks and the popular press) and ideological hybridization, respectively. There really is no “PUA as it is now” when not taking those different categories into account, as all three of those groups, in combination, are the phenomenon as it is now. Some of it is just far more visible than the rest.
Anyway: the more general the term, the more flexibility it seems to allow for in self-definition and the ability to pick, choose and mix, and that seems, IME, to be a pivotal element in moving toward a more ethical (more accurately, moral and value-based) approach. It might not be the clearest in identifying an optimal form, whatever that might end up meaning; but in this case, too much clarity seems to end up being counterproductive. The loose terms provide freedom of movement.
Then it might be that, in the cases being discussed, you don’t have an inroad and can’t contribute, directly, to that particular part of the discussion. I’ve certainly found that to be the case with certain individuals, myself. (I’ve had more success with this kind of approach than with principle-focused ones, and not just in regard to pickup/seduction. But I’d hardly claim that it works in all cases. I can only relate to those to whom I can relate.) Sometimes that means keeping to the edge of the field until the opportunity opens — until some shared aspect is introduced, even as a tangent — and simply working to bounce the ball back into bounds when it looks like it’s heading out.
But broadening the concept of “shared experience” is also something helpful: this includes not only dating situations, but also similar emotional responses, ways of relating to self, overcoming of stigma, and need for community. The specifics don’t need to be the same; sometimes the crucial point is connection on an aspect of internal experience, even if it comes from a source that would seem to be of different character.
Connect by way of analogy, then pursue what points of contact might emerge.
In some ways, this is simply applying techniques used in the SC to the SC. Value elicitation, conversational threading, etc. But I suppose that a more formal way of putting it is that it’s a Sophistic style of approach — assuming that one could interpret “Sophistic” as a positive term. ;)
‘Course, with much of this, I’m simply making explicit some of what already happened in parts of #265-6.
@Xakudo:
Why would you need to be told that it was OK to hit on women in the first place? I ask because one of the arguments, by an anti-feminist, in the creep thread was that “Right now the market is dominated by a-holes, who hit on 50 women a night/day”. It seems a very standard Nice Guy/anti-feminist sentiment, but I’m curious about where they get it from.
@Sam:
I think it’s surprising how easily a lot of men/PUAs seem to expect empathy as a matter of course. It must be great feeling that way, but I begin to understand where concepts of male privilege and entitlement come from. People within the seduction community write rape-manuals. That’s about the most disgusting and morally objectionable thing anyone can do, save perhaps for encouraging others to chop of the limbs of little children or something. It’s that vile.
And not only vile, it also goes against everything feminism stands for (and this is one of the few places where practically all feminists can agree for once, except perhaps the most radically sex-positive ones), and when many PUA concepts are furthermore extremely patriarchal (think about it, these are women who criticised The Rules, which was much milder in comparison), it’s actually quite remarkable that men like Gunwitch haven’t been shot in the head yet.
But despite this, all I hear from PUAs (and non-feminist men in general) are complaints about how there isn’t enough focus on trying to understand men and relate to men. Where’s the empathy of women? I’ve heard so much about how hard it is for shy men who’re afraid of women, but what about the women who’re afraid of men?
The fear men seem to have of women (especially in terms of approaching them) can be solved by them not approaching or by learning how to approach, but the fears of women are much more primal, and much less within their control. The fear of getting raped. The fear of getting abused. The fear of becoming a social outcast (in all areas, not just dating) for not being conventionally attractive enough.
And PUAs are frequently telling women “Yes, your fears are correct. We make websites for each other telling exactly how much physical force we can legally use on you without having to fear rape-charges. We exchange strategies for how to manipulate you and control you further. We not only rate you according to conventional attractiveness when it comes to dating (because yes, it’s true that men generally wont value you romantically for anything but your appearance), we use this rating to rank you socially too”.
Imagine the fear you felt approaching a woman when you were shy and awkward, and then imagine an even worse fear being imposed on you by someone from the outside, leaving you without the option of retreating. Is it really that surprising that most of the women on Feministe are on the fence in regards to the SC? You mention needing an empathy break because of what the posters wrote, but did it ever occur to you that these posters don’t have that opportunity, because they’re in the same situation you perceive yourself of being in (a minority subjected to unfair treatment) constantly in their everyday life?
Let me start with saying that I’m not that versed with the PU community, but at the same I know, probably, most of its main people at least if they haven’t changed much since The Game. Why is this? I find the concept of a community of men gathering together to seduce women really freaking intriguing and thought provoking; however when it comes to what that community has produced, I find it mostly dull. For that matter I find Patrice Oneal’s rantings more thought provoking.
Anyway, I didn’t read most of what’s been written, I only followed what Clarisse has to say and some of the posts she addresses.
Having said that, one point that, after a quick glance, seems to be missing is uncoscious actions and reactions. Let’s take for example the “no means yes”.
First, I’d say that the percentage offered in the study is grossly understimating that people don’t like to be seen as manipulators (either if it’s consciously or uncosciously).
Second, the process of saying “no” or “yes” while in the heat of the moment is mostly a reactive in nature, thus uncoscious. Notice the build-up to that positive/negative answer may or may not be unconscious. So, we have to take into account that sometimes the “no” was actually meant to be a “yes”.
Have this ever happened to you? Most certainly it happened to me. A few years ago, I gave my cheek to a girl who was going in for my lips. A split second later I was thinking: “What did I just do?” THAT was the moment when I started paying close attention to what I was doing and how I was seducing.
This leads to my next point. Once you made your position clear, be it positive or negative, it is pretty damn hard to back-pedal. To remain congruent (something we all like) we must stick to a decision that maybe wasn’t exactly what we wanted in the first place.
So, now we have another argument for toying with that “no”. It clearly is very context depentent. What’s more this is an argument against your exciting question (personal opinion, I find it not exciting at all): “I’m going to take your no for an answer and not continue unless you say yes”? Most of the time a person won’t back pedal to say yes explicitly… If that person were to back pedal, it would mean he/she has a level of self-knowledge that would not lead to say “no” while meaning “yes” in the first place.
Now, how as men can we test the waters? Simply, most of the time by doing it again. How can we distinguish between a soft and a hard “no”? Simply, going for the kill one more time. Then, if we succeed with our assessment of the situation you women probably would call us charming, if not, we will be called creeps.
@Hugh Ristik:
That’s what I’ve been saying for days now. The difference is in approach – I think PUAs should examine their own motivations for ethical/long-term reasons and see the failure of them to do so as an indication that the movement is non-ethical, whereas you (like most PUAs) seem to focus on how men aren’t given enough empathy and understanding compared to women.
As I said, the SC is not ethical. It’s like one of those “Get rich quick” manuals, it’s not meant to raise the question as to whether or not material wealth is really the road to happiness, or examine the potential injustices of a capitalist system, it’s meant to teach people how to get more money.
And I don’t think Mystery cares about women at all. In this case, I’d actually say that the lesser focus on the PUA’s feelings indicates a greater respect/autonomy/agenda for him than his target, because the focus is explicitly on changing feelings into what the PUA wants them to be (usually lust/compliance).
@AB:
I’d fully agree that there’s a lack of empathy in regard to why women would make statements like that about PUAs. (If that’s what you’re saying. Correct me if I’m wrong.) Those statements might be more or less accurate depending upon the people being discussed — and in regard to people like Reyes, they’re very much accurate — but the issue of insight into the reasons for them is, more often than not, sorely neglected.
On the other hand, I can see what Sam is saying, especially coming from the history that I have, which included molestation as a child, being the victim of statutory rape, and being partner raped both by pressure and by the use of intoxicants. To be classed into a group that’s described as interested only in finding ways to rape women, full stop, with that history — to be identified with my victimizers, to have their motivations assigned to me, because I have an interest in materials in that general category but still manage to abhor and reject the materials of people like Reyes and David X — is, itself, almost a secondary victimization. In technical terms, that’s probably exactly what it is.
The whole thing is exhausting, and demoralizing, and can certainly result in an “empathy break” on both sides.
@AB
In my experience, a lot of that is sort of aggregated. It’s not okay to talk to her if she’s wearing headphones. It’s not okay to talk to her if she’s at a coffeeshop reading a book. It’s not okay to talk to her at the bar surrounded by friends. It’s not okay to talk to her if she’s at a bar by herself. And these are all coming from sources that are somewhat different.
@Infra:
Pretty much. And it’s somewhat related to one of my earlier claims, that there’s a discrepancy between PUA techniques and terminology (which is often disempowering towards women), and the amount of control attributed to, and empathy expected of, women.
I understand that, but it doesn’t seem to be the case with Sam. He has mainly focussed on how difficult it was for him to not be able to approach women, and he seems to very much focus on a perceived imbalance of sexual power (with women having too much and men not enough). So far, he has said nothing that indicates even a fraction of the empathy he seems to demand of the posters he criticise.
Hmm, are you referring to manipulation of women’s desire, or to manipulating women to do things they don’t desire? Even Roissy seems to restrict himself to the first category.
@Sagredo:
I was mainly referring to one of the Gunwitch quotes, in which he (after advocating groping, isolation, standing in her personal space, “make the ho say no” and repeatedly aiming to get sex after getting said no) warns against struggling with her or holding her down because it is considered rape (not “is rape” but “is considered rape”), but assures his audience that they’ll be OK if they just abstain from that.
It’s basically telling women that their only protection is the law, because PUAs (at least of this type) will only prioritise their feelings and personal integrity if it means avoiding jail. And (surprise, surprise!) plenty of women (and men, though they aren’t the targets at risk here), are accutely aware of how meager protection the law can be.
So it was Gunwitch, specifically, who was “frequently telling women” about his rapey web-site?
Because if there are others in the PUA community who are advising manipulating women into doing things they don’t desire, our very first ethical task is to root them out.
@Sagredo:
I haven’t come across any pickup advice, personally, that openly endorses manipulating women into doing what they don’t want to do; as AB just noted, even Reyes (Gunwitch) didn’t go that far in terms of what he openly endorsed, though his phrasing definitely emphasizes legal consequence instead of any kind of moral line. But it’s far less rare to come across advice that fails to make the distinction between what a woman might desire and what a woman doesn’t want to do, but can be pressured or manipulated into doing, especially once the ideas of subconscious/unconscious motivations, ASD and the like are introduced. That, in turn, feeds into what techniques would be considered acceptable, and when, and where the lines would be drawn between pickup, harassment, assault, and rape.
There’s what a person wants, what a person can be coerced into, and what a person will concede to for reasons other than their own desire. In pickup material, the distinctions between the three aren’t always (or even commonly) identified, much less made clear.
Of course I can’t speak for Xakudo, but I have an anecdote, which might highlight why some men are afraid to initiate.
I have two sister a younger and an older one. My younger sister is a very sensitive person. All of us made our driver license in the same driving school. Part of the theoretical instruction was a scary video, which showed horrible accidents caused by drivers under influence. My older sister and me didn’t think too much about it. The message we got was don’t drive intoxicated. But my younger sister was intimidated by the video. The message she got was more like don’t drive at all, because you could hurt someone. Our driving instructor, who liked to make remarks like ‘a car is a weapon’, wasn’t helping. It needed some encouragement and practice to make her comfortable driving a car.
I thing that’s pretty much the same dynamic, which is going on with sensitive boys/men and the message ‘don’t be that guy’. Those who would not have been that guy, in the first place, need encouragement. But those guys, to stay in the picture, who think they can do 200 km/h on the ‘autobahn’ the day after they got their license, actually need to be taught some humility.
Are ASD and “token resistance” real phenomena, or are they actually PUA misreading a genuine “no”?
@Sagredo:
Complicated subject.
With regard to ASD, I can only speak from my own experience as being someone who prefers the “lover” position, instead of the casual, FB or relationship one. I did end up having my own version of ASD, in that it was usually clear that I wasn’t looking for a relationship, but didn’t want to be seen or treated as throw-away material or… well, a life-support system for a dong (kind of the equivalent of a “hole to fuck,” and something that had happened on previous occasions). The problem with just coming out and saying that I preferred the “lover” position, though, was that it was often taken as meaning that I was looking for a one-night stand or a FB — there are people I know who, even after years, don’t think that there’s a difference — so I had to find a different way of communicating it, some way of conveying what I was looking for without finding myself in the “easy and disposable” category in the process. Using the language that’s usually associated with ASD ended up being the only effective way that I found to do so.
I suspect that some other cases are the same. But I think that ASD is widely understood as something related to the ability to express desire itself, instead of as relating to a particular, personal form of desire, or to specific circumstances (e.g., looking to have an affair, or being in a social circle in which stories about sexual activity are employed for power plays), and I’m not convinced that that’s accurate. So being able to read ASD properly involves being able to read a substantial number of other elements in the context properly (body language, variations in what’s said according to who’s around, the way in which people talk about relationships, etc.). As a result, I’d say that, if someone’s perspective is first and foremost to prevent harm as far as is reasonably possible, it’s best to take the position that ASD doesn’t exist. There’s too much of a possibility for it to be misread.
The above goes even more strongly for token resistance.
I’d say both. I’ve definitely had many women tell me about putting up some resistance for whatever reasons, to not appear “easy” being the most common one given, or even for no reason at all (usually phrased as something like “That’s just the way these things go”). There are, of course, also situations where there’s a genuine “no” and PUAs misread it as token resistance.
This is more interesting than interviewing someone who wrote a book on picking up girls. I for one would like to see that a ‘better side’ of pick-up 101 was on offer. You’ve kind of got this topic spread over several websites, and I’m sure there are technical reasons for that, but it would be good to see them sometime compiled, maybe in a book that explores both sides of this, the people involved, the history and a critique.
AB,
I’m afraid we just don’t seem get each other for some reason.
Well. I’m a little sad here that sarcasm or irony never work on the web, because I’d love to use a lot of it here. But there you go. No irony. So, well, if that’s what you believe I probably can’t change that. I sort of feel like you would take my trying as effort to “patronize” you (as you once claimed) and my not trying as evidence of my lack of empathy towards rape victims (wtf…?). Since I can’t win that one, I’m not going to try.
That said, Clarisse introduces a particular point of view into the discourse at feministe – basically: I don’t like a lot of this, but some it is ok, and the need is real, too – and the reaction is basically the same as it was with respect to her creep post: missing (what I think was) the point, and turning what could have become a valuable discussion into reruns of “who has it worse”, you know, oppression olympics qualifiers.
The question – why do they seem to miss the point? is an important one to answer to move the debate forward, and your points and infra’s reply certainly point to that.
But even so, the exhibited lack of willingness to even say “right, you feel there’s a problem, maybe it’s fair, let’s listen” instead of telling the guys who *want to engage* to “shove their privilege up their entitled asses” does make me sad, because the alternative to talking *with* each other is talking to each other, or about each other, or not talking at all. I can’t go on an empathy break, since empathy is nothing you can take a break from, but I can still say that something pisses me off when it does. And this does.
Yes it can. But to put this statement in perspective for you, AB, I’m going to quote myself from a subconversation about “privilege” with Clarisse that took place here -
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2010/10/15/manliness-and-feminism-2-judgment-day/#comment-7948
If I understand you correctly, token resistance and ASD really do exist, but you don’t trust men in general to tell it apart from “no”?
I think it really is just the way these things go. Currently most PUA theory seems to interpret it as another test. Are you confident enough to push past my token resistance?
This is troublesome, because if “ethical” PUA starts to damage successful happy outcomes, the project will fail.
@Sagredo:
They do exist, yes; that much I can say from my own experience, as well as from conversations that I’ve had with others. But it isn’t that I don’t trust men in general to tell it apart from “no.” It’s that, in general, it’s something that imposes a significant burden when it comes to interpreting it correctly. Women might have an advantage when it comes to that, due to the different ways in which power structures in male and female groups tend to work (this goes to a point that AB made earlier on), since the dynamics involved in the first tend to be more overt and plainly stated than in the second, from what I’ve observed, but I’d say that assumptions about men being direct and having a relatively simplistic sexuality tend to cancel that out. Neither group has an advantage. It’s more a matter of how good someone is at spotting discrepancies and putting the parts together to establish the whole.
And that’s something that can’t be done without risk, no matter how good at it a person might be. So it comes down to a question of whether someone approaches it from the standpoint of preventing harm or of minimizing possible injury. In the first case, assuming that ASD and token resistance are to be taken, always, as “no” is the best option; in the second, it’s a judgment call, and the individual has to be willing to accept the consequences, to all parties involved, of any possible error.
And in the second case, it’s also a matter of engaging in one’s due diligence in establishing the interpretation as a reasonably correct one. That’s where I think that things like kino, compliance testing, etc. become valuable: all of those things work as a whole, bringing the picture into sharper resolution. But those involve risk as well, walking the line between communication and compulsion. So it takes skill, balance, and awareness to do it — like a dance.
(There’s an act from Cirque du Soleil’s “Quidam” that I’ve found to be a good illustration to use, which can be viewed here.)
For some people, that kind of risk is unacceptable. For others, it’s part of the process and, instead of being avoided, needs to be done properly and well. Each comes with its obligations.
Sagredo,
there’s a bit of discussion about efficiency as a moral category, particularly with respect to LMR above, check comments #6,#10, and the debate with Anne Bonney around #97 (especially the video she posted).
As i said in #6, and this is mirrored by the video Anne Bonney posted in #97, while I think it’s ok to factor in possible token resistance when there’s no *real risk*, that means early in the interaction, that becomes an untenable position when the risk of a false positive is possibly accidentally *really* sexually harrassing or even raping someone.
I’d say that even goes for seriously mixed signal cases, like she’s whispering “no” and physically escalating.
infra,
That’s an amazing scene, and I totally like the dance metaphor, I often use it myself, as it totally requires rhythm and communication and understanding of the partner, but two different roles, one of which is usually leading. But to me this CdS scene seems more accessible as a metaphor for a marriage (or ideal type gender relations) than for flirting escalation –
how about this one (starting at about 6:10)? Perfect energy, “push & pull”, distance management, rhythm, and touch ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_O0O1PPXos
Also, watching the two tango I just thought of something I may consider an decent way to deal with LMR that’s not a consent discussion. A pillow fight (“ok. but no one ever says no to a pillow fight!” It respects the “no”, it doesn’t entirely deescalate, but is still something entirely different, it’s fun, it’s push and pull, and while changing her focus from the possible token resistance it’s likely going to end in a close embrace and kiss after a minute or so… (“where were we…”). If she’s still saying no, well, then it’s no, but that way she got a chance to reconsider if she wants to end the fun without forcing her to be all too explicit.
AB:
It is interesting to me that you frame it as “anti-feminist”. To me pretty much everything reinforced this, including anti-feminist messages, including feminist messages. It is pretty much everywhere.
In the case of feminism (or rather, some variations thereof), it definitely played a role in reinforcing these attitudes within me. Mind you, I do not think it was intentional, but it is like the news: when all you hear about are the bad things in the world, it warps your views. In this case, when all I hear about is the bad side of hitting on/flirting with/putting the moves on women, it starts to warp my view of it.
A lot of online feminist rhetoric also tends to come across as very black and white, and one starts to get the impression that unless you can be 100% sure that someone wants you to hit on them, and that you know for sure how to do it in a way that will be well received by them, then the risk is ethically unacceptable. (This also interplays with the “intentions do not matter” meme.)
But of course feminism was hardly the only factor, or even the most significant one (especially considering that it came into my life later on–but it did have a reinforcing effect, not a freeing one). A semi-chivalrous/conservative upbringing was a big factor. And sitcoms (and other TV) from the 90′s seemed to have a lot of pseudo-feminist and/or chivalrous messages along those lines as well, which certainly influenced me.
There is also a lot to be said for low self-esteem with respect to attractiveness: when you assume people will not be interested in you, it makes any advance from you “unwanted” in your mind, no? But that is also a catch-22 of sorts, because you cannot build up that self-esteem without positive experiences. And as a guy you are unlikely to get those experiences without first making advances.
Also, Thomas’s anecdote rings partially true. But instead of worrying that I will accidentally kill someone with my car, it would be worrying that a minor fender-bender is a horrible unforgivable thing.
The most important thing for me was/is getting over the idea that making women uncomfortable is some terrible, unacceptable thing. Obviously you should not do it on purpose, and you should take reasonable precautions not to make anyone (of any gender) uncomfortable. But the risk of it happening should not paralyze you from trying things at all. Because, really, it is not that bad. So what if you accidentally end up being “that guy” one night? You can learn from the experience.
@Sam:
Well… with all of the levels and forms of communication involved, I’d consider flirting to be more like this. Just mix up the sexes more and split each person into multiple, interacting performers. It’s a hybrid of the two for me. (In the words of Hakim Bey, “An exquisite seduction carried out not only in the cause of mutual satisfaction but also as a conscious act in a deliberately beautiful life….”)
But I see your point. :)
I think one of the things people overlook when talking about PUA is that a lot of it is not about being more traditionally masculine it’s about being more traditional feminine. The key idea is to attract women and then once you attract them get them to do the chasing so that you can control the pace of the relationship and become the sexual gatekeeper. You want to become a character from a Jane Austin novel who where mostly PUA rather than a 80′s action hero who’s seduction technique was generally running away in slow motion from an explosion followed by sex. Some of the tactics might not be all that ethical but at it’s core it’s goal is to get women to be more sexually aggressive and to shoulder some of the burden of initiating so it is more equitable and progressive than traditional dating, which is probably one of the reasons it’s becoming so popular among men.
For instance one of the most famous pickup techniques is to approach a couple of women and ignore the one you are trying to pick up. This makes her be the one who makes the initial contact and has to approach you flipping normal gender roles. It’s sort of shifty but she becomes the active one who has to initiate so it also empowers her. A lot of the techniques that are advocated can be looked at like this some of them less so but a lot fall into the play hard to get category and make her work for it so that she has to ‘man up’.
AB – while I haven’t agreed with everything Sam has said, I’m right there with him on the last few points, especially in regard to Feministe. Here’s why. If you are a male commenter, there are essentially two acceptable roles for you – lapdog providing articulate backup for the majority opinion, or joiner in on the dogpiling and attacking unwanted voices. The moment you step outside of those two roles, you are essentially evil privileged boy incarnate.
Consider the recent David Futrelle threads. The guy appears as a guest poster to some fanfare, but by the end of his last post, he’s facing sentences like this:
“I will roll over your precious privileged toes until you beg for mercy. I will not allow anyone to erase our lived experiences.”
and this:
“Adjusting your language to keep from offending others. Jesus Christ, someone asks you to change one fucking word because it makes them uncomfortable and you’re acting like you’re the Goddamned martyrs of the internet.”
All for a single use of the word “idiot.”
Every last ounce of effort the man made before that to expose oppression and mysogny before that is rendered fucking irrelevant in that environment. And it happens again and again to men who comment over there. A single mistake, a single poorly worded sentence, or a single disagreement to a post you otherwise are totally align are considered by some over there as necessary and sufficient evidence that you’re an asshat dudebro worthy only of scorn and hatred.
However, I don’t think it’s just hostility towards men going on over there. The views of women of color have been routinely thrashed and marginalized. The views of anyone questioning the obsession with language policing – male, female, or androgynous – are grounds for immediate dogpiling and attempts to banish. Women with concerns related to children aren’t terribly welcomed either. And anyone with less formal education, and/or isn’t up on the latest hip lingo, tends to land in the doghouse pretty fast.
I don’t feel that the environment over there reflects the diversity of feminisms out there. In fact, I’d say the endless number of derailed discussions where people are fighting over a few controversial words in a post, where male commenters are get trashed by women, where white women are getting all uppity and defensive for being called out by women of color, where a minority view is roundly dogpiled on until the commenter disappears, where moderators join in on the dogpiling and personal attacks – all of that is fodder for those who actually want to stamp out the societal gains made by feminists. And it’s also an example of the kinds of factionalism that keep us from getting anything else done.
AB – I could display all the empathy in the world towards the situations and conditions women face in comment after comment over at Feministe, but the reality is that one “screw up” or act of disagreement renders all of that empathy null and void. And renders me, in the eyes of some over there, in line with the worst of the worst.
I’m saying all this about that particular online community, Feministe, and not as a general expression towards feminism, or as a sign that I expect something like unconditional empathy from women.
@ Infra (#270):
The thing that springs to mind for me, then, is why has it not progressed from discussing what the question is that needs answering? Why has no one tried to move on from there and provide answers to the question?
It seems as though you and I are discussing different concepts of what sort of question needs to be asked. To try a gardening analogy, it feels to me as though you think that the plant just has one or two dead branches or unruly parts that need to be trimmed or trained into their proper place. From where I am, it looks as though large parts of the plant are diseased and it would be better to take cuttings from the remaining healthy parts and start over.
Okay, so how can I use that to produce actionable, ethical, advice on dating, that works for my personality type? Clarity being an important quality of actionable advice.
I feel as though the SC is dominated by people whose outlook on life is vastly different from mine (for example, the advice on “shit tests” seems to be designed around something inaccessible to me, without doing myself psychological injury). The SC seems to have developed as advice from discussions in which I would have had no common ground, so that it seems as though a lot of its advice is inaccessible, or even irrelevant, to me. The advice that I need seems not to be there. Of course, I could be wrong, but if it already exists within PUA or SC then I have no clue how to find it. I feel unable to ask because it seems as though people would dismiss me as at best rAFC, rather than actually engaging with my needs.
In fact, that was my biggest reason for participating in this whole discussion in the first place – because I thought, “if the advice I needs already exists, then this will be where it will be discussed and brought to light.” To date it seems as though it largely has not.
@nathan:
Agreed. However, it doesn’t seem that unusual that non-feminists post on Feministe, and I’m reluctant to base my conclusions on a situation like that. To tie this to the topic,
I’m still flabbergasted as to why people kept linking to PUAs commenting on the Gunwitch shooting as proof that PUAs actually cared, because all those articles (the ones that were supposedly criticising him) said was “Feminists are wrong to criticise the seduction community for something like this, we’re the real victims, if Gunwitch really did do it then he’s bad, and this obligatory remark about the wrongness of shooting people in the face proves that feminists had no right to criticise us, and in regards to this unreasonable criticism from feminists…..”.
As an outsider, far from countering my prejudices about the SC, it told me two things: that PUAs were anti-feminist, and that they didn’t really care about a woman getting shot in the face. But these articles didn’t exist in a vacuum. They were mainly responses to what was perceived (and I’m not trying to judge it) as unreasonable feminist criticism, and because feminists had been so quick to attack the SC over the incident, there was precious little material showing how PUAs would react if they hadn’t been targeted with outside criticism.
It’s natural for humans to want to defend themselves and their own. Plenty of people say nasty things about their own governments all the time, but most of them cease that criticism when they perceive their country as being under attack (physically or ideologically). One of the things that’s hardest for me in regards to feminism, is how it’s always under attack from outsiders, and how non-feminists consider themselves completely entitled to use feminist spaces as platforms for criticising the movement, leaving feminists with precious few opportunities for neutral self-reflection.
I disagree with most feminists about a lot of things. I don’t use words like privilege and patriarchy in quite the same way as they do, I think the term ‘people of colour’ is ridiculous, and I basically disagree with a lot of their rhetoric, not to mention being neither sex positive or against pornography and prostitution. But I’ve rarely found it appropriate to debate these differences with feminists, because I realise that there is no way to adequately separate my criticisms from that of the average American male.
I don’t expect feminists to act reasonable in cases like these. If I try to make myself see PUA comments in light of their circumstances (such as criticism from feminists), it would be hypocritical of me to not do the same in regards to feminism. I’ve seen at least one poster on Feministe expressing what looked to be polite disagreement, only to reveal herself as an anti-feminist who thought every single feminist theory/statement was wrong and only posted to oppose the movement, and I know posters like that aren’t uncommon in other places where feminists posts.
I know that in the current climate, most feminists wont give me the benefit of the doubt, so I stick to points we agree on and don’t spend much time on their sites. I figure that maybe if more people would do the same, the current situation would change, but sadly, I don’t think that’s terribly realistic either.
AB,
in my opinion, that’s not merely trolling but also because of the feminist de-facto discourse hegemony when it comes to supposedly enlightened gender discourse. That doesn’t necessarily require feminist platforms, it’s that much of the feminist agenda of the seventies and eighties has *now* arrived in the mainstream. So, in my interpretation, while the “feminist sex wars” of the early eighties were mainly intellectual quarrels between opposing factions of a particular subculture, third wave feminism as well as the SC have brought many of these questions into the mainstream – and the mainstream is largely feminist, not only in Scandinavia ;). I mean, we’re having a debate about challenges to masculinity, and basically the only place to seriously discuss this is a progressive feminist blog, go figure. I believe there is an odd disconnect between many feminists’ self-concept of being constantly threatened by some sort of backlash and the de-facto feminist discourse hegemony in this respect.
Well, sure. Everyone’s got the same right to being crazy. But honestly, is that a standard that we should aim for? I don’t think so. Again – I’m lucky we have *this* conversation to show how it *can* be done – and I don’t think there’s lack of disagreement here, it’s just a more respectful debate.
@SnowdropExplodes:
Personally, I see lack of access to a broad swath of material as being one of the major problems involved there. The commercial aspect of the SC has a significant amount to do with that (as you found when you looked at the price of the Love Systems book you mentioned), and I think that it’s compounded by views of the SC overall as containing only a limited set of views and approaches. But I don’t think that the second is completely explained by the first.
