» [guest post] Detrimental Attitudes of the Pickup Artist Community

Sagredo April 19, 2011 at 12:00 am #

Excellent, excellent piece and absolutely spot on. This is the criticism I’ve been waiting for.

One of the annoying things about the ignorant complaints from Marcotte and various folks on Feministe etc. is that they mask some of the real issues with the seduction community. And on the other side there’s Roissy et alii, who blow away a lot of the egalitarian nonsense but are flawed by a deep distrust of women.

Sam April 19, 2011 at 12:53 am #

My thoughts reading this revolved mostly around how more “ethical game” doesn’t really cut it… It’s seems to be really more about “better game”, or “game 2.0″, and “more ethical” (more aware of ethical elements) seems like a natural ingredient thereof, not merely a limiting condition.

Scootah April 19, 2011 at 1:10 am #

Healthy game even? I think most of my critticisms of PUA behaviour revolve around the fact that so many PUA’s have an incredibly blinkered view of women. PUA’s seem to see women, and guys who aren’t part of the scene – as inherently less than themselves. And while seeing all other guys as AFC’s is unhealthy – it’s the blindness to women as humanbeings that’s really really unhealthy.

Natural game is much less social robotish and creepy as a spectator. It removes my largest practical critticism of PUA’s. The situation from ‘The Game’ where every girl in LA had already seen the magic trick, and none of the ‘players’ could apply enough creativity to try a different magic trick, or enough insight to find some other play that does the same thing as the magic trick stands out as a highlight of the flaws in unnatural/precanned routines. The Natural game thing is much less creepy – but it still tends to include a lot of dehumanization, where women are replacable within their respective hotness bracket, like NPC’s in a video game that will respawn so you can try again later.

Floreat Magdalena April 19, 2011 at 3:13 am #

I recognise all of these aspects of the Community, especially the idea of swapping one set of flawed notions of women for another.

I will say though that some of the negative stuff about women isn’t far off the truth. Men and women are not angels in dating. The main flaw in PUA thinking about gender relations is that PUAs see themselves as sort of outside the norms which govern regular behaviour, like they can see the lines of code in the matrix of social interaction. This is simply not the case most of the time, and PUAs will act just as insecurely and irrationally as the women who provide the list of traits above.

Lastly – feminists can deny shit-testing all they want, but it definitely exists.

Clarisse April 19, 2011 at 4:21 am #

@Sagredo — One of the annoying things about the ignorant complaints from Marcotte and various folks on Feministe etc. is that they mask some of the real issues with the seduction community.

I think a lot of feminist criticism of the community is legit. But I agree that some of it is not. The idea that a lot of it is just masking real community issues is especially interesting.

@Floreat — Lastly – feminists can deny shit-testing all they want, but it definitely exists.

Can we please avoid snark against “feminists” as a group? This is a feminist blog. At least attempt to be polite about feminism.

My main problem with the shit test concept at this point is that there’s so little acknowledgment that while some so-called shit tests are women trying to flirt, a lot of them are women trying to honestly communicate. I’ve hung out with PUAs who refused to believe that I was being honest when I told them I wouldn’t have sex with them. It’s incredibly annoying, and I can only imagine how insanity-inducing it would be to actually be in a relationship with those guys. At some point you have to be able to talk about things honestly and not just label all pushback as a shit test to be ignored/reframed.

Floreat Magdalena April 19, 2011 at 5:04 am #

I consider myself a feminist. When I talk about feminists I don’t mean every feminist ever… (But I take your point, and people do tend to be very literal minded!)

Frankly, I don’t tend to think of women’s behaviour in PUA terms, because I was able to employ pick-up techniques to raise my confidence levels with women and comfort in my own sexuality to the extent that I don’t need it as a conscious paradigm.

Frankly, if you’re strong-willed, independent and confident, you’ll “pass” shit tests irrespective of whether you recognise them as such. Incompetent men who have read PUA material tend to see shit tests in everything women do, which as you note is not a realistic view of how women behave. But shit tests do exist and they aren’t necessarily flirting. For example, they will happen a lot in relationships.

Tomek Kulesza April 19, 2011 at 6:23 am #

Well, my (apart from the other stuff like misogyny and plan stupidity of generalizations and simply bad advice about happiness in life) gripe with it is that ‘the game’ is basically a traditional fifties guide “how to be good wife and mother”. How to succed in your traditional gender role. Which this posts also talks about.

What do i mean? That it creates a script to follow regardless of your actual desires. Don’t want to be PUA? You’re loser. Don’t want a husband and children? You’re sad old spinster.

Really, what men really needed are more judging of their worth based on their “success” with women. Good laugh.

Tomek Kulesza April 19, 2011 at 6:31 am #

At least women had hugely successful feminist movement to deconstruct their oppressive norms. What men need is more folks like Thomas Millar, not guys who knew nothing but your typical geek social life full of mutual competition for hierarchy (whatever it is based on) fight and malice and then apply it to gender relations.

Guestina April 19, 2011 at 10:10 am #

This looks like a pretty interesting post. I just had time to glance over it, but I take issue to the “if a guy gets a girlfriend it means he’s settling” part. I’ve never seen that belief in the advice I’ve read. Trying to get any girlfriend is settling. I started my education by reading David D’ and there have been four or five other people in the PUA and Seduction Community that I’ve followed less closely. Maybe I subconsciously filtered out the most sexist advice early on. Fascinating.

Clarisse April 20, 2011 at 4:08 am #

@Floreat — sorry, I’m oversensitive. Getting shit tested by a lot of anti-feminists lately ;)

@Sam — I’ve been thinking about your point on ethics not being a limiting condition. I think that’s really key — generally a good point about ethics in general. I feel like ethics is so often seen as “this is limiting me, this is making me feel bad” — when at its best, ethics should be workable as a positive and increasing-options kind of thing. Sometimes being ethical is hard, sure, but ultimately it’s about making things better for everyone, right? Treating partners in an ethical way will often offer positives beyond internal warm fuzzies — from their increased self-esteem, for example ….

Lucky 72 April 20, 2011 at 9:26 am #

The article is very good, and certainly highlights some of the things that seems off putting about the whole PUA scene (he forgot the abbreviations and acronyms – it reminds me of the Army, and not in a good way).

But it doesn’t really help with what we AFC’s are supposed to do about our shortfalls (apart from improving our personal hygiene and stop jacking off to Megan Fox – which seems to be the latest annoying feminist myths about nice guys’ lack of success).

And perhaps any attempt at creating ethical pickup tips, should include some tips for women on how to behave and how not to behave, as well?

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say, that at least some of the PUA advice is based on real experiences with some women. And that if women, overall, was more conscious of how some of their behaviour hurts men, combined with some useful advice for ‘nice guys who refuse the current PUA scene’, we would have come a little way in solving the puzzle.

While ‘geeting guys to buy women drinks’ has been flogged to death on the Ethical Pick Up comments, I can easily name a few other hurtful behaviours men encounter in the dating scene, like needless teasing, harsh rejections or not even not acknowledging your existence.

Teasing and rejections is all part of the game, but some women has turned it into an artform to mindfuck men. I find buying women drinks heaven, compared to some of the shit I’ve had hurled at me (and, yes obviously it’s because I’ve deficient hygiene and jerks off to Megan Fox, doh!).

So while it’s reasonable to criticize the PUA’s, we should not forget to criticize the way the whole dating scene is set up – and the patriarchy is not the only -archy that has its hands pretty dirty on that account.

Thanks to you Clarisse for the empathy to acknowledge the plight of the ‘nice guys’ and to try to offer a better alternative than the PUA’s.

L

P.S.
I think feminists should spend some time coming up with useful subgroups (like the mid-90′s heavy scene, where it seemed all bands were their own subgroup. That led to a lot of Spinal Tappy moments in interviews.)

Because sometimes some of us men need to vent in a nonspecific, generalizing way against what we see as female encroachment on our territory (sometimes you girls scare the bejeezus out of our masculinity), and it seems ‘feminist’ and /or ‘feminism’ is all we can think of. Is it Ok to refer to y’all as the Vulvacracy?

Sagredo April 20, 2011 at 12:18 pm #

I can easily name a few other hurtful behaviours men encounter in the dating scene, like needless teasing, harsh rejections or not even not acknowledging your existence.

From a feminist point of view, interfering with women’s ability to reject men in the name of ethics is going to be a non-starter.

And actually, PUA is, well, game about women behaving this way and doesn’t criticise them for it or complain about it. It’s perfectly reasonable for women to screen out undesirable men, so PUA seeks to teach ways of becoming more desirable. Here’s Kezia on “bitch shields”.

If I remember correctly, standard PUA advice to guys tired of all that is “switch to day game”.

Tomek Kulesza April 20, 2011 at 1:02 pm #

Wow, what a terrible thing (your Kezia link). To paraphrase her (sentence from ‘nice guys’ video), if i would have to go out and participate in such activity, i’d sooner kill myself :p

Am i missing something? What’s the point of going to places which revolve around mutual teasing and generally nasty attitude towards other humans?

(what’s day game, btw?)

Clarisse April 20, 2011 at 1:39 pm #

Day game is trying to pick women up during the day (at bookstores, coffeeshops, laundromats, on the bus, wherever). Women during the day are indeed less likely to display so-called “bitch shields”, although not totally unlikely.

I have a working theory that men who are into PUA are (a) into making sure that they can get ANY woman (as Kezia encourages) and (b) actually more attracted to women who have bitch shields, give shit tests, etc. For them, a large amount of their attraction to the game is sense of accomplishment.

Women should not be pressured not to reject men. We have to be able to set boundaries. (So does everyone else.)

I’m okay with encouraging women not to be assholes about rejecting, but feminists don’t actually have a lot of control over the behavior of a lot of women. In fact, we don’t actually have control over anyone’s behavior. If we want to encourage women to be less assholish, then it’ll have to go the same way as encouraging PUAs to be less assholish — try to explain men’s perspective and offer effective tactics for interacting with men. SucceedSocially.com, which I linked in the above post, has a section called “The Minds of Shy Guys” that I think has probably accomplished a lot more on this score than all the rantings of anti-feminist assholes put together.

Sagredo April 20, 2011 at 3:52 pm #

Hmm, women like men who pass their tests, and (PUA) men like women who test them. Is there a difference in motivations here?

Why should we encourage women to be less assholish in the pickup arena? What are they doing wrong?

Lucky 72 April 20, 2011 at 7:58 pm #

@ Sagredo

From a feminist point of view, interfering with women’s ability to reject men in the name of ethics is going to be a non-starter.

I didn’t moan about women rejecting men; it’s their right obviously. I moaned about women rejecting men harshly. Some women are real bithces about this. Sorry, but that’s just a fact.

If you are going to reject someone (who has not been stepping outside any social boundaries in a big way), please just do it nicely, don’t be like a harpy on amphetamine.

To much to ask? I think not.

L

Lucky 72 April 20, 2011 at 7:59 pm #

@ Sagredo

Why should we encourage women to be less assholish in the pickup arena? What are they doing wrong?

A lot of things. Want a list?

L

Clarisse April 20, 2011 at 10:15 pm #

@Sagredo — Hmm, women like men who pass their tests, and (PUA) men like women who test them. Is there a difference in motivations here?

I can fix this for you. It should read:

Hmm, some women like men who pass their tests, and (PUA) men like women who test them. Is there a difference in motivations here?

Also, I’m not convinced that “tests” is the best metaphor for flirtatious behavior. It’s the metaphor PUAs have chosen, but that doesn’t mean it’s what most people flirting are actually thinking. I use the phrase “shit tests” only because it’s a description of a real phenomenon, but I think the whole concept has serious problems.

As for what women are doing wrong in the dating arena, I’m tempted to say “sure let’s talk about what people think women are doing ‘wrong’ as long as we also make equally long lists of what men do ‘wrong’”, but frankly I’d really like to avoid turning this thread into a bitchfest. Is there a way to approach what you’re trying to ask that won’t encourage anger and defensiveness?

Infra April 20, 2011 at 10:41 pm #

@Clarisse:

I use the phrase “shit tests” only because it’s a description of a real phenomenon, but I think the whole concept has serious problems.

On this subject… have you seen Mark’s post on it, from earlier this month?

Clarisse April 20, 2011 at 10:55 pm #

I hadn’t seen that! I like that guy a lot already and I’ve only read three posts so far.

AB April 21, 2011 at 5:10 am #

I love Mark’s post, it explains so much, like how often the things I’ve said to dissuade guys have had the opposite effect – it wasn’t that the guys didn’t respect what I said, it was just that they thought “I’m a virgin, I just broke up with my boyfriend because he wanted to have sex with me, and I feel so relieved not being in a relationship” meant “I want to go home with you right now, lock myself in your bedroom for a week, have hot and passionate sex with you the whole time, and then get married afterwards”.

I also can’t help thinking of the proverb “Tyv tror hvermand stjæler”. You probably have a similar one in English, it means “Thief thinks every man steals”, and refer to the way people prone to seeing their own motivations in the actions of others. Many guys seem to be testing frequently, especially PUAs, so it’s no surprise if they see the same behaviour in others. Or perhaps it’s just the case of how, once you get a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

I think the observation that these things are more frequent in relationships is spot on. Granted, I can’t relate to the idea that shit-tests happen daily, but when I asked my boyfriend, he could relate. Or rather, he couldn’t recognise any of the behaviours listed, but when I explained the motivation, to see if he was still interested in me, he said that it happened fairly often. It’s just that I’m more obvious in my approach, and will tell him directly when I need him to show more affection and tell me I’m desirable, rather than trying to manipulate him into showing it. That might be why I’m only a lesser beta, and it certainly explains why I confuse the hell out of guys ;-)

k April 21, 2011 at 9:25 am #

I really like that “shit test” post you linked, Infra, but I don’t understand the concept of a shit test in general, it seems to suggest that women play all kinds of conscious games to test men, which is not my experience. What exactly is a shit test supposed to be testing for?

Sam April 21, 2011 at 10:39 am #

Clarisse,

also read the Shit Test Paranoia post, and I think it’s generally true. Teasing is the best thing ever, particularly when flirting, so yeah. That said, I’m really not sure about the second part of the post, where he explains the assumed motivational aspects for women saying “you must be gay”. That’s a bit weird. I’ve hardly never actually heard that said either to me or anyone else. Also –

“The most popular example is the so-called “I have a boyfriend” shit test. This isn’t a shit test.”

is *can also be* a shit test, as I think I’ve explained before. It’s probably not as common as a shit test as a statement of fact, but it still *can be* a shit test. I once approached a girl for a younger acquaintance who was too shy to do it himself at the time and after a minute after we all introduced ourselves she mentioned she had a boyfriend. He walked off at the next opportunity, I stayed and talked to her and her sister. We had a great time, and after a while she said… “you know, I don’t actually have a boyfriend, I just say that to screen out boys…”

Just saying.

AB April 21, 2011 at 11:44 am #

@Sam:

is *can also be* a shit test, as I think I’ve explained before. It’s probably not as common as a shit test as a statement of fact, but it still *can be* a shit test.

And why is that so important to focus on? PUA screening techniques are shit-tests too (at least in the PU sense of the word), and guys tend to play hard to get whenever they can get away with it. But if a woman made just half the assumptions about men as is made about women in the SC, would be labelled misandry in a heartbeat.

Thinking about it, freeze-outs can be shit-tests too. If the woman is desperate enough to become sexually compliant under the threat of losing his attention, she’s a doormat he can make do anything. And women should be made aware that even though he’ll play mindgames to try to take over control of the relationship and change who she is, what he really hopes for is that she’ll be strong and stand up to him, or he’ll leave her for a woman who’s more of an alpha.

Sam April 21, 2011 at 12:01 pm #

AB,

I think tests have their place for either party. The term “shit test” seems more as an institutionalised colloquialism than a useful description of one or more kinds of tests. Shit tests are, in my opinion, usually better labeled as “dominance tests”, or in the example I’ve given, as “perseverence” indicator.

“But if a woman made just half the assumptions about men as is made about women in the SC, would be labelled misandry in a heartbeat.”

Yeah, well, I believe when it comes to social/female assumptions about male mating habits, misandry often isn’t too farfetched a concept.

“Thinking about it, freeze-outs can be shit-tests too.”

*Anything* can be a test. It depends on the interpreation. That’s why the post at the other blog used the term “paranoia”.

Sagredo April 21, 2011 at 12:04 pm #

actually more attracted to women who have bitch shields, give shit tests, etc.

OK,

For them, a large amount of their attraction to the game is sense of accomplishment.

When women like men who pass their tests, is it merely for a sense of accomplishment in successful screening?

In general, I’m very suspicious of assigning non-sexual non-relationship motives to PUA. It’s ironic, really, men are correctly accused of sexual motives for all kinds of behaviour, mostly bad behaviour, and PUA is the one place where those motives are overt, and then one hears claims that PUA is really about male bonding, or really about passing tests for their own sake, or whatever.

Actually, bitch shields, testing etc. can also be demonstrations of higher value, and sometimes men like a little high value in their women too…

Clarisse April 21, 2011 at 1:44 pm #

Here’s a definition of shit tests:
http://www.pualingo.com/pua-definitions/shit-test/

@Sam — We had a great time, and after a while she said… “you know, I don’t actually have a boyfriend, I just say that to screen out boys…”

Argh, this makes me so mad. Not just because the minority of women who do this then create a bad precedent for everyone else, but also because it seems like it’s transparently not in her best interest, too. She’s basically screening for guys who disrespect her current relationship status. Why? Why?! WHY?!

Well … now that I think about it, she could also be screening for guys who are willing to talk to her as a friend and don’t just boil her down to “potential sexual partner or nothing”. Guys like you, for example. So I guess maybe it’s a decent screening tactic, as long as she also feels confident that she can screen out guys who disrespect her preferences by other means. But it’s still dishonest, and I wouldn’t use it.

@Sagredo — In general, I’m very suspicious of assigning non-sexual non-relationship motives to PUA. It’s ironic, really, men are correctly accused of sexual motives for all kinds of behaviour, mostly bad behaviour, and PUA is the one place where those motives are overt, and then one hears claims that PUA is really about male bonding, or really about passing tests for their own sake, or whatever.

Hmm, that’s not exactly what I meant. I think that the “sense of accomplishment” thing is sexual. It seems to be very sexually/emotionally powerful for many men to feel like they have accomplished getting a high-status girl, even when those men don’t chase girls regularly. I mean, people do obviously look for partners who are high-value in their eyes (with value being established by different things for different people).

When women like men who pass their tests, is it merely for a sense of accomplishment in successful screening?

Maybe. I think most real tests actually mean something, though. You’re screening for something more important than “performance of dominance”. I just think that a lot of things PUAs think are tests aren’t actually tests.

AB April 21, 2011 at 4:18 pm #

@Sam:

*Anything* can be a test. It depends on the interpreation. That’s why the post at the other blog used the term “paranoia”.

It’s more than that though. One of the posts answering Mark said: “I know I’m gonna generalize but, what woman doesn’t act like this? What woman doesn’t reject you whe she really likes you? What woman doesn’t play games? That’s the confusion about this article and shit-tests in the real world women try to confuse you they don’t want to show they like you even though they do.”

It’s funny because Infra just made a post in the ethical pick-up artistry about PUAs attempting to increase their perceived value by making the girls chase them and try to prove themselves worthy instead of vice versa. Or in other words, pretty much the same tactic as what this guy claims women are doing.

And I can’t help remembering the anecdote Clarisse brought up about how the woman who finally made Neil Strauss fall in love reacted to his freeze-out by ignoring him and going to sleep, rather than taking the bait. And while I have gotten a lot of attention from guys by being insecure, I can’t help noticing that the attention I get when I’m comfortable with myself, and not worried about being good enough, is usually longer lasting, more profound, and coming from better guys than when I’m too eager to please.

Now, combine that observation with the prevalent view of women in relationships (and according to many PUAs, everywhere else too) – that they’ll try to dominate a guy and then tire of him if he doesn’t resist. Or in other words, they’ll fight to get control but ultimately be more attracted to the people who wont let themselves be controlled. Just like how it seems men (even Neil Strauss himself) tend to behave.

For all the PUA theories about different evolutionary roles, and for all they talk about women as a different species than themselves, the more I read about them the more it strikes me what an excellent argument they make for the opposite, that men and women are actually very alike and after the same thing.

Sagredo April 21, 2011 at 4:57 pm #

As to whether something is a test or not, instead of considering the intent of the (alleged) tester, it’s worth looking at the situation of the tested. If the latter needs to stop and figure out how to behave, it is for them functionally a test. It’s a bit unfortunate because calling something a test, and especially calling something a “shit test”, does tend to make a claim about the intent of the tester which may not actually be warranted.

A lot of “playful banter” falls into this category. For some folks, there’s no worries about it, it’s as natural as any other kind of play and it seems like there’s nothing being tested. Other folk who are not so good at it, need to make an effort in figuring out how to respond, aware that if they do so badly, they’ll be less successful in the interaction. For them it really is a test.

Ideally this sort of thing is a mutual exchange, but if you’re on the “testing” side at a juncture (with some particular remark or whatever), it’s worth bearing in mind how the other’s response will affect your opinion of them, even if you’re not actually thinking this will test you, my pretty. I for one become enormously attracted to anyone who shows a particular kind of creative wit and like to give people an opportunity to show it off to me whenever I can.

Jim April 21, 2011 at 5:03 pm #

“Why? Why?! WHY?!”

Because maybe it flatters her vanity to think that she is such a hot catch that a guy will do anything………?

The corellary to AB’s proverb is that it’s hard for a healthy person to understand dysfunction. Ask anyone who has wandered into a relationship with an narcissist or BPD person. Understanding comes very slowly if ever.

Lucky 72 April 21, 2011 at 5:53 pm #

@ Sam

… women saying “you must be gay”. That’s a bit weird. I’ve hardly never actually heard that said either to me or anyone else.

I had a “You dance like a gay!” hurled at me by a girl I had been flirting with just this Saturday. It might of course be true for all I know.

Oh, that was an entire case study in pernicious female behaviour on the dating scene. Still kinda fun. But I’m really getting to old for that kinda thing. A simple yes/no would do the trick for me. Alas, there was hoop jumping all night.

L

Infra April 21, 2011 at 7:28 pm #

@Sam:

That said, I’m really not sure about the second part of the post, where he explains the assumed motivational aspects for women saying “you must be gay”. That’s a bit weird. I’ve hardly never actually heard that said either to me or anyone else.

I’ve gotten it on more than a few occasions. But that point needs to be taken in the context of what Mark wrote about grooming, sensitivity, etc. Those things are, stereotypically, associated with gay men, and IME, when a guy displays them to any substantial degree, the “are you gay?” test isn’t all that uncommon.

@AB:

It’s funny because Infra just made a post in the ethical pick-up artistry about PUAs attempting to increase their perceived value by making the girls chase them and try to prove themselves worthy instead of vice versa.

Way to misrepresent what I wrote. I did not say that any of it was about boosting perceived value by making girls chase the guy. That’s your inference, not part of my argument.

nathan April 21, 2011 at 8:52 pm #

Clarisse #14

“I have a working theory that men who are into PUA are (a) into making sure that they can get ANY woman (as Kezia encourages) and (b) actually more attracted to women who have bitch shields, give shit tests, etc. For them, a large amount of their attraction to the game is sense of accomplishment.”

Makes sense to me, for the majority of guys into PUA. If you’re into games, you’ll attract them. This goes for PUA dudes and for shit-test loving women. Winning the girl or guy is one accomplishment. Another is being able to mindfuck those you have no interest in.

I still think there is a minority of guys trying out PUA methods because they don’t know what else to do. Which is why it’s worth considering what might be salvageable from PUA.

And I also think it’s important to keep questioning the generalizations underpinning dating behavior. When I hear women say things like “men are just after one thing,” it drives me nuts. At the same time, while I have experienced some shit testing, I don’t think I could even assign the majority of women I have been interested in into such a category. For every shit tester I have experienced, there has been two women who were just as befuddled about how to deal with dating as I am.

I kind of think bitch shields, shit tests, PUA tactics, and the rest are really attempts to gain a sense of control in the very fluid field of modern dating.

Sam April 21, 2011 at 10:04 pm #

Clarisse,

Well … now that I think about it, she could also be screening for guys who are willing to talk to her as a friend and don’t just boil her down to “potential sexual partner or nothing”.

exactly. “I have a boyfriend” translates as “I’m not interested in (just) having sex with you”.

“But it’s still dishonest, and I wouldn’t use it.”

But really, so much actual communication is built upon superficial dishonesty. As we’ve so often said, yes, it would be totally cool if people were able to be both aware of and honestly verbally communicate their preferences. But in the real world, that just doesn’t seem to be the case for most people, even assuming they have stable preferences, which is also questionable. I mean, think Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory – his inability to interact with people is mostly based on his inability to contextualize ambiguous/untrue statements. Dishonesty certainly has useful, even ethical, applications in human interactions – take, well, rejections as an example: isn’t it better to let people down gently with a euphemism or a white lie, a statement that could be true? Of course, there’s increased potential for misunderstandings, but it’s also a lot better at ego-protection.

AB,

“What woman doesn’t play games?”

everyone plays games, whether we call them games, or culture, or scripts.

“the more I read about them the more it strikes me what an excellent argument they make for the opposite, that men and women are actually very alike and after the same thing.”

The same but still different. People are looking for perceived value and self-affirmation, but the ways in which this value is expressed and received is usually still very different. But I do agree with you that a lot of behavioral suggestions for men from the SC are about imitating behavior generally considered female. I would suggest that that’s a consequence of what I think DLR said in his comment about confidence in the thread about “fear and sluthood in SF”. Imitating female behavior is very likely a great way of demonstrating/pretending that these men are not affected by sexual scarcity, which, in turn will make them more attractive and reduce their perceived sexual scarcity. There’s a lot of “don’t look if you want to find” mental gymnastics in this that require a mindset in the way DLR describes in that comment, but yeah. I also think that the SC is prescribing a lot of classic “feminine” behavior.

Infra April 21, 2011 at 10:21 pm #

@Clarisse:

Well … now that I think about it, she could also be screening for guys who are willing to talk to her as a friend and don’t just boil her down to “potential sexual partner or nothing”.

There’s also the possibility that continuing to talk to her after hearing that can signal that the guy doesn’t buy into the idea of “has boyfriend = is owned and off limits.” It can be a way of rejecting the view of her, as a woman, as property.

Mark April 22, 2011 at 1:49 am #

“I still think there is a minority of guys trying out PUA methods because they don’t know what else to do. Which is why it’s worth considering what might be salvageable from PUA.”

This is actually backwards. The “have sex with every girl you meet” meme is a marketing trick and really only peddled by the most successful or commercial PUA’s. The VAST and silent majority of the market is merely interested in getting a date, getting a girlfriend, etc., etc.

Other than that, I must say I’m surprised/impressed to see such an accurate and honest discussion about PUA stuff here.

Re: “I have a boyfriend,” this is one of those things that it depends on how and when it’s said. But generally speaking, even if I think a girl is lying and just using this to screen me, I’m about 99% likely to ditch her on the spot. It’s fickle and dishonest and ultimately ineffective for the reason Clarisse mentioned.

I’ll put it this way, I’ve never fought through a “I have a boyfriend,” statement and thought afterward, “Wow, what an amazing and exciting girl, I’m so glad I wasn’t dissuaded by her lying.” Never happens.

Re: “You must be gay,” not every guy gets this, but it’s probably the most common in the PUA community. Most guys get it often. One is because most PUA guys are effeminate guys. But the other reason is because PUA encourages them to act a little flamboyant and ostentatious.

I still get it frequently (well, in the US I get it), and I’d say 80% of the time it’s from a girl who is quite attracted to me.

AB April 22, 2011 at 4:57 am #

@Infra:

Way to misrepresent what I wrote. I did not say that any of it was about boosting perceived value by making girls chase the guy. That’s your inference, not part of my argument.

You’re right, it was badly phrased. It should have been the opposite really, making the girls chase them by boosting their perceived value. The point still stands though.

AB April 22, 2011 at 5:24 am #

@Sam:

Well … now that I think about it, she could also be screening for guys who are willing to talk to her as a friend and don’t just boil her down to “potential sexual partner or nothing”.

exactly. “I have a boyfriend” translates as “I’m not interested in (just) having sex with you”.

Here’s a pretty good illustration of the mentality she might wish to avoid in guys who approach her (and it’s allegedly not a parody, the audience is seriously expected to sympathise with the guy). Notice how, as soon as her relationship status is revealed, the woman’s speech bubbles literally translate into ‘Blah blah blah’, as if all interaction with her was rendered useless as soon as a sexual relationship was no longer an option. I hate to play these games, but something like that makes even me want to lie about it when I don’t have a bf, just to get Nice Guys to leave me alone.

AB,

“What woman doesn’t play games?”

everyone plays games, whether we call them games, or culture, or scripts.

Which is why having everything ascribed to one’s sex is so frustrating. At least for me.

The same but still different. People are looking for perceived value and self-affirmation, but the ways in which this value is expressed and received is usually still very different. But I do agree with you that a lot of behavioral suggestions for men from the SC are about imitating behavior generally considered female. I would suggest that that’s a consequence of what I think DLR said in his comment about confidence in the thread about “fear and sluthood in SF”. Imitating female behavior is very likely a great way of demonstrating/pretending that these men are not affected by sexual scarcity, which, in turn will make them more attractive and reduce their perceived sexual scarcity. There’s a lot of “don’t look if you want to find” mental gymnastics in this that require a mindset in the way DLR describes in that comment, but yeah. I also think that the SC is prescribing a lot of classic “feminine” behavior.

I think men in general exhibit a lot of ‘feminine’ behaviour. Sometimes even more than women, because women are called out on it more often. And women exhibit a lot of ‘masculine’ behaviours too. I prefer to use a variation of Occam’s razor: If the behaviours of both men and women can be explained both by them having many of the same basic needs and motivations, and by complicated evo-psych models casting the sexes as radically different, the first (and simpler) explanation is usually the most accurate one.

k April 22, 2011 at 7:08 am #

Thanks for the “shit test” definition Clarisse! Wow the jargon was thick on the ground in that post though.

Mark, I agree with you on this:

Re: “I have a boyfriend,” this is one of those things that it depends on how and when it’s said. But generally speaking, even if I think a girl is lying and just using this to screen me, I’m about 99% likely to ditch her on the spot. It’s fickle and dishonest and ultimately ineffective for the reason Clarisse mentioned.

Really, if someone is being dishonest about themselves, I’d prefer not to talk to that person. Which is one of the issues I have with some pick up tactics, as a woman. If a guy comes up to me with some kind of an odd canned joke or w/e, I just get the feeling we wouldn’t get along. I totally think men who get rude responses to their approaches should feel free to screen women based on rudeness.

In fact, that’s something I also don’t get about pick up tactics… a lot of them seem based on some version of the sunk cost fallacy that supposes 1 drink or 10 minutes of conversation are high enough sunk costs to justify putting up with rudeness or ignoring obvious attempts at rejection, just to keep the conversation going and the “game” continuing.

Are there guys who find that this strategy works for them? It frankly doesn’t sound like much fun to me!

k April 22, 2011 at 7:13 am #

And that “nice guy” comic? Yikes. Frankly a lot of the time if I mention my boyfriend, it’s so that guys I’m talking to will hopefully be certain we are having a FRIENDLY conversation and be able to relax around me and adjust accordingly. At least, when a guy mentions his girlfriend, that’s what I do – relax, because it lowers the stakes of the conversation and makes it clear there will be no hurt feelings at the end of the evening when I leave without him.

Any male perspectives on this?

nathan April 22, 2011 at 9:17 am #

Mark,

“The “have sex with every girl you meet” meme is a marketing trick and really only peddled by the most successful or commercial PUA’s. The VAST and silent majority of the market is merely interested in getting a date, getting a girlfriend, etc., etc.” It depends, I suppose, on what you would define as “the PUA community.” If you’re including any guy who takes a few pick up tactics and gives them a whirl, then I might be able to agree with you.

But with this from Clarisse “into making sure that they can get ANY woman (as Kezia encourages)” – I saw her as saying that PUA methods give these guys a sense of confidence that they CAN get any woman. They don’t need to “have sex with every woman they meet,” but they enjoy the fact that they believe they have the skills to do so. I see it as a confidence derived from some level of success in playing a game, which basically translates in their heads as “I’m the shit, and the women all know it.” They might have a long term girlfriend, but in the back of their mind be thinking “If this doesn’t work out, I can always get another one.”

Another reason I agreed with Clarisse’s statement is that I think viewing dating as “a game” is inherent in these approaches, and so it makes sense to me that a guy who thinks that way would attract women who also play games. Again, I think there are plenty of guys out there who don’t see dating as a game who might lift a few pick up tactics from a PUA forum and try them out. But are they representative of PUA as a whole? I’d say that’s a stretch.

k #40

When I hear the words “I have a boyfriend,” I essentially drop any sense that we might get together. So, yes, it does relax that element. But if she’s testing me, then she’s basically lost me because I’m not interested in pushing through that kind of shit.

As to the Nice Guy meme – I’m not sure what the hell to do with it. I believe I tend to be perceived this way, although I’m no push over who aims to please all the time. But I also wonder how often men with good intentions are mistaken for this Nice Guy prototype who acts nice and pleasing when he thinks he has a shot at sex or a relationship, but turns that off when he doesn’t.

Mark April 22, 2011 at 11:14 am #

@k

“In fact, that’s something I also don’t get about pick up tactics… a lot of them seem based on some version of the sunk cost fallacy that supposes 1 drink or 10 minutes of conversation are high enough sunk costs to justify putting up with rudeness or ignoring obvious attempts at rejection, just to keep the conversation going and the “game” continuing.

Are there guys who find that this strategy works for them? It frankly doesn’t sound like much fun to me!”

I totally agree with you, but unfortunately I’m in the minority when it comes to pick up coaches on this. I think for inexperienced guys, it can be a good social exercise to push through and try to win over a girl who is initially cold. But from a practical stand point, just move on.