When it’s viewed in that superficial of a way, I think that things feed into a “this is a simple situation: just drop this idea and adopt that one” kind of view. It’s a bit like superficial views of weight, when people say “all that he needs to do is eat healthier,” failing to consider things like how the sensation of hunger regulates itself, and the complexities of the systems involved. And there’s a reason for that. As Gina Kolata pointed out in _Rethinking Thin_, such positions provide at least an illusion of control: if it is that simple, then people can avoid becoming what they don’t like. But if it’s more complex, then they might end up there, without being able to prevent it. With the SC, I think that there’s a similar issue in play: if we deal seriously with the questions posed by its existence, then we might have to confront the possibility that what we see as healthy sexuality isn’t as easy to produce or maintain as we might think, or even that it isn’t the only healthy state. Others might be, despite our current view of them as pathological.
Taking those questions seriously — which means seeking out their answers — threatens our views of health, pathology, and stability over time, none of which are trivial or easily abandoned.
Kind of. I think that, when it comes to the public PUA scene and, especially, the PUA/MRA intersect, we’re in agreement: much of the garden is too diseased to save. It’s when it comes to more private communities and the material as a whole that we differ, and I think that that’s primarily because of our relative levels of exposure to it. Which goes to the point above.
Well, the advantage of taking that kind of view would be that you’d be able to connect with the threads of pickup/seduction that would be closer to the perspectives that you’re looking for: inner and direct game. The second in particular; I suspect that that’s where you’d be able to have the greatest influence and make the strongest contributions. It isn’t the area that I’ve focused on, though, so someone more familiar with those authors might be able to chip in on that subject.
Anyway, the point that I’m trying to emphasize with that is that adopting a general term like “pickup” or “seduction” doesn’t rule out a specific focus. What it does allow you to do is find a way of integrating your focus within the larger whole — without sacrificing the character of your approach.
That is, I think, mostly because we hadn’t gotten that far yet. ;)
What would probably be helpful is if someone familiar with AMP’s material would be able to get in on the discussion with you, especially in terms of their “Power of Presence” program. (It’s been some time since I’ve viewed that, but I think that it speaks to the kind of issues that you’ve raised.)
Direct game after that, or in combination with it. The two would probably balance each other out.
Snowdrop,
reading your last comment I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of advice you expect that would both work and not give you the feeling that it would make you change, or be more generally in line with what you consider ok?
I have a friend who’s a great guy but both entirely resistant to *any* kind of advice (for fear of it changing him) and very unlucky with his situation (being sad and single). By now I’ve given pretty much up on him being willing to do what appears clear to his friends would allow him to get better (and probably have a relationship again). He’s suffering, and he says he gets my point of trying something new, but saying he doesn’t *want* to do something new – and he’s willing to endure the pain hoping that, one day, he’ll find someone who’ll accept him like he is (and yet, whenever a woman awards him some attention, he will seemingly invitably fall in love).
I have a female friend who knows that she has to stop partying and start studying seriously hard (I mean, like, literally really hard) if she wants to become a doctor, something she says has always been her dream. She knows she very likely will fail the next exam if she keeps doing what she’s doing, and yet she apparently doesn’t want to or cannot change, and so far, no “intervention” has had any lasting effect.
My point is that both changing and not changing comes at a price, usually with respect to the desired goal. Although often, and that has to do with the fact I mentioned about – that most people don’t really know what defines them – in my opinion, change actually allows people to stay true to themselves.
If you’re interested in various approaches to men’s dating advice, I suggest you check out Magic at http://www.attractionmethods.com. His advice, philosophy and personal history are all rather unique, relative to other men’s dating coaches.
Snowdrop,
to add to what infra has said, I’m not too familiar with the AMP programme, but I generally liked what I saw when I came across their material -
http://blog.authenticmanprogram.com – some advice from their female coaches
http://blog.gettingherworld.com/?p=28 – two conversational videos (from another of their programmes) I found quite interesting when I stumbled across them recently
Infra,
this is spot on-
I hope not. ‘Cause I don’t remember anything of the kind, so if I was, then you must not have been very memorable. Which would be a fucking tragedy.
AB:
That’s the stance I’ve taken for the most part but there’s a problem (or I think its a problem). While sticking to what you agree with them on and not spending time on their site certainly cuts down on the conflict how do you think the current situation would change if more people did that?
I just can’t imagine us as a human race getting along together very well if only cross paths when we agree but them keep each other at arms length at the slightest hint of disagreement. Now I’m not saying that to justify going into other people’s spaces and causing conflict or making sniping attacks and unfair statements about other people. I’m saying that even if in the end we don’t always agree 100% (which I’m sure we’ll agree will never happen) we still have to be able to coexist and I don’t think keeping to your corners everytime a disagreement comes along works towards that goal.
nathan:
Not just fodder for antifeminists but also fodder for nonfeminists that would like to engage but are justifiably turned off by such commentary. (And as a nonfeminist I can’t help but get a little angry when things like what nathan says here happen and are usually not questioned while at the same time seeing feminist after feminist going on about how they are oh so unfairly stereotyped.)
Sam:
Perhaps its a matter of (even subconsciously) giving in to the desire to hurt those who hurt them (or more precisely hurt those who share characteristics with those who hurt them)? Not so much that they miss the point but that they may see the point and choose to ignore it for the chance to attack. (Not exactly an original observation but one I think that is worth bringing up.)
Sam:
I see that as a failure of men’s blogs to enable a discussion that doesn’t devolve into MRA talking points after five comments and that is able to integrate female voices in the debate.
@DFL:
Yeah, that’s something strange that I’ve noticed over the years. I don’t think that it’s about being unable to facilitate a discussion that doesn’t do that, though. It’s more that there’s something about the way in which we relate to “common cause.” Things often work fine enough when it’s men discussing things amongst themselves as friends, or with a combination of difference and mutual respect. But it’s almost as if, for there to be a movement for discussing and altering concepts of masculinity, it can’t be a movement. Once things become too tightly aligned, they tend to go awry.
Not sure why that is, but my guess is that in the looser groupings, we’re able to decenter ourselves just enough for it to be productive. Too loose of an association, and the discussion doesn’t get going; too tight of one, and we end up decentering ourselves too much, and it becomes difficult to cohere without employing heavy anchors. (Relationships often seem to go along similar lines.)
Of course, that isn’t the way that it always goes, and it might just be the cases that I’ve seen. But I don’t think that it’s all that rare.
… but upon further thought, I have to say that that’s something that I’ve seen in general. It just shows up in different forms with different groups and in different circumstances.
Too bad I didn’t randomly hook up with Motley at a party. On the bright side, that guy sent me the following relevant cartoon:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2200#comic
Also, a somewhat relevant comment was just put up on my latest post:
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/04/03/storytime-fear-loathing-and-sm-sluthood-in-san-francisco/#comment-40312
Being in San Francisco makes me busy and tired but I am glad this conversation is still going. I still have thoughts I never articulated about comments from a while back, too!
@ Infra (#299):
Okay, I think this makes sense. It sounds like you’re saying that people have a) not had the data from which to generate theories, and b) that they have been afraid that the answers they might get might not fit with their preconceptions, and they preferred not to know? I can understand how that would work, particularly in as emotionally-charged a setting as discussions about dating.
“The point above” I take it is the one about access to materials? I think I have already mentioned that I see two primary barriers to access – not knowing where to look, and feeling put off by public perceptions/what springs up on the surface of SC. Ideally, if I could find a place that didn’t creep me out, it would be interesting to lurk for a while and see if what you say works for me, and then come back on this. But I don’t know how to find such a place!
***
In general you have given me some things to think about. I looked at the AMP link in the OP and, while the clip on “presence” did speak to me, it was stuff that I had already from other sources, or from introspection. While there were a couple of other things that I thought were good, lot of the rest of the stuff on their “surface” just made me cringe! It was awful! Any suggestions on resources for learning about “direct game”?
@ Sam (#300):
That’s a fair question. I’ll try to give you an idea of where I am at with it:
I accept that I have to overcome certain obstacles if I am going to have a chance at making a pick-up or seduction happen. For example: I am shy and introverted, so ideally, I would just wait for someone to come to me. But, social rules being what they are, it’s not likely to happen.
That means I have to find ways to deal successfully with feelings of shyness, and with the fact that being in public usually has a high emotional energy cost for me (I enjoy it, but it wears me out). Advice that tells me to deny these aspects (either to myself, or to a potential partner) means being inauthentic. Advice that works around these things to give me the necessary spark of confidence to initiate, is useful. Advice on how to initiate successfully without causing a crisis of confidence due to these things (i.e. without pushing too far beyond my comfort zone; it’s given that I have to go out of my comfort zone even to get started!), is useful. Advice that ignores them or pretends they don’t exist, or depends on my pretending they don’t exist, will just leave me feeling shitty and that will have a deleterious effect farther down the line of an attempted seduction or pick-up. While practice may make me more confident in using such techniques, the base level of being introverted and shy is not going to go away (Lord knows, I have tried to make it!)
I want advice that markets me as I am or can be in the best possible way, not advice that tells me to perform heteronormative masculinity in a way that is inconsistent with my self and my potential. An example from US sports – most NFL teams will not draft an O-Lineman and then try to put him in as a cornerback (or vice versa); to get the best out of your players, you play them in positions that their type suits them to play. While some techniques will be the same whatever position you play (basics of blocking and tackling), in general you learn the more specific skills and techniques for the positions that fit your body type. In the same way, useful advice would give me specific skills and techniques that suit my personality type.
You have repeated above the assertion that “most people don’t really know what defines them”; maybe a part of effective, ethical advice would be advice on how to figure that out before going any further. (There seemed to be something relating to that on the AMP site, although I wasn’t all that impressed because it seemed to be talking about why each type is wrong, and everyone should learn to be the AMP type!)
Snowdrop,
Interestingly, I’ve never taken whatever (not just SC material) I’ve read as a blueprint or performance requirement but as an pool of possible behaviroral snippets and routines parts of which could likely be introduced into my own pool of externalisation methods in a more or less personality-congruent way. I mean, I’m *still* doing that – the Foster-Wallace thing I realized early on in the mega masculinity thread was probably the single most important aspect to understand with respect to valuing my own sexuality.
We’re all at different points in our lives and we’re all different people with different needs, and we can only know ourselves what will likely work for us and what not. Maybe we’re lucky and we have someone who can push us a little further outside the comfort zone, because it’s really hard to find the motivation to do that on our own. It’s called a comfort zone for a reason… yet I totally understand how “shock therapy” is not going to work at all. I think of the comfort zone as a rubber band – if stretched slowly it can become really big, if stretched too fast, it will break. Yet it also needs to be stablized when stretched so it won’t crumble when no intentional pressure is applied.
Thing is, I’m not sure it’s possible to figure that out *before*, I think it’s more of a process of trial and error.
It’s true that success breeds confidence, and confidence allows for success. But balancing that growth process is also not easy, and at some points it will be more difficult than at others. While learning to appoach seems to have been something that fit me well, learning to initiate a kiss or physical intimacy beyond kissing has been much harder for me – *is* much harder for me.
To the extent it was possible, “babysteps” helped me to keep the internal comfort zone rubber band pressure up without running too high a risk of having it break or crumble. I mean, there was a time when I *literally* forced myself to approach women, only to say hi, when I boasted to myself that I had managed to say “hi” to seven women in one night at a club! I went home alone as pretty much always before, but I had done something, I had started to take my fate in my own hands. I had realized that by not doing anything, I couldn’t avoid losing.
I believe that a lot can be done with a priori rationalizations: one of the most freeing realizations for me was that everyone out there is very likely looking for just as much approval and confirmation from me as I am looking for – so the entire thing cancels itself out. We can all be “ourselves”, whatever that means to oursevels at that particular point in time. But at the same time, I also believe that no rationalization can replace the emotional knowledge of what it “feels like” – no rationalization was able to help me as much as the slowly developing emotional knowledge of how a great flirt works and how it feels to know a woman is attracted to you. It’s easy to laugh about guys like that one Serbian friend of Neill Strauss who is described in the game as “jumping up and down on the street exclaiming this was the happiest day in his life” because he got a phone number. But that *feeling* cannot, I believe, be replaced by any rationalization.
I’ve recently talked to an acquaintance who’s a therapist and about to start “relationship and flirting workshops”, based on his preferred method, Gestalt psychology. But I’m rather sceptical about this in the described context because – while I believe that willing people can gain a lot from introspection – I can’t really imagine that they can reach a point at which such introspection would be useful without some “real” experience, some real emotion.
I’m hoping I got the gist of your football example, as American Football has always eluded me. But if it’s about using specific strenghts in specific positions, then you’re certainly right. On the other hand, I’m not sure looking at the problem at hand from that perspective is the most useful way of looking at it, since *that* kind of optimization of the “game” seems to be looking at the second step instead of the first.
Look, I don’t know you and whatever you’re saying is processed by my experience filter, so what comes out are experiences that, to me, seem similar to yours. And as true as your analysis of positions is, it does sound to me like a bit of analysis paralysis…
… and I suppose a lot of the success of the SC manuals with their lack of positional analysis is owed to the fact that they get people to do *something* rather than have them analyse themselves some more *before*.
Again, what worked to get me out of the hole was – honesty to myself and my now best female friend, and trying to do something. Babysteps helped.
@Sam, @Danny
We were getting into manliness/feminism territory, so I moved my responses to you to that thread, here http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/01/28/manliness-and-feminism-3-rise-of-the-machines/#comment-40518
Clarisse, feel free to move them back if you want, but I figured it was best not to derail the current topic. This comment section is already long enough as it is :)
That is the approach I have taken, too, but a big issue I have with SC is that, to date, I have found nothing (or at best, very little) from it that can be “introduced into my own pool of externalisation methods in a more or less personality-congruent way.” So the impression I have gained is, “it’s not for me,” and that there are big holes in the advice. In terms of clear, specific, actionable advice, what I need seems not to be out there yet.
It’s more about recognising what your particular strengths are and working out how best to be successful with those strengths. Your baby steps worked for you, but I would need a different approach because when I tried to do that type of thing, each “hi” cost more emotional energy than I got back as a result of a “success”. I might have gone home rationalising “I did it, I managed the task”, but inside I was feeling drained and like I had failed.
I don’t understand what you mean by the “first step”? It seems to me that “know yourself” has to come first. If you don’t know what materials you have to work with, how can you figure out how to make something that works? For example, when i was learning to drive, I had to learn what the controls of the car were before I could start trying to drive it. Imagine now that different makes of car have different types of controls (maybe not even a steering wheel but some other way of steering, and so on). One would need to learn how the controls of their particular car worked before one could take it out for a test drive. Sure, practice would improve control (as it did when I was learning to drive), but you need to know what the basic controls are first!
Similarly, I think knowing what materials and tools are available for making dating techniques (i.e. what’s in my personality) has to come before trying to make a particular type of dating technique happen. You can then say, “what extra tools do I need to do a good job without having to hammer bits into different shapes to make it work” – and those extra tools would be the types of advice that I am seeking.
I’m not thinking “spend ages analysing”, I really am thinking of “do a quiz to figure out where you are on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator” type of thing (although I am not necessarily saying that Myers-Briggs is necessarily the basis on which to determine dating techniques; I noticed that the AMP people like thinking in terms of Enneagram types, although personally I detest those!), and then “these are likely to be the best ways for you to feel good about yourself when you try to pick someone up. Now go try it!” (NB: the AMP people seemed to use enneagram types to identify what people were doing wrong, and not how to do it right for you).
@SnowdropExplodes:
And the way in which that relates to ideas of health and disease. But after I’d posted the comment, I realized that just tacking that on had been an awkward way of connecting the two.
As far as AMP goes, I’d agree with the points that you’ve raised: a lot of it is pretty basic and can be gained through introspection, and much of it relates to specific models (which is why I didn’t keep up with their material for too long). That kind of comes with the territory when it comes to inner game materials, though. They tend to be heavily influenced by things like Sedona and depth psychology, when they’re not NLP-based, along with authors like Eckhart Tolle, etc. They also tend to emphasize that they’re better and healthier than other approaches — “everyone should learn to be the AMP type!” — but that needs to be viewed in the context of the community: inner game was, in large measure, a reaction against the popularity of and disillusionment with outer/indirect game, and the materials often reflect that division.
I’ll see what I can come up with as far as direct game is concerned. But to echo the words of a guy you know and have recently written about:
I’ve yet to come across any SC materials that didn’t require a good amount of wheat vs. chaff work, and sometimes an iron stomach, though some areas are less pungent than others.
Maybe, for your personal stance, it would help to look at examining the game… as the game that you need to play.
On a completely different note, when Sam wrote this –
– it reminded me of something that I read in Vox Newman’s trackbacked post, something that stuck in my mind ever since reading it, and which is well worth quoting here.
I suspect that that speaks to the perverse attraction that the SC can exert, even upon those who have significant problems with it: in spite of all of its flaws, this experience resonates.
Snowdrop,
I meant, getting on the playground and throw a ball at all. But maybe you’re right that even that isn’t the first step – it is certainly true that I started to work on this coming out of a depressed phase which forced me to deal a lot with myself, so maybe I assumed that knowledge as implicit.
Infra,
Given my above noted realization that I had the impression that I can’t really remember seeing anything specific with respect to sexual escalation in the SC stuff I came across, this sounds like something I might also be interested in…
Ok, as far as direct game goes:
There’s an installment of Love Systems’ interview series dedicated to it (no. 26 — includes Badboy, though, so I’d be inclined to focus on listening to Soul’s parts of the interview), but that’s the only thing that I’ve found so far that specifically focuses on it, aside from Alan Roger Curie’s work (“Mode One”). Curie’s probably the guy best known for it, but his material is the most problematic out of all of them, especially in terms of the language used, and I’d hesitate to recommend it as a reference.
Dimitri Vorontzov’s “Dark Courtship” covers both direct and indirect ways of approaching, communicating, etc. However, it’s a collection of miscellaneous essays: some of it is outer game, some inner, some direct, and it’s of varying quality. Good for gathering some ideas, but not as a core reference. (Vorontzov used to be associated with Charisma Arts, AFAIK.)
The most substantial material would probably be Zan Perrion’s, starting from his Foundations series. The caveat is that it isn’t as practical as most other material is; it’s more about becoming comfortable with a worldview. It can also get heavily gender-stereotyped in a “romantic,” as opposed to “alpha,” kind of way. There’s some overlap with the kind of things that DiCarlo discussed in sCubed, though, so that might be something to check out in combination with it as far as supplementing it with practical advice. Just keep in mind that they’re not the same kind of product — it’s more that sCubed can fill in some of the holes in the question of how to get to the point of being able to implement Zan’s perspective. (sCubed = “Sexual Selection Switch,” AKA “flipping the script.” It’s a proceptive framework instead of one that focuses on the approach.)
Zan was one of my stronger early influences, by the way. For what that’s worth.
I should note that I’ve reviewed some of the material listed, but not all of it, so I can’t vouch for the quality of it all. If I find anything more, I’ll add it to the list.
Slight correction: that should be the Presentations series, not Foundations. “The Way of the Natural” came before that, but it isn’t as good as the later work.
#314
This makes me wonder if those of us who are not “naturally” outgoing, flirty, and comfortable being direct without much concern over rejection – if we don’t require more internal awareness, understanding of our personalities and the rest before applying those “extra tools.” My experience is that when I’m more self-aware, more tapped into who I am in the world, taking risks and handling rejection/failure aren’t as difficult. However, when I am in periods where the failures/rejections have piled up, and maybe other areas of my life are challenged and I have lost touch with a more holistic sense of myself, every last effort to engage a woman is exhausting, and riddled with fears of screwing up.
Infra emailed me a PDF of the Dimitri Vorontzov book, which was very interesting, although in the end not as much help as I had hoped (either stuff I already have, or else advice that comes across as terribly creepy).
It did, however, have a couple of points that sparked some connections in my brain, to the work of Eric Berne (the guy who developed Transactional Analysis as a psychotherapeutic technique). It occurred to me that a lot of PUA/SC language seems to be about teaching people how better to play “games” in the terminology that Berne developed.
For example, from “Games People Play” (Ch. 15: A Paradigm), illustrating breaking free from ‘games’ and being ‘genuine’:
In “Dark Courtship” almost the exact opening technique is described as used by the man encountered by the woman above – the advice is teaching men how to play “Art Gallery”! Of course, the issue that arose for me in reading the passage quoted was, “What if the man had genuinely wanted to talk about Gauguin?”
In more general terms, it seems as though the basis for a lot of the advice is teaching men how to perform certain “games” of courtship rather than being autonomous (it is also true in this model that the AFC is also playing his own games of (non-)courtship). PUA itself might be seen as a form of game structure in Berne’s model.
AMP sounds as though it is about teaching men to break free of games, but I suspect it is in itself a new game for them to play.
Arguably, of course, since everyone plays “games”, then “success” can be achieved by figuring out what games you want to play and persuading someone to play the opposite hand in that game; finding the games that it is easiest to do that for, and that will have the desired outcome, will lead to more “success”. Authenticity, however, does not arise from this.
The other thing that came up can be expressed in the title of another Eric Berne book – “What Do You Say After You Say Hello?” I think this step is the big hump that I have difficulty negotiating with the idea of talking to someone. It came up at least partly because DV suggests ditching the “hi!” or “hello!” altogether (on the grounds that basically, it’s saying nothing more than “please may I talk with you?”). DV says he offers advice on openers in a different book!
Incidentally, haven’t read “What Do You Say After You Say Hello?”, but now feel I should, if only to see how it relates to the other PUS stuff I have found – from the descriptions I have seen, it almost sounds as though it might actually be a form of PUA/SC manual. Some of the blurb echoed language in the PUA/SC marketing. I hope to borrow it from the public library some time in the next couple of weeks to find out for myself.
The book, Snowdrop, which deals with games and authenticity, is by James P. Carse and is called Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility.
Pretty much by definition, the SC sets up “finite games,” the problems with which are well defined in the book. Yet the attempt of the “good boy” to be “good” (as defined by others) is also a finite game, and maybe the first one to need to be overcome. (Though not by being “bad,” which is also a finite game, and maybe a variant of the same one.)
Just to promote this book a little more. Finite games are played for a prize, or for winning and losing, and are played before an audience, which gives the prize. Status games are finite games.
James Carse has a section on sexuality in which he sounds very much like one kind of feminist, in which he devastates the kind of sexual game in which the seduced one is the loser is the prize. That of course is the epitome of the finite game as we have often known it. Kyriarchy, as people call it, is related to the finite game. But not everyone plays the finite game. And I would note, in spite of my last comment, that many people in the SC are not playing a finite game in that way. Though the language is very much, in my opinion, finite-game language, in a slightly different way…
For example this paragraph epitomizes why I detest concepts like the AFC, and all other versions of “loser”: “As with all finite play, an acute contradiction quickly develops at the heart of this attempt. As finite players we will not enter the game with sufficient desire to win unless we are ourselves convinced by the very audience we intend to convince. That is, unless we believe we actually are the losers the audience sees us to be, we will not have the necessary desire to win. The more negatively we assess ourselves, the more we strive to reverse the negative judgment of others. The outcome brings the contradiction to perfection: by proving to the audience they were wrong, we prove to ourselves the audience was right.” p. 88
And: “finite sexuality is a form of theater in which the distance between persons is regularly reduced to zero but in which neither touches the other.” p. 96 The world of the shit-testers looks like this to me.
But for infinite players, “In their sexual play they suffer others, allow them to be as they are. Suffering others, they open themselves. Open, they learn both about others and themselves. Learning, they grow. What they learn is not about sexuality [I would say, not only about sexuality], but how to be more concretely and originally themselves, to be the genius of their own actions, to be whole.”
“Moving therefore from an original center, the sexual engagements of infinite players have no standards, no ideals, no marks of success or failure. Neither orgasm nor conception is a goal in their play, although either may be a part of the play.” pp. 100-101
So. Another version of ethics, and one which fits my being. But I suppose these or those tactics can be used in either finite or infinite games, the difference between them not being one of tactics, but of what the game is, in the end, about.
Snowdrop,
on people always playing games and performing characters in the games of their choosing… this totally reminded me how a female friend was once apalled by my suggestion that there’s no such thing as the “real you”, as what we perceive to be our real self is a composition of fractions of performances of different roles in different settings – we’re always some part of ourselves, but never ourselves. So we’re always part-authentic, yet never wholly. This is not just a flirting problem, this is a general interactional problem.
My female friend was apalled by the thought of never being “her real self”. Interestingly, it was her who recently wanted to have dinner together, so she could tell me about her recent exciting flirting advice discovery: The book is called “the rules” ;) (I mentioned the story above or in the manliness thread).
humbition,
what’s the difference between finite and infinite games in that context?
Infra,
thanks for the info!
Sam, good question. I think they are different.
I think having a true self can be itself a finite game. For whom are you building it? To whom do you plan to display it? Against whom are you rebelling when you build it?
I think you can be a player of infinite games without having to build a self-consistent true self. I think maybe it’s not a true self people want, in wanting authentic relationships, but … a true relationship, one where you don’t have to play…finite games. One where you can “touch,” as well as touch.
In fact if you think too hard about what your true self is, maybe that is a finite game you are playing with yourself. The point is to seek with real curiosity, open-ended, to explore, to encounter — well, here we are, in the 21st century version of the encounter group, or are we?
@ humbition:
Does Carse claim to be using the term “game” in the Transactional Analysis sense, or is he using it with his own interpretation? The language of an “audience” that awards a “prize” does not seem to fit with the structures outlined in Berne’s work and other TA books that I have read.
@SnowdropExplodes:
Amazing how much the SC and RPG companies have in common that way: a lot of them keep on making the mistake of saying “We’ll cover this in the supplements,” then never coming out with anything after the core book. ;)
But I do think that DV’s intro on direct/indirect puts the emphasis on game playing into a different context than one suggested by a game/authenticity split:
Here, I think that we’re talking about the kind of shift from finite to infinite games that Carse wrote about, including what humbition quoted in regard to sexuality (and I have to second what humbition has written about the book — it’s definitely one that I’d recommend). Potentially, at least.
Depends upon whether you’re playing D&D… or Nobilis.
@ Sam:
It’s not that people are always playing games, but that all people play games or “pastimes” (Berne’s term for smaller structures of a similar nature) from time to time (and many of them are simple structures that help us navigate socially without too much effort, and do no harm). Berne felt it was healthier to lose most of the games we play and thus achieve “autonomy”. Perhaps interestingly, Berne describes autonomy as comprising of “awareness, spontaneity, and intimacy”. These are terms that seemed to crop up an awful lot in the materials that have been linked in this thread and the OP (especially the AMP stuff).
I think I would respond to this by saying that a car is always fully a car, even though it never drives in all 5 gears plus reverse at the same time. I don’t think you have to “do” the whole you for the whole you to be present in the doing. But the point about our public selves being a series of different aspects of ourselves, rather than our full self, is valid (and of course, it can be uncomfortable when someone who knows one aspect of you suddenly encounters another, unfamiliar, aspect – such as when the boss bumps into her employee at a fetish club!)
@ Infra:
To me, the line “The human mating game is based on role-playing. Courtship involves role-playing.” contradicts the line “the purpose of indirect tactics is not to deceive a woman, but to bring more fun in the interaction.”
I also felt that several of the pieces of advice (especially the “how to approach a woman who is reading a book” tactic) were explicitly about, “tricking a woman into doing something she would not do otherwise.” As I said, I found some of it incredibly creepy.
@ humbition (#326)
I think there is a lot of truth in this statement. Selfness, I think, is internally contiguous but also fluid so that trying to pin it down is a waste of time and leads to a constructed “self” that becomes a new form of mask to show to society. I think it’s interesting to look back at my old blog posts and see what has changed and what has stayed the same about how I expressed my perception of my self.
@SnowdropExplodes:
As I wrote when I initially mentioned it, it’s of varying quality; and as Vorontzov himself states, it covers different perspectives, not any single system. I wouldn’t claim that it’s devoid of creepiness from time to time.
But I don’t see a contradiction between the two lines that you quoted. I suspect that at least some of this comes from possible differences in background: I’m a big fan of narrative-focused RPGs (Noumenon is a great example) and GMing styles, and I have some background in theatre, so I don’t see “role playing” as in any way synonymous with “deception” or “trickery.” I see it more as play. Sometimes it’s serious play, and sometimes it’s light, but it’s always something that I see as play.
And I find that deception and trickery — which carry the connotation of being end- and goal-focused — are incompatible with that aim. (Which goes right back to Carse.) It isn’t just what’s done; it’s that here, intent makes all the difference.
I kind of agree about role play in some circumstances being about play – heck, role play in various ways is a part of the fabric of BDSM! But the thing about BDSM role play (and, as I would understand it, RPG, theatre etc) is that role play happens in a pre-negotiated way (even when you’re doing improv, basic parts of the scene are negotiated beforehand; and the fact that it is a role play improv scene are always negotiated in advance). But if I say, “I will play a role to this person who does not know me,” then that to me is deception. The claim that, “when indirect tactics are used, a woman is usually well aware beforehand that the seduction is taking place” is basically to say that negotiation and consent to this role play are not needed because the partner can see it coming. But the thing is, she can’t see you coming, only the character, “based on a true story” (i.e. your own).
If the purpose is genuinely, “to make it fun and playful and more like a game” then the question is: “fun for whom?” To me, non-negotiated scenes of any kind are not fun, they are manipulative. At the very least, they seem more like “fun at someone else’s expense” (again, some of the creepier passages came across very much that way).
That is why I felt the two statements were at odds with one another.
@humbition:
I don’t have a whole lot to add here any more, as the discussion is moving away from areas in which I have any expertise, but I just wanted to say that this part really resonated with me.
@SnowdropExplodes:
(Seeing as I engage in D/s myself, I’m aware of the parallels there.)
Then here’s my question: what about those of us who don’t see a difference between the two — who, similar to what Sam wrote, above — see ourselves as the combination of our characters, and not as something “whole” that exists as an entity that informs them (i.e., the basis of the true story)?
If we don’t consider ourselves to have a “real us” in that sense, does that make us inevitably deceptive? Creepy, even?
This would go to broader points, such as that of how a “before” within which negotiation could take place could exist in the first place, and that of what could be negotiated and what could not. But it’s probably best to address that question first. It seems to me that that’s where our main differences reside.
I mean, I’ve felt compelled to take actions that I wouldn’t have taken without the compulsion or coercion, and I’ve felt constrained from acting as I would have liked to act. But not once have I felt inauthentic, at least as far as other people have described it. And that sense of self-as-characters seems to be precisely the reason why.
Minor nitpick: phlogiston is post-Medieval. The idea was proposed in the mid-1600s which is about 100 years after what people generally consider the end of the Medieval period even using the most broad definition of that time period.
@ Infra (#335):
It’s in the “based on a true story” bit – I used that term to reference the ways in which Hollywood tends to take huge liberties with things like historical accuracy. Similarly, I think “role play” implies taking liberties with one’s self-projection. The operative term is “based on”, rather than “true”.
If you feel there is no “one true self”, then you can still be showing a genuine self even if it’s not “the one true self” but just one of several versions of you that you recognise as “you”.
The language of role play (especially as it was developed throughout “Dark Courtship”) implies something extra – something fictionalised. It’s the distinction between “playing a role” in something (Sam’s authentic different characters) and “role playing” something (acting a make-believe/fictionalised part).
That is kind of my point. It can’t. That’s why I think role playing is problematic and contradicts “the purpose of indirect tactics is not to deceive a woman, but to bring more fun in the interaction.”
Given sufficient prior interaction, just about any role-play scenario that is mutually enjoyable could be negotiated, either implicitly or explicitly – but without the earlier interaction, the later implicit suggestions would appear to be genuine and thus would lead to misunderstandings. The role-play could be to gain the social and interpersonal rewards that come from presenting a joint performance to others, or to see how well each performs in the other’s fantasy of themselves (that is, now we come to the fictionalised “Hollywood” version of the story, after the true story has been told.) DV appears to assume that all women will instantly know that the role play is merely that and will be able to ask safely at a later date, “now tell me the real story, not the Hollywood version”.
@ Sam, Infra–
Huh. And here I thought that was just me.
Apparently not; weird. Though Sam, you might have been one of the last people I’d have guessed would think that. I’d always assumed that it was just part of my condition.
Given that, though,
I think the general consensus is “yes.” It certainly feels that way, at times–though I’d contend that, to an extent, I really am the person I’m being at any given moment–and I don’t think that’s any less true even if I’m going to be someone else a few minutes later, and even if I chose to be who I am at the moment, and designed that persona to facilitate a particular plan.
But I get the mild impression that you two mean it in some different way, or that your process is different. Either of you care to explain–do you pick who you’re going to be? How much forethought goes into it? How much are you (when being one person) still also the others?
Snowdrop,
It cannot logically be deception, since deception requires that there was a clear understanding of what kind of information would be revealed in the course of the specific interaction, and *that* would require prior knowledge of the other person’s ideas about *that* specific interaction, not merely your own. In a situation of mutual ignorance of the respective goals, it’s impossible to deceive anyone. If, at some point, you’d feel that revealing additional information is warranted by the state of the interaction, and your reassessd assumptions about the other person’s goals with respect to the interaction or yourself, then it may be appropriate to reveal that information/adjust your behaviour in order to not deceive…
But when two people meet, they’re usually unaware of what potential interest in a continued relationship/interaction they may have with respect to each other, and I’d consider revealing too much information (“wearing one’s heart out on a sleeve”) as basically as inappropriate as immediate undressing (although there’s times and places for both).
To make this as specific as possible – I know I’m having troubles initiating kissing. That’s definitely a part of my personality (as of now). On the other hand, I tend to come across as an outgoing and social, well, confident, guy when I’m meeting women. I *am* both, and yet the former is bound to confuse women should our interactions get to the point where intitiating kissing would be appropriate. Do you think I have an obligation to explain I’m having trouble initiating kissing after saying hi because that’s a part of myself and that part may, at some point, be important for her understanding of me? I certainly don’t think so, not least for reasons of self protection. Would she be better off if I would behave less confident in the earlier stages of the interaction because that may lead to her not being attracted and hence being later possibly be confronted with my being less confident at some other point? And that quite apart from the fact that I’d consider it sort of creepy to say “hi, I’m Sam. Let’s talk, but let me warn you, I may not be able to kiss you later. It’s me, nothing to do with you”.
I mean, seriously… I suppose this is the point at which we have to invoke the “women are people” clause of the ethical enterprise. As people, women *DO* have brains of their own, and they tend to use them also to filter specific experiences against knowledge and experience. And while you’re only one part of the interaction, and there’s a limit to what you should and feel responsible for when it comes to her experience, on which you have a certain, but clearly limited influence, you make it sound like there’s such a thing as perfect information, self-awareness, and perfect empathy (understanding of the other’s motivation), and all of them need to come together for you to be able to authentically express yourself *at the beginning* of an interaction – something I’d consider to be highly unlikely, to say the least.
I for one would be glad to one day be in a long-term relationship that approximates that situation. It’s not my measure of authenticity when I’m meeting people, and, more generally, I don’t really think it’s a useful measure.
What about clothes? Fashion? Make up? Do you consider Wonderbras to be deception? Any other bra that is not merely worn for health reasons?
Again, Snowdrop, I don’t know, and please disregard the following if it’s completely wrong, but it sounds a bit like you’re, well, performing typical procrastination patterns (which I can totally relate to, I once did that, and to a degree, still do that) by looking for something that is perfect, not merely good enough, but which at the same time allows you to justify not doing what you yourself seem to deem necessary by justifying the not doing to yourself with the rationalization that you’re still searching – that is you’re doing something by not actually doing something.
Motley,
I’m not quite sure what your condition is, but it sounds like it. I meant it to explain things like a guy who’s got a managerial role at work and is totally tough and direct but unable to talk to a woman he would like to talk to at a bar. If she came and visited him the next morning in the office, she’d probably be surprised. Or my initiation example above – first confident, then much less so.
I don’t really pick who I’m going to be, it’s more of a function of the environment. I mean, there’s really be no point in displaying my flirting self when visiting my grandmother. And my grandmother-family-self probably wouldn’t work particularly well for meeting new people. As for picking, it’s more of an energy decision in my opinion – how much energy, fun, motion – seems most appropriate in a particular interaction… but it can and should change when the interaction changes – like when you’re suddenly having a deeply personal conversation with someone. Maybe it’s really more like “different angles of looking at the same” rather than really different personalities.
Maybe my initialization example can illustrate this as well – and answer the question about still being the others. When being confident I know that there can quickly come a point at which I can no longer be confident, and that certainly influences my behaviour the closer that point is – it’s an always present subtext of experience of being me, if you will ;)
@SnowdropExplodes:
I guess that I’d see this as regressing the question. What I was getting at was more along the lines of Madhyamaka Buddhism’s concept of dependent origination: from that perspective, there is no distinction between “playing a role” and “role playing,” and no versions of me that I recognize as me, distinct from versions of me that I do not. (To put it differently: advice to “just be myself” is nonsensical, because no matter what I do, what I change, what I adopt or drop by the wayside, I always am. I cannot be otherwise.) I’m not a Buddhist, myself, but the idea is very much the same.
But here’s the point: in this sense, there can be no “taking liberties,” because there is no reference narrative to which to be true. Every story, every invention, and every act is the narrative, even if it’s fictionalized (to use your term). There is no Hollywood version, nor is there even the remote possibility of one. The “before” of negotiation might be eliminated, but so is the “before” that enables the Hollywood spin.
I don’t get the sense that this is what DV is saying. It’s more that seduction is, by nature, play; that the woman whom you’re seducing will be aware that you’re trying to seduce her; and that, because of this, engaging in the play is the ethical (“more direct than direct”) thing to do.
The second could be seen as the most problematic of the three, but I think that it’s simply a condensed version of this statement: when you seduce, don’t think that you’re pulling one over on women. Your motivations will show.
It isn’t that women will just somehow “know” what’s going on, but that a person can’t avoid disclosing themselves in their actions — and shouldn’t be under the illusion that they can. If anything, this is a point on which I think many critics of the SC would agree: if you’re a PUA, it shows. If you’re interested, it shows. And what you’re interested in, and why, tend to show, too.
I don’t think that any of this contradicts the notion of bringing fun to the interaction. I’d say the opposite, in fact: what DV was getting at in the section I quoted is, I think, much the same as what Zan talks about here, starting at 1:10. What DV calls role playing in seduction is, to my mind, what Zan talks about there in regard to being around friends; being aware that both people know what’s going on eliminates the need for the “cool” mask that Zan mentions, and shows how pointless it is.
It’s a different matter if a person takes “role” as meaning something like hegemonic masculinity — i.e., “we both know that I have to play dominant and you have to play submissive” — but from DV’s material as a whole, I don’t get the impression that that’s what he’s referring to.
(We might be running into a cultural issue here, too. As Hugh mentioned in discussing Franco, we’re dealing with an author with an Eastern European background, and much of the authenticity/role debate is heavily Western.)
@Motley:
I’m definitely the same way that you are in that regard: I’m always the person that I am, even if I’m choosing it intentionally. I don’t see that latter part as faking anything, just as actively engaging with life, in the same way that speaking with someone is an active engagement with communication. I speak as well as listen — so why should the stories of which I’m composed be any different?
On the general consensus… not sure about that, personally, but I have found that certain people have continually tried to figure out what my real motivations were, only to say that I’m too obscure to figure out. To which I’ve had to say, “Well, of course I’m going to be too obscure to figure out if you’re looking for that, because you’re looking for something that isn’t there. We’re not in Oz, I’m not the Wizard, and there’s no damn curtain.”
Not that that changes anything, most of the time.
Usually, there isn’t much forethought or picking of who I’m going to be. Like Sam wrote, a lot of it is in response to environment. But I’d consider “environment” to cover my own body state, the body language of others, the content of the communication, what someone else’s needs seem to be, etc. So it’s kind of like breathing or eating or moving. It’s just a natural activity for me. (When it comes to “self” as people usually use it, I can only echo Laplace: “I had no need of that hypothesis.”)
Some forethought can come into play, but it’s in the same sense as cooking can come into play when I’m hungry, or particular exercises can come into play when I want to be active in a certain way (i.e., if I feel like momentum, I’ll do Parkour, if I feel like exertion I’ll do weightlifting, and so on). Again, it’s just an extension of any other natural activity. But part of that relates to the question of want, and that’s an entirely different issue.
As for being one while being the others… depends upon the situation and the dynamics within it, and it would be difficult to put into words. The Kodo performance that I linked above (as an illustration of the dynamics of flirting) is the one way to explain it; Viktor Kee’s performance from Dralion would be another. I’m one while being the other in the same way that my body is my heart, lungs, liver, blood, skin, etc. None cease to be part of the system when others are emphasized, and different parts can have different emphases, and mutual relationships, in any particular situation.
It’s all organic, in both literal and metaphorical ways. One way to put it is that there’s neither a mind-body duality nor a mind-body unity. The distinction just doesn’t exist.
I don’t understand this word. I have traits, I have values, I have tendencies, and I have some mostly consistent emotions, theories, and mental states. If “who” and “self” are a short-hand for those things, then fine. But people seem to use those words to mean something more, as if there is some essence or soul that we are supposed to have, and that we have some moral obligation to remain “true” to. That’s what I don’t understand.
I did a bunch of posts on LessWrong a while back about the subject of self and pickup:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/2tw/love_and_rationality_less_wrongers_on_okcupid/2snu
http://lesswrong.com/lw/298/more_art_less_stink_taking_the_pu_out_of_pua/2lgm
http://lesswrong.com/lw/2tw/love_and_rationality_less_wrongers_on_okcupid/2sox
http://lesswrong.com/lw/2tw/love_and_rationality_less_wrongers_on_okcupid/2sir
http://lesswrong.com/lw/13j/of_exclusionary_speech_and_gender_politics/1vay?c=1
Some random quotes:
I just read some feminist dating advice by Amanda Marcotte that I found via Hugo Schwyzer. It’s her reply to Clarrisse’s post. It sounds like written in good faith, although she couldn’t resist putting “nice guys” in the title.
And I’m kind of torn with respect to what she’s saying. I’m glad Clarisse got the ball rolling on the topic, but the article is precisely the kind of “advice” that’s made Clarisse state that the “current pickup artist subculture has a monopoly on effective advice for how to break down social interactions and talk to women.”
I don’t think that’s entirely true, but certainly by and large. And the reasons for that is that most dating advice before consisted of articles like Amanda’s – basically saying, hmm, I don’t know, homogamy is what people do, so if you look for something on par with your value, it will work, if not, well, adjust yourself. That’s not actionable advice for how to talk to a woman.
So, again, I’m a bit torn. I’m not sure if that article was her way of saying “not my debate” or if that was genuinely what she thinks was good advice?
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/nice-guys-finish-first-without-pickup-gimmickry
Given that Hugh, Sam, Motley and I all seem to be talking about variations on a theme, here… I have to wonder how common that theme is for people who get drawn to the SC, and how much of the SC might have arisen as a reaction to the “self” part of “just be yourself.” It might not be that the advice is bad, necessarily, or even that it isn’t actionable, but that it assumes the existence of a construct that might not be there.
This goes to an idea that I’ve been considering for some time: that at least some SC materials (Mehow’s later work in particular, such as the Group Attraction Manifeso, but even early structures such as the original M3 Model) might not be about technique so much as about developing alternate representational systems for social and sexual interactions, ones that don’t rely upon that notion of “self.” If that’s the case, then it’s completely unsurprising that people who do have that “self” construct would find them creepy or alien, and that the materials could break down into dysfunctional forms if people used isolated or selected parts, divorced from the context of the overall system(s) — especially if they’re placed in the service of the “self” construct that they’re supposed to replace.
This isn’t to say that all SC materials would fall into this category (a difference in the concept of “self” doesn’t rule out other commonalities), but what if it’s a core element that, in analysis and criticism of the SC, hasn’t been taken into account?
@Sam:
Both, I think. This part was revealing on that point:
That’s basically an admission that there are circumstances with which she’s not engaging; it’s just that she limits those circumstances to ones that could be condemned (moral issues related to age differences, refusal to adopt characteristics because of views of gender), which allows her to put forward “[accepting] that you’re likely to have a lonely existence” as an acceptable conclusion. That says “not my debate,” but it’s framed in such a way that she can’t be criticized for saying so: the situations that she mentions aren’t ones that people are likely to defend.
I’d stop short of saying that that’s intentional, though, mostly because I don’t read enough of her material to make a call on that one way or the other; it might just be that she didn’t consider other situations. She doesn’t address, for example, circumstances in which a person might not have the kind of defined idea of what they’re looking for that she suggests exploring in “make a list of traits,” which would render some of the advice that follows it irrelevant. Nor does she address the notion of finding attractiveness in difference, which is something that can occur in more general forms than along stereotypical gender lines.
Anyway, I’d agree that her article isn’t “actionable advice for how to talk to a woman” — it’s actionable advice on how to make the opportunities for doing so more likely.
That doesn’t reduce the value of her advice, but neither does it change the fact that those are two very different things.
Thanks to Clarisse for starting this debate, it’s very interesting.
I find Amanda’s article condescending and derisive. Also very useless advice for anybody (like myself) that badly lacks the ability to engage the opposite sex.
I can easily talk to women, but nothing more comes of it, and to combat that defect I would need ‘tricks’, because those tricks are merely insights into human nature that can help me escalate an encounter to something useful, like achieving intimacy and closeness.
It’s not about ‘notches’, just about not crying myself to sleep at night. But to some people like Amanda, my gender alone is enough to convict me to a lifetime of misery.
I can’t really use that for anything, and so Clarisse’s original intent, to take from PUA what is genuinely useful to help genuinely nice guys, deserves all the more praise. Thanks.
@Infra:
I was recently talking to some guy friend about my lovelife (or rather the lack thereof) and a bit about pickup, and he asked me “so, what is your type?” To which I responded that I didn’t have a “type”.
But then I wondered if that was actually true, and how much of it was
a) wanting to appear openminded
b) comes off as desperation (as in “I’d do anyone who let me.”)
c) (and maybe most importantly) is a result of not having thought enough about what I want.
@DFL:
No argument there — I’d agree that all three of those (and maybe others, including “I have a type, but I’ve had sex with people who don’t match it, so…”) can come into play, and that “I don’t have a type” doesn’t always mean that someone doesn’t have a type. Especially when it comes to the third case.
Personally, that was what was going on with me when I used to say that I didn’t have a type. I ended up finding out that I did have one, after being asked often enough to know that I’d have to come up with an answer (if for no other reason than to get people to stop asking). But after that, I started to notice something, and as it continued to happen, I paid more attention to it and found it to be more than the occasional anomaly: I’d identified a type — and it was a genuine one, composed of characteristics that, each on their own, I generally found attractive — but who I felt attracted to didn’t necessarily match up to it. They didn’t even match up on any kind of regular basis.
My actual feeling of attraction didn’t play by the rules of the type, even though I’d generated them myself, from within myself, by combining things that had brought that feeling about. And after noticing that more and more, and paying attention to it more and more, I found that the “type” started to have less and less force as a “type,” and broke back down into a scattered collection of characteristics — which ended up placing me right back where I was before I’d answered the question in the first place.
But that just leaves me with a different one: does this mean that I don’t have a type, and just managed to create one because other people wanted me to have one? Or does it mean that “I have a type, but I’ve been attracted to people who don’t match it?”
In the end, I’m inclined to side with the first: I’ve never felt more estranged from my own sexuality than when I’d had that “type” for an answer. I may not have had one before thinking about it, but ending up with one after doing so didn’t do me any favors.
Tangentially, in a pretty bizarre semi-coincidence, I’ve recently found myself giving a little thought to hooking up with an entirely different feminist sex blogger. Sadly, though, I don’t think it’s actually feasible (for a variety of reasons). Which is too bad, ’cause that would be hilarious.
Sam,
Ah. Yeah, that’s what I suspected. In that sense, you do have a self, if you know what I mean–you’re not inventing a “new” self.
Infra,
Heh. I’ve had similar conversations, but not nearly as often as the reverse–people remarking on how refreshing it is to be around me, since I am apparently “so genuine.” Sometimes, people are adorable.
@Motley:
Yeah, there’s that part, too. :)
It’s like… if someone’s content just to be around me, talk, interact, etc., then they’re fine with it, and they tend to find it comforting. But once they start trying to figure out how I got to be that way, things go in a different direction. With that second group, it’s almost impossible to get it across that it isn’t about me — it’s about how they allow themselves to be around me. Since my sense of who I am isn’t dependent upon their reactions, because I have no stable “self” to preserve, all that I do is facilitate someone else’s own thoughts and behaviors. Which kind of goes back to what I quoted from Vox Newman in #315.
In the end, really, I think that that’s what the game is about, when it’s properly played: getting people out of their own way. It might involve a large body of theory, technique, and so on, but I think that people tend to underestimate exactly how convoluted of a task it can be. (Again, to relate this to the Buddhist perspective: it’s not unlike upaya.) And not everyone sees a justification for it.
Hello Clarisse,
Looks like your recent interview with Neil “Style” Strauss is getting around; I got wind of it on no less than three blogs I regularly frequent in the past week alone. I’m considering writing a response to your interview as well as your article above in the coming days; if and when I do, I’ll be sure to let you know.
But what I will say in the meantime is this: I’d like you and everyone reading this right now to checkout my blog and see if what I’ve said qualifies me as a “misogynist” and WHY. I want clarified, detailed reasons, not hyperbolic subjective opinion. I’ve written Game-related articles for In Mala Fide, The Spearhead, and my comments on the matter have appeared at the blog Very Smart Brothas, which is an African American forum. Checkout my most recent series of comments over there, which can be found on The Champ’s post on Game and the Seduction community. The most recent post on my own blog is called “On Girl Game & Other SMP Fallacies”. I’ve been focusing on Game and related topics geared specifically for the African American community since mid Feb of this year or so.
I’m very familiar with Hugh Ristik and also think highly of his contributions.
Looking forward to hearing from you and/or your readers.
Holla back
The Obsidian
Or this explains everything:
http://www.theonion.com/video/hot-new-relationship-book-warns-women-wake-up-hes,17053/
Dude. No.
Everyone knows that it ain’t shapeshifters, it’s the Dollhouse playing practical jokes.
Clarisse,
I appreciate your balanced perspective on this issue. I agree that men need this type of information (as do women), but they should also avoid sources full of misogyny (or misandry). Successful dating can and should be a win-win.
Dissatisfied with the state of dating “advice” out there years ago too, I started to educate myself. That process lasted 10 years – resulting in 2 master’s degrees and a doctorate in psychology. Now, I’m very happy socially and endeavoring to share what I’ve learned through my blog. Please give it a look. I hope it provides a welcome alternative to much of what you discuss above.
http://www.drjeremynicholson.blogspot.com
Thanks,
Dr. Jeremy Nicholson
Infra,
I like that phrasing. I suspect it’s also what people actually mean when they say “just be yourself,” but that the people offering that well-meaning but useless advice might not have thought about it very thoroughly.
Obsidian,
Sorry, I think you might have the wrong address. This is Clarisse Thorn’s blog; the Misogyny Certification Office is down the block a bit.
“Sorry, I think you might have the wrong address. This is Clarisse Thorn’s blog; the Misogyny Certification Office is down the block a bit.”
O: LOL! Original and succint, congrats! But seriously, I’ve got the right addy here. Ms. Clarisse has concerns about the misogyny that purportedly exists (some would say that runs rampant) in the Seduction community; in that I consider myself something of a part of said community, I would like her or her readers to kick the tires of my blog and make the case that I’m an incorrigible misogynist.
C’mon Motley! You seem like a strapping guy! What are you afraid of? Being wrong?
;)
O.
Motley, I think I love you. I also think you’re trying to make me jealous by talking about this Other Feminist Sex Blogger ….
I’m somewhat entertained by the PUAs and other dating gurus who have been emailing me, trying to catch my attention on Twitter, and have now started commenting here. If anyone finds their presence disruptive to the conversation, though, let me know and I’ll start moderating their comments.
Sorry I’ve been so absent from the conversation, I got super busy in San Francisco and then I sustained some mild heartbreak (me? heartbroken in SF? no way!). I’ll catch up soon.
Also, for the record, here is the best way to catch my attention (and often my commentariat’s): Leave thoughtful, interesting comments that are relevant to the existing conversation, and link to yourself when it’s relevant to the comment. SnowdropExplodes has demonstrated this technique on this very thread.
On the other hand, here is one of the best ways to piss me off: Insist that you’re entitled to my time.
Obsidian,
I’m not sure I’d have reacted as strongly as Motley, but his point basically stands. No one’s interested in proving you’re a misogynist here – well, I think that’s true. As Clarisse said, if you have something relevant to talk about, bring it on, but don’t expect anyone to read your blog before having a conversation with you.
Clarisse,
I’d say – if your interview is getting read that’s great. And if there are people from the SC, gurus, whoever, who want to talk to you about it, then great. Wasn’t starting a dicussion a main point? Congrats!
@Obsidian – Trolling a more popular site’s comments is a very old strategy for drumming up traffic to your material. But it works better if your material is compelling. Long winded, unoriginal and oddly styled (does every third phrase really need to be bold or italic?) isn’t really gonna sell it.
Also, your misogyny or lack therof isn’t exactly material to the conversation. Comparing google search results or alexa traffic for your material and any of the dozen or so better known PUA’s (David DeAngelo, Ross Jeffries, Mystery, Style, Gambler, Gunwytch, Tyler Durden, Hypnotica, AJ & Jordan Harbringer, Nick Savoy, Brad P, Vin Di Carlo, Sasha,) suggests that you’re not exactly a major influence in the PUA community. I honestly couldn’t find anyone talking about you anywhere except your own blog.
And if we look at the major content producer blogs, or any of the larger Pick up Artist Forums – you find a lot of misogyny – either blatantly in the publications of people who actually get read, implicitly in the commonality of oneitis (you think you’re in love, FTOW (fuck 10 other women) and you’ll see that women are all the same and none of them are valuable) negs, and astonishingly blatantly in the incredibly depressing comments on any of the popular resources.
Flick through PUALingo.com’s terminology guide and consider how many of the PUA terms cast women as either non human (warpig), valueless (FTOW), Prostitutes (Bottom bitch) or valued only for aesthetic qualities (SHB). PUALingo is relatively sanitized – ‘Whore’ isn’t exactly an uncommon term used on PUA forums or discussions – and usually without even the cutesy overtones of ‘Make the Ho Say No’.
It’s also interesting to note how non PUA men in PUA literature are all wussy/beta boyfriend/frustrated chumps – and PUA’s are all Rockstar, Alpha Male, Pimp, Player types. I’m yet to meet a PUA who I’d describe as any of those things though.
@Sam — Oh sure, I’m definitely glad SC guys are reading it. And some of them have offered interesting thoughts, commentary, etc. What I don’t appreciate is the attitude I’ve been encountering, about how I suddenly owe random SC guys my time.
Hello Scootah,
Replies below:
S: @Obsidian – Trolling a more popular site’s comments is a very old strategy for drumming up traffic to your material. But it works better if your material is compelling. Long winded, unoriginal and oddly styled (does every third phrase really need to be bold or italic?) isn’t really gonna sell it.
O: I don’t use italics much, nor am I “selling” anything, nor am I interested in “drumming up traffic”. What I was doing was directly challenging Ms. Thorn and others of her ilk’s accusations of “misogyny”, as one who has spent a considerable amount of time as a part of the Seduction community and as one who has been known to write about it. I’ll take you and a few other’s non-responses as cases in point, that none of you can’t find any proof on my blog, that I’m among this ostensible Misogyinistic Multitude. :)
S: Also, your misogyny or lack therof isn’t exactly material to the conversation.
O: False, for the reasons laidout above and in my previous comments; I am asking Ms. Thorn and her readers to actually puruse the blog of someone who has written extensively on the matter to see if he is indeed a “misogynist” and if so how and in what way? Again, it’s great to make blind accusations, something else to come with it with hard evidence. Oh, and I’ve been one to call my own out on the carpet for out and out misogyny too, so please do not get it twisted, I don’t truck those types.
S: Comparing google search results or alexa traffic for your material and any of the dozen or so better known PUA’s (David DeAngelo, Ross Jeffries, Mystery, Style, Gambler, Gunwytch, Tyler Durden, Hypnotica, AJ & Jordan Harbringer, Nick Savoy, Brad P, Vin Di Carlo, Sasha,) suggests that you’re not exactly a major influence in the PUA community. I honestly couldn’t find anyone talking about you anywhere except your own blog.
O: That’s because I never claimed to be a PUA or hang out a shingle shilling for dough. I’m just a Brotha who made good with Game and wants to help his fellow Brothas out, is all. Nothing more, nothing less.
S: And if we look at the major content producer blogs, or any of the larger Pick up Artist Forums – you find a lot of misogyny – either blatantly in the publications of people who actually get read, implicitly in the commonality of oneitis (you think you’re in love, FTOW (fuck 10 other women) and you’ll see that women are all the same and none of them are valuable) negs, and astonishingly blatantly in the incredibly depressing comments on any of the popular resources.
O: So now bloggers are responsible for the comments their readers make? So, if say, the commenters of the NYT say objectionable things, we should shut the NYT down? I don’t know about you but I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with such a thing. As for Oneitis, that’s about being fixated on a Woman who a Man has no connection, especially sexually with. Sarging is indeed one way to get over such a thing, though I’ve personally never read the whole bedding ten Women and the like, LOL. But even so, so what? Aren’t “sex positive” feminists constantly railing on about how Women should be able to sleep with as many Men as they choose with no social sanction and the like? Or is this really about who gets the call the shots here – if its on the lady’s terms it’s OK, if it’s on the guy’s its not?
S: Flick through PUALingo.com’s terminology guide and consider how many of the PUA terms cast women as either non human (warpig), valueless (FTOW), Prostitutes (Bottom bitch) or valued only for aesthetic qualities (SHB). PUALingo is relatively sanitized – ‘Whore’ isn’t exactly an uncommon term used on PUA forums or discussions – and usually without even the cutesy overtones of ‘Make the Ho Say No’.
O: I’ve read quite a few sites and have yet to run into the whole “male a ho say no” thing, and as for PUALingo – I know the owner of that site quite well, we recently spoke in fact, and I often reference his site in my own writings, and have yet to find anything objectionable in what he says. In fact, quite a few Women read my humble blog, if there were any objections I’d have heard it by now. *shrugs* As for the notion of “onjectifying Women” and so forth, I find it interesting that no one has any problem with the fact that Women objectify Men all the time – even the feminists themselves are quite silent on the matter. I’d say that for every one instance you can find of a PUA or any other Man out there using or writing about Game that is “objectifying” Women, I can counter it with two of Women who judge Men purely on height (or the lack thereof) alone, with impunity both from Women in general and from feminists in particular. Shall we dance?
S: It’s also interesting to note how non PUA men in PUA literature are all wussy/beta boyfriend/frustrated chumps – and PUA’s are all Rockstar, Alpha Male, Pimp, Player types. I’m yet to meet a PUA who I’d describe as any of those things though.
O: Perhaps you need to meet more Players, LOL. Why does it bother you so much what these guys are saying about other guys? Are you one of the latter than the former?
Anyway, thanks for “answering” my question…
O.