@nathan

“But with this from Clarisse “into making sure that they can get ANY woman (as Kezia encourages)” – I saw her as saying that PUA methods give these guys a sense of confidence that they CAN get any woman. They don’t need to “have sex with every woman they meet,” but they enjoy the fact that they believe they have the skills to do so. I see it as a confidence derived from some level of success in playing a game, which basically translates in their heads as “I’m the shit, and the women all know it.” They might have a long term girlfriend, but in the back of their mind be thinking “If this doesn’t work out, I can always get another one.”

Again, this is kind of the way it’s all presented, but it almost never plays out this way. Market surveys done by myself, other coaches and large forums find a few things consistently:

- Something like 60% of the guys who read this stuff only read it to address one very specific problem (i.e., how to ask the cute girl in class for her number, etc.)

- Like 80% of the guys, once they experience some success (they get laid a couple times, they get a girlfriend), they’re never heard from again.

The marketing is laid out like that because that casts the widest net. Whether you want to get a date with a girl you know, or whether you want to fuck 1000 girls, if I tell you I can help you get “ANY GIRL” then both of you will buy.

The point I’m making I guess, is don’t mistake the marketing message of a minority of the companies, with the intentions and motivations of 80% of the actual guys out doing this stuff. That’s all I’m saying.

And I agree in regards to the “dating as a game” observations.

Sam April 22, 2011 at 12:42 pm #

AB,

Which is why having everything ascribed to one’s sex is so frustrating. At least for me.

Well, roles are usually embodied and thus gendered, regardless of the extent to which the scripts are referencing genetically disposed behaviour or culturally extrapolated behaviour. That creates expectations and thus allows a significant reduction of interactional complexity. Of course, that only works for the majority of people who are able and willing to play by the rules. But those arguing for complete hacking of scripts and gendered behavioral expectations because they are perceived as limiting individual degress of freedom are usually not considering the behavioural costs that are incurred for the majority by abolishing behavioral scripts. If scripts are abolished because the costs of limiting individual expression is seen as more important, then the costs born by other people have to be balanced by giving them individual tools to deal with the increased complexity. On a meta level, I would consider the SC as a reaction to the increasing lack of social mediation of human mating and the accordingly increased flexibility of individual behaviour.

k,

I totally think men who get rude responses to their approaches should feel free to screen women based on rudeness.

absolutely. It’s just not that easy, because people want to be liked. It’s the same behavioural mechanism that “negs” are based on – if the rudeness is not downright assholish and obviously disqualifies someone on a personal level, then people are likely going to want to work towards being approved by person rejecting them before. I think the SC advice in that respect is decent – “never chase a bad set” – but it’s really something I suppose guys need to remember in those sunk cost scenarios you mention, because I think it’s really easy to fall into the “like me”-attraction-trap that minor rudeness can create (in both directions).

relax, because it lowers the stakes of the conversation and makes it clear there will be no hurt feelings at the end of the evening when I leave without him.

sure. But at the same time, if true, it takes options off the table that he may be interested in. So, *if* a guy is really looking for a woman who may be interested in sex, soonish, hearing that a girl he’s talking to has a boyfriend – and believing it – will definitely relax the conversation, but potentially also make him look for an exit, as a friendly conversation will likely *not* be what he is looking for.

The most honest answer in such a situation would probably be – look, it’s really fun talking to you, and I’d like to continue because I like you, but I am really horny tonight and I’m not so sure staying and chatting with you will improve my chances of finding a girl who doesn’t have a boyfriend and is in a similar state of mind.”

My best guess would be that staying and having fun *would improve* his chances, because a guy who’s having fun with a girl/group of girls is likely more attractive to women than a guy roaming a venue on his own, but that’s something that could depend on the situation.

k April 22, 2011 at 2:10 pm #

Thanks nathan, Mark & Sam.

nathan: I think the “nice guy” thing is a concept most people hear about via the internet, and a lot of people have probably never heard of it. Personally, I think that if you are interested in genuine friendships with women, ones that aren’t intended to weasel your way into a relationship, you are probably fine.

Mark: I’m glad to hear someone who is apparently into this pick up thing agree with me that it isn’t all that awesome to try and plow past someone’s rudeness and/or rejections. That concept just bugs me in so many ways, not only because it isn’t “practical” (frankly talking about effectiveness in this context cracks my shit up, no idea why) but also because it is essentially asking men to put themselves in emotionally shredding situations over and over again, basically reward bad behavior from rude women, AND demonstrate a lack of respect for the boundaries of women who aren’t interested. In that context I can’t help but think that “success” would come at a high personal cost. Sure it can be a good exercise to prove that one can speak with nasty or ambivalent people, but in the long term, who wants to fuck someone who’s mean or ambivalent? Whenever I get harshly rejected by a man, I try to think, “Wow, thank goodness he showed me his nasty side before I actually started caring much about his approval”.

Sam, you talked about mild rudeness and approval too, and I wonder if one of the issues with pick up tactics is that they could make guys think even more than before that the reactions of essentially random women – who could be uninterested, bored, not heterosexual, or even just complete assholes – prove something about the men who are trying to approach them. That’s a sad thought to me. It’s always dangerous to base one’s self-worth on the opinions and reactions of others.

Of course on the other hand, men are also encouraged to approach LOTS of women, so maybe that helps dull the sting of rejection somewhat? Hmm.

k April 22, 2011 at 2:20 pm #

Oh, and Sam, I liked what you mentioned about continuing to talk to someone even if that conversation is not an obvious means to an end. The spontaneous, random nature of social interaction is something that, in my limited experience, doesn’t seem to make it into pick up advice very often. That always confused me, because when I think of the times I’ve had romantic or sexual success as a single person, it almost always resulted from a series of fortuitous coincidences – starting to talk to someone who is coupled up, but there with friends, can easily set off a bit of a chain reaction.

Having a conscious goal or set of tactics would probably be a detriment to just letting things happen for a couple of hours, with the only criterion for what I was doing being “this is fun, I’ll go with it”.

Perhaps this is an overtly female perspective or something, but it’s exactly what I suggest to male friends too. And often, it ends up working for them as well.

DFL April 22, 2011 at 3:07 pm #

k,

I’m not sure that the “nice guy”concept is an internet fad. According to wikipedia, the quote “nice guys finish last” hails back to the 1930s (although it was used in a baseball context back then, not sure when it first got applied to romantic relationships). I also think that quite a few people have heard about the idea. For example, a German pop band of the 90s had a number 8 chart hit based on that concept (Die Prinzen – Schwein sein).

Also, the idea of “nice guy” friendships as weaseling his way into a relationship is, of course, a pretty negative view. A more charitable view would be that the “nice guy” is lacking the communicative means to transform the relationship to the woman he likes into a romantic relationship.

Sagredo April 22, 2011 at 3:38 pm #

New rule: if someone says “I have a boy/girlfriend” but ends up having sex with you anyway, you don’t have to call them in the morning.

Sam April 22, 2011 at 3:42 pm #

k,

The spontaneous, random nature of social interaction is something that, in my limited experience, doesn’t seem to make it into pick up advice very often.

hmm, actually, I think it does, there’s lots of advice about being “fun and sociable” and if you add up some other stuff, say advice about “social proof” and “preselection by women”, “having no expectations about interactional results, because they will stifle spontaneity”, and “going in with high enery” I supppose that sort of equals “being open to a fun social interaction”, but it probably doesn’t get as much attention as other advice, possibly because people consider it as basic. But I totally agree with you that being social in a group is probably the easiest way to meet other poeple quickly, and without having to do a cold approach.

AB,

btw, some of those nice guy comics are actually quite funny :)

Sagredo April 22, 2011 at 4:17 pm #

AB, I don’t mind similar behaviour assigned to a similarity in gender. But there is a toxic line of thought that runs men and women are the same except for social effects, so when they behave differently, the male behaviour is wrong. One of the things I’m seeing underlying criticism of PUA coming from feminist directions is a failure to appreciate the nature of male desire. It’s actually not helpful to judge male sexuality against a norm of female sexuality. For instance, desire generally is partly desire of a body. But if there’s too much focus on the body, as measured against this norm, it’s castigated as “objectifying”. We need to recognise this as a personal preference and not an ethical statement.

Actually, it helps to look at gay men to get an idea of how many het men would prefer to behave if they could. A bathhouse providing endless availability of semi-anonymous heterosex would be very popular with men (some) if women were into it. Those men are not wrong to want that, just as women are not wrong to not want that.

Once one accepts that men and women have different kinds of desires, both as genders and as individuals, and that both are entitled to their desires even if not to any particular outcome, we can then figure out what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour.

nathan April 22, 2011 at 8:11 pm #

Co-sign on DFL’s comments at #46. And my point above K wasn’t about friendships. I agreed with you that if a woman says she’s got a boyfriend, I drop thoughts about a relationship with her. In fact, I have several long term, platonic friendships with women, and the majority of my friends are women.

What I was pointing out with the “nice guy” meme is that I wonder how many men who display some of those traits get overlooked for romantic relationships by women who think they actually fulfill that stereotype?

One of the reasons I’m not too keen on PUA – from what I have seen anyway – is that there are so many presumptions made about what women think, and why they are acting in certain ways. And furthermore, I think, there are a lot of presumptions of about male behavior as well.

So, the reason I am pointing out the “nice guy” meme is that it is something I have experienced firsthand – being skipped over because I appeared to be a “nice guy” with no backbone – and also because it’s a reoccurring theme in women’s writing about dating – feminist, or otherwise. And I think whenever a theme keeps reoccurring in dating narratives that generalizes based on gender, red flags should go up.

(Yes, I’ve read a lot of dating material – everything from research in academic journals to Cosmo to online dating forums. It’s just such an interesting subject.)

DFL “A more charitable view would be that the “nice guy” is lacking the communicative means to transform the relationship to the woman he likes into a romantic relationship.”

I think that covers a certain percentage of guys who are placed into that category – rightly or wrongly – but there are also another percentage that are just slower to warm up, to make moves, etc. That’s where I fall in anyway. I rarely am quick to flirt, ask direct questions about interest, etc. But once I know a woman a little more, I’m just fine ramping things up.

Yet, I’ve learned that this delay on my part has been construed in many ways. He’s not interested. He’s just a nice guy. He’s inexperienced. He’s gay. All these assumptions, when the reality is that I just don’t jump into things.

Now, one thing I find interesting – going back to a few older posts Clarisse made – are all the issues around who is expected to initiate romantic/sexual relationship and why. The double-bind women are in where being the initiator often has stigmas attached to it (whore/slut/etc), and not initiating leaves them in a position of waiting for men to do so (in hetero situations anyway.) And for us men, there’s an expectation much of the time that we will do the calling, e-mailing, asking out, moving into to touch, kiss, and on and on. Not doing this quickly enough, and naturally enough – which is the position I’m usually in – means you might get dismissed in some way.

Oh, and the thing about rejection K, Sam, and others mention – I almost never have experienced outright rude rejection. Then again, I’m not one to try and pick up strangers in bars, or other public places. My experience has been much more that women won’t say a thing and just disappear. Not return e-mails or calls. That kind of thing. Perhaps this is the variation that comes when you are not aggressively seeking a hook up or date the same night.

Infra April 22, 2011 at 10:58 pm #

@k, as far as perspectives go:

Really, if someone is being dishonest about themselves, I’d prefer not to talk to that person.

Personally, I tend to give people some space to lie, and it’s how and why they make use of that opportunity, not if, that matters.

Reason being, I see it as a bit of a disservice not to give them that opportunity: providing them with the space to lie is also to show them that there’s a space that they will always have as their own. (I can handle being deceived, so long as it’s for a good reason. The thing that I will not tolerate is being treated as if I’m too dense to know when it’s happening.)

It isn’t the only space, of course. But it’s one of them, and provides freedom of movement; and I’ve found that once that’s acknowledged, the need to lie seems to be lessened. More often than not, it results in becoming privy to secrets — to the things that they lie to other people about.

In fact, that’s something I also don’t get about pick up tactics… a lot of them seem based on some version of the sunk cost fallacy that supposes 1 drink or 10 minutes of conversation are high enough sunk costs to justify putting up with rudeness or ignoring obvious attempts at rejection, just to keep the conversation going and the “game” continuing.

I have my limits when it comes to rudeness, and I don’t ignore obvious attempts at rejection. But I do have some tolerance for rudeness and the like; similar to the above, it’s just recognizing that no one has an obligation to be nice from the get-go, especially if they’re likely to be exposed to rude or nefarious behaviors in the situation, themselves (as is often the case at bars). It isn’t a sunk cost issue, it’s just recognizing that things aren’t always personal.

It frankly doesn’t sound like much fun to me!

No, it isn’t always fun, and even when most of it is, not all of it always is. But that’s often the way of human interaction, and I consider these things to be part of accepting another person’s humanity. Thorns don’t ruin the rose.

Frankly a lot of the time if I mention my boyfriend, it’s so that guys I’m talking to will hopefully be certain we are having a FRIENDLY conversation and be able to relax around me and adjust accordingly.

It’s a bit of a double-edged sword that way. It can work to set the context for a friendly conversation, but it can also communicate that she simply assumed that my motivations were sexual, which can make the tone of things into a distinctly unfriendly one. But that goes to what I wrote above regarding rudeness. (Not that I’m saying that mentioning a boyfriend is rude, just that this involves taking previous experiences and reasonable expectations into account, and weighing it against the possibility that she’s going on stereotype.)

I won’t tune out when I hear it… unless she mentions her boyfriend much more often than she mentions other people, or uses him as a common point of reference. That, to me, tends to suggest an unhealthy relationship dynamic, or the use of our conversation as a way of discussing things that she doesn’t get to discuss with her friends (possibly because they’re tired of hearing it), and I’ll be inclined to cut the conversation short.

Infra April 23, 2011 at 3:07 am #

@Sagredo:

Actually, it helps to look at gay men to get an idea of how many het men would prefer to behave if they could.

From what I’ve seen, the average number of sexual partners for a gay man is pretty much the same as that for a het one:

Median Reported Sex Partners

* straight men: 6
* gay men: 6
* straight women: 6
* gay women: 6

(Source: OkCupid, but I’ve come across similar data in reference to the GSS.)

Hugh Ristik April 23, 2011 at 4:48 am #

In my experience, pretty much everything in this article is true. As someone with extensive experience with the seduction community, everything he talks about is familiar to me, and causes me to chuckle while reading. It’s nice to see accurate and tempered criticisms of the seduction community from someone who understands it.

That being said, outsiders of the seduction community (particularly those who already have a beef with it), might get some skewed ideas about the community from this article.

The original title of the article was “Detrimental Attitudes You Can Pick Up Through The Seduction Community”, not “Detrimental Attitudes of the Pickup Artist Community”. Chris didn’t make any claims of prevalence about the attitudes he criticizes. Someone, particularly a biased reader, could walk away from this article thinking that most or all PUAs hold most or all of these attitudes. That’s dubious.

The actual proportion of the seduction community who holds these attitudes depends on how you define “PUAs” and who exactly counts as a member of the seduction community. Do I count? Does my married ex-wingman count? Does Clarisse’s dad who’s read a David DeAngelo book count? Does Guestina—a woman posting in this thread who has applied pickup knowledge—count? Does Chris himself count?

On Chris’ old site where this article was posted, he talked more positively about the seduction community in his old articles. Specifically, he mentioned how much it had helped him, even though he felt that he has now moved past it.

Chris criticizing the seduction community is a lot like modern psychology criticizing Freud and Skinner. Although the modern thinkers have the more correct paradigm, and they of course have valid criticisms of the older theory… the new theory wouldn’t be possible without standing on the shoulders of what came before.

Chris has an excellent website for teaching social skills, but without the seduction community, I doubt he would have gotten good enough at social skills to even be making the website, and critiquing the community (or at least, he wouldn’t have gotten there so quickly).

Chris, and any reader with seduction community background, will know that he had a major debt to the community. However, a reader outside the community who doesn’t understand that context, and who hasn’t read his other writing describing the positive things he got from the seduction community, might get a skewed idea of the seduction community from reading this essay out of context.

Hugh Ristik April 23, 2011 at 5:19 am #

Mark, I’ve enjoyed your comments.

This is actually backwards. The “have sex with every girl you meet” meme is a marketing trick and really only peddled by the most successful or commercial PUA’s. The VAST and silent majority of the market is merely interested in getting a date, getting a girlfriend, etc., etc.

Yes. If we defined PUAs as “men who self-identify as PUAs, post on PUA forums, and are into the PUA scene,” maybe Clarisse’s theory would be correct. That population might have a high rate of men who are interested in social power games in and of themselves themselves.

However, if we look at the population of men who have applied any sort of pickup knowledge, and men who are “graduates” of pickup like Chris or myself, that population is probably different, and more interested in simply going on dates and having girlfriends.

I like how you refer to the “silent majority.” My view is that the majority of men with pickup knowledge are silent about it, and the guys who write about it on PUA forums and hang out in lairs are disproportionately ideological, unhealthy, and fanatical about it.

Furthermore, I’ve always argued that even what guys write on PUA forums doesn’t necessarily accurately portray their true attitudes towards women. Would you agree? I’m often frustrated when people go read PUA forums that think that they can know read the thoughts of every guy who studies pickup.