“@Sam — Oh sure, I’m definitely glad SC guys are reading it. And some of them have offered interesting thoughts, commentary, etc. What I don’t appreciate is the attitude I’ve been encountering, about how I suddenly owe random SC guys my time.”
Hello Clarisse,
I think you owe it to those you make accusations about the chance to come on and speak for themselves in a fair and balanced way. It is my understanding that you’re more fairminded about the community than others, and for what it’s worth I think your interview with Style was pretty good; having said that though, on this post and the previous post I’ve read of yours about the community, I am concerned that there isn’t a heck of a lot of difference between yourself and all the rest of the “third wave” feminists out there on the matter. So, yea, if you’re going to make blanket statements about the community based on the actions of a paltry few, you do kind of owe it to those who are a part of said community to speak on their and the rest of the community’s behalf. That is, if you consider yourself an intellectually honest and fairminded person, which I would like to think you are.
I’ve been giving all of this some thought over the past day or so and think I’ll address it all myself, since others on the MRA side of things have also been up in arms about Mr. Strauss’ recent comments. I’ll be sure to link you in when I’ve completed it.
Thanks!
O.
Clarisse:
Well, if we are going to make excuses: I got into a bike accident with a car a few days ago, busting up my shoulder and losing the use of my left arm for a while. ;-)
But seriously, sounds sucky. Hope you feel better soon.
@Obsidian:
The bottom line is that there are two ways in which you could have approached this. As Clarisse mentioned, you could have contributed to the discussion by pointing out the relevance of your writing to establishing pickup as non-misogynistic, or as providing an alternative to that perspective, which you yourself state is one that you have no truck with; or you could issue a challenge, out of the blue and as someone who is (like most of us) a comparative unknown, taking a generalized and researched statement personally even though it wasn’t personally directed at you, requiring people who’ve never heard of you to review substantial parts of your work and respond according to terms that you establish — and basically try to AMOG the thread.
You did the second. But if you’d taken any time to read through the discussions here, you’d have known that the second option won’t fly.
It doesn’t have much to do with what you’re saying or what you aren’t. It has everything to do with how you’ve engaged with this thread. Which is sad, really, because mixed in with the standard pickup theory and garden variety evo psych, you do have some good ideas, and ones that I haven’t seen developed elsewhere. (I don’t recall the specific name that you used for it, but the remarks that you made about dance game come to mind.)
Certain things do work against you — your decision to be a contributing author to an MRA/MGTOW blog, and publish game-related material there, is one of them. (Some of us have encountered The Spearhead before.) But the way in which you’ve approached things here works against you even more strongly, and more directly: by taking a preemptively combative approach, you’ve managed to undermine any initial credibility — and possibly any later credibility, as well — that what you’ve written might have been able to provide.
Hi Infra,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you hangout quite a bit over at the blog “Feminist Critics” am I right? if so, howdy – nice to meet ya.
If my guess as to the familarity of your screename is correct, that might explain the situation you and I find ourselves in (and by extension a few other of the commenters here): see, while I’ve read quite a bit of the FC blog, I am not at all a fan of the style of dialogue there; the differing threads and the walking on eggshells manner isn’t something that doesn’t appeal to me, which is why I’ve never bothered to participate. having said all that though, I give Hugh an immense amount of credit for having the patience of Job in dealing with Ms. Romano and her ilk. I’ve addressed her Id-fueled rants a number of times at the Spearhead – which brings me to the next point…
I’ve been attacked by the Spearhead readership because of my writing on Game and related topics. Been called all kinds of names that were totally and completely beyond the pale. I say that to say, that I’m an equal opportunity offender – I am seeking the truth in all things, and don’t truck with any ideological cant for its own sake. You can try to foist the guilt by association trope on me if you wish, but as you will soon find out, it doesn’t work on me.
As for the current discussion, it is interesting that the conversation has turned on the messenger instead of the message. It is perfectly OK for Ms. Thorn and a phalanx of other bloggers from a particular sector of the Internet and coming from a particular slant to slam the whole of the community, but if anyone from said community responds they must be “gentlemen” about it? Please. Since it seems quite clear to me no one’s either got the balls or the interest to tell it like it TIZ, here’s the real deal:
Keeping It Real: The Game, Neil Strauss, The (Sexual) Politics Of Fear, & Why Both Clarisse Thorn AND Ferdinand Bardamu Got It All Wrong
http://obsidianraw.bravejournal.com/entry/65015
NO, I’m not interested in getting any blog hits, NO, I’m not selling an deadwood books, ebooks, seminars or bootcamps, and NO, I’m not trolling. Just a regular Brotha who made good with Game and trying to assist his fellow Brothas on the path, and deciding to toss his hat into the ring and sort all this stuff out.
Interested parties, holla back
O.
@Obsidian:
I did frequent FC, but that was several years ago. Perspectives change.
There’s no attempt to foist any guilt by association. I was pointing out that, even in comparison with how your position as an author there would affect how you’re going to be viewed, how you have engaged with people here has affected views of you even more. It isn’t turning on the messenger, it’s pointing out that you’re shooting yourself in the foot, and it doesn’t have to play out that way.
The slant here isn’t the usual one, it isn’t part of the phalanx, and Clarisse isn’t slamming the whole community. It’s a step away from the kind of fear that you wrote about in your post, not toward it, even if it’s just an early step on a longer path.
This discussion isn’t the one that you think that it is. Don’t confuse it with the others. All that you’ll get for doing that is the loss of an opportunity to challenge the dynamics that you’re saying need to be challenged.
Only trying?
(That was seriously the second or third thing that popped into my head: “Man, Clarisse would be hilariously jealous.”)
Not going to actually happen, though, and not just because someone (say, her) might end up reading what I’ve written in these threads and putting two and two together.* Too bad, though, ’cause that would be awesomely funny.
(Okay, I could make it happen, but it would be impractically time-intensive to spin “Sorry, you’d likely need to lose about ten pounds to meet my wife’s standards” and have it work out. I don’t really see her going for that, if I came right out and said it…)
(It’s funny, though, that I already know exactly how I’d do it, if I were going to. Huh.)
*And that’s why I’m not going to even hint about who it is, though it is godawful tempting.
Scootah,
I kinda like this one, with a minor change or two. “You think you’re in love, FTOW… and the one you end up with will appreciate it. Seriously, she will.”
“Meanwhile, the one you thought you were in love with, will probably appreciate being left alone.”
Obsidian,
Well, I somewhat love being wrong–comes with being a bit of a cynic–but it’s more a matter of time.
You see, I’d love to, but I’m a bit too busy chasing down random black folks and demanding that they read my blog and write an essay on whether I’m a racist or not. After that, I’m going to be busy finding some random gay people and demanding that they read my stuff and certify me as a non-homophobe. This may take awhile.
I don’t know whether or not Obsidian is planning to comment here again (depends upon whether or not he continues to see this thread as following the usual critical line, I’d suspect), but I wanted to mention that two of his posts — on Jedi styles and Sith Game — are pretty relevant to what’s being discussed here, and worth checking out.
His “styles” post provides an interesting framework; in his terms, what most people here are arguing for could probably be considered as Soresu Game, and possibly some amount of Makashi.
Any thoughts on how the other styles would relate?
Hi Infra,
Thanks so much for taking the time out to checkout what I wrote. Let me also say, that I want to apologize to Clarisse and everyone else here in this discussion for jumping the gun a bit. I did so because I felt under attack so to speak “here we go again with Game=Misogyny” and so forth. My article yesterday on my blog, where I mentioned Clarisse by name along with another blogger, was to highlight the fact that both “sides” of the debate are coming at this whole thing all wrong in my view, and that it is far more productive to sitdown and try to reason things out, even if we still disagree; if nothing else, the points of contention are clarified, which to me, is the most important thing.
In that I’ve always been a fan of the Star Wars films and whatnot, and also because I have a bit of a background in martial arts and the like, I thought a simple “geek-guy” way to present much of Game teaching as I understood it, was to do it in the SW idiom; so I spent a bit of time reading up on the former and “translated Game” in those terms. The term “Dark Game” has gotten around the Internet, in part due to my efforts to differentiate it from, for lack of a better term “Light Game”, and to make the clear distinction between the two.
Just like there are different styles and forms of martial arts, so too are they differing styles or forms of seduction, of having sex and so forth. I used the “seven forms” of the SW universe again, to “translate” much of Game as best I understood it in order to make it simple for the guys I wrote and write for. Also, it acknowledges and respects the fact that all Men are not the same, and what will work for one won’t necessarily work for another. I tried to divvy up the various types of Game teaching into these “forms” so that it would be fairly easy to understand.
The two “forms” you mentioned speficially, are a bit of what I would consider advanced Game, because you have to master some things (or already have a high innate aptitude or both) in order to pull them off. “Soresu Game” is something that is geared more for LTRs because its a slower paced form of Seduction; in fact, I mentioned in another post where I breakdown an NBA All-Star Weekend into Game terms, that making use of “Soresu” in such an environment was likely to get a guy blownout, one because its too slow-paced for that environment, and two because its a lot more subtle than the more over the top “balls out” forms of Game that I have suggested.
“Makashi Game” is also a much more subtle and witty form of Game that probably wouldn’t translate or work well within the more traditional niteclub context, where for one thing, the music is just too loud for that form to work well, which is really all about the mental; forms like say, “Ataru Game” are ideally suited for the clubs, in part because of its heavy emphasis on Peacocking. Do you see what I’m saying here?
I’ve really gone out of the way to make very clear what I consider to be “Dark” or “Sith” Game – how it operates, where it comes from in terms of those who use it, what it looks like and so forth, as well as making it clear in no uncertain terms that I do not endorse or condone it.
Again, I want to have good dialogue, even with those who may disagree with me, because I think that’s what enlighted people do. I just don’t see the differing “sides” getting anywhere with what has gone down thus far, and I want to move the ball forward – at the very least, to just have a conversation. So again I want to say, my bad to you Infra, to Clarisse, and to all her readers, if what I’ve said up until now was outta pocket.
OK, y’all holla back
O.
@Obsidian:
I’d agree, just as I’d agree on the point about Soresu and Makashi not being suited for club environments. (I think that a lot of the criticism comes from the standpoint of viewing things in a daygame or bar context, not in that of a high-energy situation like that of a club.) That brings the real focus to the basic work — the Shii-Cho part of it — and the question that a lot of people have, I think, is whether or not the way in which the fundamentals are taught, in general, is more likely to produce a Sith variant than a Jedi one.
If you’re familiar with it, Jerry Peterson’s old SCARS/HCS (Special Combat Aggressive Reactionary Systems/Hostile Control System) is probably the best parallel with what people get concerned about in that regard: it was exorbitantly priced, almost paranoid in avoiding any defensive positions (including ways of thinking), and designed as a “rapid training” system that doesn’t require any long-term practice of kata, et al. The “autokinematics” theory that it used — that striking particular areas reliably produces certain reactions, something that also shows up in things like LINE and TFT’s striking program — could even be seen as a kind of equivalent to how evo psych* is employed in standard pickup theory.
Compare that with, say, Aikido or Taikiken, or the immersive context of Capoeira, or the form-heavy, classical training approach used by outfits like Green Dragon Kung-Fu (which, in the case of the last, is something that I see as a reason for the relatively uncommon gender parity of their students). With those, the fundamentals are taught in combination with an ethos, something that was minimally present, at best, in the case of SCARS/HCS.
This doesn’t mean that systems like SCARS are ineffective, necessarily. But it does leave open the question of what kind of student they are likely to produce, especially if someone is already at risk for going Darkside when they encounter it and start learning the techniques. Insofar as foundation game could be said to be similar to SCARS (I tend to think that this is a reasonable contention), the same issue is raised, and I think that that’s a major theme in what this discussion is about.
Do you think that the Shii-Cho form of game manages to address this problem, or are there ways in which it could be modified to do so, instead of trying to address it after the fact?
—
* A note on that: I wouldn’t rule out evolutionary influences, just as I wouldn’t state that the foundations of LINE or TFT’s striking program are physiologically baseless. It’s more that evo psych overstates the case, and simplifies the issues.
I’ve been rereading this thread and trying to think how I can possibly cover everything I’d want to add or consider. One question for AB –
Women from one culture frequently rate appearance as more important than men from another culture. The same holds true for time periods (American men from the late 30s rated appearance as less important than American women in the mid 90s).
Do you have a citation for this?
I went through Athol Kay’s blog a little bit again the other day. I generally have very mixed feelings about his writing, but here’s one post I like:
http://www.marriedmansexlife.com/2010/03/dark-side-of-game.html
It’s all about the idea of how maybe if a PUA is letting himself get jaded and bitter, maybe that’s why he can’t find women who feel like good partners. Honestly, this is one of the reasons I absolutely have to finish this article and stop fucking thinking about PUA — it’s so fascinating, but half the time it’s fascinating because it’s awful. Half the time it’s fascinating because it’s either dragging out dark aspects of my own desires, or (more frequently) because it’s reinforcing my darkest fears about men. My grad student friends are telling me things like “why don’t you use this as your dissertation material when you go to grad school — it could make your career”, and I just can’t stand the idea of engaging with it to that extent. I already sometimes have to fight the urge to manipulate my partners, I already have to fight the urge to stereotype men as sex hungry evil user assholes, and this all makes it so much worse.
Even with the mixed feelings I have about Athol Kay, I think he comes the closest of any PUA I’ve ever seen of acknowledging the role that choice makes in the commitments we seek — the role that choosing to be emotionally available can take. If you won’t be vulnerable and won’t treat the opposite sex like humans you can communicate with rather than objects you have to game, then you’re never going to get a relationship where you can be vulnerable and human. And for me, no matter how much gaming a partner might “work”, there’s just a limit past which I can’t go, because I’ve seen the place where I end up and it has nothing to do with who I am.
It’s as bad as performing my sexuality as aligned with social stereotypes of what men want. I sometimes fear that I’m “not as good in bed” now that I have a much better idea of what I want, and I push for honesty and communication rather than being the perfect uncomplaining plastic female ideal. But I have done that, and even though yes it “works” — yes, I have seduced men who weren’t that invested and they have become invested, but the cost was having sex where I could stand outside myself and look in and feel absolutely. Freezing. Cold.
I also thought this comment on Kay’s post was telling:
What if you are just a little too old to find the right woman? I’m mid-30s, and realistically speaking my odds of finding a virginal woman who’d want to hang out with me are really small. I do get 20-somethings regularly, but they are not the virginal kind. And the good ones are dating guys around their age.
So many PUAs. Right there. “I’ll commit, but only to a beautiful intelligent virginal twentysomething.” Jesus. I want out of this trade-up-athon.
@Clarisse:
The closest source available right now, my evolutionary psychology textbook, lists “Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100, 204-232”, and the figure shows that Bulgarian women rate appearance as more important than Indonesian men (the same study, interestingly, also shows that women in Sweden and China rate chastity as more important in a long-term partner than men from the same countries, and that Swedes in general are rather unconcerned with chastity). The study about change in American mating preferences is “Buss, Schackelford, Kirkpatrick, & Larsen, 2001”. That’s about as specific as I can get it ;-)
This, so much this. I realise I have not read as much PUA material as I should, but one of the things that feels most alien to me about it is how many of them talk as if they had no choice, and how few of them question their own choices (unless it’s the choice to stop being a so-called AFC).
Clarisse,
I’m too busy at the moment to get into this in detail, but I believe the vulnerability thing is a muchhbigger problem for men than for women, and that is because the question for men really often is this: How/when to be authentically vulnerable *without* losing the ability to credibly perform the playfully dominant masculinity that is desired/required by most women. Women may say “kudos, I admire the strength you show by admitting your weakness”, but they will hardly ever see this weakness as attractive in itself. Authentic vulnerability is only possible when the revelation itself becomes necessary for the relationship to function authentically, but at the same time, it may very well be risking the relationship as such. It’s a problem.
Also, something that has been confusing me about your comments for a while now – you’ve alluded to it a little with your fear & sluthood in SF post, and possibly explained here, by mentioning how you’re emotionally triggered by the things you read: You seem to oscillate between stereotypically feminine positions of demanding more emotionally invested sexuality/relationships when writing about the pickup stuff you come across on the web, potentially as a reaction to the way they are communicating, and then, writing about your own experiences – as in fear and sluthood in SF – you realize that your own experiences don’t actually align too closely with what you’re complaining about with respect to the puas’ writing, as, say, in your last comment, but also in a number of earlier comments, or, say on that one dating-advice-blog run by that conservative woman where we both once commented about pleasure compatibility. It seems to me, that you’re making more of a “sex&emotions can be separated” argument in your own posts and when female choice of pleasure is attacked from “the right”, while you seem to be making a “weak” version of their argument when you’re reacting to PUA stuff.
So, basically, I’m not really sure anymore about what your position in that respect is.
In other news, I (sort of accidentally) attended a talk by Jaclyn Friedman this week, and it got me thinking about a number of things related to the feminism and manliness thread that I’ll post there as soon as I find the time.
The previous manliness thread has become pretty much a snipeathon about feminism, so I’d rather start a new thread if you want to have a conversation about masculinity …. let me know when you feel like posting.
Re: pleasure compatibility. I do think men and women can be pleasure compatible. I have had one-night stands that were fun, where I learned a lot, and where I did not feel emotionally invested afterwards. I think ongoing relationships tend to get emotional for most people, and I don’t personally have much interest in having an ongoing relationship with someone who isn’t open to emotional commitment. However, for me emotional commitment does not necessarily mean The Path To Marriage, or even monogamy — it’s more about the commitment to be careful with your partner, to be willing to have hard conversations when they come up. There’s a stereotype that men are generally more able to have ongoing emotion-free sexual relationships, and it may be true, but in my experience men get emotionally invested as things go on, too.
The original post has been edited in the freeze-out section, and also to fix the part where I said HR was a self-IDed PUA. (sorry HR)
Sam:
Quoted for agreement.
But there is also just a safety factor. There are abusive women out there that will latch onto vulnerability and exploit it in various ways (in my specific experience, by trying to foster some kind of nasty co-dependency). There are bad and/or dangerous women out there just as there are bad and/or dangerous men.
So especially earlier on before you have gotten to know someone well, it can be important to keep your guard up a bit anyway, just for your own emotional safety. But it is tricky, because you also do not want to lock people out.
Hi Infra,
You make many excellent points, and hopefully I can address them:
First, I agree with you 100% about what I consider to be “the quick and easy path” that far too many schools of Seduction thought peddle in these days. I remember reading Hugh’s excellent thoughts on this and while he’s right (that the major reason why some of these schools focus on say, being able to kiss a girl within 15 minutes of first meeting her, is because a lot of guys don’t want to spend a lot of time chasing down a deadend. I can dig it, but it’s just not the way I get down, and I ain’t about to change now), I just can’t endorse those things, because of the very reasons you noted above; shortcuts seem to attract certain types of people. I like to take my time with all this; I take my time learning about Seduction in the same way that I take my time seducing a Woman out in the real (I guess that’s a giveaway as to what my “style” is, LOL).
Second, I see Shii-Cho Game as perfect for guys who are shall we say, quite a bit socially awkward? Guys who need a kind of simple, step by step booklet or diagram as to how to proceed. These are the guys who need to focus on getting all the basics down pat; the more they practice, the better they get, and they should play it as close as they can by the book because as a rule they aren’t very adept at improvising (that’s a Niman or Makashi type, all day). The great thing about these guys is the types of gals they usually go for – more or less their female equivalents – don’t usually need, and in some cases can actually be turned off by, the other “stronger” forms of Game, like say, an Ataru, or a Djem-So, the latter of which is, to use a fictional character you might know, Marlo Stanfield. A typical “might makes right” type of guy, tatted out, buff, exudes lots of raw power. To be sure, there are Women who get mad turned on by that – my post on the NBA All-Star Weekend discusses that – but for the kinds of gals most Shii-Cho guys run accross, it’s just a bit much.
Plus, you really can’t go wrong with Shii-Cho Game, because its strength lay in its focus on the fundamentals and its beauty lay in its simplicity. Instead of trying to cut a serious rug like an Ataru type, you simply focus on a nice two-step. Instead of trying to be a silver-tongued devil like a Makashi, you focus on “canned” but reliable stuff that works, perhaps with you putting your own spin or take on it. Instead of lots of over the top peacocking, you instead focus on really good yet basic grooming, and taking it up just a weebit. In our time, one would be surprised by how many Women are impressed with a guy who looks like he’s actually had a shit, shower and a shave, LOL. You avoid typical AFC behaviors; you work to get your timing right, and so forth. A guy, even one who’s had reasonable success with Women in his life, can go a long way with well-studied and excuted Shii-Cho Game. And yes, because it takes time to learn properly, in my view it leads much less toward the Dark than to the Light.
Holla back
O.
Also, Infra,
I just want to address real quick your point about Dark vs. Light Game…
In my writing on the matter, a goodly bit of which I take it you’ve seen by now, I make the point that Game is amoral – it is neither good or bad, per se. That depends greatly on the practitioner. The saying “attraction isn’t a choice” is indeed true, but how one chooses to act on it, IS. I think Game can be used for good or ill just like anything else, and there are teachers out there who in my view, are Darksiders – those who teach “quick fixes” that can lead one down a Dark path; and those who I consider straight-up Sith types, who deliberately teach Game in a way that is outta pocket. It’s a matter of degree, the latter being much more “evil” than the former, but both bad. Like I said before, I’ve written about this, and I intend to write some more, because I can see that there is a great need for it given the many concerns many have about it, especially Women.
So, in answer to your question above about Shii-Cho Game, I can only speak for myself, but the way I approach it, the very nature of things is such that it does take these ethical questions into account, and the pace at which things go (and for me, I say that a Man needs at least a year of study and application before he can really get good at it, on average), it gives the student time to reflect on it, I hope.
a final point. I think the fact that so many Women, particularly Feminists, are so deeply concerned about Game’s potential for abuse, is in many ways a vindication of Evo-Psych, not a condemnation of it. After all, EP holds that Women bear a higher price to have sex than a Man for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which being pregnancy. I think the sheer volume of vociferousness on the part of the Feminists – which, to some extent, includes Ms. Thorn here – only validates much of what is held to be so wrt Evolutionary Psychology. No, we aren’t slaves to it; but it does indeed inform our decisions and what we do, a goodly bit more than we would like to admit.
Especially the Feminists. I’m just sayin’.
Holla back
O.
@Obsidian:
I’m a bit short on time, so to just address this one point for now:
This is part of what I was getting at when it comes to overstating the argument and simplifying the issues. It’s kind of like seeing someone put their hand on a stovetop burner, then pull it back quickly, and assuming that it happened because they were getting burned — overlooking the fact that they were in a museum, touching one of the exhibits, and one of the security guards yelled out “Don’t touch that!” Or, say, the fact that they saw a cockroach crawl out and onto their hand, or the possibility that they cut themselves on a sharp piece of metal because the oven happened to be one that they used to brace their fall in the junkyard.
Although Game does deal with sex, and sex involves issues such as pregnancy, there are any number of other motivations that might be behind the kind of reactions that it gets — being familiar with the language associated with, and the effects of, abuse, assault and rape being one of the big ones. Circumstantial causes need to be considered and accounted for; the fact that evo psych might provide an explanation for a behavior doesn’t necessarily make that explanation a plausible one.
Going back through comments in small stages. It is reminding me how happy I am to have such smart people commenting on my blog. You guys are so amazing!
I liked some of attempts to pare down ethical ideas that start around #250. I would be curious to try and figure out an ethical framework for PUA discussion in small maxims. e.g. “10 steps towards an ethical PUA framework” Maybe this could include:
1) Try to refrain from seeing other people as a means to an end.
2) Try to understand others’ reality.
2a) Corollary: In the context of sex, rape and women’s fears thereof is a particularly important thing to think about.
3) Try to keep your own actual desires in mind, and critically examine what you want. Don’t let others tell you what you want.
3a) Corollary: Speak from personal experience, and acknowledge that. Try not to universalize.
4) Try to approach potential mates from a positive sharing feeling rather than a negative controlling feeling.
5) …
6) Profit!
Just kidding about the profit, of course. Any other suggestions?
Re: LMR. HR, comment #261 — the freeze-out is not just mentioned in Love Systems. It’s also mentioned in other places, including The Game. The Game’s description is less manipulative and more friendly than Love Systems, but not by much, and it assumes a LOT about the woman’s mental state:
You reach for the pants again. … But she still stops you. So you blow out the candles, turn on the light, turn off the music, and ruin the atmosphere. … She was feeling good a moment ago, enjoying your attention, your touch, and the intimacy of the room; now you’re taking it all away.
She rolls over and starts kissing your chest, trying to reel you back in. You put down your computer, turn off the light, and return her affection. You reach for her pants. She stops you. She says you just met. You tell her that you understand. You turn the light on again. She asks what you’re doing. You tell her that when a woman says no, you respect that, but it just pushes a button in you that turns everything off. You are not upset. You tell her this in a matter-of-fact voice. She rolls on top of you and whines, playfully, “No.”
She wants to have sex. All she wants to know is that you’re going to call her afterward, so that she feels good about what she did — even if she doesn’t actually want to see you again. You let her know that.
You tell her, “Take off your pants.”
She does. You enjoy yourselves and give each other many orgasms over the course of the night, the morning, and perhaps even for years afterward.
How does Strauss know that she wants to have sex and just wants him to call her later? This might be a reasonable assumption for the specific incident he’s describing here (it feels like a specific incident description), but it’s certainly not a reasonable assumption for all situations in which a woman offers LMR.
(Note that Strauss’s eventual girlfriend Lisa reacted to the freeze-out by rolling over and going to sleep, and that she later told him that his most manipulative tactics had just pissed her off.)
Yet when you think about it, taking a break is often an excellent idea for both people in a situation where one person doesn’t want to go any farther sexually.
Sure. But one way to think about this (which I picked up from a D/s discussion group at San Francisco’s Citadel) is that you want to withdraw sexuality without withdrawing intimacy. I’ve hooked up with people who did this very well — I think it often happens kinda automatically as long as you have positive intent. For example, if your boyfriend turns you down for something when you ask, you put your arms around him. (If you’re really uncertain whether this is okay, you ask “can I hug you” first.) If you come in close and whisper something and your partner turns it down, you don’t pull suddenly away. These things reassure your partner that you still like them and won’t just turn off if they say no to something.
Aaand I just realized that you talked about all this in #262. Smart comment. Reminds me of some thoughts I’ve been having about breaks in BDSM, actually. Subspace (i.e. BDSM headspace for submissives) is just as mind-clouding an effect for me as sexual arousal appears to be for other people, and I often get to a place where I have extreme trouble communicating. I know I’m not alone in this, because I’ve had partners who I drove to that point and then had to guess at their actual mental state. (I actually had to remind someone to safeword once, which was kind of terrifying. I just kind of … knew that he wasn’t into it anymore, but I have no idea how I knew. I said “Do you remember your safeword?” and he kind of shook himself and then he whispered his safeword. I have no idea what would have happened if I hadn’t reminded him.)
As Infra just said,
the fact that evo psych might provide an explanation for a behavior doesn’t necessarily make that explanation a plausible one
YES CO-SIGN 100%. I fucking hate evo-psych. The entire discipline is full of phlogiston (the concept I discussed in my original post). Every theory floated in evo-psych is unfalsifiable. I haven’t read Sex At Dawn, but I’ve started recommending it simply because it offers an alternative and equally plausible evo-psych framework to the typical ones, which helps demonstrate why the entire fucking discipline is bullshit.
This thread starts in a way that made me want to cry, but I actually felt a surprising amount better once I read all the replies:
http://www.fastseduction.com/discussion/fs?action=9&boardid=2&read=107274&fid=23
Clarisse,
You said:
“YES CO-SIGN 100%. I fucking hate evo-psych. The entire discipline is full of phlogiston (the concept I discussed in my original post). Every theory floated in evo-psych is unfalsifiable. I haven’t read Sex At Dawn, but I’ve started recommending it simply because it offers an alternative and equally plausible evo-psych framework to the typical ones, which helps demonstrate why the entire fucking discipline is bullshit.”
O: It sounds like you’re cool with Evo-Psych if it agrees with your ideological worldview and/or it makes you feel good; that, along with the fact that you haven’t read that which you are recommending to others, doesn’t make for a very solid foundation on which to have an informed discussion of these issues. With all due respect.
Infra,
You said:
“Although Game does deal with sex, and sex involves issues such as pregnancy, there are any number of other motivations that might be behind the kind of reactions that it gets — being familiar with the language associated with, and the effects of, abuse, assault and rape being one of the big ones. Circumstantial causes need to be considered and accounted for; the fact that evo psych might provide an explanation for a behavior doesn’t necessarily make that explanation a plausible one.”
O: You know, your response from where I got the above quote, reminded me why I had to do FC in small doses, and why I never got involved in the convos, LOL – you know, there is something to be said for being precise and inquisitive and all that; but at some point, when you’re dealing with the realworld on its terms, you simply don’t have the time or the energy, to go through all that. The bottomline that so many Feminists and other Game haters don’t want to look dead in the eye – and here I do have give Clarisse some credit – is that Game works. Yes, there are problems with some of the ways in which it may be used; yes, there may be problems with some of the guys who use it. Nevertheless, at this point in the game, pardon the pun, it wouldn’t be where it is, if it didn’t work. And a great deal of what informs Game, is indeed Evo-Psych. I know that’s not a terribly popular notion around these parts, but I’m not bound by ideology as much as Clarisse or maybe even yourself; I have to look at the world as it is, not as i would want it to be, and in that world, there are some things that work and for certain reasons. Until better, more convincing evidence comes along that says otherwise, Evo-Psych’s on the one for me and for thousands of guys in this country alone, let alone worldwide.
As for Women’s concerns about having sex, of course rape is a major concern, even though we have to note that violent crime of all kinds, including rape, is at or near historic lows. I know that’s not something the Feminist crowd likes to hear, but them’s the facts. Still, I totally get why Women would have deep concerns about having sex, regardless as to how many laws are passed or how much control she has over the reproductive process. Evo-Psych says its because of the hardwiring Women had developed over tens of thousands of years, to rightly be more concerned about sex than Men, due to its many consequences. Again, until a better explanation comes along, Evo-Psych will do just fine for me.
As for the question of ethics wrt Game: what I think is very important to keep in mind here, is that one can have all the ethics in the world, and to be sure I am definitely on their side, but if what they’re selling ain’t working, then it all comes to a screeching halt. Men pay thousands of dollars to learn this stuff, because in the main, it WORKS. And that’s something that the Clarisse’s of the world have to grapple with honestly if they hope to have any chance of coming up with an “alternative” – they gotta come up with something that WORKS – which means, for Men, being able to meet, talk to and ultimately get into, SEXUAL relationships with Women. Yes, for many of those Men – I’d go so far as to most – getting a girlfriend, even a wife, is definitely in the offing. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves, and I for one make no apology about the fact, that a major consideration on the minds of many Men, is getting into a sexual relationship with a Woman. Until Game came along, there was virtually nothing there to help Men achieve this. And I’ve seen nothing come along since to replace it.
Finally, I just want to put out there that for all the yammering about a “Men’s movement” it occurs to me that the only ones who come anywhere close, is the PUAs. Style talks about this in the interview with Clarisse. And I personally agree with Style, that there’s a lot of good in what the PUAs have and are doing. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater here.
Holla back
O.
@Clarisse:
Kinda relevant, sure. But I’m not sure that I’d recommend it as step 6. :)
On a different note:
Holy Hell. Been there.
Nothing to do with pickup, but coming across the wrong people can do a massive amount of damage, even when it’s “just” emotional abuse or use, and not even the kind that people usually recognize as such. After one particularly bad relationship, I actually lost my ability to have an orgasm for almost two years. Not just with partnered sex, but also on my own. It got to the point where ejaculation was pretty much the same as urination, except for the type of fluid, and I couldn’t even get close to where I would have had an orgasm before without getting disoriented and nauseous, and even ended up with dry heaves when I tried to push myself through. Experiencing any kind of interest in or arousal by anyone else was pretty much the same, and it affected my ability to interact with any and every woman I met.
A lot of similarities with what SelfMadeMe was talking about, when it came to that. It’s an incredibly difficult thing to recover from, even with strong support and good advice — and the genuine, even desperate, commitment to getting past it. But I’d be surprised if many people were aware that things could actually go that far, especially from those causes, and exactly how deep and pervasive those effects can run.
Wounds like that? They happen, and they aren’t just a matter of mindset. They also take a damn long time to heal.
For me, it was five years.
One relationship; then five years until I was able to have normal human contact again. Ain’t an easy thing to fix.
It’s actually one of the reasons why I got into studying SC materials in the first place: to make sure that that never, ever happened again.
@Obsidian:
Actually, it has very little to do with that. It’s that evolutionary biology, et al. has been a pet subject of study for me for a decade and a half or so — including a number of years of reading in evo psych, including and beyond the books commonly cited in the community — and, in terms of the overall body of work (even just considering what’s available in the popular press), evo psych simply isn’t solid. That’s especially the case when factoring in things like evo-devo and, in particular, epigenetics.
By way of analogy, the explanations often offered in evo psych are kind of like saying that something can be explained by basic algebra when proper modeling would involve non-linear equations and differential calculus. Broader reading on the subject tends to highlight its flaws.
Way to miss my point, Obsidian. The point was that I recommend Sex At Dawn because it offers a different framework that is just as unfalsifiable as the mainstream evo-psych crap, and thereby demonstrates the flaws in the discipline.
With all due respect.
@Obsidian:
I should add that when it comes to this…
… I was making a different point, related to the issue of context. Simply put: feminists commonly focus on issues of abuse and rape, often work on help lines, in crisis centers, etc., engage with the legal issues, and not uncommonly have a background that includes those experiences on a personal level, either their own or with close friends and loved ones.
Given that, it’s far from surprising that parallels between PUA phrasing and discussion, and language that accompanies abusive behavior, etc., or would be used to justify it, would be noted. No evolutionary argument necessary. Taking the context into account, such an explanation would be completely superfluous, explaining nothing that wouldn’t have already been explained by evident facts.
It requires no more of an evolutionary explanation than does the fact that someone who listens to a lot of jazz would be likely to recognize jazz when they hear it.
@Clarisse,
By that argument we might as well toss out many other branches of Science as well, since it is very possible for something to be “true” today, then another study comes along and says that something else is “true” tomorrow. Yes?
I think I got your point, and hey, I can dig it – Evo-Psych directly challenges the worldview of the vast majority of Feminists. But I maintain what I said, and remind you that you even had to recognize: Game, which is deeply informed by Evo-Psych, WORKS – and until that great gettin’ up morn’ comes when the Feminists can actually build a BETTER mousetrap for the guys on the sidelines of life, the people you most need to convince won’t be swayed over whether Sex at Dawn is a better (or more plausible) read than Sperm Wars.
I’m jus’ sayin’.
Holla back
O.
@Infra,
Fair enough, whatever floats your boat; but if we’re gonna talk “solid” facts and the like, it’s a FACT that violent crimes of all kinds, INCLUDING RAPE, have been on the steady decline, for years, and have now been at or near historic lows. Yet how often are we assailed by stuff like “rape culture” and the like from the Feminist crowd? to ask the question is to answer it.
It’s like me as a Black Man seriously trying to make the case that nothing’s changed along racial lines; it would be a patently ridiculous thing to do.
Having said that, from an EP/EB standpoint, I get why Women would still be concerned with sex, and again, at least insofar as I handle Game, being upfront and “managing expectations” is about as fair as any guy can make it, and certainly is far and away more fair than what many Women out there do on the dating scene. For example, when has there been a time when the Feminists (and perhaps Clarisse can point us to instances to the contrary) have say, called out Women who use guys for stuff like drinks and dinners when they knew full well they had no intention of following up or had any interest in those guys?
I’ll wait…
O.
@Obsidian:
Which is a separate issue from what we’re discussing here. I’m not saying this as a dismissal (and I should point out that I don’t have a stable position with regard to feminist theory, pro or con), only to say that when these discussions have moved in that direction, they’ve become the kind of discussions that you were objecting to earlier on: the fear and antipathy come up again, and things come to a grinding halt.
That said, one point on this:
It isn’t as deeply informed by evo psych as you might think. It’s informed by the S&R argument, but that traces primarily back to Dawkins’ early work, and has more to do with the gene-centric view than with evo psych per se; most of the fundamental concepts of evo psych, in fact, such as mental modules and specifics of the influence of the EEA, don’t make much of an appearance. The same kind of thing applies to other theories: even when people cite The Red Queen, for example, they’re mostly talking about the second part of the book (Ridley’s own conjectures), and not the first part, which contains the actual hypothesis. Most notably, the “arms race” element, which is the crux of the Red Queen hypothesis, doesn’t exert much influence — if any at all.
The presence of actual theory in Game materials, when viewed with an eye to the theories themselves, is minimal. It’s pretty much simplified versions of S&R and sexual selection theory, mixed in with some basic primatology and the general idea of hardwiring.
That’s why it’s possible to completely eliminate the evo psych perspective and still end up with a working system: not much changes, except what you have on your bookshelf.
@Clarisse:
What I find interesting is that despite how much PUAs dig evo-psych, techniques like this one are as far from it as you can get. It’s pure behaviourism, showing you target again and again that a failure to show sexual compliance will result in Good Things being taken away from it (women are, for this purpose, an it), and sexual compliance will make the Good Things come again and/or prevent Bad Things from happening, until the target eventually comes to associate the act of performing sexual services with Good Things, and the act of refusing sex with Bad Things.
Replace sexual compliance with running in circles or pressing a button, and you have the basis of quite a few experiments run by the kind of psychologists who believe in learned behaviour over biological determinism. The technique also supports a lot of feminist theory, in that it assumes that the woman is interested in closeness with, and attention from, men, whereas men do not regard women as anything but a means to get off in.
It’s this kind of technique that makes me want to be a lesbian, because it tells me that because of my sex, men will never care about me, and that I might as well give up trying to get more than a passable enjoyment out of sex, because it’s really just supposed to be something men will use me for in exchange for giving me the illusion of closeness.
This is another interesting aspect I’ve been thinking about for a long time. To me, Lisa’s reactions seem very healthy, basically “I’m not going to jump around like a trained monkey just because someone threatens to ignore me if I don’t”, and are a sign of confident woman who doesn’t put much stock in games and isn’t easily pressured into doing what other people want her to just to get them to like her. And because of that, the game doesn’t work on her, and actually turns her off. It seems to me that if a good deal of the kind of women that guys say they want (confident, know what they want, unlikely to use shit-tests) are actually turned off by PUA techniques, then those techniques are actually counter-productive in the long run.
It goes back to the way I (and you I think) see the dating scene as having been shaped by a patriarchal culture which prevents women from expressing their sexuality freely (even if they knew how), and would like to change that scene into something which leaves more room for both sexes to express their sexuality. Whereas PUAs seem to think that women have set up the rules, and that men just have to play by them. And in the end, they’re just increasing the problem, playing their games with the women who go along, hurting some of them in the process (there’s no way a technique like the freeze-out will not succeed in making some women have sex against their will), and ignoring women who don’t play, thereby risking turning those women into female ACFs.
Agreed. But the freeze-out seems designed to manoeuvre the target into having sex no matter what. A lot of women have learned the signs of men who don’t respect a no and who keep pushing them, so ignoring a woman’s protests could cause her to recognise the situation for what it is and leave. However, with an actual time-out, which is designed to let both parties relax, take a break, and figure out how they’re feeling, there’s the risk that the target figures out that she’s not very into sex that evening.
Outwardly respecting a rejection helps circumvent many of the defence mechanisms women have developed to help them avoid the type of men who’ll want to pressure or manipulate them into having sex (i.e. many of the men using freeze-outs), but by inducing feelings of frustration and insecurity, the target it at the same time denied the opportunity to calmly evaluate her feelings and make a decision based on her own desires rather than a pressure to please. The best of both worlds, unless you’re the target.
@Infra,
“Which is a separate issue from what we’re discussing here. I’m not saying this as a dismissal (and I should point out that I don’t have a stable position with regard to feminist theory, pro or con), only to say that when these discussions have moved in that direction, they’ve become the kind of discussions that you were objecting to earlier on: the fear and antipathy come up again, and things come to a grinding halt.”
O: No, it’s not – this discussion has at its heart, ETHICS – but of course, that really means, ethics for thee, but not for me. Using Men to get free favors from them, such as drinks and dinners and the like, IS UNETHICAL. Quick Infra, name me half a dozen articles by Feminists like Clarisse, bemoaning this behavior as the putatively unethical behavior of the PUA set? I’ll wait.
Like I said, and which you have agreed, I have no problem or compunction with calling out my own on the carpet, and making clear in no uncertain terms that I do not endorse or condone, in any way, shape or form, their abuse of Game. Having said that, I can literally count the number of lady bloggers on less than one hand, who have unabashedly made clear that Women using Men in any manner out there on the dating scene is straight up unethical.
I’ll be waiting for all those Feministing/Feministe/Jezebel/Amanda Marcotte/Clarisse Thorn links to their open and vociferous-in-kind denunciations…
As for Game and its ties to Evo-Psych, hey look, whatever. The point remains: the Feminists need to come up with a better mousetrap if they don’t like what they see out there. That they have failed to do so in some six years, taking the publication of The Game as a kind of benchmark insofar as the wider public’s awareness of Game is concerned, really says it all to me. It tells me, that they can’t.
End of.
O.
@Clarisse:
I think you’re selling evo-psych short (which, considering which stories the media choose to publish and PUAs choose to believe in, I don’t blame you for), the actual discipline can be very useful. However, people don’t want to read long articles about why outwardly self-destructive displays of altruism is beneficial from an evolutionary point of view, they want to read “prejudice x is true because humans have evolved that way”.
So the people who propagate that view are given more attention, and other evolutionary scientists are too busy defending the validity of their chosen discipline to counter it (you wouldn’t believe how much evo-psych material can be summed up by “It’s true, it’s really true!” without much space devoted to what it can actually be used for), and even if they wanted to, they wouldn’t be given half the attention of the scientists who focus on confirming prejudices.
My personal view in regards to the seduction community, is that the use of evolutionary psychology isn’t mainly there because of its accuracy, but more to provide a positive (pseudo-)scientific basis for the advise, and to make the PUAs feel good about themselves, which eventually can end up being more helpful than many of the techniques themselves.
@Obsidian:
No, it means that we’re discussing the ethics of a particular subject, and not ethics in general.
Yes, the kind of conduct that you’re talking about needs to be addressed; yes, it’s unethical; yes, I’ve known women who’ve done it, and continue to do it, and who don’t get called out on it by much of anyone, feminist or not. But that isn’t in the scope of this particular discussion.
Or they and PUAs can work together to create something the might be agreeable to both, and workable for both.
Which is precisely what we’re trying to do here.
And that’s why I’m pointing out, without dismissing them, that the points that you’re raising are different issues. This just isn’t the time or place to raise them. I’ll say again what I said above: this isn’t the discussion that you think it is. Don’t confuse it with the others.
@Infra,
“No, it’s not – this discussion has at its heart, ETHICS – but of course, that really means, ethics for thee, but not for me.”
I: No, it means that we’re discussing the ethics of a particular subject, and not ethics in general.
O: Why not? I mean, is not what I said, true? If so, why the Wall of Silence then on the part of those who want to rollout the ethical red carpet when it suits them? Because that’s what this line of questioning sounds like – Women who have beefs with things, not because its inherently right or wrong, but because they think they’re ox is getting gored, and there is no way around that fact, Infra. I am consistent; I say that dabbling in Dark Game is wrong, and I also say that a Woman who deliberately uses Men for drinks and dinners and gifts is also wrong. I don’t equivocate. Again, I stand by what I said: for all the Feminists bemoaning the “ethics” of Game, I have yet to find any among them who are as equally outraged at their “sisters” for using guys for drinks and dinners knowing full well they have no intention of going the next step. It’s more than merely being unethical – its fraud. But of course, on that issue…silence.
Way to go toward being an example of holding the moral highground!
I: Yes, the kind of conduct that you’re talking about needs to be addressed; yes, it’s unethical; yes, I’ve known women who’ve done it, and continue to do it, and who don’t get called out on it by much of anyone, feminist or not. But that isn’t in the scope of this particular discussion.
O: But the question MUST be asked: WHY isn’t it raised, or discussed, by Feminists, Infra? Why? Aren’t they the ones who claim to be for “equality”? Aren’t they the ones who claim to want “ethics”? Why then are they so very silent on this? Or is it that they’re cool with certain “patriarchal” practices, so long as they serve them and theirs?
“The point remains: the Feminists need to come up with a better mousetrap if they don’t like what they see out there.”
I: Or they and PUAs can work together to create something the might be agreeable to both, and workable for both.
O: Nope; what we’re doing is working just fine for us. It’s folks like Clarisse who have a problem with it. I say then, it’s folks like Clarisse who must come up with a better way and show us all how it’s done.
Good luck with that…
I: Which is precisely what we’re trying to do here.
O: Not with a heck of a lot of progress, I might add. But hey, it’s only been six years, right?
I: And that’s why I’m pointing out, without dismissing them, that the points that you’re raising are different issues. This just isn’t the time or place to raise them. I’ll say again what I said above: this isn’t the discussion that you think it is. Don’t confuse it with the others.
O: As a Wise Man once said – the time is always right, to do what is right.
I don’t truck in splitting hairs with things like ethics, and no one has to twist my arm to speak out on it, even when it concerns my “team” Infra. That the Feminists remain stubbornly silent on that which I just mentioned only weakens their case, and has a direct bearing on the current discussion – don’t for a minute fool yourself into thinking that the Men who study Game don’t see all this. The Ladies have clamored for Equality – now, they have it. It’s time for them to Man Up.
O.
@Obsidian:
Three weeks. The post was made on March 28th. And, honestly, we’ve made more progress on this in those three weeks than other people have been able to do, engaging in the kind of debates that you’re getting at, in those last six years.
That’s what you’re not getting, here, and what I’ve repeatedly been saying to you. This discussion is not the same as the others that you’re talking about. It isn’t that the points you’ve raised aren’t worth discussing, it’s that they’re not in the scope of this specific discussion, on this specific post, on this specific site, with people who have been engaged in these threads for months, in comparison with your days.
You wrote, earlier on, that the “sided” debate was one of the major problems, and that what you wanted to do was engage in a dialogue. But what you’ve been doing with these last several comments is creating that sided debate, further entrenching it when met with attempts to stave it off, and sabotaging the kind of dialogue that you yourself said is the preferable kind to have.
(23rd, not 28th. Damn insomnia.)
@Infra,
I’m interested in having a fruitful debate and dialogue that actually produces something, because at the end of the day that’s what I have to take back to my guys – stuff that actually works out there, in the field. If it doesn’t produce results, no matter how well intentioned, it’s no good to me, or to them.
I used the release date of The Game because I think it’s a good jumping off point as to this entire line of discussion, accross the Femosphere. Sure, Clarisse is different to the extent that she’s willing to give a more balanced hearing insofar as Game is concerned, but she is undeniably a part of the Femosphere as well. As for this particular discussion is concerned, I have read all of it, and I have yet to see anything that actually can replace the current Seduction school models – and that’s where the rubber hits the road for the Clairisse’s of the world, because it is them who have beef with how Game in its current form(s) works, not the other way around. The burden of proof is on her and those of likemind, to come up with a better mousetrap. I am saying, for all the critiques and deconstructions of Game over the past six years, I haven’t seen anything coming from the Feminists that actually gets the job done in realtime – chatting up and meeting Women, that leads to sex. Yes, that’s important for a whole host of reasons, and I’ll say again, I do not think any Man has to or should apologize for any of that. Personally, I think there are deep and profound reasons as to why Game’s biggest critics, which to date, have been the Feminists, haven’t succeeded in making a better mousetrap. But I’m content to lay in the cut and see what you guys can come up with.
Like I said, good luck with that…
O.
I think you kind of missed the whole point, which I believe was that: yes, there currently is no replacement of ‘game’ by feminists but there should be and if there was an honest approach to this, rather than the current stand-off, then both camps would benefit.
Vox,
If there is a “standoff” it isn’t coming from the community that I consider myself a part of; besides, there is nothing anyone in said community could do to prevent Clarisse or anyone else from coming up with what they consider to be a viable alternative. So if there’s been in obstacles in the path here, it’s all due to the Feminists themselves; they’re being their own worst enemey.
I’ll say it again: there is nothing that the Game community needs to do to “improve” itself; as far as it/we are concerned, what we do gets the results we seek, which can vary from a ONS to a deeply sexually (and more!) fulfilling marriage and everything in between. The onus is on the Feminists to come up with a better mousetrap, but try to shame or browbeat the community into making them a version of Game that they can live with.
Again, thus far, I haven’t seen anything anywhere near convincing. You see, it’s always easier to criticize than to create. And no statue was ever erected in honor of a critic.
I’m just sayin’.
O.
Well, if you’re a reductionist and only take the perspective from your side of the fence, then it’s kind of hard to help you.
At least there appears from a certain brand of feminists like CT that they’re willing to take another look at the stand-off. All I hear from you is justification for your perspective.
This kind of gets to the heart of the matter. The perception of PUAs is that they only want to live life by a set of rules that makes sense to them rather than adjust themselves to those around them. They won’t give up control unless forced to, and they created a rulebook which makes them believe that they can have everything under control.
Hold up Vox,
For my part I have made it unequivocably clear where I stood on the unethical use of Game, and have done so before and will continue to do so in the future. As far as I am concerned, I think I’ve done my part, which is a heck of a lot more than that of Feminists on their own side of the fence (go back to my recent exchange with Infra).
Second, the PUAs are right to think that they have nothing to change; after all, it’s getting them the results they desire, and with very little complain from the Women they interact with, I might add. The biggest critics tend to be Women who aren’t even part of the scene that most PUAs operate in anyway.
Which leads to my third point – if the Feminists are the ones with the problem, the onus falls on THEM to create a better moustrap, NOT PUAs. That’s how it works in everywhere else in American life – why the changeup now? I’m telling you, if you can devise a way which guys can get laid you will have a path beaten to your door. This is a goldmine waiting to happen for the Feminists. Why then haven’t they come up with anything, after years of complaint, critique and deconstruction? I say it’s because they can’t, and simply do not want to admit it.
O.
And that’s my point proven unless the PUAs are the happiest people on the planet rather than amongst the most miserable as I see them. Hmmmm. What’s the average age of the Game community? That number would be revealing about a great number of things and specifically about how well it works.
This thread isn’t titled “Effective Pick-Up Artistry.” The claim isn’t that the PUA community needs to improve its tactics; it’s that it needs to use less harmful tactics. Claiming that you have no moral obligations WRT using Game is no better, probably worse, than feminists who merely say “Don’t do this. Don’t do that.” and never provide a positive alternative. For someone who first posted on this thread insisting that Clarisse address your specific concerns, you sure seem to have no problems ignoring the specific concerns she raises.
Also, among intelligent people trying to have a rational debate, ending with “I’m just sayin’.” makes your point seem weaker, not stronger.
Clarisse,
as a sidenote with respect to evolutionary psychology -
I think with respect to evolutionary psychology two remarks are necessary – one, it seems absurd to assume that evolution had no impact on human psyche, that humans are the only animal without biological instints. Which, in turn, implies that, at least as long as evolution in general is considered a fact, the human psyche will have evolved in some way and it does make sense to study the effects of that development in a discipline one may call “evolutionary psychology”. I agree that much of the discipline currently suffers from excessive axiomatic assumptions and economic imperialism, but given that their theories are based on rational choice/methodological individuailsm the theories are generally more falsifiable than sociological blank slate behavioral theories on which much of, say, feminism’s axiomatic structure is built, yet without ever really defining the scope of applicability of the assumed female epistemic privilege or any of the concepts derived from that assumption – like patriarchy, oppression, privilege, etc… None of that is falsifiable either.
I mean, look how a closer look at the variables made much better sense of reality in the Conley research we talked about than the original proposition.
To me, it really feels like much of the opposition to evolutionary psychology is politically motivated rather than scientifically, and there is reaon for that given that evolutionary psychology is not rarely used by conservative people to imply that the status quo is “species appropriate” for humans, when no one really knows what species appropriate for humans means and how it changes.
The latter probably also implies some intuitive opposition to everything that is considered as limiting degrees of freedom, even when it is a priori descriptive, probably because of the inherent risk of the above. On the other hand, blank slate ideologies have been just as violent in imposing their “therapies” for changing allegedly injust social realities.
I think the most important lesson in all this is to actually center individuals – which may be difficult for people proposing group based solutions to individually perceived problems, from one side or the other.
@AllSaintsDay,
“This thread isn’t titled “Effective Pick-Up Artistry.” The claim isn’t that the PUA community needs to improve its tactics; it’s that it needs to use less harmful tactics.”
O: Yes, I know; and I AM saying to those who take this view, that the best way to address that is to PRESENT A BETTER WAY of doing business. It’s really simple as that, ASD. Really.
“Claiming that you have no moral obligations WRT using Game is no better, probably worse, than feminists who merely say “Don’t do this. Don’t do that.” and never provide a positive alternative. For someone who first posted on this thread insisting that Clarisse address your specific concerns, you sure seem to have no problems ignoring the specific concerns she raises.”
O: False. One of the regulars on this board, Infra, has seen with his own eyes what my personal stance on the unethical use of Game is. Therefore, I have nothing further to prove to anyone. Moreover, it is kinda hard for Feminists to attempt to lecture to guys as to their ethical practices when they stay silent on the fact that not only are Women long in the tooth when it comes to gettinf freebie drinks and meals and gifts from guys they knew from the giddyup they had no intention pursuing anything with, but these same Women now write blogs and articles showing other Women how to do it. I am telling you that the community see this blatant and flagrant hypocrisy, and doesn’t take kindly to it. If the Feminists are really serious about ethical dating and the like, they can start right under their own roof by openly calling out Women on the carpet who do these things. Doing so would be a massive show of good will towards the Seduction community.
Again: in America, if you don’t like the way someone is doing something, you come up with another way of doing business. People aren’t dumb; if you can present a better product or service, the people can and will beat a path to your door. That the Feminists haven’t done this, really is telling to me.
@Vox,
“And that’s my point proven unless the PUAs are the happiest people on the planet rather than amongst the most miserable as I see them. Hmmmm. What’s the average age of the Game community? That number would be revealing about a great number of things and specifically about how well it works.”
O: LOL. No you gonna make a case based on the median age of the community’s participants? Come on, you can do better than that. Remember, it ain’t the PUAs who are complaining, IT’S THE FEMINISTS WHO ARE. They are the ones who have the burden of coming up with a superior product or service. How about you making up a “kindler, gentler way” to chat up and bed Women? Trust me, if you got a better, proven and documented way of achieving this, you will be a very wealthy Man!
Looks like y’all have your work cutout for ya…
O.
You’re oversimplifying. The fact that an unethical way of achieving something is effective doesn’t put the onus on the people harmed. By way of analogy, that’s like suggesting victims of Ponzi schemes can’t complain about the fraud unless they come up with an ethical way to make money that is more effective than said fraud.
So no, it’s not that simple. Really.
And this is why there’s an impasse. You’re saying that for something to happen, there should first be not just a show of goodwill, but a massive one, from the other party towards yours.
@AllSaintsDay:
“You’re oversimplifying. The fact that an unethical way of achieving something is effective doesn’t put the onus on the people harmed. By way of analogy, that’s like suggesting victims of Ponzi schemes can’t complain about the fraud unless they come up with an ethical way to make money that is more effective than said fraud.
So no, it’s not that simple. Really.”
O: Uh, yea, it is. Ponzi schemes are deemed illegal, and there are punishable by law. If the Feminists think that the PUAs are breaking the law, they should prosecute. Simple. Really. It is.
“And this is why there’s an impasse. You’re saying that for something to happen, there should first be not just a show of goodwill, but a massive one, from the other party towards yours.”
O: It’s a massive undertaking for one of the umpteen Feminist blogs or organizations to write ONE headlining article talking about the “Ethics of Acceptiing Drinks/Dinners/Gifts From Guys You Have ZERO Intention of Dating”, ASD? It’s killing these ladies to do this? Is that what you’re saying? But they can expend gallons of ink talking about the evil that PUAs do? Come off it.
O.
Low median age is an indicator of how people complain with their feet. You’ll probably stick it out because you’re the kind of idiot who thinks they have the correct answer for everything. If you’d pay attention to your subconscious you’d notice you came here because a) you need people to acknowledge your abilities and b) you’re dissatisfied with the system you’ve chosen and are hoping that these people have a way to fix it for you.
@Voxnewman,
“Low median age is an indicator of how people complain with their feet. You’ll probably stick it out because you’re the kind of idiot who thinks they have the correct answer for everything. If you’d pay attention to your subconscious you’d notice you came here because a) you need people to acknowledge your abilities and b) you’re dissatisfied with the system you’ve chosen and are hoping that these people have a way to fix it for you.”
O: LMAO. You couldn’t be more wrong about me, personally.
1. I don’t look to Game to solve all my or anyone else’s problems
2. I came here to set the record straight about Game writers (I don’t consider myself a PUA, though I have nothing in the least against them) and the like not being “ethical”
3. I couldn’t be more happier with what Game has brought into my life, which among other things, has been a very nice lady. And she’s quite satisfied too, I might add.
4. I also came here to let you all know that you’re going about this thing all wrong. If you don’t like the way things are going down, make a better mousetrap.
Nope Vox, you’re barking up the wrong tree there, holmes. But, given your calling me names and the like, I guess we can see who has the stronger argument at this point.
Good luck with that kindler, gentler way to pickup gals!
O.
Is there an emoticon for an ironic ‘thumbs up’?
Obsidian, I have to agree with voxnewman. If you were as satisfied as you claim to be, you would have no reason to come here, unless you wanted to help those less fortunate than yourself. And yet you chose to come here, and all you have done so far is to complain and make demands. If you really believed what you said about the people with the problem having to provide a satisfactory solution, then you should provide an alternative to the feminist criticism that bothers you so much, rather than going into feminists blogs to complain about it.
So your sole objection to Ponzi schemes is that they’re illegal? If there’s no law against some other kind of fraud, then you would have no sympathy for the victims?
“Massive” was your term, not mine.
Hi AB,
“Obsidian, I have to agree with voxnewman. If you were as satisfied as you claim to be, you would have no reason to come here, unless you wanted to help those less fortunate than yourself. And yet you chose to come here, and all you have done so far is to complain and make demands. If you really believed what you said about the people with the problem having to provide a satisfactory solution, then you should provide an alternative to the feminist criticism that bothers you so much, rather than going into feminists blogs to complain about it.”
O: Well, for one thing, I got wind of all of this by way of another blog that I read, and after reading Clarisse’s interview, I decided to check her out here, and we’re off to the races, LOL. Second, I love a good debate. Third, yea, I did want to tell the Feminists about themselves, because for so long this discussion, if one can call it that, has been so woefully lopsided. And it’s very interesting that to date, with the exception of Infra aside, no one has actually engaged my central point: that if the Feminists are the ones with the beefs with Game and/or how it is taught the solution is for them to build a better mousetrap. Since that’s not sinking in, lemme put it this way: the PUAs ain’t changing, folks. They have no reason to. Other than you bringing legal charges against them – which the Feminists have proven themselves not to be above I might add – there is really not a heck of a lot that can be done. Attempting to shame them into acting what your idea of right is highly likely to fail.