Re: “I have a boyfriend,” this is one of those things that it depends on how and when it’s said. But generally speaking, even if I think a girl is lying and just using this to screen me, I’m about 99% likely to ditch her on the spot. It’s fickle and dishonest and ultimately ineffective for the reason Clarisse mentioned.

I think this sort of screening is very important. Pickup often encourages us to tear down our expectations of women, because many of us begin with overly idealistic ideas about women and dating. However, there comes a time in growth where it is necessary for us to decide what behavioral standards are important to us, and realistic for us to require.

Again, this is kind of the way it’s all presented, but it almost never plays out this way. Market surveys done by myself, other coaches and large forums find a few things consistently:
- Something like 60% of the guys who read this stuff only read it to address one very specific problem (i.e., how to ask the cute girl in class for her number, etc.)
- Like 80% of the guys, once they experience some success (they get laid a couple times, they get a girlfriend), they’re never heard from again.
The marketing is laid out like that because that casts the widest net. Whether you want to get a date with a girl you know, or whether you want to fuck 1000 girls, if I tell you I can help you get “ANY GIRL” then both of you will buy.
The point I’m making I guess, is don’t mistake the marketing message of a minority of the companies, with the intentions and motivations of 80% of the actual guys out doing this stuff. That’s all I’m saying.

Very interesting. I’ve long suspected the same thing. It’s notable that so many guys just drop out of the community once they learn to deal with something they were having trouble with. Since they drop out, we don’t learn their perspectives… instead, the guys who write on pickup forums and hang out in lairs are the more troubled and fanatical.

Judging the seduction community by the guys who presently post on pickup forums is like judging the discipline of therapy by current patients. You might think, “wow, therapy sucks… all the folks doing therapy are messed up!” But that’s not a fair assessment, because once people make improvements, they often leave therapy because they don’t need it anymore. You can’t just look at the present patients to assess the discipline, you have to look at the past patients, too.

Infra April 23, 2011 at 6:13 am #

@Hugh:

The therapy metaphor is one that I find problematic, along with the idea of “graduating” from the community, because one of the things that can result from that is a compounding of stigma: on top of that associated with needing the advice in the first place, it places the additional one of evidently not having been able to find a fix (because if they had, they wouldn’t need to be there anymore). To acknowledge that people leave after finding what they were looking for is one thing, but to frame this as therapy tends to frame the people who remain as seriously troubled, even if they aren’t, and those who haven’t “graduated” as not having the mettle to succeed, even if their continued association is by choice; mix that in with the initial shame, and you’ve got quite a cocktail on your hands.

Given that, it isn’t all that surprising that the community would take on polarized attitudes.

AB April 23, 2011 at 9:09 am #

@Sagredo:

AB, I don’t mind similar behaviour assigned to a similarity in gender. But there is a toxic line of thought that runs men and women are the same except for social effects, so when they behave differently, the male behaviour is wrong.

That doesn’t happen. What does happen is that female behaviour is criticised all the time, including (perhaps especially) by feminists, but every time the same happens to men, people resort to the old cliché about men not being allowed to be men, as if improving themselves is some betrayal of who they are as a sex.

One of the things I’m seeing underlying criticism of PUA coming from feminist directions is a failure to appreciate the nature of male desire.

Definitely. And this is in sharp contrast to how female desire is accepted. For instance, I mentioned that, unlike the lucky guys who only have to put up with potentially rude rejections if they hit on someone in a bar, I don’t even go to bars unless I’m with friends, because I suspect (due to plenty of men telling me so) that to a large part of the men in the bar, I’m not welcome. You see, I get turned off when I can’t relax, so I’m unable to perform sexually on command, meaning that I can’t just have sex with random guys I meet (unless I’m prepared for a world of pain).

But if I’m in a bar, I might end up talking to a guy. And perhaps he’ll like talking and flirting just for its own sake (I know guys who do), but perhaps he’s going to expect sexual services in exchange for deigning to spend time with me, and ‘leading him on’ without being prepared to service him sexually means that he’s wasted his time talking to me! Disaster! As a guy told me, with a very straight face “one of the things guys are most worried about is teases”, with a look that told me just how high a priority he considered the need for men to not have to socialise with women without sex being involved to be (btw, the Danish word for tease translates into ‘trick-cunt’, just to give you an idea about how much the frequent female need to socialise without a promise of sex is respected).

I’ve brought it up here before that I’ve so far been unable to get sexually aroused in situations where I’ve felt that sex was a requirement, and that I need it to be something which occurs spontaneously because all the involved parties want it. And that as long as I can’t talk to men for its own sake, with sex being a remote possibility but not a requirement, the bar-scene (as well as several other scenes) is closed to me, because me exploring my sexuality in that way makes me a tease. And I know that there are enough men who don’t feel I have the right to frequent bars with the goal of just talking to people that I don’t feel comfortable doing so. To me, this is pretty much men telling me, and the millions of women who feel this way, that our sexuality is not OK.

And when I’ve brought up here, it has pretty much been ignored in favour of “But you don’t get how hard it is to be a man and not have your sexuality accepted!”. Because, as men seem to have decided by themselves, it’s male desire that’s not appreciated. And I see this acceptance of my desire every time I hear my sex lovingly described as gatekeepers of male sexuality. And every time a guy reacts to my statements about how I don’t feel there’s any acceptance or tolerance towards my sexuality by either ignoring it or give me the equivalent of “But real issue here is that, with you not feeling comfortable or welcome to explore your own sexuality, I could end up not getting a piece of your pussy!”

It’s so great to a woman and not only have worse sex than men, feel more sexually repressed, know that your sexuality is more likely to be labelled disgusting if you’re not attractive yourself, and risk being called either a cheap slut or a frigid prude, but also be made to feel guilty every time those feelings prevent you from giving sex to men, and have it taken as a sign that you don’t appreciate male sexuality the way you ought to. I can just feel the appreciation for my sexuality when I hear these things.

It’s actually not helpful to judge male sexuality against a norm of female sexuality. For instance, desire generally is partly desire of a body. But if there’s too much focus on the body, as measured against this norm, it’s castigated as “objectifying”. We need to recognise this as a personal preference and not an ethical statement.

It’s also not helpful to judge female sexuality on the basis of male perceptions of themselves as being above being judged on their looks (unless they’re gay of course). The vast majority of guys who’re sexually unsuccessful would not be so if they looked better. In fact, I have never seen a guy whom I’ve judged to be very physically attractive who’ve had trouble getting dates. And yet, physically unattractive guys keep on not just drooling over girls vastly more attractive than themselves, but also insisting that the only reason said girls are not interested on them is because women don’t like nice guys, neatly shifting the whole blame on women, while simultaneously claiming to be the victims of a society that doesn’t accept or appreciate male sexuality.

And it’s even more helpful to judge female reactions against the norm of female experiences, not the norm of male (hetero)sexuality (which tends to be the norm wherever women are concerned). For instance, it’s very common for men to see women almost purely in terms of male sexuality, even in contexts that aren’t sexual for women. As a geek, I can tell that it’s not uncommon for female roleplayers to spend time searching for pictures to illustrate their characters that aren’t meant to double as pin-ups. Because, while male characters can be fat, skinny, young, old, pretty, ugly, human looking, inhuman looking, heavily armoured, half naked, and everything in between, the majority of female characters are portrayed as nearly identical looking young women in bikinis, because their only important character trait is being sexy.

This works for guys for whom ‘female’ is a character trait on par with ‘thrill-seeking’, ‘wise’, ‘tough, or ‘grumpy’, but for quite a few of us female geeks who like it when our characters are actually, well, characters, it presents a problem. That problem is amplified when looking at fiction in general, where the dominance of male sexuality has caused female actors to be out of jobs (since many female roles are just there to fill a hotness-quota or represent the obligatory love-interest), because a good deal of the male population has little interest in stories about women that isn’t linked to male sexuality.

And you’re right that in a heartless, cynical, capitalist society, men have all the right in the world to use their considerable buying power to dissuade the portrayal of women in capacities unrelated to male sexuality. But in such a heartless and cynical world, feminists can’t be expected to take any responsibility for whether or not those men feel good about themselves doing it either.

Actually, it helps to look at gay men to get an idea of how many het men would prefer to behave if they could. A bathhouse providing endless availability of semi-anonymous heterosex would be very popular with men (some) if women were into it. Those men are not wrong to want that, just as women are not wrong to not want that.

Gay men often have a lot of the right ideas compared to straight men, which s probably why so many women like them. But I’m reluctant to base my evaluations of gay sexuality on myths and stereotypes from the 80s. There are plenty of heterosexual men and women who seek out swinger-clubs and other places to have noncommittal sex, but they’re not taken as representative of their whole sexuality. Many gay men live in monogamous relationships and just wish to get married, which lots of the same type of men who moon about the lack of acceptance of malehood are eager to deny them.

Once one accepts that men and women have different kinds of desires, both as genders and as individuals, and that both are entitled to their desires even if not to any particular outcome, we can then figure out what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour.

Once heterosexual men start realising how often they get to set themselves up as the norm, they might be a little more understanding how much their insistence of making their sexuality the point of all gendered interactions is affecting everybody else.

nathan April 23, 2011 at 12:03 pm #

“For instance, it’s very common for men to see women almost purely in terms of male sexuality, even in contexts that aren’t sexual for women.” Perhaps, or perhaps this is the story we’ve been culturally fed about men.

“The vast majority of guys who’re sexually unsuccessful would not be so if they looked better.” This is entirely too simplistic in my view. There are so many other factors – like wealth, social status, where someone lives, friendship circles, level of connection or disconnection from groups in one’s community – that play into it. Once you get past those who totally fit stereotypical views of beauty and attractiveness, how you look is only one part of the attraction puzzle. The extremes stand out – the totally “hot” men and women have little trouble picking people up, and those deemed totally “ugly” mostly struggle. But the vast majority of us lie somewhere in between, where all those other factors play out.

In fact, my own “success” in terms of my relationship history has often been tied to how connected I am with a larger set of groups, be it friendship circles or other communities I am in. When I’m more isolated, there’s more of a need to rely on skills that don’t come as naturally to me because I’m dealing with strangers or relative strangers.

“I’ve brought it up here before that I’ve so far been unable to get sexually aroused in situations where I’ve felt that sex was a requirement, and that I need it to be something which occurs spontaneously because all the involved parties want it.” Although it may not be apparent, some men feel the same way. The times I have felt it expected that I have sex always felt forced and unpleasant. And I have even noticed that times when I, myself, have been too expectant of sex end up not working. Whatever natural arousal and connection is there ends up getting shunted into what’s coming next, which spoils the whole thing.

This whole male/female desire conversation also feels simplistic to me. While there may be some differences we can point to if everything was mapped out on a scale – I think it’s also the case that more and more men and women fall outside of “a norm” these days. So, when I hear someone speak about “male desire,” I think “what is that exactly?” The same can be said about “female desire.” These conversations seem to get bogged down by adherence to a gender binary that is crumbling to some degree, but also never really existed anyway. Even in the most “traditional, patriarchal” settings, there are still people who don’t “fit” and who choose to be at least somewhat open about that not fitting, even if they are completely shamed and ostracized for it.

So, while I would agree that women experience much more policing around their sexuality, and also deal with more unwanted invasions and expectations – it’s also the case that men who deviate from the norm face a whole set of different challenges, which may be lesser in degree to what women face, but which represent – in my view – another piece of the whole puzzle.

“Once heterosexual men start realising how often they get to set themselves up as the norm, they might be a little more understanding how much their insistence of making their sexuality the point of all gendered interactions is affecting everybody else.” When I see a statement like this I think “Not only do I have to deal with all the men out there who reinforce this, but I also have to face the fact that a percentage of women will view me – solely due to my gender and sexual preference – as part of that group.”

Women are rightly pissed that they often get reduced to sex objects. But you know, as a man, I get pissed at so often being reduced to “a sex hound who is solely driven by his cock.”

These totalizing views are so tired and worn out.
And sometimes it just seems like a big loop where the behaviors and thoughts most of talking here don’t want get reinforced anyway because we’d rather keep it abstract and assign blame, then actually question our assumptions, share experiences, and consider how things might be different.

AB April 23, 2011 at 1:56 pm #

@nathan:

Perhaps, or perhaps this is the story we’ve been culturally fed about men.

No, it’s common. Doesn’t mean all men subscribe to it, but it’s quite common.

This is entirely too simplistic in my view. There are so many other factors – like wealth, social status, where someone lives, friendship circles, level of connection or disconnection from groups in one’s community – that play into it. Once you get past those who totally fit stereotypical views of beauty and attractiveness, how you look is only one part of the attraction puzzle.

Of course, but then again, the same holds true for women. That doesn’t mean that going from the unattractive to the good looking category wouldn’t be enough to make the difference for a lot of the guys who think their lack of sexual success is related to their niceness or their lack of PUA skills.

Although it may not be apparent, some men feel the same way. The times I have felt it expected that I have sex always felt forced and unpleasant. And I have even noticed that times when I, myself, have been too expectant of sex end up not working. Whatever natural arousal and connection is there ends up getting shunted into what’s coming next, which spoils the whole thing.

I don’t doubt some men feel the same way, just as there are women who can have sex on command and not be worse of because of it. But I have yet to hear a guy worry that by interacting with a girl, he’s obliging himself to ave sex with her, and that she’ll feel cheated by having spent time with him without getting sex in return. And the girls who want sex with a guy and don’t get it tend to (in my experience) either be intrigued or worry more about if something was wrong with them.

These conversations seem to get bogged down by adherence to a gender binary that is crumbling to some degree, but also never really existed anyway. Even in the most “traditional, patriarchal” settings, there are still people who don’t “fit” and who choose to be at least somewhat open about that not fitting, even if they are completely shamed and ostracized for it.

So, while I would agree that women experience much more policing around their sexuality, and also deal with more unwanted invasions and expectations – it’s also the case that men who deviate from the norm face a whole set of different challenges, which may be lesser in degree to what women face, but which represent – in my view – another piece of the whole puzzle.

But what we’re talking about here is that stereotypical male sexuality is not appreciated enough, which I think is strange considering how many people struggle just to get their sexuality acknowledged, let alone appreciated. The last comment to Clarisse’s Creep article, was from a guy with a website called ‘The Sex Nerd’, which is a very general description. The headline says “The best sex-oriented free blog around, with sex questions, porn reviews, sex commentary and inside industry information! You like sex? You need . . . the Sex Nerd!”. It sounds very universal, basically for everyone interested in sex, and yet, all the material is aimed at straight men.

Of the five categories on the page, there is “How to tell your wife about your porn hobby”, “Nerd girl hall of fame” (which seems to be mainly about conventionally attractive women who play nerds in TV shows), and three categories talking about what seems to be male-focussed porn. So it’s the best sex-oriented blog, which people who like sex need, and all the material pretty much assumes that ‘people’ are straight men of conventional taste. And even in sex-positive spaces, the same view prevails. A couple of months ago, maymay had a post up remarking how even the flyers for lady porn day largely featured attractive white women, as if women wouldn’t be interested in looking at men.

It’s not just that, but it’s what I see almost everywhere I look. Sex is equated with conventionally attractive women trying to arouse straight men on such a routine basis that it’s not even noticed most of the time. It makes it damned arrogant when the same men start talking about how marginalised their sexuality is, and how everybody needs to move even further to make more room for their sexuality.

When I see a statement like this I think “Not only do I have to deal with all the men out there who reinforce this, but I also have to face the fact that a percentage of women will view me – solely due to my gender and sexual preference – as part of that group.”

Women are rightly pissed that they often get reduced to sex objects. But you know, as a man, I get pissed at so often being reduced to “a sex hound who is solely driven by his cock.”

Sort of like how women have to not only fight to get their sexuality acknowledged, but also have to deal with accusations of prudery and not respecting masculinity every time their wishes and priorities aren’t aligned with stereotypical male sexuality, and take the collective blame for every time some woman somewhere fails to fuck some guy who think she owes it to him.

I get it, and I’m sorry I chose a simplified model of explanation, but I was responding to a post dealing with stereotypical male sexuality, and stereotypical female sexuality as perceived by the men who subscribe to stereotypical male sexuality, so I went along with those definitions because the post was getting long enough as it was.

These totalizing views are so tired and worn out.
And sometimes it just seems like a big loop where the behaviors and thoughts most of talking here don’t want get reinforced anyway because we’d rather keep it abstract and assign blame, then actually question our assumptions, share experiences, and consider how things might be different.

But blame can be important, if nothing else then for establishing who’s trying to assign it.

Sam April 23, 2011 at 2:30 pm #

AB,

really, remember when you called me patronizing? Kind of ironic given that you keep telling people how their perception of reality is just wrong and should really be more like yours.

I’m not sure why you don’t just say what you seem to imply over and over: that men talking about their problems with women, even in as fair and balanced a manner as here, is “entitled” and ignorant of what’s really important, and they should really get a grip and check their privilege (ie, “shut up”).

If they just looked better, they’d get laid alright. Thanks for summarizing the entire masculinity debate in such a concise paradigm… (I know sarcasm doesn’t work on the web, but, well, I tried anyway.)

“And you’re right that in a heartless, cynical, capitalist society, men have all the right in the world to use their considerable buying power to dissuade the portrayal of women in capacities unrelated to male sexuality. But in such a heartless and cynical world, feminists can’t be expected to take any responsibility for whether or not those men feel good about themselves doing it either.”

And once again we’re at a point where *you* question the entire purpose of talking to each other. So, let’s just go to our respective corners of the battle of the sexes? I mean I don’t understand what the point of basically insulting people who are trying to talk to (general you) you is. This entire debate is premised on the mutual acceptance of problems and the assumption that there is a way to both reconfigure currently conflicting interests as not actually confliciting, and – where a reconfiguration is impossible – that they can largely be balanced in a mutually acceptable way.

You don’t seem to share that assumption – do you?

Sadly, for all the comments you’ve written, and all the discussion held, your position seems to not have moved even a millimeter – male problems don’t really seem exist, and if they do, they’re not worthy of attention. You’re expecting people to consider (general you) your problems while telling them that it is fair and well to not consider theirs. Really?

Telling people it is their moral duty to suffer while helping someone else is probably not going to be a particularly convincing position…

Clarisse April 23, 2011 at 3:48 pm #

Correcting a misconception: Chris, who wrote the original article, actually asked me to change the intro blurb after reading my original version. The current version reflects how he prefers to be described. He also wrote to me that

I wouldn’t say I used ‘some pickup artist principles to create’ my other site [i.e. SucceedSocially.com]. The other site came first and I can honestly say I didn’t once consider anything from the seduction community when I was coming up with it. It wasn’t a reaction to the seduction community at all. Completely separate topic.

AB April 23, 2011 at 3:51 pm #

@Sam:

you keep telling people how their perception of reality is just wrong and should really be more like yours.

When I think a view is wrong, I’ll say it. It’s not like anyone here have held themselves back in saying when they thought I was wrong, and I’m not going to hold myself to higher standards just because I’m one of the few people here with a vagina.

I’m not sure why you don’t just say what you seem to imply over and over: that men talking about their problems with women, even in as fair and balanced a manner as here, is “entitled” and ignorant of what’s really important, and they should really get a grip and check their privilege (ie, “shut up”).

Way to go proving how I’m the arrogant one, assuming that, for all my bluntness, there’s some real opinion of mine that I’m just not sharing. And for all that I’ve mentioned repeatedly how tired I am of being put into some feminist context that I’m not part of, you have to insinuate some feminist agenda behind it too. And way to go teaching me to not disrespect other people’s perceptions.

If they just looked better, they’d get laid alright. Thanks for summarizing the entire masculinity debate in such a concise paradigm… (I know sarcasm doesn’t work on the web, but, well, I tried anyway.)

It’s not the entire debate, but it’s a big part of it, which men keep wanting to avoid at the same time as they’re defending their right to be attracted to women based on appearance.

And once again we’re at a point where *you* question the entire purpose of talking to each other. So, let’s just go to our respective corners of the battle of the sexes? I mean I don’t understand what the point of basically insulting people who are trying to talk to (general you) you is.

So now your perception of me being insulting is valid, but my perception of people being insulting is not? If that’s talking, I don’t want to listen.

This entire debate is premised on the mutual acceptance of problems and the assumption that there is a way to both reconfigure currently conflicting interests as not actually confliciting, and – where a reconfiguration is impossible – that they can largely be balanced in a mutually acceptable way.

You don’t seem to share that assumption – do you?

If accepting other people’s problems meant just ignoring them and keep focussing on my own, while expressing disapproval that everybody else isn’t sharing my focus, then I don’t share that assumption, I think it’s a shitty thing to do, and I’d prefer to be without your acceptance.

Sadly, for all the comments you’ve written, and all the discussion held, your position seems to not have moved even a millimeter – male problems don’t really seem exist, and if they do, they’re not worthy of attention. You’re expecting people to consider (general you) your problems while telling them that it is fair and well to not consider theirs. Really?

It’s ironic that whenever I’ve expressed a problem of mine as being linked with the issues expressed here (e.g. a lack of girls to talk to in bars compared to girls staying away because the sexual environment is unwelcoming to them, or female sexual scarcity compared to girls feeling that they need sexual value to make up for a lack of regard in nonsexual contexts), the answers (when there have been answers) have pretty consistently been “Yeah it sucks for both sexes. Now in regards to how masculinity is vilified and male sexuality is not appreciated enough……”, and then the discussion continues with men talking with men about how hard it is to be a man.

So far, you have not been interested in addressing any of my concerns. I make a post saying that , however men might feel about their chances picking up women in bars, at least my male friends can go to a bar without feeling that their mere presence is an offence to the opposite sex, and you respond by ignoring it and continue to talk about how bad female sexual scarcity is for men. Sagredo makes a post suggesting that women’s behaviour is never criticised, and you completely ignore it in favour of telling me to take other people’s concerns seriously. You talk about how a a misogynist webcomic is funny, and then turn around start lecturing me about not insulting people. I get the feeling your real problem isn’t so much any degree of offence, disregard for other people’s opinions, absolutist statements about the sexes, or whatever else, but just that I don’t agree with you.

Clarisse April 23, 2011 at 4:56 pm #

Okay okay ….

I agree with AB that it can get frustrating to feel as though women’s side is being ignored in these conversations. And I think it’s really not cool for men to try and co-opt every conversation ever about sexuality (hence the “what about the menz?” sarcastic feminist note), but the general focus of these threads is, in fairness, masculinity, and communities that are focused on men’s desires, so it makes sense for masculinity and male desire to be the main topic.

I relate really strongly to AB’s critiques, and I agree with her on a lot of what she says, especially comments like:

It’s not just that, but it’s what I see almost everywhere I look. Sex is equated with conventionally attractive women trying to arouse straight men on such a routine basis that it’s not even noticed most of the time. It makes it damned arrogant when the same men start talking about how marginalised their sexuality is, and how everybody needs to move even further to make more room for their sexuality.

and

Because, as men seem to have decided by themselves, it’s male desire that’s not appreciated. And I see this acceptance of my desire every time I hear my sex lovingly described as gatekeepers of male sexuality. And every time a guy reacts to my statements about how I don’t feel there’s any acceptance or tolerance towards my sexuality by either ignoring it or give me the equivalent of “But real issue here is that, with you not feeling comfortable or welcome to explore your own sexuality, I could end up not getting a piece of your pussy!”

It’s so great to a woman and not only have worse sex than men, feel more sexually repressed, know that your sexuality is more likely to be labelled disgusting if you’re not attractive yourself, and risk being called either a cheap slut or a frigid prude, but also be made to feel guilty every time those feelings prevent you from giving sex to men, and have it taken as a sign that you don’t appreciate male sexuality the way you ought to. I can just feel the appreciation for my sexuality when I hear these things.

I want there to be a way to ensure that those critiques are on the table when we do talk about men’s sexuality, and male sexual desire, because I think it’s important that heterosexual men who are trying to have sex (especially guys who are into manipulative disciplines like PUA) keep women’s reality in mind. And for the most part, I think commenters here are trying to contribute ideas and learn about what other people’s experiences.

But I don’t want the conversation to become oppression olympics, or a snipe-fest, and lose focus on actually making each other aware of our own realities. And AB, I do think that you’re framing those critiques very aggressively.

Here are some suggestions?

When making assertions about a group you aren’t part of (e.g., men making assertions about women), try saying “I have observed that women seem to be …” rather than “Women are …” Providing evidence, even if it’s anecdotal, would be awesome.

When trying to describe a problem for your group (e.g., women talking about how much things suck for women), try thinking about how that problem might negatively affect the other side as well, and including some kind of musings along those lines before posting.

Please try to assume that other people in the conversation mean well and aren’t deliberately ignoring or marginalizing your perspective.

Also, in general, framing things as “I feel like” or “I think” will usually come off better than “You’re saying” or “you think”. Although some people still manage to sound like jerks while doing this, I’m not sure how ….

Hugh Ristik April 23, 2011 at 6:12 pm #

AB, I’m a bit confused. These threads on Clarisse’s blog have mainly been about masculinity and pickup. So is it any surprise that men’s dating challenges and experiences are being centered? Discussing female challenges in society and dating wouldn’t be off-topic, of course, but if they aren’t the main topic, then maybe it isn’t surprising that people aren’t addressing some of the points you bring up.

The space that Clarisse has created is unique, in that it allows for the dating challenges of men to be discussed in a non-stigmatizing way, but also without the constant ranting about women that you might find on MRA or PUA blogs. It’s not surprising that men on this blog are primarily using it to discuss their own experiences with gender and sexuality. This doesn’t mean that they don’t agree that at least some of your points are valid.

If you feel that someone has just actively denied your experience (as opposed to disagreeing with your interpretation of it, or presenting their differing experience), then that’s different, but that’s not my initial impression of what’s been happening. Personally, I often read your discussions of your experiences with the challenges that women face, I agree with most of what you say, disagree with other things, and then respond to something else.

If Clarisse started a thread on femininity, female pickup, or female dating challenges, then perhaps discussions would look different.

I’m going to do another post and explain what I think about the points and experiences that you raised.

Hugh Ristik April 23, 2011 at 6:15 pm #

AB, here is what I think of some of the points you raised in those posts in this thread:

Sagredo said:

AB, I don’t mind similar behaviour assigned to a similarity in gender. But there is a toxic line of thought that runs men and women are the same except for social effects, so when they behave differently, the male behaviour is wrong.

AB said:

That doesn’t happen. What does happen is that female behaviour is criticised all the time, including (perhaps especially) by feminists, but every time the same happens to men, people resort to the old cliché about men not being allowed to be men, as if improving themselves is some betrayal of who they are as a sex.

Without you presenting more of your reasoning about why you disagree with Sagredo, it looks like you are dismissing him.

Now, I agree with you that the “men not being allowed to be men” meme is B.S. I don’t agree with Strauss bringing it up in his interview. I think his point was about women trying to change men in relationships. In that case, his real beef is with people trying to change their partners. If he believes that women do this more often, then he should complain about women trying to turn men into projects, rather than women “not allowing men to be men.”

Sagredo said:

One of the things I’m seeing underlying criticism of PUA coming from feminist directions is a failure to appreciate the nature of male desire.

AB said:

Definitely. And this is in sharp contrast to how female desire is accepted.

Thanks for acknowledging how male desire is often not accepted.

For instance, I mentioned that, unlike the lucky guys who only have to put up with potentially rude rejections if they hit on someone in a bar

I think you’re actually making a good point, here. It’s a lot easier for a guy to go to a bar and not be bothered by advances from people they probably aren’t attracted to who may have presumptuous expectations.

But if I’m in a bar, I might end up talking to a guy. And perhaps he’ll like talking and flirting just for its own sake (I know guys who do), but perhaps he’s going to expect sexual services in exchange for deigning to spend time with me, and ‘leading him on’ without being prepared to service him sexually means that he’s wasted his time talking to me!

The attitude that these men seem to hold sounds pretty ridiculous. Expecting women in a bar to hookup that night to avoid being considered teases is not realistic. In fact, expecting women to hookup at all to not be considered teases is not realistic.

It does seem that a lot of men go to bars looking for someone to have some sort of sexual activity with. That’s a reasonable desire, but it’s also reasonable for people to want to socialize in bars without hooking up with anyone. To balance these two, desires, I would suggest that if you’re sure you aren’t interested in a guy, it might be a good idea to engage in certain behaviors that are commonly used by other women to display sexual interest (e.g. sitting in his lap). This could indeed provide a jarring surprise when you reject him later.

However, if you aren’t sure that aren’t into the guy, then he is basically getting an audition if you talk to him. Even from a purely pragmatic, sex-focused standpoint, it would be silly for him to call you a “tease” when you gave him an audition, and he simply failed to make the cut. Expecting a woman to know from the beginning whether she is interested or not would be a bad practice, especially since women’s preferences are more particular about behavior and personality than men’s, and those traits are hard to assess.

If you are sure you aren’t into a guy, and you aren’t excessively flirting with him (e.g. you aren’t sitting in his lap, rubbing your breasts on his chest, or telling him about your favorite sexual positions), then I would say that he doesn’t have any basis to criticize you for being a bar, and if he does, he should go to hell.

As a guy told me, with a very straight face “one of the things guys are most worried about is teases”, with a look that told me just how high a priority he considered the need for men to not have to socialise with women without sex being involved to be

This guy is a jerk. I think most guys in this thread would agree. In fact, perhaps the considered it so obvious that they don’t feel a need to express their agreement.

“Don’t give me an audition unless you are sure that you already want me” is an absurd attitude for men to hold. I am angry that some men hold it, because it hurts me, too, if women are more hesitant to be social with me out of fear of being considered “teases.”

Btw, the reason that I have a skeptical attitude towards the “leading on” construct is because of studying pickup. Before then, I used to worry about being led on.

I’ve brought it up here before that I’ve so far been unable to get sexually aroused in situations where I’ve felt that sex was a requirement, and that I need it to be something which occurs spontaneously because all the involved parties want it.

Completely understandable preference.

And that as long as I can’t talk to men for its own sake, with sex being a remote possibility but not a requirement

In my view, there is nothing wrong with you talking to men in bars for its own sake, with sex a remote possibility but not a requirement. Guys should just deal with the fact that women are more sexually and behaviorally selective, and may take a longer time to assess men. Furthermore, if they got an audition and failed to meet your criteria, then they shouldn’t get mad at you or at themselves.

the bar-scene (as well as several other scenes) is closed to me, because me exploring my sexuality in that way makes me a tease.

In my view, the only valid application of “tease” is when someone is showing behaviors associated with sexual interest significantly in excess of what they feel at the time they are showing those behaviors.

And I know that there are enough men who don’t feel I have the right to frequent bars with the goal of just talking to people that I don’t feel comfortable doing so.

Well, they are wrong, and they are making the bar scene less fun for everyone, including themselves. Even in the context of their sexual goals, they are shooting themselves in the foot by scaring off women who may give them sexual opportunities, but who are just more selective.

Because, as men seem to have decided by themselves, it’s male desire that’s not appreciated.

Wait, which men are you talking about? I think that most of the men here feel that both male and female sexuality encounter lack of appreciation, in different contexts. These threads just happen to mostly focused on lack of appreciation towards male sexuality.

And every time a guy reacts to my statements about how I don’t feel there’s any acceptance or tolerance towards my sexuality by either ignoring it or give me the equivalent of “But real issue here is that, with you not feeling comfortable or welcome to explore your own sexuality, I could end up not getting a piece of your pussy!”

Can’t it be both? Couldn’t there be oppression both towards women who don’t feel uncomfortable expressing their sexuality, and towards men who then missing on women exploring their sexuality with them? I haven’t seen men here saying anything contradicting this interpretation.

It’s so great to a woman and not only have worse sex than men

Now you are going somewhere I’m not willing to follow you. Saying that women have worse sex than men isn’t just a claim about women’s experience, it’s also a claim about men’s. It’s possible that you are correct, but I’m not going to accept assertions like this as a condition for discussion, nor am I marginalizing your experience if I’m skeptical of this claim.

If you instead claimed that women have less orgasms during sex, then I would agree. That’s measurable.

feel more sexually repressed

Because you know how sexually repressed men feel. Pardon me for not getting on board with this sort of oppression olympics. If you wanted to present this as a hypothesis, then I would be open to it, but I’m not OK with you just asserting it.

know that your sexuality is more likely to be labelled disgusting if you’re not attractive yourself

I’m a lot more sympathetic to this claim, because it’s more measurable. There is evidence that women are judged more on their appearance.

and risk being called either a cheap slut or a frigid prude

I am sympathetic towards the existence of this double standard.

The vast majority of guys who’re sexually unsuccessful would not be so if they looked better. In fact, I have never seen a guy whom I’ve judged to be very physically attractive who’ve had trouble getting dates.

Well, my experience differs. Guys in the top 10% of attractiveness seem to do quite well, but short of that, being above-average in looks is no guarantee of dating success.

In my case, even when I was terrible with women, I would get attention purely based on my looks sometimes. However, this attention evaporated once women attempted to have a conversation with me, probably because my social skills were so bad. I improved my dating success a lot by improving my style and grooming, but I’m still quite confident that I would still have major problems in dating if I hadn’t also changed my behavior.

And yet, physically unattractive guys keep on not just drooling over girls vastly more attractive than themselves, but also insisting that the only reason said girls are not interested on them is because women don’t like nice guys, neatly shifting the whole blame on women, while simultaneously claiming to be the victims of a society that doesn’t accept or appreciate male sexuality.

These guys are confused. But I hope you realize that plenty of men can make the same complaints without aiming for women who are vastly more conventionally attractive.

Gotta run now… more later…

Clarisse April 23, 2011 at 6:40 pm #

To lighten the tone, here is a COMPLETELY BRILLIANT AND HILARIOUS post from Mark:

http://www.practicalpickup.com/the-10-step-guide-to-getting-hb10s-every-time

it’s not going to be funny to people who are generally unfamiliar with pickup though.

Sam April 23, 2011 at 11:29 pm #

Clarisse,

that post by Mark made me think of the Lorenzo von Matterhorn…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7ZVEvxSR7g

Should also lighten mood a little ;)

AB,

It’s not the entire debate, but it’s a big part of it, which men keep wanting to avoid at the same time as they’re defending their right to be attracted to women based on appearance.