Show guys a better way of getting laid and they will beat a path to your door. End of.
O.
Maybe you might want to go back and think about this one. Y’know, think this statement through logically?
@AB,
What I meant when I said “massive” was in terms of the “massive amounts of good will” the Feminists would be buying themselves by showing the SC that they don’t play favorites or fast and loose with ethics when it comes to dating and so forth. Them writing a big frontpage article about how it is patently unethical for Women to use Men for drinks, dinners and the like would really go a long way in their quest to forge a more kindler, gentler form of pickup.
@Vox,
Indeed, I have thought it all through. Please tell me of all the Seduction schools of thought that have been directly changed by the actions of Clarisse and others? I’ll wait.
O.
Obsidian, this post is supposed to be about building that better mousetrap. To come here and insist that we instead discuss whose job it is to build the better mousetrap is to drag the discussion backwards, and I applaud anyone who has chosen to avoid engaging your central derailing.
For the umpeenth time, this is not the discussion apparently you think it is. If you want to contribute to it, then provide suggestions for a better mousetrap. Point out, respectfully, why you think that some one else’s suggestions won’t work. And while doing so, keep in mind that suggestions are better than criticism.
@AllSaintsDay,
Look who’s talking – this entire post was about “critique” of the Seduction community; Clarisse’s first recommendations as they were, were criticisms. But it’s a problem when someone from said community responds in kind with what he sees as quite a few areas where the Feminists themselves are lacking. Nice!
The big problem facing those who want to present an alternative to Game is simply this: how do you present a model where Men can meet Women successfully? This is not something I have seen discussed in this thread. What I have seen, are all manner of side discussions on things that, while interesting, does nothing to actually address that guy trying to meet Women. Nothing. What kind of approaches do you guys recommend? What do you say a guy should to to get a Woman’s attention? Where should he go to do this and why? Is there any live fire examples of any of this taking place anywhere – any YouTube videos and the like, where this can be seen and evaluated?
See what I’m saying? There’s more but thats just a taste.
O.
Way to qualify your statement post-script and choose an under-defined qualifier.
And if Clarisse had gone charging onto a PUA forum and posted all her criticisms, that would be a fair comparison.
We want an ethical approach, with more than Objectivist-ish “If it’s effective and not illegal, it’s acceptable” ethics. There’s been a lot of discussion of what sorts of things are and aren’t ethical, using the existing SC as a case study. If you don’t care for acting in a way most of the people here would deem “ethically,” which your comments currently lead me to believe, then yes, all of that will seem off-topic.
since you missed the point of the blog, here it is:
I find Obsidian’s approach to be arrogant and insulting, his arguments mostly facile, and his overall understanding of feminism to be totally pathetic. (I’m just the same as Amanda Marcotte now, apparently, and also feminism has already won! We’ve got equality, didn’t you notice? What are those bitches complaining about anyway?) While he may indeed be a smart and stand-up guy in some ways, and I thought earlier that he might actually be turning into a productive commenter (like when he actually apologized for the way he originally stormed onto this thread — that was a shocker), I’m losing patience with his insistence on dominating the thread and ignoring what we’ve already been discussing.
I suppose it may not be Obsidian’s fault that he apparently missed the entire article I wrote months ago about how feminists should start giving dating advice, although (as voxnewman posted) I did explicitly make that point in the above post. And I guess it’s hard to blame him for conflating me with Amanda Marcotte, since we are all Evil Bitchy Feminists Trying To Desroy Men Together RIGHT?! … notwithstanding the fact that Marcotte has written takedowns against some of my work that were so insulting that I didn’t even respond.
However, aside from his lack of familiarity with what I’ve actually written on these topics, there’s also little indication that Obsidian is open to the discussion that’s actually happening here, as opposed to whatever discussion is happening in his head. So, Obsidian: A number of people have told you you are derailing. You have made a huge number of unsupported assumptions about me, about feminism, about other people commenting here, and about what we’re talking about. I’m putting your comments on mod. It may take me a while to get to them, because I’m not always in front of a computer. But also, you might just become the first visitor whose contributions I routinely delete depending on what you say. If you can’t contribute to the discussion without being snide, insulting, and ignoring what people are actually saying, then go away.
I will add that one of the points of this post, and one of the points of the ensuing conversation, has been to try and figure out what kind of tactics are ethical and what aren’t. In order to do that, it’s important to go back and discuss what’s already ethical or unethical. Criticizing existing systems isn’t the whole story when it comes to building better ones, but it’s definitely part of it. Without doing that, one risks falling into the errors of previous systems. I believe, as Sam has noted, that effectiveness is part of the conversation as well (and I agree that Marcotte’s followup to my original article kind of missed the point). But if ethics isn’t a central concern for someone, then that person probably isn’t going to care about this thread.
@Obsidian:
First we could start by specifying what we actually seek. PUAs are generally (‘generally’ here meaning that there are exceptions) not interested in ‘women’, they’re interested in a specific subset of women. And they don’t want to meet these women, they want to have sex with them, usually after picking them up in bars.
Also, simple math would suggest that there aren’t a whole lot more single men than single women, in some age-groups there might even be less, so obviously men and women manage to meet and get into relationships on a roughly equal basis. A good deal of PUAs need their techniques, not because there aren’t plenty of functional models for men and women to meet, but because they have special demands, spacial disadvantages, or alternatively, are less willing to settle than women are.
So before we address strategy, clarifying the goal would be a good idea. That would also give people like me a better clue as to how to proceed addressing the subject.
Oh, and as one final note? Feminists DO criticize manipulative dating behavior by women.
Hello Clarisse,
I find you doing the very same things you accuse me of doing; for example, in your interview with Strauss, you don’t mention by name the PUAs who are supposedly “anti-feminist”. You simply say “PUAs”. I’d like very much to know who they are, by name, please. Your response?
And no, I’m not familiar with your previous writings, anymore than you would be with mine; to be frank, before last week I never even heard of you, so we’re unknown to each other up until now. But the characteristic snark and the like that seems to be part and parcel of the Feminist way of doing things is not only familiar, it’s also a bit hypocritical when told, that I must “act right or go away”. More ethics for thee, but not for me, hmm?
And I’ve closely reviewed this thread. I say again: to date, there has been no discussion in terms of actually offering an alternative; only “critique” on what you and others think is problematic about Game itself. I take issue with that personally, not only because I’ve gone out of my way to speak to those in the community who I consider to be really bad news, but also because, like you accuse me of doing, you also tend to broadbrush the community. So perhaps my being here is reflecting a mirror of sorts to yourself?
You can ask around about me, as well as reading what I’ve actually written; you’ll see that I’m one of the better guys around when it comes to ethics and so forth. But I gotta tell ya Clarisse, the way you guys are going about this thing here, all it’ll do is turn more guys off. I’ve been to many lairs, seen bootcamps and the like, and many of these guys just want to get a girlfriend, and if “being themself” would have worked they would never wound up there to begin with.
At some point, you simply have to get about the business of building a better mousetrap if you think the one you currently got just ain’t gonna get it. Easy to criticize, much harder to create. If you and others here have concerns about ethics as it currently stands in the pickup community, fair enough – what do you suggest these guys do? What would you have them do? That actually works, now. That’s what I’d like to hear – not yet another ad nauseum round of “critiques” of why the Seduction community is outta pocket, primarly by Women who don’t even have anything to do with it for the most part. I mean, why not talk to some of the Women who are actually in the clubs and bars – why not talk to Women who are married to Game writers like Athol Kay and so forth? If nothing else, it would provide a bit of balance.
I simply cannot believe that there are some here who are shocked that someone, no matter how small, would come here from the very community you all are giving a “critique” of, then when he actually begins to interact y’all are ready to toss him out. We all know about what you don’t like about the community – good. Now, how about you guys brainstorming up a way to meet and bed Women than actually works to y’all liking?
I’m just saying.
O.
@Clarisse:
I was just considering mentioning (in regards to the tired old accusations that feminists never criticise women or each other, despite how many times I’ve seen them do just that) how you’ve written multiple pieces about the way both sexes act unfairly towards men, like the creep articles.
I think it’s a shame that people can’t have discussions in feminist spaces about anything without someone coming in to claim “feminists have done bad things, this discussion should focus on bad things done by feminists, not anything else”. It’s part of the reason I stay away from most feminist spaces, not to mention spaces that criticise feminism.
AB,
Well, demography matters, for sure. As an example, 97% of singles in China are – according to a recent Canadian study – men, in particular men who don’t conform to the status requirements that women can have in China because female embryos are aborted at a much higher rate than male embryos. So there’s a case where feminism is really aligning with concern for men and overall social stability.
On the other hand, I’m not so sure that sexuality is as evenly distributed as you suggest – relationships may be in the current paradigm. I’m not going all Houellebecq on you here, and I’ve acknowledged female dating woes over and over, but from my point of view, as far as singles are concerned there really seems to be something approximating a pareto distribution: 20% of people have 80% of the sex, 80% get the remaining 20% – but I do acknowledge that that’s mostly somehting I perceive around me, not something I can prove.
@Sam:
I didn’t suggest it was evenly distributed between individuals, but it does appear to be rather evenly distributed between the sexes (unless those statistics claiming that there are more gays than lesbians are correct, in which case men would appear to be getting more sex and dating).
But is this a uniquely male problem? I believe you have said yourself that expecting men to settle like women settle is sexist and wrong, and yet, these are about the only times where I see it mentioned how the majority of men are uninterested in the majority of women.
AB,
not what I said. I said that complaining that men appear to have specific preferences in women and not others is shaming male sexuality when it doesn’t comes from a position that accepts that desire as such and is only concerned with understanding how and why that structure came about – to use an example – you have no right to shame me for desiring sex with as many women as possible who look like Angelina Jolie (I think that was the example) just as I have no right to shame women for apparently insisting on me being more dominant in our interactions. We can talk about why this is and how this may only be assumed proxies for actual desires and how trying to understand the core of our own desires may be helpful in getting to a point where we can get them fulfilled in a healthier way than, say, watching, Lara Croft for the 20th time. But acceptance has to come first.
I don’t know how you got the second statement from my comment. I don’t think the majority of men isn’t interested in the majority of women. If anything, it feels like it’s the other way around ;) As I have exlpained in a reply to Anne Bonney, I think most men are interested in most women, at least sexually, but they seem to have a harder visual cut off than women. Generalizing, of course, but the general idea seems to be that men consider women above a certain attractivity threshhold as sexual partners (say, a male 7/10 would consider women from a 3/10 to 10/10) but will not consider women below that threshold, and those women can do whatever they want, the men will very likely not be interested. Women, on the other hand seem to operate in a narrower band around their self-perceived attractivity. A female 7/10 will be more selective at the bottom, say, she won’t consider men below a 5/10, but at the same time, the men rated lower will be given to compensate their lack of visual attrativity with other personality aspects. Phsyical attractivity is the most important variable for both women and men when it comes to attraction and mate-choice – women are apparently more upen to balancing different criteria than men while men appear to have a larger bracket of sexually attractive composite values without giving women the chance to balance much, expect, I believe for the variable “sexual availability”.
If people were following my blog, they may guess why I have been away from this thread for a while, but I’m back again now.
@ Clarisse, #382
This sounds like a starting point, for sure. I think the question we started to get into was “How do we turn these into specific, actionable, advice?” Which is either:
“What specific behaviours can be derived from these principles that are likely to be successful?”
or
“What empirically-tested techniques exist that enable one to follow these guidelines and also be successful?”
Of course, the first question also requires that the behaviours be put to the test so that they can become empirically-tested techniques!
@Clarisse:
As an aside, I don’t think that this was what he was getting at. It was probably more along the lines of the behavior of one woman that I knew: she was always short on cash, but also always down at the bars. When I asked her about that, she said straight out that, when it came to going out, it didn’t matter whether or not she had any cash — there’d always be a guy who would buy her a drink. All that she had to do was spot a guy who was looking to get laid, play up to him for a while, let him buy her one (or string it out for more), and then make an excuse for not hooking up. Not a Rules thing — just blatant, unapologetic manipulation.
It isn’t something that I saw other women do, but she did it often, and it’s a valid point; behavior like that feeds into why the AFC concept persists, and it’s often marginalized as something that only “those people” do (which is an accurate statement, but also an unhelpful one). It just doesn’t relate directly to the subject of this discussion.
AB: Statistics in Norway shows that more women then men become parents and that the difference is increasing with an increasing rate. The reason why this adds up mathematically is that an increasing number of men are having children with more than one woman which leads to an increase in the number of men with no children. One paper put forth the theory that women tend to choose “proven” partners. In other words that women are more likely to partner up with the divorced dad than a man with no children.
It is an indirect measure since all sex obviously does not result in children, but I think it certainly is indicative of some level of hypergamy among women. Please note that I state a reported fact and that I don’t argue that individual women should be obligated to let this fact influence their choices as they are supremely free to make their own choices based solely on their own discretion.
Clarisse:
I guess it must be bias or just a different outlook, but that article by Kate Harding you linked to didn’t read to me as a judgement of the morality or the ethics of those “rules”. It rather came of as a critique of the view that women above all wants to be married and a strong argument that most of the rules don’t work.
The closest she comes to touching on the moral values of the rules are when she use morally laden words as: ‘scheme’, ‘lie’, ‘dumb yourself down’ and ‘make incredibly unflattering generalizations about men’, but that was just one line in the whole article and there is nothing on how this affect men negatively.
In fact this comment left by a feminist (Leeandra Nolting):
condems the men which are being manipulated, not the woman for being manipulative. It almost sounds as if the problem is that the rules are not manipulative enough and that any not-stupid man should be able to see through them.
I would hazard a guess that anyone who write “if I were a PUA my biggest problem would be that I wouldn’t respect any woman stupid enough to fall for the act” would get a lot of well deserved flack.
Obsidian:
Once again, you are blatantly ignoring that the conversation you supposedly want has been developing here, but that it’s taking place in the context of critique.
Anti-feminist PUAs? I can’t even believe you’re asking this question, being as there are tons of them. The most high-profile examples are Roissy and Roosh, which you almost certainly already know.
Also:
Way to assume that I’m not talking to women who date PUAs. I have.
Way to assume that I’m not a woman who goes out to clubs and bars. I am.
Way to assume that I have no field experience. I do.
Way to assume that I haven’t been out with sarging PUAs. I have.
Way to assume that guys don’t want pickup advice offered in the way that it’s being discussed in this thread, when most of the commenters on this thread are male, and tons of guys have told me in person that they specifically would love pickup advice if it weren’t so misogynist.
Way to start the conversation by being snide, snarky and arrogant and then tell me I’m the one engaging in “characteristic feminist snark”.
People here are talking about what you want to be talking about. It’s happening in a different way and at a different pace from what you apparently want, because people are talking about individual tactics in terms of ethics — and trying to build an ethical framework before getting too much into tactics — but it’s happening nonetheless. I get that you’re unfamiliar with my work, but it’s really starting to make me crazy how you keep insisting on repeating things I’ve said, and then acting like it’s not what I’m trying to do. You yourself just said that it’s easier to criticize than to create — if you want to participate in this conversation in a creative way, feel free. But once again, if you can’t participate without making assumptions about me, other commenters, etc. then please just leave. You’re sapping my energy and everyone else’s.
@Infra — It was probably more along the lines of the behavior of one woman that I knew: she was always short on cash, but also always down at the bars.
I really doubt I know any feminists who would feel comfortable with this. Also, there’s not an entire community of women trading tips on how to do this. If there were, I guarantee feminists would be every bit as annoyed about it as with the PUA community.
Yeah, it’s not like it’s hard to figure out. My ex and her whole extended group of friends and many other girls I met at the bar figured this out quite easily, so I’m certain it’s a pretty easy concept: if you don’t have money, some idiot will buy you a drink because he thinks he’s the hops winner (new term?) and/or thinks it’s a gateway to something. I tried to explain to them that even though they get free drinks and aren’t technically obligated, the guy’s perception of the situation and the sales tactic of one yes makes it harder to say no makes the drinks not worth it on a balance sheet.
And if guys really don’t like the idea that girls do this? Stop buying drinks for girls who aren’t your close friends: I’ve only felt the need to buy a strange girl a drink once, and that’s because when she bumped into me on the dance floor her red wine went down her beautiful chinese dress and I felt bad. That’s it.
@Sam:
Except when we’re talking about women’s preferences of course, because women’s preferences and the way they express them present a problem for a group of men, whom women like me have been told we owe an endless stream of sympathy and compassion to. I’m just wondering if we’ll ever see a movement in the other direction.
The original example was Megan Fox, and that wasn’t what the conversation started with (it was what you turned it into). The original example was Clarisse noticing that many of the guys who profess to having trouble meeting women are only interested in women who look like Megan Fox.
I didn’t get it from you (well, partly), I got it from listening to PUAs and guys around me. Guys are often theoretically willing to have sex with a somewhat large number of women, but they’re not necessarily willing to hit on those women, flirt with them, care for them, respect them, like them, or consider them anything but a pale substitution for the real thing (which, ironically, often isn’t real), and they’d be willing to dump those women in a heartbeat as soon as they get the chance to replace them.
That, of course, isn’t true for all guys, but it is, to some extent, true for the majority of sexually frustrated and unsuccessful guys I’ve talked to. And it stands in sharp contrast to how the very same guys (usually) demand sympathy for the way women feel about them. I’m not trying to make it all about the womenz, but I do think it’s an interesting contradiction.
@voxnewman:
That was the point in bringing it up, I think: there’s a relationship between the kind of thing I mentioned and attitudes toward supplication, etc. in pickup theory. I suspect that that was what Obsidian was getting at: some of these things are responses to encountered behaviors, not just tactics, and to say that the responses are wrong without coming down on the behavior comes off, at best, as uninformed.
I’d agree that it doesn’t take much to figure it out, though, and that there isn’t a community of women discussing these things, simply because there doesn’t need to be. It’s more a matter that the way things are can be exploited, and there are people who do so. But that kind of plays to the point, as well; the fact that there’s no organized effort to discuss and refine these actions doesn’t mean that they’re not worth addressing, or aren’t factors in the equation.
I guess that the way to connect this with the main discussion here is to say: any approach to what is ethical and what isn’t has to take into account the fact that x percentage of the people out there are assholes. Obvious thing, but sometimes it needs to be stated.
Can you explain that for me? I don’t understand what you’re getting at.
Basically, this: it’s one thing to criticize attitudes about supplication, such as refusing to buy someone a drink, as abstract rules. It’s a different thing to criticize them when they’re applied as universals, while acknowledging that there’s an unethical form of behavior (manipulating people to get drinks) that’s behind why people might adopt it.
In the absence of any mention of the behavior, criticism of things like attitudes toward supplication comes off as being in the first category, and that makes it look like the critics aren’t dealing with the real world, aren’t considering the kind of behaviors that people can encounter, or don’t care about the unethical nature of that behavior (at least enough to make it worth discussing).
And that makes them look uninformed, at best.
‘Course, I should add to that that the appearance doesn’t necessarily reflect any truth, and it’s possible to extend from the occasional occurrence of and exposure to unethical behaviors and produce a stereotype (which is far from an uncommon thing). That’s why I used the x percentage phrasing. It’s less likely to lead to “women do this, that and the other, and that’s why theory says…”; instead, it’s just a focus on the fact that a certain number of the people that you meet are going to behave badly, and any ethical perspective needs to keep that in mind.
@Infra:
But the objection wasn’t that PUAs have developed their tactics in response to women trying to get free drinks (on the contrary, I suspect more PUA material is dedicated to how to get the woman they buy drinks for to have sex with them even though she was just interested in the drink, than to get guys out of paying for drinks), it was that there were largely unrelated bad behaviours in women that went unchecked, and until feminists addressed those (and did it in this thread specifically), they had no right to criticise the seduction community or anything else. That’s quite a difference.
There are ways that are much more effective in getting men to buy you drinks than others, and I assure you that several of my nerdy female acquaintances would be unsuccessful in going to a bar without having to pay for anything (and doubly unsuccessful in untangling themselves from guys who did buy them drinks). I have also encountered guys using techniques like freeze-outs and negs without being PUAs (in fact, several PUA behaviours appear to have a lot in common with mate retention behaviours that are considered instinctual). It has nothing to do with need, and everything to do with ethics and priorities.
There’s also a huge discordance between demanding that people who just happen to share genitals with the people who get free drinks should both know about this behaviour (seriously, you mentioned you knew a woman who did it, what are the odds everybody will have even met someone like that?) and constantly bring up how horrible it is even in discussions that aren’t about women getting free drinks, and then expect to get away with “and btw, I disagree with some of the techniques you have a problem with, so now you can’t criticise me any more”.
And finally, I can easily say (and I suspect most female posters who would come here would agree) that I oppose all deliberate attempts to get people to buy you drinks, and believe it should be a spontaneous offer motivated by the wish to make the receiver happy, not an obligation or a way to get sex, but can PUAs say the same about techniques to get laid?
Through this thread, and others like it, I have seen accusations against women based on the actions of other women whom they have nothing in common with, and even accusations against feminists based on the actions of non-feminists, but guys here seem to take it for granted that unless they actually study and make use of PUA material, they are automatically exempt from any criticism based on it (which they should, it just makes it all the more poignant when they fail to apply the same courtesy to others).
And even guys who do study and make use of PUA material demand to be met with understanding and support as a matter of course, something they have so far completely failed in showing to anyone else, least of all women who exhibit behaviours that are even superficially problematic for them, no matter what their reasons. The more I read here, the more angry I get over how much the deck seems to be stacked in favour of men, and how oblivious they seem to be about it.
Yes, but I’m having trouble seeing how this is relevant in regards to the ethics of the seduction community. Their methods are rarely designed to weed out assholes among the targets they’re hitting on, but instead tend to turn off women who don’t like assholish behaviour (e.g. women who try to communicate honestly but are assumed to be performing a shit-tests). So it seems like the opposite to me, with PUA ethics failing to take into account that no everybody are, or have to be, assholes.
Clarisse,
no, there isn’t. But on the other hand, *whenever* this kind of freeloading came up in chats with female friends, including my best female friend, who has admitted to doing this at some point, there didn’t seem to be the slightest amount of doubt that this would be possible to do for all women without any particular knowledge of social dynamics. There’s a bit of a disconnect between this and women (sometimes the same women at a different point in time) complaining about guys not approaching them, but that’s how it was presented.
@Sam:
They’re wrong, plain and simple. The way you look, the way you dress, the way you act, the places you frequent etc., have a huge influence on how, how much, and by whom you’re approached. Not to mention that even when getting offered the drinks is not hard, getting out of the obligation the guy often think you owe him is often more just as problematic.
At least that was how it was for me, little trouble finding guys who offered to pour alcohol down my throat and insisted that there was no pressure or ulterior motives, tons of trouble with what to do when they reached for various parts of my body.
I think the majority of women experience guys not approaching them, but also experience problems with unwanted sexual attention, while a few in each extreme experience only one. It’s not so much of a disconnect, but probably more that, just like guys, girls tend to mainly notice the people they’re interested in. I also think that, ironically, it can be hard for women to show vulnerability in regards to sex and dating, and it’s one of the areas I’ve observed that more men seem comfortable wearing their issues on their sleeves.
AB,
sorry, but – ???. I explicitly said that a) acceptance must come first (it’s the not treating humans as means to an end thing) and then it’s ok to have a discussion of the effects people’s desires/preferences have on others. To be honest, I’m not sure where you get the idea that female desire is not accepted as such when its (potential) effects are discussed. In fact, I always get the impression that one (fundamental) complaint feminists have with respect to dating advice such as it is presented in the Seduction Community is that it is *explicitly* accepting of the status quo rather than being more interested in changing people’s preferences – I particularly got that impression from Amanda Marcotte’s recent attempt to give advice.
On the other hand, I think that *everything* other than a priori acceptance of desires as they are presented subjectively is very problematic *paricularly* from a feminist point of view – as it implicitly deals rather nonchalantly with the notion of consent (“you should really like something else”) and “entitlement”.
See, I do agree with you here to a degree about the phenomenon’s existence, though I don’t think it’s as prevalent as you make it sound. I also don’t think it’s a contradiction in anything but words – as you rightly note, the hypothetical “real” thing usually isn’t real at all. So I suppose the focus on something imaginary “real” has a lot to do with the actual lack of success with women in real life. Megan Fox is an imaginary girlfriend. But if some guy doesn’t get much/any *real* expierence with *real* women, particularly in his formative years, he will likely have both excessive approach anxiety and be limited in interacting with real women, leading to his withdrawal from the “market” and an imaginary focus on Megan Fox, also as a mechanism of self-protection: It’s not that he cannot get laid with women, he chooses to because all women who aren’t Megan Fox aren’t his type. It seems like a classic ex-post rationalization that allow the ego to pretend to be in control. Add to that classic male competitive discussion patterns – and discount the meaning thereof, and I think you’re not really looking at “most men not being interested in most women”. You may be looking at men confirming to each other that they can have high standards – a playful competition that may have a similar function as women complimenting each other, often excessively, which apparently serves mostly as a way to stabilize their relationship and is not an authentic expression of their admiration of whatever was complimented.
It is my experience that those guys will completely forget about Megan Fox once any real woman gives them some attention. That is in itself another problem that illustrates the complexity of human mating, but it helps to show how helping guys be able to approach and talk to women successfully would, in my opinion, also productively address the problem you mention.
Voxnewman,
I think there’s two aspects in this: One, I believe it’s important to take the commodification aspect out of flirting interaction that just started. I understand that women are worried about creating expectations by doing it because they clearly *are* creating expectations when they are following a script that explains the interaction as a pseudo-commercial interaction – I pay, you stay. I also feel that if a guy cannot get into a flirt with the general idea that there are worse things in the world than talking to him and he needs to purchase time to present himself, his mindset will likely prohibit doing so successfully.
So generally, if a woman doesn’t want to talk to me unless she gets a drink from me, her bad. On the other hand, there are exceptions. If I’m in a great conversation for half an hour in a lounge area and my drink is empty and I need to go to the bar, I think it would be rude not to ask if she needs another one, too. And if she says yes, then I’ll get her a drink, and I usually won’t ask for the money if she doesn’t offer the money herself after I get back. If she doesn’t offer the money at this point – after having spent pleasant time together, it usually indicates that she will get the next round. So, at that point, her accepting a drink could also be considered an indicator of interest and willingness to invest into this interaction.
Whether or not offering to get a drink is appropriate or not in my opinion entirely depends on the estimated state of the interaction at the respective point.
The weirdest instance of me offering a cocktail to a girl I had met once before was when we said hi to each other while she was kissing some other guy who immediately left for the dance floor. She had no money left but said she really needed a drink because of some rough stuff she was going through. I didn’t know her sufficiently well at that point to know whether she was telling the truth (she was, seriously rough stuff) and I felt a tad bit used because she had been kissing the other guy right next to me right before she said hello to me. But she promised she’d get me a drink the next time and I decided to follow my intuition about her (the first time we had met, a couple of weeks earlier, she had done something that made me trust her) so I got her the drink. We talked for a second about her (then still alleged) problems and then I went back to a female friend who was waiting for me. Thing is, we had exchanged fb contacts and she made sure we’d not miss out on that second drink… and it wasn’t the last one we’ve had since ;).
My point is, while no one should be paying for the right to talk to another person (unless both are aware that they are in a commercial interaction), it’s equally as problematic to make that a rule.
“it’s equally as problematic to make that a rule.”
This should read: it’s equally problematic to make “not buying drinks” a general rule. Maybe a rule of thumb…
@Sam:
I’m not so much talking about you, but more the contradiction I see between the way women are held to blame for the plight of men, while feminists are told they have no right to complain, as was latest shown by Obsidian.
Because it usually isn’t, that’s why.
Which preferences, men’s or women’s?
I think it’s related, if not identical to, the observation you made that women who’re completely sure of their capacity to get men to buy them drinks nonetheless express problems with men not approaching. We often observe what we want, not what we get, so the women who want drinks will notice them, but they don’t always notice (or register/remember/count) the men who come with them, while the lack of attention from handsome, distant strangers is interpreted as a lack of men approaching.
I have seen guys who never hit on women on their own level of physical attractiveness, and yet retain the right to blame their lack of success on some unique, and unfair, female preference (usually the reaction is either “women don’t like nice guys”, “women never give guys a chance” or “why don’t women like me?”, usually with no awareness that there are other women than the types they hit on). I haven’t observed women doing it to quite the same extent as men (perhaps because they notice men more in non-sexual contexts), but it seems very common regardless.
And yet, when guys are shown images of perfect models, their reported satisfaction with their own girlfriends drop. You seem to view preferences as some intrinsic part of an individual’s personality, but the fact of the matter is that preferences are shaped, and so is tolerance. We don’t judge in a vacuum, we judge in comparison, which is a good thing – people of different generations and societies are often younger/older, better/less nourished, more/less healthy, and in different shape on average, and it wouldn’t be a feasible survival strategy if that caused the level of sexual interest to rise or decline that rapidly. But it also means that a person is only as attractive as what they’re judged in comparison to, which, in our culture, is often not real.