I’m sorry, but that’s basically the same argument that was once made by a crazy American pundit about how “feminism was created to integrate ugly women into society”.

If accepting other people’s problems meant just ignoring them and keep focussing on my own, while expressing disapproval that everybody else isn’t sharing my focus, then I don’t share that assumption

That’s your perception? You know what’s weird? That sentence is pretty much a shorter version of my comment directed at you. I really don’t understand how it’s possible to talk past each other to that extent.

I get the feeling your real problem isn’t so much any degree of offence, disregard for other people’s opinions, absolutist statements about the sexes, or whatever else, but just that I don’t agree with you.

I think my problem is mostly the way you say things. If you’ve ever said “it sucks for both sexes”, I’ve missed it (which, on is entirely possible).

Clarisse, AB,

as for the aspects you want on the table -

It’s not just that, but it’s what I see almost everywhere I look. Sex is equated with conventionally attractive women trying to arouse straight men on such a routine basis that it’s not even noticed most of the time. It makes it damned arrogant when the same men start talking about how marginalised their sexuality is, and how everybody needs to move even further to make more room for their sexuality.

But really, how is this not a rephrasing of “check your privilege”? How is this not a rephrasing of “how entitled is it if heterosexual men talk about problems when the entire world is built around their sexuality?” How is it possible to make an argument about how privileges aren’t even noticed by those holding them without being willing to accept that oneself could be the bearer of privileges one is equally unaware of? How is that paragraph not a slippery slope into oppression olympics?
I would also like to mention that the kind of pain we’re talking about is partly strucuturally caused, but *individually* experienced.

…“But real issue here is that, with you not feeling comfortable or welcome to explore your own sexuality, I could end up not getting a piece of your pussy!””

Not really the point as such, in my opinion. But the imbalance that results is an important social variable. I strongly believe that reducing the imbalance in perceived sexual scarcity is one of the most important variables when it comes to improving society. I believe that giving men better tools to deal with the scarcity they perceive in appropriate ways will help in that respect just as reducing slut shaming will.

Lathe of Heaven April 24, 2011 at 12:03 am #

.
“Sex is equated with conventionally attractive women trying to arouse straight men on such a routine basis that it’s not even noticed most of the time.”
.
Good lord, on what planet is this true? and, how can I get a ticket there?
.
If the phrase “straight men” were replaced with “the top 5-10% most attractive straight men” then this sentence would have a chance of passing the laugh test. But the idea that conventionally attractive women are trying to arouse all straight men, or a majority of straight men, is utterly ridiculous.
.
Once again, I highly recommend this Alek Novy post:
.
http://aleknovy.com/2009/11/04/the-hierarchy-most-men-are-at-the-bottom/
.
it will, literally, help put things in perspective; which is that (i) the average man’s sexuality is utterly marginalized, (ii) women don’t realize it, (iii) feminists can’t be bothered to care and probably even revel in the idea.
.
There’s an excess of discussion about how much work women need to do to be considered attractive; but in fact the eye of the needle that men must thread to be attractive is much narrower still even if women refuse t realize that fact. So, no, I’m not going to countenance AB’s writing here at all, as it’s so self-servingly and perniciously disconnected from reality.

Infra April 24, 2011 at 12:24 am #

@Clarisse:

Re: #67, isn’t that tone, style and formatting reminiscent of three late comments from a different thread?

Bry S April 24, 2011 at 1:54 am #

Firstly, thank you to Clarisse for writing these posts and setting up this forum. There are plenty of other places to discuss male sexuality: but as many commentators point out–these tend to go hand in hand with a lot of negative comments towards anything outside a PUA script.

I have difficulty commenting on the article as I have had limited experience with this community, or pick-up (?): but I think some data is in order. Pick-up is becoming more mainstream, and if the future world where pick-up is mainstream is damaging to women then it is a valid cause for concern for feminists. An important question for feminists is to get some real data to sort out what PUA means for women. A quick google-scholar search (for citations of The Game) yielded this thesis, which is largely positive (and an enjoyable read)–it largely interprets PUA as relating to male group behavior (my term) that has always been common. This point is also made in this paper.

I also found this paper on smooth speed-dating as well:

The present data suggest that how
one reacts to the partner is perhaps even more important for
achieving good romantic outcomes. Do you express yourself
without boldly asserting your independence from your interac-
tion partner? Do you react warmly without relying on the part-
ner to maintain the flow of the date? Do you maintain an active
role in the conversation and avoid withdrawing or tuning out?

This is in contrast to a lot of what I’ve read of PUA techniques (although I’m sure many PUAs would point out their importance). In any case, I think when dating is subjected to the scientific method you will get something very different from what I’ve read of PUAs. If men are really interested in pick-up and have some rationality then this should predict that pick-up is bound to change in the coming years. Conversation-focused types such as Wayne “Juggler” Elize and Jeremy Soul maybe more common than the routine-focused “Mystery” (he must have a real name…). That also has implications for what feminists might think of the community.

Clarisse April 24, 2011 at 2:35 am #

@Lathe — firstly, AB didn’t say that “conventionally attractive men are trying to arouse all straight men”, she said that “sex is equated with conventionally attractive women trying to arouse straight men on a routine basis”. Secondly, don’t make blanket statements about feminists or women. Thirdly, AB is not self-servingly and perniciously disconnected from reality, she’s experiencing things differently from the way you are, and in a way that’s highly similar to how many other women experience things. Fourthly, I’m really struggling to not interpret your comment as trolling, but it’s hard. If you comment in a similar vein again, I’ll put you on moderation.

@Infra — I’ve noticed a lot of MRA commenters in various places do that period thing, I don’t know why. Maybe most MRA blogs use shitty wordpress themes that require that in order to get double returns, or something (I seem to recall that Susan Walsh’s does). #67 seems to have a real email address, unlike the ones you’re referring to.

k April 24, 2011 at 3:17 am #

Hugh, re: AB’s point about being perceived as a “tease” just for talking to men – in my opinion this is one of those experiences that’s absolutely common for women to have, but it’s largely invisible to decent men who’d never treat a woman that way and who mostly hang out with other men who know how to treat human beings.

A good analogy might be to street harassment. In the past few years women have been opening up a lot more about the universal experience of being harassed. But a lot of men, who never observe the behaviors a select few asshole guys engage in when a woman is walking alone, simply have a hard time believing that such ridiculous shit happens. It is something that guys don’t necessarily see unless they engage in it themselves.

And like street harassment, getting cussed out for being a “tease” after simply engaging in conversation, making eye contact briefly (yes indeed – this has happened to me), etc., is something that makes a lot of women feel extremely unsafe. I relate to AB’s feeling like the bar scene is “closed” to her because she doesn’t want to deal with these types of men.

It really sucks for everyone that there are men out there who treat women that way, because it ruins a lot of good clean AND dirty fun that could be had. Personally, I love chatting with anyone and everyone in a bar – that’s why I have a second job at a bar! But it can be incredibly stressful to deal with a select minority of men.

Is this dynamic something that many guys take into account when they talk about stuff like “bitch shields”? Because when I hear “bitch shield” I think “of course I come across as brash and bitchy sometimes, in order to shield myself from entitled harassers”.

OK, that was a lot of words about a new subject, I’ll try to get around to replying to the old stuff in a bit :)

k April 24, 2011 at 3:31 am #

And just to be clear, Hugh, I think that jerks of the sort I’m talking about ARE a tiny minority of men. But encountering them is truly, truly exhausting and sometimes frightening. It shouldn’t be the case that men who’d never do such a thing feel like they’re the enemy in a “battle of the sexes” because women feel we have to constantly be on our guard against that small group of harassers… and yet, I’ve experienced that an hour of pleasant, casual, noncommittal conversation is no guarantee that a guy won’t blow up on me at the end of the night for not wanting to fuck him ASAP.

It is stupid and it totally sucks. I think the only thing we can do is to approach other human beings with openness and good faith, and come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who accuses women of being “cockteases”.

Infra April 24, 2011 at 3:32 am #

@k:

But a lot of men, who never observe the behaviors a select few asshole guys engage in when a woman is walking alone, simply have a hard time believing that such ridiculous shit happens.

It’s difficult to recognize in other cases, too. It’s mostly related to my build and hair (when viewed from the back), and the style of some of my clothes (I used to order from International Male when I could afford it), but it wasn’t until I heard one of the guys in the car next to me say, “Fuck, man! That’s a dude!” just before the jeering stopped that I recognized that I’d been getting some of the same kind of harassment as women get.

Previous to that, the honks and yells that I’d get from the passing vehicles just puzzled and annoyed me. Eye-opening experience, that was, and I’d almost go so far as to recommend it just for that reason.

Is this dynamic something that many guys take into account when they talk about stuff like “bitch shields”? Because when I hear “bitch shield” I think “of course I come across as brash and bitchy sometimes, in order to shield myself from entitled harassers”.

Didn’t used to, but, as suggested by the above… I do now.

Clarisse April 24, 2011 at 3:44 am #

@Sagredo #29 — Other folk who are not so good at it, need to make an effort in figuring out how to respond, aware that if they do so badly, they’ll be less successful in the interaction. For them it really is a test.

I just wanted to say thanks for this comment, even though it’s old, because it helps me put PUAs seeing things as “tests” in a more positive frame. I’m still not really comfortable with it — it’s more of the reducing-women-to-NPCs thing, basically — but I guess I’m more comfortable with that than I am with reducing-women-to-bitches-who-are-always-manipulating :P

@Sam — But really, how is this not a rephrasing of “check your privilege”? How is this not a rephrasing of “how entitled is it if heterosexual men talk about problems when the entire world is built around their sexuality?” How is it possible to make an argument about how privileges aren’t even noticed by those holding them without being willing to accept that oneself could be the bearer of privileges one is equally unaware of? How is that paragraph not a slippery slope into oppression olympics?

Well … you and I have discussed before that I actually find the “check your privilege” injunction to be useful, whereas you don’t.

I guess what it really comes down to for me is that I’m convinced that one of the big holes in current PUAdom is a general (though not universal) lack of understanding of women’s experience, and disinterest in learning about women’s experience. As I wrote on the ePUA thread, how many PUAs who discuss LMR tactics even know that rape survivors sometimes freeze up and can’t respond when they’re being retraumatized? How many of them would listen if someone tried to tell them? That’s an extreme example, but it’s replicated frequently in the subculture to lesser degrees. There are exceptions, but they’re exceptions.

When I started investigating this whole line, I quickly drew one conclusion that I haven’t really deviated from, which is that no matter how much PUAs are suffering from not getting female attention, it doesn’t justify the way so many of them dismiss or don’t care to hear about women’s experience when they try to learn about seducing women. There’s something really appalling and horrible about the way so many men (not just PUAs, really) will insist, not just on the Internet but to my face, that my life is just so awesome because I can go get laid “whenever I want” (supposedly) with guys who aren’t them (how dare I!), with no understanding of how damaging and scary and problematic that prospect is, and how thoroughly female sexuality simply does not tend to work that way — not even mine, non-normative as I am. It leads to this insane sense of resentment based on nothing at all — a prize that I don’t even want. And not emphasizing women’s experience, stuff like suppression of female sexuality and societal centering of men’s sexuality, is what creates that kind of attitude.

@k — Yeah, PUAs generally acknowledge that women develop bitch shields as a result of being approached a lot. I’ve met very few who actually comprehend the reality of street harassment, etc, but most of them get that bitch shields are usually a direct result of women fending guys off a lot. They don’t see it as women dealing with “entitled harassers” though … usually they think they resent us for getting so much attention ;)

Clarisse April 24, 2011 at 3:47 am #

@Infra — Previous to that, the honks and yells that I’d get from the passing vehicles just puzzled and annoyed me. Eye-opening experience, that was, and I’d almost go so far as to recommend it just for that reason.

It’s much worse for androgynous or obviously trans people, I think — people (especially most men) seem to be so unsettled by genderqueer, it’s really stunning. I get my share of street harassment, but it seems to be mild compared to what my trans friends report, or even the male submissives I know who dress up as female. On the other hand, perhaps I notice it less due to the fact that it’s always happening and has been since my teens :P

AB April 24, 2011 at 3:50 am #

@Clarisse:

the general focus of these threads is, in fairness, masculinity, and communities that are focused on men’s desires, so it makes sense for masculinity and male desire to be the main topic.

I know, and I try to appreciate it, but there’s just one thing that keeps bothering me about conversations like these.

In the real world, some of the most marginalised men and male-bodied individuals, subject to more of everything from harassment to hate crimes, are those who do not subscribe to traditional or stereotypical masculinity. Gays, transsexuals, cross-dressers, sexually submissive, or just men who’re plain effeminate or who’ve taken over a traditionally female role in one or more areas.

But as soon as it comes to debates about sex and gender, especially those that aren’t explicitly female-focussed, that reality suddenly changes, and it becomes all about how masculinity is threatened, how straight, cisgender men with a stereotypical male sexuality aren’t accepted enough, how men aren’t allowed to be men. As if the battle for men to be allowed to be anything other than traditionally/stereotypically masculine had been fought and won decades ago.

In the same way, in reality, there’s quite a stigma against men who date women who aren’t stereotypically desirable to them (e.g. older, fat), with guys being more reluctant to be seen with fat women while few of them seem embarrassed to show of their latest skinny conquest. And yet, whenever there’s a serious debate about sexual stigmas, it seems only heavy moderation can prevent it from being turned into straight, cisgender men of conventional taste setting themselves up as representatives of the male sex and telling people how important it is to accept the fundamental male desire for slim, young, and conventionally attractive girls.

I can’t help remember thinking about what I’ve seen mentioned (especially by straight, cisgender men with a stereotypical male sexuality) a couple of hundred times about feminism, that it is a movement for straight, white, middle-class women. That they, as one of the biggest and by far the most influential group, are promoting an agenda that’s every bit as ignorant as that of the men they’re complaining about, and that they’re railing against alleged oppression while using their own privilege to set themselves up as the norm.

And sometimes I can recognise it, though the feminists that spring to mind are not so much the white academics that men are complaining over as those cool and hip young women who watch Sex & the City, shave not just their armpits but their whole body, take poledancing lessons, have 20 pairs of designer shoes in their closet, and are always talking about how feminism needs a facelift, and how old, fat, hairy women are giving feminists (i.e. them) a bad name, oblivious to why their lifestyle is not for everyone.

So when I see the same group of people, who’re always pointing it out (and often rightly so) when feminism fails to take less mainstream/privileged women into account, start using their even more considerable influence to do the exact same thing, it annoys me in no small way. It’s like what’s happening to feminism on steroids, and it’s not just damaging for the men whose sexuality is truly marginalised, but also for women, because we’re affected just as much by the way the sexuality of straight, cisgender men with stereotypical tastes is set up as the norm.

I don’t want to play the Oppression Olympics, but when someone can link to a blog which is supposedly about sexuality for everyone, but only contains material about porn for straight men, without noticing the contradiction, and simultaneously talk about men and masculinity as marginalised in society, as what happened in the Creep thread….. well, I find it pretty hard to accept that this kind of sexuality is what we need to normalise even more, because its perceived normalcy is already excluding a lot of people.

Infra April 24, 2011 at 3:55 am #

@Clarisse:

It’s much worse for androgynous or obviously trans people, I think — people (especially most men) seem to be so unsettled by genderqueer, it’s really stunning.

No doubt; I had a conversation about that with one trans woman that I met in this area, some years back, and the severity of it still sticks in my mind. It’s an especially difficult thing during the initial parts of transition.

I consider myself fortunate in that way, because it wasn’t an androgynous thing. If you know who Nuno Bettencourt is (the guitarist best known from the ’80-90s band Extreme), that’s pretty much the look that I had. So once they recognized me as a guy, they tended to back off.

Which just heightened the impact of the experience.

k April 24, 2011 at 4:07 am #

Oh, Infra, that sounds so confusing! I am decidedly female but have a slight build and run around in Docs, straight legged jeans, and sweatshirts a lot and have short hair, so I come across as androgynous sometimes. And somehow, that just seems to make harassers really angry. I can’t imagine what it was like to deal with that kind of response without knowing what it was about. Eye-opening is right.
Clarisse, it cracks me up to imagine someone thinking of unwanted, random sexual attention as a privilege. But then again I had to shove a guy out of my path last night because my innocent question about where a nearby hostel was, turned into him making explicit sexual gestures at me and screaming I NEED YOUR PUSSY!!! while refusing to let me pass him on the sidewalk, so ya know. Oh but I was totally wearing a short skirt what a tease I am.

k April 24, 2011 at 4:27 am #

For nathan’s comment, #50:

So, the reason I am pointing out the “nice guy” meme is that it is something I have experienced firsthand – being skipped over because I appeared to be a “nice guy” with no backbone – and also because it’s a reoccurring theme in women’s writing about dating – feminist, or otherwise. And I think whenever a theme keeps reoccurring in dating narratives that generalizes based on gender, red flags should go up.

Oh, now I see what kind of “nice guy” issue you mean! I was talking about this kind: http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2007/12/16/the-internet-nice-guy-rears-his-ugly-head-once-more/ which I think is a very internet-specific usage of the term. Anyway. Moving on.

I do sympathize with your worries, as someone who has trouble coming out of my shell romantically / sexually unless I’ve done a little observing of someone’s character over a longer period of time. But this is one area where women definitely do have an advantage – men are expected to initiate. I don’t know, does it help to know that there are women who also only start perceiving someone as a potential partner after getting to know them a bit?

Sam April 24, 2011 at 9:41 am #

clarisse,

not much time right now, will replay to your comment in detail later, just this:

“Well … you and I have discussed before that I actually find the “check your privilege” injunction to be useful, whereas you don’t.”

not exactly what I said. I said it’s useful for *introspection* but dangerous as a discourse-structuring device. Here’s my last comment on that matter (in which I also mention how I have a lot of conventional feminist “privilege”). For reference, Here’s my main comment in our last discussion about this.

http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2010/10/15/manliness-and-feminism-2-judgment-day/

Sam April 24, 2011 at 9:48 am #

k,

Clarisse, it cracks me up to imagine someone thinking of unwanted, random sexual attention as a privilege. But then again I had to shove a guy out of my path last night because my innocent question about where a nearby hostel was, turned into him making explicit sexual gestures at me and screaming I NEED YOUR PUSSY!!! while refusing to let me pass him on the sidewalk, so ya know. Oh but I was totally wearing a short skirt what a tease I am.

sorry you met such an asshole.

nathan April 24, 2011 at 7:23 pm #

AB “But as soon as it comes to debates about sex and gender, especially those that aren’t explicitly female-focussed, that reality suddenly changes, and it becomes all about how masculinity is threatened, how straight, cisgender men with a stereotypical male sexuality aren’t accepted enough, how men aren’t allowed to be men. As if the battle for men to be allowed to be anything other than traditionally/stereotypically masculine had been fought and won decades ago.”

I agree with this in general; I’ve seen this kind of derail over and over again. But I fail to see how it applies to this particular thread. I’m not seeing the men here defending stereotypical straight guy masculinity, at least for the most part. In fact, some of the male comments here are pointing to exactly how any man who doesn’t fit that stereotypical masculinity also suffers because of that centralized and privileged masculine norm.

And you know, when I hear those MRA type comments about masculinity being threatened, they aren’t representing me. I’m part of the “threat.” Hell, I’ve been told in activist circles that I’m “not much of a man” because I am against war, and advocate for non-violent action and compassion as a basis for any social intervention. Traditional masculinity fucks guys like me over and over again, and certainly not just in the realm of dating and relationships.

Infra’s comment about looks and street harassment – I’ve had that as well. Not only was I mistaken for a woman a few times when I had long hair, but also experienced a fair amount of anti-gay harassment from dudes yelling from cars.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that on other websites (and even a few times on other threads here) I sometimes have failed to wait to check these particular issues when discussions are supposed to be female-centered. Specifically, when I see totalizing language suggesting “All men act like this” or “Men think like that,” it’s hard not to want to react. Because these narratives, when framed in those ways, simply maintain the privileging and centralizing of traditional masculinity. Perhaps it’s best to not comment in these case anyway, but I can’t help but thinking that this is part of the problem. (I.e. The men who represent different views from the privileged norm are basically silenced, told that they are an “exception to the rule,” or that they are playing “what about the menz”) For the record, I have never felt silenced on Clarisse’s blog – I’m talking about other spaces when I speak of being silenced.

@Clarisse “I guess what it really comes down to for me is that I’m convinced that one of the big holes in current PUAdom is a general (though not universal) lack of understanding of women’s experience, and disinterest in learning about women’s experience.” I totally agree. In fact, I’d say not only are female experiences and views ignored or diminished, but I also think the experiences and views of men who aren’t of the masculine norm aren’t terribly supported either. If you are a man who cares about female experience, who wants to engage fully with someone (and not just win a hook up game or bag a new girlfriend), what good is a lot of what’s offered by PUAs?

SnowdropExplodes April 24, 2011 at 7:29 pm #

Re: the street harassment thing -

On Wednesday I had my hair cut short for the first time in nearly 20 years and I can definitely relate to Infra’s comments. The tooted horns, yells and (on one occasion) being sprayed with the windscreen wiper, are things I will definitely not miss about having long hair. (Although since I still display some feminine mannerisms, I may still get it as homophobic abuse instead *shrugs*)

Also @ Infra: “If you know who Nuno Bettencourt is (the guitarist best known from the ’80-90s band Extreme), that’s pretty much the look that I had.”

I sooooo love that look, Bettencourt was (is?) a sexy man!

Sagredo April 24, 2011 at 8:01 pm #

I can’t help remember thinking about what I’ve seen mentioned (especially by straight, cisgender men with a stereotypical male sexuality) a couple of hundred times about feminism, that it is a movement for straight, white, middle-class women.

Actually I hear this more from black and working-class women. I can’t (out of ignorance) speak to its validity or to the differences between “feminism” and “womanism” or whatever. What I hear from straight cisgender men with a stereotypical male sexuality is that feminism is a movement for women, and therefore doesn’t pay attention to men.

I daresay this complaint rather misses the point of feminism, as feminism is a deliberate focus on women and on advocating for women exactly as its name suggests. But it does mean that in those rare circumstances when one does want to understand men, one is going to have to step outside the woman-centered worldview. For instance, when a large number of men report a desire for younger women of high social status with symmetrical faces and not too much body fat, or whatever, it isn’t helpful to harrumph about “traditional masculinity”. When men report all kinds of other desires, it isn’t helpful to hold them up as exemplars of correct male desire to the unreconstructed gendernorm mass. That actually doesn’t promote diversity. It needs to be left up to the individual to find whom they are attracted to and why.

That doesn’t happen. What does happen is that female behaviour is criticised all the time, including (perhaps especially) by feminists, but every time the same happens to men, people resort to the old cliché about men not being allowed to be men, as if improving themselves is some betrayal of who they are as a sex.

Such denial! Actually I see this line of thought all the time from folks who believe that gender differences are entirely socially constructed. Male desires are considered a kind of pathology if they’re too “normal”. And the problems start when “improving themselves” means holding male (and female) desires to a single standard that is in practice based on women since, of course, social construction is arbitrary and harmful in its assortment by binary gender.

And it’s worth bearing in mind that such notions, like feminism generally, and indeed like PUA and MRA and everything else, are part of the marketplace of ideas that ultimately guides societies. What you say has an effect on the world, so you’d better get it right.

Sagredo April 24, 2011 at 8:11 pm #

There’s something really appalling and horrible about the way so many men (not just PUAs, really) will insist, not just on the Internet but to my face, that my life is just so awesome because I can go get laid “whenever I want” (supposedly) with guys who aren’t them (how dare I!),

Dudes are totally failing to DHV. Your life would be more awesome if I let you get laid with me. (is the PUA attitude.)

Actually it amuses me how much PUA echoes women’s complaints about men. For instance, I’m convinced that those creepy “nice guys” and Roissy’s “betas” are in fact the same men.

Lathe of Heaven April 24, 2011 at 9:44 pm #

“There’s something really appalling and horrible about the way so many men (not just PUAs, really) will insist, not just on the Internet but to my face, that my life is just so awesome because I can go get laid “whenever I want” (supposedly) with guys who aren’t them (how dare I!),”

So you might sympathize, then? with the feelings of the decent-enough young man who can’t find a decent job and who hasn’t gotten laid in two years, and yet is endlessly lectured by a never-ending stream of feminists about the incalculable heights and depths of his “male privilege”. You’re not the only one whose observable reality differs sharply from someone else’s “official” version of what is true.

Hugh Ristik April 25, 2011 at 5:46 am #

Clarisse said:

I guess what it really comes down to for me is that I’m convinced that one of the big holes in current PUAdom is a general (though not universal) lack of understanding of women’s experience, and disinterest in learning about women’s experience.

This is a hole in PUAdom, and it’s also a case where PUAs are held to a higher standard than other people. Are PUAs really worse than non-PUA men for their lack of understanding of women’s experience, or worse that women’s lack of understanding of men’s experience?

I don’t mind people focusing that critique on PUAs, as long as they acknowledge in the abstract that it applies to other groups of people.

I would argue that PUAs occupy both the high-end and and low-end of men’s understanding of women’s experience, and interest in learning about women’s experience.

As I wrote on the ePUA thread, how many PUAs who discuss LMR tactics even know that rape survivors sometimes freeze up and can’t respond when they’re being retraumatized?

I don’t think most PUAs understand this notion, which is why certain LMR tactics exist. Luckily, I heard about this idea independently of criticism of pickup, so I wasn’t biased against it by the long history of people criticizing pickup and being horribly confused and wrong.

Hugh Ristik April 25, 2011 at 6:03 am #

Warning, book-length post ahead.

Clarisse said:

How many of them would listen if someone tried to tell them? That’s an extreme example, but it’s replicated frequently in the subculture to lesser degrees. There are exceptions, but they’re exceptions.

How many Africans are receptive to moral criticism from Westerners, based on your experiences in Africa? How many feminists are receptive to moral criticism from MRAs, or other critics of feminism? Exceptions notwithstanding…

In a world where only ethical considerations existed, everyone should just listen to any ethical criticism from anyone with an open mind and adapt. Everyone should listen to the experiences of others.

But in the real world, we don’t just have ethical considerations, we also have political considerations. Politics are a negotiation. You will lose in a negotiation if you just make concessions to others without them making any concessions to you. If you give in to one demand, then what stops them from making another?

Unfortunately, sometimes one group does have the reasonable moral argument on some topic than another. Yet the political polarization prevents them from standing down even when they are in the wrong.

We see this situation with PUAs, and also with feminists hanging on to ridiculous and biased concepts like “patriarchy,” or defining “sexism”, “oppression”, and “privilege” as one way streets. Feminists must reasonably wonder, “if we accept a demand to abandon this concept, what stops anti-feminists from escalating their demands until feminism is completely gutted?”

So how can people negotiate? One way is through trust. You have to feel that if you accept a reasonable demand from another group, it won’t open the door to unreasonable future demands. In the area of sexuality, men and PUAs are often asking for understanding of their experiences. Although this might partly have selfish motives, it could be because these men are trying to negotiate: they are saying “we are interested in listening to you, but please show us that you know enough about our situation that we can trust you.”

Unfortunately, there is a lot of trust lacking between PUAs and feminists (or other people who criticize PUAs), for many reasons.

Another way that people negotiate without trust or communication is through Schelling Points, which are lines in the sand that both people recognize.

Friedman quotes Rudyard Kipling:

It is in my long run interest not to back down because if I do I can expect further demands: “if once you have paid him the danegeld/You never get rid of the Dane.”

He suggests that in property negotiation, people who don’t trust each other will often use features of the landscape to divide the property:

If their ability to coerce and defend is roughly equal, and if there is some natural division of contested property (such as a stream running between their farms), it is likely that they will find a Schelling point in the form of an agreement to accept that division, respect each other’s rights, and pay no tribute.
[...]
If one (being, perhaps, slightly more powerful) tries to insist on a small tribute, arguing that it will still leave the other better off than continued conflict, the other may believably refuse, arguing that once he concedes any tribute there is no natural limit to what the other can demand. Agreeing to tribute costs the victim not only the tribute but the only available Schelling point. The expected cost to him of such an agreement includes both the possible cost of paying higher tribute in the future and the risk of future conflicts if in the future he rejects demands for higher tribute. That cost may be high enough to make his insistence that he will choose continued conflict over the payment of even a small tribute believable.

This explains why many PUAs and feminists prefer continued conflict over accepting even a small and reasonable criticism.

So far we have considered the Schelling point that generates an agreement. But the agreement itself, whether generated by a Schelling point or in some other way, is thereafter itself a Schelling point. It is a unique outcome of which both players are conscious. Once it has been made, a policy of “if you do not abide by the agreement I will revert to the use of force, even if the violation is small compared to the cost of conflict” is believable for precisely the same reason the refusal to pay tribute, or any insistence by a bargainer on a Schelling point, is believable. The signing of a contract establishes a new Schelling point and thereby alters the strategic situation. The contract enforces itself.

This analysis suggests that to come to a new agreement, there needs to be a new Schelling Point. In other words, if you want to convince me that our division of property by the stream should be changed, you can’t just say “I want some stuff on your side.” Because then if I let you across the stream, you can just keep creeping forward. Instead, for it to be safe for me to accept a new agreement, there must be some other stream or feature of the landscape that can become a new Schelling Point past which you can’t advance.

The concept of a Schelling Point explains some aspects of the debate over pickup:

- Rejecting any moral criticism from outsiders. As we have just learned, people tend to respond excessively when they perceive others trying to a cross a Schelling Point. In this case, the Schelling Point could be “criticizing us,” or “criticizing us without understanding our experience,” or “criticizing us without letting us criticize you.” PUAs may punish any attempts at crossing these Schelling Points by categorically rejecting moral criticism.

- Asking for moral criticism of women, or providing it themselves. From a purely ethical standpoint, if someone’s ethical argument is sound, then that doesn’t depend on whether they criticize other people or not: if an argument against a pickup behavior is sound, that it’s still sound even if the person giving it is a hypocrite who fails to criticize women. Furthermore, if I PUAs are in the wrong, it isn’t justified because women are also in the wrong.

Yet as we recognized earlier, ethics isn’t the only consideration. If feminists are trying to criticize PUAs without accepting criticism towards women, then they are trying to cross a “I can criticize you, but you can’t criticize me” Schelling Point, which PUAs can’t allow for game theoretic reasons: even if the initial criticism is sound, it’s just a bad political practice to let other groups criticize you when they won’t accept criticism themselves. Any political group who did that would simply get run over by other groups and destroyed. If feminists are willing to criticize women in addition to PUAs, then it builds trust, but it also lets PUAs relax from defending that Schelling Point.

- Asking for feminist pickup advice. Men and PUAs ask for it for many reasons, but one is trying to find a new Schelling Point. The message to feminism is “OK, we will agree that certain behaviors are unethical and we won’t do them… but we need you to agree on what stuff we can do, so you can’t come along tomorrow and ask for more restrictions on our behavior.”

For instance, feminists might propose that all physical touch should be proceeded by asking verbally and being accepted verbally. In response, we all should ask: what’s the moral principle, here? Why should this be a new Schelling Point? If we agree to this proposal, what’s to stop feminists from coming around tomorrow and saying “hey, you guys proved that you care about protecting women by asking once, but now we really think you need to ask twice if you really care about consent”? If we agree to the “ask once” rule, how do defend ourselves against the new “ask twice” rule… or the “ask thrice” rule? Some sort of moral principle must be laid down in advance, explaining why asking once is the right number of times, and why asking less or more times is inappropriate.

What I am trying to develop is a shared moral framework with feminists. The principles of this framework will serve as Schelling Points. Without feminists agreeing to behaviors that are permitted, I would fear that their concern for women and lack of understanding of men’s experience would lead them to a series of escalating restrictions on men. I would be willing to make certain moral agreements, but I want to see an acknowledment from feminists that certain sorts of mind-reading and contingency planning are excessive, and that men are justified in rejecting feminist demands for them.

I would argue that some PUAs have LMR about accepting moral ideas from the outside: they may want to on some level (because they are mostly good people), but certain factors prevent them from acting on that desire. Some of these factors are a lack of trust of critics (particularly feminists), political polarization, and a feeling that critics are trying to cross Schelling Points: “I can criticize you, but you can’t criticize me”, “I can criticize you without understanding what you are dealing with,” and “you have to criticize your people, but I don’t have to criticize my people.”

Men and PUAs shouldn’t have their morals judged as lacking merely because they are unwilling to sign a blank check allowing feminists to morally criticize them unilaterally… with no new agreements that would prevent escalating feminist moral demands. I think many men and PUAs would be more receptive to moral precautions from feminists if it was clear where these precautions ended, and why.

In their defense, it might be complicated and tough for feminists to outline those principles. But if feminists can’t figure out where their precautions end, then men have a valid complaint about being paralyzed by them, and feminists should be cautious of advancing a policy that would paralyze all the scrupulous men in the dating world, limiting women to unscrupulous men.

Moral criticism of women’s dating behavior, requests for understanding of their experience, and requests for positive feminist dating advice might be selfish deflections, but they could also be attempts to arrive at greater trust and a shared moral framework with feminists that could serve as a basis for new agreements: “show me how it safe for me to go along with what you’re saying.”

When feminists try to cross these Schelling Points with no recognition of new ones, then PUAs respond irrationally because they only have two obvious choices: lay down and surrender to escalating feminist moral judgments, or resist any attempt at criticism (even though some of it they might be sympathetic to in another context). I believe there are some other options, but they are much harder. For instance, I am sometimes willing to agree with some criticisms of pickup… while describing the moral principles behind this disagreement in detail, so that I use those principles to defend myself from escalating demands. However, this takes a lot of work, and the position I am carving out is precarious.

humbition April 25, 2011 at 10:17 am #

I thought I could quit this discussion…

Hugh I really must disagree with your account of what ethics is. I am pretty much an ethical libertarian in a way. Ethics is what I ought to do in a particular situation, based on some (grounded) idea of the way things are in that situation. (Morality is what I tell other people they should do, but I don’t do much of this.)