There are people who lose, not just social skills, but social tolerance, because of isolation and easy satisfaction by the internet and the media. Annoying aspects of people’s personality, which were considered just part of life in earlier times, become intolerable obstacles, and people lose the ability to deal with it, causing them to withdraw further. And the same goes for sex, the guy who spends his time jacking off to Megan Fox, or the girl who stands around waiting for her Edward Cullen, don’t necessarily act as they do because of an intrinsic preference, or a lack of opportunity for genuine affection, but because the dream world is more immediately satisfying, the characters far superior, and the whole thing easier to deal with than reality.
AB,
more later -
“… and the whole thing easier to deal with than reality.”
“Easier” doesn’t really cut it, in my opinion. I suppose this is a lot like avoidance-avoidance procrastination – there’s the cost of having to deal with reality given the individual anxiety level, and there’s the cost of not dealing with it and waking up next to a stack of porn or romance novels next on a Sunday morning instead of a real person you like, or potentially, love. And these two costs create a tension defines a particular person’s comfort zone. And in many instances the comfort zone is too small to get things done, and enlarging it is always risky because if it’s extent to far too quickly, one may find oneself outside one’s comfort zone and then run back home to hide under the cover.
Of course, desire’s are embodiments of both genetically disposed and culturally constructed aspects, as such they don’t exist in isolation of the world around us. It is *because of that* that I would not describe the phenomenon described as inevitable. But people need to be given tools to interact and deal with their own desires and comfort zones in the world they live in for that to change.
@AB:
Really? I’ve been told innumerable times about how awful things are for the women whose only crime is not fitting our cultural standards of beauty. It’s not an exact mirror, but it’s hardly like there’s no movements out there railing against men’s preferences.
This isn’t the point you were making with this, but I get told over and over again that because I share genitals with people who don’t respect boundaries in various ways, I am morally obligated to be mindful of that and treat women accordingly.
I kind of feel like a lot of the issues at hand are essentially this sort of “world we live in” vs “ideal world” thing.
For example, I think we need to have an ethical framework that declares both of the following true or false:
(1)It’s okay for a man to make assumptions about a particular woman based on previous experience with other women.
(2)It’s okay for a woman to make assumptions about a particular man based on previous experience with other men.
I think there’s an effective, ethical PUA where your framework for what’s “ethical” says they’re both true. I think there’s a different effective, ethical PUA where your framework for what’s ethical says they’re both false. I think that any framework declaring (1) false but (2) true is too restrictive of men’s behaviour to allow for the existence of an effective PUA. (And there’s probably already something in the existing SC fitting some framework which is hypocritical in the other direction, but that framework is too lax.)
I’ve been sitting at the computer for way too long thinking “Okay there’s got to be a better way to phrase it.” and I can’t come up with it, so let me know if it makes no sense or you think I’m saying something different from what I mean to say.
@Sam
I’d put this in the same boat as men who have no trouble meeting women (naturally, not through PUA or anything) and say “Any guy can do what I do.” There’s some sort of thing they’re doing without realizing it. (Or without realizing how hard it is for other people to do it.)
@AB:
That’s why I focused on the drink example — to try to extricate the valid part of the point from the morass that you’re talking about here and in other parts of your comment. I’m not defending the overall argument, much less the way in which it was made; I’m pointing out what can produce that kind of argument, and the way in which it is made — that which can serve as its original basis — which only gets worse when ideology is mixed in. There’s a difference.
This is not to say that people should just know that this stuff happens, or that they have an obligation to condemn it before engaging in discussion, or that the absence of any acknowledgment somehow makes another person immune to criticism. It is to say that this can be a dynamic involved in the discussion, and that being aware of it can help to prevent the discussion from going south.
But I want to emphasize that I don’t consider this to be any kind of special case. I’m trying to highlight a pitfall, not argue for any kind of special understanding of circumstance, and I’d emphasize that this particular pitfall is only one among many, of various types and on all sides of the debate.
Agreed, but I don’t think that there’s any contradiction between this and the point I made. That something might be relatively easy to identify, and not require the existence of a community for identifying it, doesn’t mean that there aren’t more and less effective ways of doing it, or that everyone who identifies it would be able to implement it — especially, implement it safely.
I don’t doubt that. I’ve seen, and heard people talk about, the same; in fact, one particular guy I had the misfortune of encountering (the owner of a bar where I was a regular) would routinely and severely ridicule anyone who studied pickup, while doing many of the same things, and doing them even more blatantly than the self-professed PUAs. Said that he didn’t learn any of it, it was “just his way.”
When it comes to the last sentence, I completely agree.
I don’t think that it’s possible to answer that question in an overall way. For some PUAs, yes, and they’d emphasize that the entire process should be playful and fun; for others, not exactly, because they’d point out that comparing getting a drink and getting laid is like comparing apples and rebuilding the engine of your Harley; and for others, getting laid is the equivalent of getting that drink, and they wouldn’t care. But just as you wrote that most of the female posters here would probably take the view that you’re talking about, I think that most of the male posters here, who are into pickup and seduction, would take the first or second view, or a combination of both.
(Though the second would probably range over a number of metaphors, and not just the Harley: dancing, making an origami crane, or maybe working out a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem on a napkin.)
In large measure, I agree: as I wrote, it’s possible to extend from behaviors that a person encounters, or from stories about them that a person hears, and make them into a stereotype, and that does happen in pickup material in the way that you’re pointing out.
That’s precisely my point in focusing on the fact that some of the people that we meet will behave badly, instead of focusing on the specific behaviors, and why I think that it’s relevant to pickup ethics: shifting the focus in that way might help to reduce, or even reverse, that kind of development.
AB,
what Infra said. I think you’re setting the altruism bar way too high here, basically asking to not be strategic at all. People are strategic, we do have the capacity to think ahead as well as incorporate assumptions about other people in our own actions. Also, in many instances one person caring about another person’s happiness is not independent from the former’s assumptions about his own happiness as well as the assumptions the former holds about the extent to which his own happiness matters to the latter.
@AB — And yet, when guys are shown images of perfect models, their reported satisfaction with their own girlfriends drop.
Citation? I’m interested.
A thought that crossed my mind while working just now: tactics that work on both the initiator and the receiver are ethical by default. Maybe? Examples might include time dilation (multiple venue changes in a short period to make it feel like you’ve spent more time together than you actually have), or choosing a good comfort building location for a date (secluded, a good place to talk).
More later.
AB:
*shrugs*
Honestly, I do not see what is wrong with women (or anyone else) trying to get people to buy them drinks. I mean, there are more ethical and less ethical ways to go about it, but the intent and attempt are not unethical in themselves.
I do not think it is practical to go into all of the details of it, but off hand I would suggest that intentionally making someone think you will provide them with something in return for the drink, and then not providing that, is probably not high on the ethics meter.
The more authentic and honest you are in the respects that are likely relevant to the potential drink-providers decision, the better.
At the same time, although being dishonest in those ways may be an asshole move (and depending on the guy it could end with some hurt feelings on his part), and I would certainly advise against doing it, it also is not some horrible crime.
And I am increasingly feeling the same way about a lot of pickup. Of course there are some techniques that really push into unethical territory, but most of it is, at worst, asshole-category stuff.
And I am increasingly feeling the same way about a lot of pickup. Of course there are some techniques that really push into unethical territory, but most of it is, at worst, asshole-category stuff.
I agree with this. I think the techniques that are unethical are really unethical, and have the potential to do real harm. I’m not thrilled with the asshole-category techniques, either, of course. But my main problem is actually not the techniques at all, it’s PUA frameworks and cultures, which is why I focused so hard on phlogiston in the above post. I actually feel like taking most of the techniques out of that culture and frameworks would go a long way towards creating ethical pick-up artistry. The fact that most PUAs phrase things in a horribly misogynist way, and women are so thoroughly reduced to objects or lying whores or what have you, is the worst part. But after that comes the fact that it’s all framing male sexuality as accomplishment, accomplishment, accomplishment, which goes back to a lot of my previous writing on masculinity …. When PUA isn’t framed as all about the notch in the bedpost, when it’s not framed as being about walking into the bar with the hottest girl on your arm, when it’s not framed as dominating the situation all the time, if it were instead framed as being about having a fun mutual time and acknowledging women’s emotions and realities, then that’d be awesome. Some PUAs come close to this, but almost all of them are still stuck in that notch-in-the-bedpost framework.
@Motley #267 — Anyway, that’s… quite a claim. I think you might be missing a few important qualifiers in there.
yeah, on rereading it, you’re right, it’s quite a claim, but it accords with my experience. I freely admit that my experience is limited, however.
This puzzles me. How much of a problem do you really have, talking to people who think you’re sexually defective? If you think someone else has a defective sexuality, does that preclude debating them? Should it, for them, preclude debating you?
This is a good point. I guess … my reaction was more about the haters’ willingness to reduce me to what they see as a fucked-up and defective sexuality, and to then insult me on that basis, and shoehorn everything else about me into those insults. But I did have trouble understanding how Clarence could stand the conversation given that many of the insults against me could equally be applied to him.
@Sagredo #278 — Hmm, are you referring to manipulation of women’s desire, or to manipulating women to do things they don’t desire? Even Roissy seems to restrict himself to the first category.
HughRistik has made similar points, about how most PUAs see their interests as being aligned with women (you manipulate desire, you don’t manipulate them to do things they don’t want to do). But I can’t believe that I’m the first person who’s made the points I’ve made about freeze-outs and how they can basically be used to guilt trip people into doing things they don’t desire. And there are other techniques that are designed to manipulate women to do things they don’t desire. In my Athol Kay blog spree the other day, I read about how he’s basically made it clear to his wife that they have sex every day, period, or else it’s a dealbreaker; and he wrote one post about how they had a fight, they were still getting over it, but she’d still had sex every day since then, and he wrote the sentence something like this:
“We had sex Friday (she squirted), Saturday (she cried) and Sunday morning (she tolerated it).” (I can probably find the quote if you really want, but I’m quite sure I have the sense of it correctly)
This really doesn’t sound to me like he actually thinks she’s doing something she desires. It sounds to me like he’s saying, “Oh well, too bad she doesn’t desire sex sometimes, especially after we’ve had a big fight, but I’ve made it clear to her that this is non-negotiable and therefore she does it, so go me.”
I’d also co-sign what Infra and AB said in response to Sagredo’s comment; to quote Infra –
There’s what a person wants, what a person can be coerced into, and what a person will concede to for reasons other than their own desire. In pickup material, the distinctions between the three aren’t always (or even commonly) identified, much less made clear.
Sagredo also said,
Currently most PUA theory seems to interpret token resistance as another test. “Are you confident enough to push past my token resistance?”
This is troublesome, because if “ethical” PUA starts to damage successful happy outcomes, the project will fail.
That is troublesome. I think the way to sell it may be something that Sam has touched on, and that I’ve thought about a lot but still haven’t quite put into words … basically a primer on how to get past token resistance by teasing, being sexy, and then also making the partner feel really safe. I will add a quote from PUA guru David Shade, which was posted elsewhere by the inimitable Hugh Ristik:
Do not push against last minute resistance. You will be like all the other guys who objectify women and do not respect her as a real person. And it will reek of desperation.
Instead, defer your own gratification for the big goal. The big goal is to bring out that ruthlessly expressive sexual creature in her. It’s going to take a little time before she becomes your very naughty horny little cum slut fuck bitch.
In fact, move things along just slightly slower than she’d like it. Make her wait. It builds that sexual tension, and it makes her think. When she is away from you, she is going to think about it a lot.
I actually think this advice is awesome.
Incidentally, I think I’ve commented before about my experiences with men who set more boundaries than I do. I’ve been slotting that into a kind of anti-slut defense for men lately — or maybe as anti-relationship defense — feeling as though if they have sex with me on the first date, they’re creating expectations on my part, or creating too high a chance that they’ll be seen as a player. Still noodling this concept, though.
@Clarisse:
It’s funny what people consider to be obvious. I sometimes find myself lost in all the abbreviations (not just the PUA ones) and name-dropping that take place in these discussions, starting to wonder whether I should ask people to explain themselves more, or if I’m just not knowledgeable enough to deserve to even post here. And yet, things I consider basic information and can’t conceive of anyone here not knowing about suddenly turn out to require citation. It makes me think I’m not the only one learning.
Anyway, it’s been considered basic information in practically all texts I’ve read on the subject, so I confess to not having any exact quotation ready, and I don’t have access to my books right now. However, a quick google search gave me this study http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3421&context=etd&sei-redir=1#search which reached the same conclusion and also contains plenty of references to earlier studies in the area in the first 20 or so pages.
@Infra:
But how exactly? To me, it just seems like an attempt to create an uneven basis. Wanting to get drinks from men is supposed to be considered de facto wrong, but wanting to get sex from women is supposed to be considered de facto right. People who discuss gender and sexuality should be required to oppose a non-existant society of women exchanging techniques on how to get free drinks at all times, in all discussions, but real members of a society of men exchanging techniques to get sex deserve to be considered with nuance and empathy.
Sure, if the dynamic is relevant to the discussion. But the only way in which I’ve seen women who like to get free drinks from men be relevant to the seduction community is as an explanation of why one should believe the worst of people. All the other stuff can basically be translated to “you(r kind of people) do bad stuff too, so stop criticising me”, which is just non-constructive, not to mention hypocritical considering how much feminists like Clarisse have pointed out women’s bad behaviour.
But my point is that it isn’t that much more obvious than, say, playing on a woman’s insecurities and guilt in order to make her sexually compliant. For instance, I never thought of myself as someone who could get boys to do stuff for me. It came as a total surprise when some of the boys revealed (during a game of truth and dare in the 6th grade) that they thought I was the prettiest girl in school, because they’d never acted like it.
But then a lot of thins happened, almost simultaneously. Puberty removed a lot of fat from my belly and placed it on my breasts, I learned how to play on my insecurities to be more approachable, I developed a lot of real insecurities to help it along, I got an easting disorder, I started wearing more form-fitting clothes and even a bit of make-up, I started shaving and basically cared (and worried) a lot more about my appearance, and I started to hang out with a different crowd.
And suddenly, guys were all over me, and it was wonderful and exhilarating, and even when I started to get tired of it (and started wondering if I hadn’t been happier before when I’d resigned myself to being ugly all my life), it always felt so unachievable that I was afraid to say no lest the feeling go away. But it took a lot to get me to see how much I could affect guys, and even then, I often kept doubting it. And in my experience, I’m far from unique. You notice eventually, but only if you’re the type to get that attention and only if you surround yourself with the right guys.
I just that think that if we’re supposed to see a fictional society of women trying to get drinks as the female equivalent of a real society of men trying to get laid, shouldn’t we approach both of them in the same way, assuming neither malice or harmlessness? And if men defending the real society are so willing to condemn the fictional society (which, by virtue of being fictional, hasn’t even caused any harm yet) out of hand, what makes them so outraged over being given the same treatment themselves? I can’t get it to fit.
@AB:
I suspect that we’re talking about different things here. I’m not saying that getting drinks is de facto wrong; I’m saying that there are cases in which one person intentionally and without qualm manipulates another in order to get drinks, and that that specific behavior can result in responses to deal with it, which can then get generalized into a rule. In order to understand the response, one needs to see it in the context of the behavior. That — the need to see these things in context — is what I’m talking about with the dynamic.
If what you’re arguing against is the view reflected in what I just quoted, which your ending paragraph seems to suggest, then your quarrel isn’t with me. I’m not making that argument, haven’t made it in the past, and don’t see myself making it at any time in the future, barring a severe knock to the head.
I brought it up as relevant simply because it’s a common example of a general guideline. Buying someone a drink, especially as an initial thing, is often referenced as something not to do.
That’s it.
I’d disagree in this particular case, but only because, in this particular case, it isn’t uncommon to see (if you go to a bar where people hit on each other), and it isn’t a terribly complex action. That doesn’t mean that it’s easy to practice, but it isn’t difficult to identify, and isn’t difficult to observe as it’s being done.
In that respect, it is different than playing on someone’s insecurities, because that involves much more complicated, and less easily observable, factors. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be learned by observation, only that we’re not dealing with strict equivalents.
Also: I’m not saying that attempting to get sex from women is de facto right, either. In fact, I was under the impression that I’ve been arguing something different throughout this very thread, so I find it difficult to understand why you’d reference that as if it were something that I believed, supported, or even sympathized with.
Shouldn’t that read “attempting to have sex with women”? It usually helps everything along, if the woman participates in some way.
And if someone has consensual sex with somebody else, what on Earth is wrong with that? And therefore I fail to see why attempting to have it is wrong (or not right). Assholish behaviour is wrong in itself, but I don’t see why the mere attempt at consensual sex should be wrong. Really.
L
@AllSaintsDay:
Actually, that’s not a complaint about what men’s sexual preferences are at all, it’s a complaint about the unwillingness of many of them to restrain their sexual preferences to matters of sex. I think the privilege denying dude meme Clarisse brought up said it quite well with the “I don’t date fat women, so why should I be expected to hire them?”. I have plenty of sex and dating issues as a woman, but apart from semi-medical columns (e.g. “Ask about sex”), I haven’t seen them given much attention, because the non-dating stuff takes up so much space that most people seem to think women have used up their quota.
Eh, yes? I think that’s quite obvious. It’s also in a different category than storming into some feminist debate (like this one) and demand people to take responsibility because some woman failed to prevent you from buying her a drink even though she didn’t want to have sex with you.
That depends on what those assumptions are. If my experience with men tells me that they probably wont respect a no, let alone the lack of a yes, and that some of them even seek out specific techniques for how to best not respect a no, I have a right to be vary and a decide I don’t want to get into a situation with him where sex is an option until I’m sure I want to have sex, or alternatively, trust him enough to feel safe. However, I don’t have the right to tell a specific man, based on nothing more than my experiences with other men, that since he doesn’t mind men not respecting a no, everything he says is invalid. It’s one thing to count on the possibility, it’s another thing completely to treat the person in question as if the possibility was a surety.
There’s also a difference in whether those assumptions are there to protect yourself and whether they’re just convenient. For instance, me taking precautions against a man potentially not respecting a no should be acceptable, especially since the worst thing I risk subjecting him to is not getting to take me home. However, even though my experience with men tells me that they’re always horny and only want sex, it does not give me the right to not respect a man’s boundaries, let alone assume that he doesn’t have any. It might be convenient for me to do so, but it’s not related to my own safety, and it can cause considerable harm if I make the wrong judgement.
@AB
That exists as well, and is rightfully more prevalent, but I’ve also seen plenty of lamenting about how some physical characteristic (usually involving weight or breast size) dooms women to perpetual loneliness.
I disagree. I think that’s about as obvious as a woman’s responsibility to prove herself to be serious and intelligent, not ditzy like those women. Or as obvious as a black man’s responsibility to show how he’s “one of the good ones.”
I think very little of anyone who would lay that sort of a horrific onus on someone. I’m not going to stop thinking that when the burden of “showing you’re one of the good ones” is being laid on me instead of someone else.
Definitely. But it’s not going to go away, for reasons I don’t want to go into here (lest this thread also turn into whatever the latest Manliness thread has become). But reasons I think are at least somewhat justified.
Yes. I think there are two things wrong with how I phrased it above, first that it needs to be finer-grained than what I said, and secondly that there are other things outside of those sorts of assumptions where male and female behavior need to be leveled (e.g., responsibility to tentatively take someone’s words at face value). But I still think that the basic idea of needing some sort of framework is true. And if that framework justifies a behavior from women while prohibiting it in men, whether it does so explicitly or implicitly,* I don’t think the “ethical PUA” idea can succeed.
*By this I mean, for example, that if you give a huge amount of importance to “feeling unsafe,” then you’re not going to be able to come up with an ethical effective PUA, because that will end up restricting male behavior too much, even if you didn’t start from the premise of “it’s okay for women but not for men.” At the very least, you’d have to pull a lot of it back to “being unsafe.” This is one version of what I meant by “world we live in” vs “ideal world.” In an better world, women wouldn’t feel unsafe as often as they do in this one. So a principle like “make sure she doesn’t feel unsafe,” which would be unproblematic in an ideal world, may end up being too restrictive for effectiveness in this world. (Entire footnote to be taken as IMO.)
Huh. And I thought that making a woman feel safe was actually a pretty important subgoal in pickup artistry.
I’ve known women who feel unsafe when any unknown man approaches them in a bar. To what degree does pickup artistry make it a goal to make sure they feel safe?
It seems to me that if they’re not just considered collateral damage, the idea is that you’ll make them feel unsafe at first but eventually work your way around to making them feel safe. In other words, it’s okay, under certain circumstances, like the initial contact, to make them feel unsafe.
@ Lucky72 (#362):
Well, in modern society, sex is often conceptualised as something that women give to men as a reward for whatever (whether it’s being rich, or buying her dinner, or doing something she wants him to, or something else that either he or she thinks deserves a reward). The PUA framework effectively recasts it as the reward women give to men for performing PUA well enough.
So “attempting to get sex from women” is an accurate portrayal of the social narrative that tends to operate in terms of what happens when a man and a woman shag each other. That the process of this procurement of sexual pleasure is based on her consent rather than simply raping her makes the purpose no different. Just as the objective of trade is to get something from someone else by providing goods or a service in return, rather than out-and-out robbing them, relations between men and women are frequently cast as “what does the man have to trade (acts he has to perform) in order to get (her to consent to) sex?”
@SnowdropExplodes:
Actually, the whole point of the old “I’m the prize” mentality is to reverse that: it isn’t that sex is a reward that women give to men for performing PUA well enough, it’s that it’s recast into the PUA performing things well enough to be seen as the reward for the woman’s behavior, which is why there’s such a strong emphasis placed upon DHV, compliance testing, etc. In that framework, it isn’t a “getting” mentality so much as a “displaying and persuading her to accept” one.
It isn’t the only framework, but it’s common enough. And that’s kind of the point: pickup doesn’t involve a framework, it involves multiple ones, with some of them being explicit and some not.
@ SDE
That the process of this procurement of sexual pleasure is based on her consent rather than simply raping her makes the purpose no different.
Well, the fact that males seek the consent of females, shows that woman are the gateskeepers in this process. The women chose who of their suitors make the cut. For the males out there it’s a zero sum game, with the women in charge.
L
Tangentially, here’s a close-up on one dude’s madonna/whore complex:
http://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/gsbb9/girlfriend_haad_3mnth_bdsm_relationship_having/
Argh so annoying.
@Clarisse – Dude at least seems peripherally aware that it’s his issue rather than something wrong with the girl.
I kind of think that most of us have something that we’re hung up on or fucked up about. The people who impose their issues on th rest of the world and reject all forms of sexuality that don’t match their own comfort thresholds, from Jeebus will be done/no orgasms for the wimmins/all the sex you want as long as it’s oral or vaginal between one man and one woman only/there must be flower petals and barry white music or your a whore – all suck. But if they’re limiting their beliefs to their own sex life? They’re a leg up on the majority of douchebags. And if they can approach their discomfort with their own sex life as their own problem that they need to work through, possibly with a therapist – that’s a massive improvement on the majority of people who have an opinion on the sex lives of others.
I know a lot of guys in the kink scene who’ve had real problems coming to terms with their view of women. Not in a ‘threatened by past partners’ sort of context but in a ‘Oh god, I hit a girl and got a hard on, can her consent/mutual enjoyment really make that ok?’ and I’ve talked to guys in the past who were struggling to find a form of kink they can comfortably explore while having those kind of issues, but wanting to support a masochistic partner.
I think a lot of the guys who recognise that their discomfort with other people’s sexuality is their problem, not the rest of the worlds, and the ones who are actually prepared to try and work through it? get a lot of credit in my book.
I can certainly understand why a relatively straight laced guy might be uncomfortable about the fact that his partner had gone exploring the more extreme sexual boundaries and had experienced those things, and was still in regular contact with her partner from those explorations.
His comments seem pretty clear that he recognizes that this is something that he needs to work through and that it’s not logical, he’s booked in a trip to his psychologist since he’s having problems with it. As Madonna/Whore complexes go – there’s a dude who’s at least trying to do the right things.
Scootah — agreed, I don’t mean to sound like I’m coming down on him harshly. I thought that link was mainly fascinating because it shows how much power those complexes can have even for someone who’s aware of them and determined to work through them. That’s what’s so annoying about it — it’s so hard for people to think their way around these things. I wish I actually knew how people got over these things, but I just don’t have a clue how it happens or how to facilitate it, except for the ideas I floated in my post on sexual openness.
I don’t have any kind of whore/madonna complexes – I often have the discussion with male friends that their views on women are stupid, and how much better would dating be if judgemental douchebags didn’t give women guilt trips about having an active sexuality – but instead celebrated that it’s awesome when the people we want to fuck, also enjoy fucking.
I do have a little sympathy for people with hangups who are having to work through it. My issues are a little odd – I have an OCD/Aspergers thing dating back to my childhood. I HATE having sticky hands. As a kid, it freaked me right out and I had to wash my hands after I played with anything dirty. It’s not any kind of germ or dirt thing – it’s the sensation of my hands not being clean. And Sticky sensation on my hands? The worst. Making cookies where you have to roll the batter into a ball? Almost unbearable – I have to wash my hands after every cookie.
Having a fairly adventurous/interesting sex life – that’s a problem. Lube on my hands is a practical necessity for many things that I quite enjoy – and having to go and wash my hands immediately after applying the lube, or wearing gloves – isn’t usually sexy. It took a lot of work on my part to be able to manage that reflex response in a way that let me not be a mutant.
That sort of response is so clearly my issue. It’s clearly a neurosies on my part and there’s no framework for expecting other people to cope with my sensitivities in that regard. For a guy who has issues with non conventional sexuality, and sexualizes the loving/tender/convetional ideal – there’s a MASSIVE social support frame to reinforce the idea that he’s not the one with a problem – anyone outside of his comfort zone is weird. It’s a much bigger thing to come at that as something he needs to work through, rather than a reason to reject people who creep him out.
@Sam:
That’s a god way of putting it, though I’d focus a little less on anxiety and a little more on satisfaction. It’s a bit like an addiction – or, to put it more mildly, when I stop eating candy, fruit eventually start tasting a lot better because my brain and taste buds are no longer accustomed to an overload of sweetness. But the period of adjusting is usually frustrating and unsatisfactory, and there’s no guarantee it will have the desired effect, just because it’s happened (to me) before.
You seem to distinguish between instinct – a basic model for the perfect partner – and culture – an outside force changing the instinctual model of the perfect partner. I’d say a more correct way of looking at it would be to say that few instinctual model exist (not even the 0.7 WtH ratio for women, though the 0.9 WtH ratio for men might count), but that we’re genetically disposed to react in certain ways to certain outside factors.
For instance, men for whom starvation is a real and prominent threat are more attracted to fat women than men in societies with an abundance of food (women’s preferences, for obvious reasons, are less changeable in this aspect), because a fat partner, signalling lots of spare energy, is a huge advantage in a society short on food, but a potential liability otherwise. Personal preferences happen, but this is the general pattern. And likewise, it would not make any sense if an abundance of healthy and fertile individuals would not cause people’s standards to increase, and a subsequent lack of said individuals cause the standards to drop.
Given that the standards in our society is, for a large part, set by the media, it means that they’re extremely high. The effect depends largely on how much people have internalised the media image, and in that respect, I can imagine that guys who have trouble talking to women would spend more time compensating for it in fiction and thus be more likely to internalise the media image, but that does not mean they’d be interested, let alone satisfied, if ordinary girls started to pay attention to them.
But more to the point, there’s a difference between accepting people’s desires and accepting it to be problematic if they can’t get said desires met. For instance, it’s one thing to accept that the guys in my previous example, who never hit on girls on their own level of physical attractiveness, have all the right in the world to only want partners who can bring something to the relationship that the guys are unable/unwilling to give in return, but it’s another thing completely to say that their lack of romantic success is due to some fundamental flaw in society, or some sign that, as Lucky 72 claimed, the dating scene is a zero sum game for men, with the women in charge.
@Infra:
And yet the dynamic is still the same. In one example, the man does a lot of non-sexual (in the sense that it’s not directly related to intercourse) stuff to convince the woman that he deserves to get sex, in the other, the man threatens to take the non-sexual stuff (intimacy, attention) away unless the woman gives him sex in return, or convince the woman that what he has to offer, non-sexually, is worth so much that she better work real hard (by giving him sex whether she wants it or not) to get to deserve it. In both cases, having the woman have sex for its own sake, with no feeling of obligation and no expectation to get anything but sex in return, is not considered a viable, or satisfying, option.
PUAs might rephrase it and claim that by making sex an obligation for women, they’re actually giving them an excuse to have sex, which is what they all really want deep down inside, but the result is identical. That’s not to say there aren’t other ways for men and women to relate sexually, but they don’t seem to be prominently discussed in much of the seduction community, because, as people have (rightly) pointed out before, the SC is mainly about adjusting to benefit from the status quo, not to question it or try to find alternatives.
@AB:
You might be confusing this with the freeze-out. They’re completely different things. If you’re sure that you’re talking about the “prize” mindset, here, I’d appreciate a reference, because I haven’t seen it described that way in any of the materials that I’ve read. That’s especially the case when it comes to “whether she wants it or not.”
A mindset that says “I’m on display, and I’m offering something that’s worth having” is worlds away from one that says “do this or else.”
@Infra:
That was the second example, showing her that what he has is so valuable that she needs to give him sex to deserve it (or lowering her perceived value to make what he offers seem more valuable in comparison). I’m just saying that except for Hugh Ristik’s advise to not push against last minute resistance, most of the advice seems to be about making the woman offer sex in return for something else, or feeling like sex is required in the situation.
Even HR’s advise have an aspect of this, because moving things slower than what people like can often cause them to be more willing to go along with things they usually wouldn’t, whether it’s for fear of having things slowed down further, or a feeling that at least they’re getting something. But at least it’s focussed on making the woman horny and making her seek out sex because of an honest desire to have sex, which is miles ahead of most tactics.
@AB:
And this is the part that I haven’t seen mentioned, and for which I’d like a reference. The way that I’ve always seen it, it’s that he will not give the sexual part of himself to her if he feels that she doesn’t deserve it. She can’t provide sex in order to become deserving, because if he didn’t consider her deserving, they wouldn’t be having sex. Similarly, lowering her perceived value would work against things, not for them, because part of being deserving is being valuable enough for him to give that part of himself to her.
That’s the whole point of the “prize” mindset. It’s the opposite of what you’re talking about here. What you’re describing is more along the lines of how things work with pure and simple arrogance.
(In hindsight, I’m guessing that you might have thought that the “I’m the prize” mindset was the same as the standard “I have a good job, nice car and fat wallet” mindset. Not the same thing.)
@Infra:
But that presupposes that the part of him she was interested in in the first place was sex. It’s just as often attention, regard, intimacy, acknowledgement of her sexual (and therefore general) worth etc. Things like negs and active shows of disinterest could tell a woman that a man’s sexual value is high. But it could just as easily tell her that her value is low and cause her to be willing to have sex with the man in order to regain a sense of self-worth.
As I have said earlier, the guys who’ve gotten the strongest sexual reactions from me are pretty exclusively those who manage to make me relax and see sex as its own goal. The guys who basically communicate to me “I like you, I respect you, I find you attractive, these feelings are not contingent on you having sex with me and sex is not likely to buy you anything from me either”. Many PUA suggestions seem more or less designed to crush that feeling, and while I could see some of them temporarily working on me by targeting my insecurities in the past (though I don’t know about the present), I would still close up when it came to sex as I always did, and it would just leave me miserable.
@AB:
Not really. It just doesn’t assume that she isn’t, or might not be later on; it suspends judgment, and encourages her to express that interest when and if it’s there. In the end, it’s simply taking the position that it’s possible for him, as a sexual person, to be desired, and that it’s possible for her, as a sexual person, to feel desire for him.
Not much of an argument when it comes to the rest, in regard to technique, but I think that part of it is the techniques, and (a large) part of it is how they’re done.
@Infra:
No, in order to say it reverses the dynamic, you have to establish that the woman is interested in sex. You could say that it reverses the role in that it makes the woman chase the man, but that does not in any way suggest that sex from said man is what’s considered valuable.
Usually, men are accorded more regard and respect in our society, they’re assumed to be more intelligent (link, since I know I’ll be asked for it), and women’s worth is heavily linked with male appreciation. For my own part, a very large amount of the criticism I’ve gotten online is that I must be ugly in real life, as a way to undermine my credibility and disregard my concerns (also an interesting double-bind because I can’t disprove the criticism without confirming it’s validity), and I’ve seen Rush Limbaugh’s claim that feminism is a way to allow ugly women access to mainstream society (the assumption being that women, per definition, are only included in mainstream society if they appeal to men sexually) repeated quite a few times.
A lot of flirting, and gendered interactions in general, are done on basis of this inequality. That’s part of the reason why a man listening to a woman is considered highly desirable (for her), while a woman listening to a man is considered normal, because women are expected to pay more attention to men than vice versa. I’ve even seen a theory that men are biologically unable to pay much attention to what women say, because the words don’t register in their brain with the same ease as the words of other men. The man confirms, by his attention and possibly by buying her drinks, that a woman has some worth, and the woman repays that attention by giving sex to the man.
Getting the woman to chase the man doesn’t remove this dynamic, it just means that, rather than her trying to milk him for as much attention and signs of affection as possible in exchange for as little sex as possible, he’s now trying to milk her for as much sex as possible in exchange for as little attention and signs of affection as possible. It’s still not necessarily about sex for her, but rather about self-esteem, status, and a feeling of worth. Being presented with a guy who might not want to have sex with her isn’t just intriguing because of the challenge (though it certainly can be in some cases), but can also be frustrating because she sees it as reflecting badly on her.
My point about what turns me on, is that at that point, the whole issue of attention, affection, respect, regard, and worthiness is already resolved. There’s no imbalance, no chase, nothing to accomplish except feeling good. I don’t have to worry about what I’ll lose if I don’t have sex with the guy, because I already know what I’ll lose: The chance to have sex with him and nothing more. Not the chance to get intimate with him, or the chance to show that I’m good enough for him, which is what I feel a lot of PUA techniques rely on.
@AB:
If I say that it establishes that, it becomes proof that it minimizes or ignores other things that she might want; if I say that it doesn’t establish that, then it doesn’t reverse the dynamic, and we’re stuck with a “getting” mentality that produces the same kind of thing. But I’m not saying either of those things. I’m saying that it suspends judgment on it, and produces a way out of the bind.
Anyway, I’ll chalk my experiences when adopting that mindset up to being an anomaly. Seemed to work quite different, but I guess that was just us particular folk.
Clarisse asked AB:
Kenrick et al. also found this effect. They also found another effect: women’s reported satisfaction with their boyfriends dropped with exposure to images of dominant men.
AB said:
That’s because sex is potentially more beneficial to women than buying drinks is to men. Trying to get a drink for the privilege of paying a little attention to someone is an asymmetrical situation. Having sex with someone can potentially be a more symmetric situation, including casual sex.
(Of course, notice my use of the word “potentially.” Sex can be asymmetric, and benefit one person much more than the other, especially if people are on different pages about expectations, or one person works harder to please the other, or pressure occurs. Those negative outcomes happen in some cases of pickup, but they are not at all inherent.)
Yes. That’s because at least some of the men who want to have sex also want it to be mutually beneficial experience. Many, perhaps even most PUAs fall into this class (yes, even if they use bedpost-notching language on PUA forums). In contrast, women who want drinks from men are trying to create an asymmetrical experience, unless they intend on buying drinks back.
I think it’s more of issue of “you don’t criticize your people when they do bad stuff, so why should we trust your views about what’s good and bad?” PUAs have a hard time trusting people who ethically criticize them, when those people don’t level the same amount of moral scrutiny towards women. Remember when Clarisse said she has trouble trusting people who don’t seem interested in social justice? Similar thing there.
The potential upside of men trying to get laid is that women also get laid, and have a good time doing so. The potential upside of women trying to get drinks from men is… what, exactly? The worst case scenario in both cases is bad for the other party, but the best case scenario of men trying to get laid is a symmetrical and mutually beneficial interaction, while the best case scenario of women learning to get drinks from men isn’t nearly so good for men.
It might be helpful to not use the term “getting laid” (which make it sound like sex is something that men just take from women without benefiting those women), and use a more neutral term like “facilitate consensual sexual interactions.” Men trying to facilitate consensual sexual interaction is potentially more beneficial to women than women trying to facilitate men buying drinks for them, so those things are not in the same moral category.
@Hugh Ristik:
But is it really? It has been demonstrated repeatedly that giving can produce as much happiness as taking. The feeling of doing something good for others, as well as demonstrating the capacity and resources necessary to do so, is in itself potentially pleasurable. I have had several guys offering (sometimes even insisting) to buy me drinks even though I’d made it perfectly clear that they weren’t getting sex in return, and in some cases, even though they knew I had a boyfriend.
I could choose to assume that, being male, they were all lying and secretly expecting that what most hookers wouldn’t do for 50$, I would be obliged to do for 5$, but I think there’s a chance that for some of them, the act of providing something for a pretty girl was appealing in itself. It’s certainly not unusual for guys to enjoy playing rescuer to a damsel in distress that they’ll probably never see again (assuming, of course, that said damsel is sufficiently conventionally attractive and correctly dressed and painted), so why should a drink be that much different?
In terms of drinks:
I’m more broke than pretty much anyone I know, so I often find myself in the position of being invited out to places I can’t really afford. In these situations, I usually make it pretty clear that I can’t afford it (or I plan to buy nothing or spend more than I should, I guess). I usually tell them, “We can go somewhere cheap that I can afford, or you can take me somewhere nice.” A lot of people I know will just pay for me (some women are included in this, but it’s usually men).
Some guys will negotiate a small trade that isn’t actually financially even, but is designed to make everyone feel more comfortable about the situation (“I’ll get the $120 dinner, you buy me a $10 drink afterwards” although it’s usually not quite so explicitly stated). Some guys will just pay for me and not worry about it. It seems to be worth it for these guys.
Sometimes I find myself in bars or something with guys offering to buy me drinks (this doesn’t actually happen very often — my bar game isn’t good, despite what Sam says about any woman being able to just walk in and get drinks ;). That can be more awkward, because it’s not an easy situation in which to have a full-on feminist conversation about exchange dynamics and the commodity model. I still haven’t mastered this, but I also don’t get the feeling that these guys are feeling cheated when they buy me a drink and talk to me for a while. Also — it’s worth noting that I have actually been in situations where a guy bought me a drink at a bar, I wasn’t very impressed with him initially but I stuck around to talk to him because I felt like that was implicit in the exchange, and he ended up impressing me. So buying the drink did what it’s supposed to do — it gave him the chance to win me over a little bit, which he wouldn’t have had otherwise.
AB said:
It’s true that both people can feel symmetrically happy in the end, but it doesn’t change the fact that the situation itself it asymmetrical: his wallet still ends up lighter. If he is buying the drink to have a conversation, then it assumes that he is not equally as interesting and valuable as a person.
In contrast, sex doesn’t take something away from the woman (when it occurs in a healthy context).
The fact that some men enjoy this sort of interaction doesn’t make it symmetrical. (Furthermore, I would argue that many of these men suffer from false consciousness, and perhaps would not buy women drinks if they understood the arguments against doing so.) Even if enjoyment is symmetrical, resource expenditure is not. In the case of sex, both enjoyment and resource expenditure can more easily be symmetrical.
As an analogy, many women enjoy cooking or cleaning for the husbands and boyfriends. Yet even if the woman enjoys cooking dinner just as much as the man enjoys eating it, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the woman spent more time and energy to create that outcome. Even though it’s not wrong to let your girlfriend cook you dinner, you shouldn’t take it for granted, and the resulting interaction is not as symmetrical as watching a movie together, cooking together, or having sex together.
@ Lucky 72 (#469):
Actually, it doesn’t do anything of the sort, if men are the ones deciding what the standards “should” be, and calling her “frigid” or a “slut” if she chooses different standards from the ones they think she should.
For more on this topic, check out Figleaf @ Real Adult Sex and the stuff he’s written about the “worthiness trap” and the “no-sex class”.
@ AB and Infra (ongoing debate):
I think that Infra has a point, although it doesn’t directly contradict my statement. PUA does, in fact, have versions with an internal game of “I’m worth something, I’m the prize.” Heck, I’ve developed that as part of my internal game and there’s good things about having that internal self-image and self-respect.
But the impression I have from a lot of the links that have been presented in this thread is that there is an undercurrent of “I develop this so that I can get laid”, not as an end in itself. That is, it becomes “If I cultivate a good enough sense of ‘I am the prize’, then I will win the prize, which is sex with a woman.”
There is also the external element, in which the performance has the stated intention of “winning” by getting to have sex with a woman that the AFCs won’t get to. This produces the effect that, whatever the technique (for example, “I am the prize”) the woman is in the position of prize-giver.
The problem with that is that a prize that someone has to be persuaded to accept doesn’t sound like much of a prize at all. In fact, “persuading her to accept” sounds a lot to me like, “convincing her to award me the prize instead of someone else.”
This simply raises the question of “seen by whom?” If it is the PUA himself, then he is setting the standards by which the gatekeeper should award the prize (see remarks to Lucky 72), and if she decides she isn’t interested in that prize and chooses to act as she wishes rather than as he wishes, the same social stigma can be attached to her by the PUA. But if it is the woman who is deciding whether or not he is good enough to be a reward for her behaviour, the question arises of why she thinks she needs to be rewarded, and that raises questions about low self-esteem and exploiting vulnerability (especially if she is choosing to measure her value against his demands for her behaviour, rather than against her own standards).
Oh shit HR said false consciousness! (Whaaaaat?)
@SnowdropExplodes:
I’d agree with the first part, but not so much with the second. It can involve “If I cultivate a good enough sense of ‘I am the prize,’ then I will be able to be sexual with the women I want to have sex with,” but that isn’t the same as “[winning] the prize, which is sex with a woman.” The difference is much the same as that between “I’m getting a college degree because I want to work in this field” and “I’m getting a college degree because jobs in this field pay well, and they require people to have one.” That neither has education as its own end doesn’t erase the difference between the two. (It’s for this reason that the external element that you mentioned is one that I don’t see as being determinative in producing a “the woman is still the prize-giver” situation.)
Even the most basic types of flirting, for both women and men, both proactive and proceptive, are “persuasion to accept” of one kind or another. If that necessarily connects to “award me the prize,” then… well, we’re pretty much screwed. The only way out would be to surrender personal agency and become solely reactive.
You raise a good point here, though I think that there are two possible (main) dynamics. One is that she feels that she needs to be rewarded with male attention; the other is that she would like to have an interest in her, specifically, shown by him, specifically (which is what’s involved in the “prize” mindset). What you’re talking about is, I think, primarily involved in the first; the second, as with the above, isn’t much different from any other type of flirting.
Being aware of possible issues related to self-esteem and vulnerability is necessary, I’d agree. But I don’t think that the “prize” mindset, in itself, increases the risk of exploiting them, any more than simply having healthy self-esteem, boundaries, selectivity, respect for one’s own sexuality, etc. in oneself does so. Which is basically all that the “I’m the prize” mindset, in its most basic form, is.
Sad thing, of course, is that having those qualities can negatively interact with someone’s issues of low self-esteem and vulnerability, in making them feel even less worthwhile or even more desperate for attention and interaction. But that isn’t an argument against having them.
Clarisse:
I absolutely agree with this.
I will, however, reiterate something I have (I think) said before, which is that “sex as accomplishment”, “inherently valuable female sexuality”, and “inherently harmful male sexuality” all go hand-in-hand with each other. And the latter two are, I suspect, going to need to be ruthlessly deconstructed* if we are to make significant headway on the former.
In fact, I would suggest that a lot (though not all) of the “accomplishment” in PUA is getting women to consider your sexuality valuable. That is a huge fucking deal for almost any guy. And until that stops being a huge fucking deal, it is hard for me to envision a way to combat such accomplishment-based thinking.
So perhaps a first step in ethical pickup is teaching guys that their own sexuality is more–and women’s sexuality less–valuable than they think.
* Deconstruction of both of those will be met with stiff resistance from a variety of sources, I suspect. For example, looking at much of the general feminist reaction to your masculinity writing is not terribly encouraging. And, similarly, I rather doubt many women would respond positively to attempts to temper the value of their sexuality in our society.
@ Infra (#491):
I don’t quite follow the analogy, or understand why one involves a prize and the other doesn’t? It seems to me that there are just distinctions in the conception of what the prize is. I hear, “I do this because I want a prize” and “I do this because it gives me a better chance at getting the prizes I am interested in.”
I think that what I am trying to get at is that interactions that have a clear end goal (e.g. “being sexual with [this woman] I want to have sex with”) become competitive in some sense – you can “win” or “lose” based on that objective measure, and the end goal becomes a “prize”. Framing the interaction itself, regardless of the outcome, as an end in itself makes the interaction into a prize, and a positive experience can be enjoyed as just that. In this version, neither person is “the prize” as such, but a sense of “I have value in myself and I am someone who is desirable and can be desired” is a very important step in persuading oneself that it is possible to have pleasurable interactions with someone (regardless of how sexual that ends up being).
I think the key points here are, “persuade to accept what?” and “one kind or another.” If “persuasion to accept” includes displaying what you genuinely have and then leaving the decision up to her, then that would be a difference in our interpretations of the phrase. Because to me, it sounds like she’s already taken a look and not shown any interest, so something more has to be done to persuade her to change her mind. It’s the difference between her saying, “I like and want this person” and her saying “I need to get this person for this to have been worthwhile.” PUA seems from its language to want the latter. I very much want the former! (This ties in with the self-esteem issue.)
On the “what?” question, is it “accept me”, “accept having a conversation with me” or “accept having sex with me” that the man is trying to persuade her to do? If we see the interaction as a goal in itself then we can ignore the other two entirely and leave it to her to make her own mind up by the end of the conversation whether she wants (rather than merely accepts) the person (or the idea of sex with that person). At the same time, the man can also be finding out if he even wants it to go further than a nice conversation.
It looks like we’ve come full circle and back to our discussion about Dimitri Vorontzov’s book and “making it fun”. I certainly agree with that idea of making a conversation fun for the other person (and, of course, oneself), I just didn’t like his approach to doing so!
@Xakudo:
I think you need to go a step further, and instate that what Clarisse talked about as being the worst about the way PUAs choose to frame things, the way women are reduced to objects and their value is linked so heavily with male (sexual) appreciation, go hand-in-hand with female sexual scarcity and threatening male sexuality.
@SnowdropExplodes:
For me, it’s more “I do this because it allows me to live a life that I enjoy” versus “I do this because, through doing it, I gain something else, something that other people recognize as valuable and that I can use as proof of my achievements.” To go back to the original point, I’d agree that the second goes to “[winning] the prize, which is sex with a woman,” but I’d say that the first isn’t beholden to it.
But, from your comment, it seems like things have switched from being about “the prize, which is sex with a woman” to the issue of “the outcome is a prize” in general. That, I think, is a very different discussion.
That’s what I would consider to be a surrender of agency. Personally, when someone approaches our interaction in that way, it’s a sure-fire method of killing off whatever attraction there might have been; if there’s no proactive or proceptive engagement on their part, and things are limited to display, it’s over. That probably explains our differences on this point.
Hunh. That’s an assumption that I wouldn’t have made, in the absence of any actual description of the situation. I just wouldn’t have assumed anything one way or the other about it.
I see a third option here: “I like and want this person, and I’m going to actively pursue a connection with them, because I don’t want to lose the opportunity to get to know them.”
Any of these, or any of a number of other possible options, depending upon where things are in the interaction and upon how the interaction, as a process, is altering our interests. Again, there seem to be some assumptions that you’re making here that just wouldn’t occur to me to make, not without the context of the actual interaction as a reference.
Possibly. But I’m beginning to suspect that our differences in how we interact with people, and, in particular, in what we expect from those interactions, are far more profound than that example alone would suggest.
@ Infra:
Okay, I see what you’re getting at. Your analogy and your phrasing still both sounded to me like, “[winning] the prize, which is sex with a woman,” it was just that one was more choosy about what sort of woman was “good enough” to count as a prize.
If I have understood you correctly, the difference could be that between, “This (relationship with a) woman is my reward,” and, “This relationship with this woman is rewarding.” I would definitely agree with that distinction and it was an undercurrent in what I was saying.
No, I think I agree with your statement, but I feel as though you have not understood mine in the way I intended it.
What I’m getting at is: “Here’s what I’m like. I like you, do you like me?” rather than “I like you, and I think you should like me.” But the “I like you” bit (or at least, “I want to find out if I like you”) is vital, of course it is.
I really believe that a lot of this is in what we read into the phrase “persuade to accept”. To me “persuade” sounds coercive and indicative of reversing or influencing a decision rather than giving someone what they need to make their own decision. “Accept” sounds like “good enough, I suppose” rather than the enthusiastic consent that is the standard we are encouraged to embody in our relationships. So “persuade to accept” sounds like “influence (possibly by coercion) a person to settle for something that either they do not really want, or they do not value highly” – it smacks of “dodgy market trader”. While accepting that this need not be the basis of PUA approach, to get from that language to whatever is the actual approach is too big of a leap for my interpretations of that language to make.
This is getting heavily nuanced. I see the phrase, “I’m going to actively pursue a connection with them,” to be implicit anyway in, “I like and want this person.” But adding the phrase, “I don’t want to lose the opportunity to get to know them,” bothers me because I don’t understand why someone would think that the opportunity could be lost. It sounds to me like the negative, coercive, interpretation that has been discussed in this thread of the “freeze-out” and similar techniques.
Well, the assumptions I’m making are that, in the statement, “Even the most basic types of flirting, for both women and men, both proactive and proceptive, are ‘persuasion to accept’ of one kind or another,” then:
a) there are different kinds of “persuasion to accept”, and
b) when someone is flirting, there is something that this someone wants to have accepted.
Since what these are is not obvious to me, I seek to clarify what you mean in each instance. I think that “persuasion to accept” means something different to you than what it means to me (see above). On the thing being accepted, I asked, “what type of situation are we discussing here?” and you answered, “it depends on the type of situation.” You also implied that there are things in your definition of flirting that are not covered by my instinctive understanding of the term (meaning I would probably not call them flirting but something else).
This may be true. It might purely be linguistic differences, but of course, language is both informed by, and the means of, interacting with others. If, for example, we have differing conceptions of a flirt, then what you experience as a flirt might completely pass me by. It may also be that I would never understand all flirting as “persuasion to accept”.
@SnowdropExplodes:
Yeah, that’s what I was getting at, so we’re pretty much on the same page there. I’d extend the second to say “Being able to have relationships with women is rewarding,” rather than using the singular (though the plural doesn’t eliminate the singular, or its value, by any means), but that wouldn’t change the point in any fundamental way.
I’d agree that the reading is an issue, and part of the difference is probably in the fact that I see it in the context of making an active offer, and not just one of presentation. “Persuade” simply reflects the active component of the action — say, highlighting what we see as our most attractive qualities, which is, IMO, something markedly different from coercion and intentional misrepresentation — and “accept” is simply a way of referring, in general, to the response, which could range from subtle to a degree of enthusiastic that would put the primal to shame.
I guess that I’ve heard things like “I like him, but I don’t want to show it until I know that he likes me” and similar often enough to see the one as not necessarily implicit in the other.
Sometimes we meet people by chance and, without pursuing the opportunity, don’t get to see them again. Other times, there’s a window of opportunity for things to deepen, one that might not present itself later on (different social circumstances, moments of connection, etc.). More than anything else, this is just an acknowledgment that things can be transient. Things like the freeze-out, in my view, result from a failure to accept that, not from its acknowledgment.
(To go back to the earlier reference to the Sophists, what I’m talking about here is essentially what’s meant by “kairos,” or “the opportune moment.”)
Not so much “it depends on the type of situation” as “that can’t be answered from outside of the context of the situation, in the moment that’s being considered.” To me, asking “what type of situation are we discussing here?” is akin to asking “what’s on the screen?” about a movie: it makes sense in the context of a particular shot or scene, but not in the context of the overall film.
Your question, I think, is one that makes more sense as “what’s the plot of the movie?” But what I’m getting at is a more open-ended, co-created story approach, so that question isn’t one that can be answered in anything other than the most general terms (e.g., “two people in a potentially intimate interaction”).
I wasn’t implying that, but it might be accurate. I suspect that my definition of flirting (or, more broadly, seduction) is more expansive than the one that you’d choose to use.
Okay. I guess the language I would use to mean the same thing would be more like “invite to welcome” or something along those lines (not quite the same nuances, although if the association of “invite” with “be inviting” is made then it’s in the same area, no?)
So I may understand better if translate your “persuade” as my “invite” or “be inviting”, and your “accept” as my “welcome (on some level)”.
That sort of thing would totally pass me by and leave me feeling “Oh, she’s not interested, I guess we’ll just be friends”, so in that sense I guess I really do have different expectations of interactions with people.
Okay. I picked up something from the word “lose” that you hadn’t intended. It sounded like the “freeze-out” to me because I felt as though “losing the opportunity” was some kind of threat being held over her, rather than a simple recognition of transient moments passing us by.
Yes, “What’s the plot of the movie?” was the question I was trying to ask. But if there is something that you want to be accepted, then does that not guide your part in the co-creation? The idea I was getting at is that the movie itself is the reward (that is, the thing you want accepted is the opportunity to co-create it), rather than, “I want a movie with this type of ending, and must find a way to make a potential partner to do her bit in creating that.”
@SnowdropExplodes:
Pretty much. Like you wrote, the remaining matter would be one of nuance, so the two are equivalent enough. That said, though, I think that the nuance part is worth mentioning, and I think that where it lies is in that, instead of an accomplishment or achievement mindset, I tend to take a facilitation one.
It’s the same thing as is involved with the issue of actively pursuing a connection, really: there might be things that a person might want to express, but, for one reason or another, they might feel that they’re unable to do so, or that there’s too much of a risk of damaging the interaction (meaning that this is a separate issue from risk in general, as with what’s been discussed in the “detrimental attitudes” thread) in doing so. Or they might be hesitant because of, say, the way in which their previous relationships have gone.*
Considering that, invitation isn’t always enough; there also has to be enough comfort for someone to be able to welcome what they want to welcome, enough to bridge the gap between the desire to act and the ability to enact it.
A substantial part of seduction, to my mind, lies in providing that bridge.
It does, but I think that it’s also possible to approach things with multiple possible outcomes in mind — multiple possible paths. In a way, it’s just an extension of the idea of conversational threading (or, conversely, conversational threading/multi-threading might be a special case of this, and something that can subcommunicate the larger view).
To go back to the RPG metaphor, there’s a one-page game by BTRC** called “Posturing & Pretensions,” the first rule of which is that everything said has to be abstract or indirect (e.g., “Purple prose rained down like a bad metaphor. Cool Dude strode into the setting, genre-specific weapon at his side,” to use an example from the game). I see the approach that I’m talking about here as being similar, in that P&P’s first rule produces a specific narrative, but without the involvement of specifics; the use of indirect and abstract language liberates the story from the specifics of the setting enough to prevent it from being constrained by them, but not so much as to compromise the ability to tell the story in the first place.
Having multiple possible outcomes in mind, and being able to switch between them (or give them different relative emphases), works in much the same way. “What’s the plot of the movie?” stays general, but this doesn’t compromise the character of any of its scenes.
—
* There’s a song by In This Moment, “The Promise,” that I see as portraying a concern that’s probably far more common than people would want to acknowledge, and also something that’s probably attributed to low self-esteem issues instead of the simple fact that relationships don’t always work out. It’s a good example, albeit a strong one, of the kind of thing that I’m getting at here. (It’s best expressed starting with the chorus, at 1:10. Always makes me think of Lawrence’s words: “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”)
** Free, by the way. And, IMO, a good model to use to get familiar with the feel of how an enjoyable seduction might work.
Agreed, except that for me, providing that comfort zone is understood as being a part of “being inviting”.
To be honest, that sounds like it would drive me nuts – fun to start with but quickly leading to confusion and frustration. I notice after a quick google that it says a game normally lasts about 5 minutes, which is about all I could stand of it, and I wouldn’t want to play more than a couple of times. I would probably want to try it once (or twice, because the first time might be a fluke) just to see if I could do it well, but… not really my thing.
We are on completely different pages here. Without specifics, there is no story, just formulae – the P&P game sounds like reading a book about storywriting when what I want to do is read a story.
I don’t see the equivalence. If anything, to me this seems like producing the sort of situation where there’s “no proactive or proceptive engagement”. What I’m hearing is, “I want to keep my options open as long as possible,” whereas the point surely is “conversation to indicate what your options are, and find out what mine are”, followed by “I would like this option, do you concur?” Obviously in practice it’s a little more fluid than that, but the idea is surely to indicate interest in a particular outcome at some point and let the other person know that it’s an (inviting!) option for them?
@SnowdropExplodes:
It isn’t all that rare for people to say the same thing about flirting. ;)
‘Course, I’m not suggesting that it be dragged out for half an hour. But that would go into the subject of escalation, which is a different (if still related) subject.
Wouldn’t argue that.
It’s a situation in which something isn’t produced, true. That goes to the next point.
As something that develops through the course of the interaction, sure. What I’m talking about is patience and flexibility; not “I want to keep my options open as long as possible,” but “this is an open situation, and I’m not going to rush to define it.” One of our other differences, perhaps, might be in how early we expect clarity in the interaction, and in how long and how much we’re willing to work with the interaction before it arrives.
But I should note that my perspective on this is informed by several personal experiences: there have been cases in which people have gone for clarity too early for my comfort, and, in those situations, it was something that I experienced as pressure, putting me in the position of needing to make a choice before I was ready to do so. On more than one occasion, some years back, that resulted in my going forward with things for reasons other than my own desire.
These days, I’d break things off instead of going forward, even if things definitely would have gone forward, later on, had they handled things differently. But the point remains: this, for me, is a way of avoiding that kind of outcome.
Wow, been gone a while. Been busy :)
Anyway, just to catch up with a few things–
Clarisse,
Current pet theory: Everyone’s perception of the relative promiscuity of other subcultures varies directly with their experience of that subculture.
Exception: Certain subcultures in which sex isn’t talked about have a wildly inflated view of the promiscuity of subcultures in which sex is talked about.
TL, DR: In my experience, some subcultures talk about how much sex they’re having, and others really don’t. But humans are humans everywhere, and we all like to do the same kinds of things with our naughty bits.
Oh. That makes sense. You can see why I was wondering, no doubt…
Hey Motley, according to this article you’re right about sex being equally prevalent even among groups that stigmatize it more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1388827/Atheists-better-sex-religious-followers-plagued-guilt.html
I haven’t actually looked at the original study, and I’m not sure whether I’m skeptical. It seems like sexual stigma *must* *sometimes* prevent people from having the kind of sex they want to have, but I admittedly have no (non-anecdotal) evidence for that assertion.
The kind they want to have, sure–I don’t have any reason to doubt that. I was more talking about quantity, rather than quality though ;)
Here’s a funny video from Brent Smith making fun of a guy “trying to defeat token resistance”.
In case you don’t know who Brent Smith is – he’s a guy who attacks the community and PUAs, but from e very different angle. He’s very opposed to pursuing, and/or making or trying to “get women” or anything at all really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3rPoPl77IY