What you are describing is a game theory account of what we think of as power. But if someone asserts their power toward me, and I comply, I’m not doing it out of ethics. I am doing it out of prudential considerations, which is a grownup weasel expression for fear. Ethics, if it has any meaning, is independent of game-theoretical power in this sense. It is my own sense of what it means to treat other people as I ought to treat human beings.

I don’t therefore give, others the power to define my own ethics. My ethics is me and therefore my ethics are intrinsically not a political football to be fought over like property lines by political “sides” who are in any event, highly hypocritical in practice (we are talking about sex after all).

What is political is, of course, legislation, rules, enforcement. But that is another issue.

If my ethics are not based on the “truth” of a situation as I see it, if they are captive to the rhetorics of one side or another, this is not an authentic ethics in the first place. Now I might strategically decide not to tell you what my ethics are, to avoid getting into an argument. Or I might choose to talk about them, so that I know that I am thinking straight. This depends on trust.

I do not even concede that the “sides” in the “property dispute” you are talking about even exist. In sex there are so many defections and hypocrisies and double standards and polite “whitewashes” of situations, that people have never talked straight even though they have talked nonstop about these things for probably since the invention of language. The attempt to talk straight is noble and somewhat new, though it isn’t what gets you “success” — what gets you that, is a complete strategic acceptance of whatever the going social lies happen to be.

Sam April 25, 2011 at 10:59 am #

humbition,

still no time to comment in detail – but this:

“I do not even concede that the “sides” in the “property dispute” you are talking about even exist.”

Fair point, but I would argue that Hugh is still not too far off in his characterization of the nature of the debate, particularly when it comes to axiomatic discussions (check the brief exchange between Clarisse and me about a post about “privilege” on tigerbeatdown which I linked to in my last comment). I also think that precisely because of the conflict you and Hugh are having here, I would say that ethics that are merely self-reflective (only behaving considering how I think things should be) are oxymoronic, because ethical behaviour is always defined *in relation to others* – and that includes the other’s assumed strategic behaviour in his/her interactions with me. Of course, there’s a certain circularity in this, but “going external” doesn’t help either.

humbition April 25, 2011 at 11:46 am #

Sam, of course ethical behavior is defined in relation to others. Ethical autonomy is not the same as solipsism.

We are almost in the same waters, though, as the Science Wars, believe it or not. There is a politics of scientific theorizing, but is there a scientific method that stands apart from that? If science is only the politics of science and all its truth claims are only political, then what recourse do we have if we live in some state in the U.S. whose legislature has enacted that creationism is what is true?

Again with ethics. There is a politics of ethical claims, and I think this is what Hugh is describing. He is describing a strategic approach to a politics of ethical claims. But are these claims about something? A Kantian would say definitively yes, and ironically I am more relativistic than the Kantians are, but I still do not think that ethics is only its politics.

Now, there is an important politics about axioms, but this politics enters into what the LessWrong-osphere would call “signaling.” I proclaim that I believe in certain axioms and therefore that I am a good person, or on a certain side in a debate, or something. And this can help get me status, or sex, or whatever…

Meanwhile there is the province of ethics itself, what I need to do in order to be able to live with myself. Some people do without this, and manage to articulate the axioms as well as anybody! For the rest of us, in order to determine our ethics, we have to evaluate what we think is true. Is this precaution actually called for? Will behaving this way really possibly hurt someone? and under what conditions? and how can I mitigate those conditions? Ultimately I think this is applied compassion, and if it is applied compassion, then it can’t be made dependent on someone’s view of where they want an Overton window.

As for someone telling me that I have to do more than applied compassion would demand, I then apply my autonomy criterion, and say, who made him or her God? (Or, if I were a theist, who made him or her the interpreter of God.) I may in such a case prudentially comply with a social morality — but this isn’t ethics.

Infra April 25, 2011 at 2:47 pm #

(humbition, in reply to Hugh)

I do not even concede that the “sides” in the “property dispute” you are talking about even exist.

This was the part of Hugh’s comment that bothered me. I wouldn’t say that the sides don’t exist, but it’s a particular discussion that’s being referenced, or at least one that’s applicable mostly to people with particular stances; and my immediate reaction to reading it was “This situation is exactly what I’m trying to avoid. I probably shouldn’t comment until I see how reactions to it play out, because I don’t want to get pulled into association with a position I don’t hold.”

In that respect, I agree with humbition’s statement that what’s being described is a game theory account of power, and especially with the statement that “My ethics is me and therefore my ethics are intrinsically not a political football to be fought over like property lines by political ‘sides’ [...].” Hugh’s account of the situation might be accurate, but I think that it’s important to emphasize that it refers to particular groups with particular positions, and isn’t representative of those who don’t identify with them.

Sagredo April 25, 2011 at 6:00 pm #

As I wrote on the ePUA thread, how many PUAs who discuss LMR tactics even know that rape survivors sometimes freeze up and can’t respond when they’re being retraumatized?

I’d like to pick this up because LMR tactics are a frequent target of criticism. If one is talking about Gunwitch-style “make the ho say no”, that criticism is absolutely deserved as it pushes into some very rapey territory. On the other hand, the tactics I’m familiar with run like this:

her: We shouldn’t be doing this.
him: You’re right, we shouldn’t be doing this. [stops all touching and sexual attention]

Note that the response to LMR is to back off, not push forward. This might not be exactly what the woman wants, but I don’t think she’s entitled to his attention. In fact I don’t even think of this as a “tactic”, it’s more expressing a limit.

Clarisse April 25, 2011 at 11:12 pm #

Note that the response to LMR is to back off, not push forward. This might not be exactly what the woman wants, but I don’t think she’s entitled to his attention. In fact I don’t even think of this as a “tactic”, it’s more expressing a limit.

Entitlement is a tricky word. No, she’s not entitled. He can be a total asshole as much as he wants, for example, and she is not entitled to interact with a guy who’s not an asshole.

Not all LMR tactics are rape attempts. Some of them lead to situations that I think are pretty clearly rape (e.g. guys who keep going when the woman is actually saying no — there are field reports outlining behavior like this). Some of them just lead to situations that seem more like the guy is being an asshole (like the stuff I posted to the ePUA thread). If your partner suddenly turns cold and distant when you set a boundary, are they raping you? No, they’re just guilt tripping and capitalizing on your desire to be liked and generally manipulating you.

As I said on the ePUA thread, and apparently have to say every single time I criticize LMR tactics: there are ways to express boundaries without being cold and distant. When a partner tells me, “I don’t want to have sex right now,” I don’t react by turning away and turning on the lights and removing my touch and checking my fucking email. I react by saying, “Okay, that’s fine,” and reassuring him again that it’s fine if he feels self-conscious about it. In one instance, for example, my partner seemed freaked out because he felt like he owed me something, so I said, “That’s ridiculous, you don’t owe it to me to have sex with me,” and I laughed after I said it to show how ridiculous it was, and he laughed too. THAT’S what respecting boundaries looks like.

LMR tactics are not about PUAs “setting limits”. They’re about busting through last minute resistance. That’s why they’re CALLED LMR TACTICS.

Clarisse April 25, 2011 at 11:50 pm #

@AB — I don’t want to play the Oppression Olympics, but when someone can link to a blog which is supposedly about sexuality for everyone, but only contains material about porn for straight men, without noticing the contradiction, and simultaneously talk about men and masculinity as marginalised in society, as what happened in the Creep thread….. well, I find it pretty hard to accept that this kind of sexuality is what we need to normalise even more, because its perceived normalcy is already excluding a lot of people.

Agreed. I guess what I’m always looking for is language for how to accept so-called “normal” desires and sexuality, while still emphasizing that they are not and ought not be seen as “normal”. It’s hard. Pushback always seems to create a new “normal”. I guess it’s helpful for people to adjust to themselves (hey look, I can be normal too!) but the drawbacks are obvious …. And people who are societally centered, whose dominance is being challenged, need to not be allowed to maintain themselves in the “normal” position, which is what they’re often trying to do when they complain about how harmed they feel by the discourses that attack their privilege.

Privilege is nice to have. Most people aren’t going to give it up without a fight. They’ll probably have completely human emotions about feeling attacked, hurt, harmed, alienated from themselves, etc. if their social centeredness is threatened. This is, for example, the problem that comes up with a lot of cis people who feel threatened by the very acknowledgment of trans people — especially cis men, who feel particularly threatened, and yet who I think it must be acknowledged have more to “lose” (because masculinity is a more precarious “status” to “keep hold of”, and men generally feel more threatened more easily; references include papers with titles like “Precarious Manhood”). Yes, that feeling of threat may be genuine, and may indeed be a difficult emotional process for that cis person. But no, that does not justify denying the trans person services or acknowledgment or social status simply for being trans. It’s hard to know how to talk to a cis person who is in this space.

@HR — interesting breakdown. Like other commenters, I think you’re right about the practical situation. It feels like ethics should be outside the practical situation, but I suppose it never is.

argh, it’s making me want to start Confessions over from square one. I HATE THIS ARTICLE. IT WILL NEVER BE FINISHED, OR PUBLISHABLE EVEN IF IT’S FINISHED. I DON’T KNOW WHY I EVER WANTED TO BE A WRITER. okay, sorry about that, I’m okay now.

Sagredo April 26, 2011 at 2:46 am #

So I went and Googled around on “LMR tactics” and found quite a range of advice. Some of it is along the lines of finding out where the issue is and reassuring her that, for instance, you don’t think she’s a slut, or whatever. Some of it is along the lines of providing convenient scapegoats for her to blame her self-perceived sluttiness on, such as “we were playing strip poker and it just happened”. This is slightly cynical I guess, but whatever. Some of it I thought might be a bit pushy, like going back to the last acceptable thing and trying again. Some of it was to agree with abstract “should” statements but to continue anyway (but as they always take great care to point out, honour actual requests such as “please stop”). And then some of it is variations on stopping.

One suggestion was to stop and go take a shower, and then invite her to join you. Another was to go to sleep. Sometimes it had the very scary name of “freeze-out”, but on examination this turned out to be purely stopping kino, and not any kind of emotional coldness, because coldness comes across as spiteful and needy.

This pretty much reflects my own view. Stopping is not about pushing guilt or negative feelings on someone, it’s not about suggesting she’s a bad person or that she owes sex or that she is a “tease” or becoming emotionally cold or distant. It is a withdrawal from physical intimacy. It is setting a limit on physical behaviour. It’s “I like you and respect you, but I’m not interested in cuddling without sex”. It’s backing off and giving space for the woman to decide what she wants.

I have to say, I’m very uncomfortable with the idea that men are obliged to continue to be intimate when they’re no longer interested, just because a woman wants to be touched. That smells like entitlement to me. But sometimes men continue when they don’t really want to because of their own insecurities, because for instance they have internalised that they are fundamentally unworthy of sex with any woman and this is the closest they can get.

This establishment of boundaries gets lumped under “LMR tactics” because it turns out sometimes women change their minds and decide they do want sex after all when the option of just cuddling is not available. And even from the most amoral and instrumentalising manipulative PUA point of view, apparently the “like you and respect you” part is actually pretty important if one wants her to choose sex.

There is a further PUA-ish claim that I am unsure about, and that is that a firm setting of boundaries of this kind typically makes one more attractive to women as a demonstration of higher value. I can kind of see it but I also think the DHV thing can get a bit fake sometimes. On the other hand, continuing to do something one doesn’t really want to do is self-devaluation, and that really should be avoided.

Sam April 26, 2011 at 3:23 am #

Clarisse,

well, I find it pretty hard to accept that this kind of sexuality is what we need to normalise even more, because its perceived normalcy is already excluding a lot of people.

Your agreeing with this statement is a tad bit puzzling to me. Maybe I don’t understand – as always a real possibility -, but to me it either implies that AB is talking about some male sexuality that this series of threads is not about, or that there is not much need for a masculinity discussion at all, at least if it doesn’t follow the classic antagonist narrative just described by Hugh Ristik. And since you started this unusual seried of exchanges you probably don’t believe the latter.

As I’ve said in my reply to AB, in my opinion this entire debate is premised on the mutual acceptance of problems and the assumption that there is a way to both reconfigure currently conflicting interests as not actually confliciting, and – where a reconfiguration is impossible – that they can largely be balanced in a mutually acceptable way.

Remember your opening question?

A male friend once wrote to me, “I think you personally find expressions of masculinity hot, but you also have no patience with sexism. You’ve caught on that it’s tricky for men to figure out how to deliver both of these things you need, that you don’t have a lot of good direction to give to fellas about it, and that neither does anyone else.”

I just read this in a review of some psychological paper on Charlie Glickman’s blog -
http://www.charlieglickman.com/2011/04/when-scientists-dont-understand-sex-feminism-dominance-and-arousal – and I think it fits this discussion, too.

Negotiating sexual politics has always been difficult, but paradoxically the laudable and necessary victories of gender equality activism might make it even more challenging. We’re all figuring out how to live in the first society in human history where women have such power, independence, and clout. But just as democracy has no effect on our basic taste preferences for sugar and fat, democracy doesn’t affect our basic sexual preferences for domination and submission.

Gender equality activism makes negotiating sexual politics challenging because we don’t have easy roles to fall back on. When each person and each relationship requires communication about individual preferences, when there isn’t a script of how men and women are supposed to act (both among themselves and with each other), there are more variables to take into account when navigating sex. And yes, some of the difficulty has come from the insistence of some people (both within feminism and other communities) that hierarchies, sexual dominance & submission, BDSM, fantasies, and other dynamics of seemingly inequitable relationships are inherently oppressive. But what we need is gender equality activism that allows us to be fully who we are, to treat people with respect and care, and to engage in whatever sexual practices turn us on.

Let me repeat that last sentence: “what we need is gender equality activism that allows us to be fully who we are, to treat people with respect and care, and to engage in whatever sexual practices turn us on.”

Your opening question is reflective of that inclusive spirit, the entire series is. But I’m not so sure about AB’s statement, in that respect… Again, I may misunderstand AB – it seems AB and I have a tendency to not understand what the other is trying to say.

Infra April 26, 2011 at 3:40 am #

Well, one of the things that needs to be considered with LMR tactics is the possible generalization from something that isn’t actually LMR. To use the example that Sagredo originally mentioned –

her: We shouldn’t be doing this.
him: You’re right, we shouldn’t be doing this. [stops all touching and sexual attention]

– one of the women I knew in the past talked about that kind of exchange during sex, but it definitely wasn’t in the context of LMR. It was “We shouldn’t be doing this. We’re going straight to Hell,” in the context of sex with her boyfriend’s best friend. He’d responded with “You’re right, we shouldn’t be doing this,” but it wasn’t a tactic; it was a turn-on for both of them, part of doing what they knew was a betrayal of someone that they both claimed to care about, but which they were enjoying anyway.

He didn’t stop any touching or sexual attention, from what I understand, but I can see how doing so might appear to “work” as a tactic in that situation. It’s just that seeing it as LMR would be a complete misinterpretation of what was going on, and an entire group of techniques could end up being based upon that kind of error.

I think that Sagredo’s point about how stopping (specifically, going to a full stop because one doesn’t want to cuddle, which I’ve done because I needed the cool-down) could be misinterpreted as an LMR tactic highlights a similar kind of issue.

There is a further PUA-ish claim that I am unsure about, and that is that a firm setting of boundaries of this kind typically makes one more attractive to women as a demonstration of higher value.

It can work that way, in my experience, though I’ve never stopped or backed off with the intention of producing that effect; it seems to relate to expectations about how much self-control men will have with respect to their own sexuality. Some women seem to regard that quite highly, but others seem to regard it as an obstacle, and respond to it as if it were a personal insult.

Clarisse April 26, 2011 at 1:29 pm #

@Sagredo — This pretty much reflects my own view. Stopping is not about pushing guilt or negative feelings on someone, it’s not about suggesting she’s a bad person or that she owes sex or that she is a “tease” or becoming emotionally cold or distant. It is a withdrawal from physical intimacy. It is setting a limit on physical behaviour. It’s “I like you and respect you, but I’m not interested in cuddling without sex”. It’s backing off and giving space for the woman to decide what she wants.

Really, I think we’re coming back to intent. If you do this and your goal is honestly to preserve her comfort, then you won’t come across as manipulative or pressuring. If you do it and you’re thinking “this is just another step on the path to fucking her tonight”, then pressure is likely. It seems obvious to me that the majority of LMR tactics are LMR-busting tactics, although I admittedly have not done a comprehensive survey of resources on the matter. But the most famous examples are not about “setting boundaries”, although they sometimes use that language — they’re about getting the PUA laid tonight. Most of them don’t even pretend about it. In The Game, one chapter is called “Blast Through LMR” and it features a picture of Strauss holding a handgun.

I have to say, I’m very uncomfortable with the idea that men are obliged to continue to be intimate when they’re no longer interested, just because a woman wants to be touched. That smells like entitlement to me.

I think touching is the easiest and most obvious way to convince someone you still care about them in this situation. If you really don’t want to do it, then don’t, but that doesn’t mean that the next logical step is “and also turn away and check your email and turn on the lights”, which is usually what I hear when PUAs pull out this critique. (I know it’s probably not what you’re trying to do, but I just want to register disagreement with that particular slippery slope.)

But sometimes men continue when they don’t really want to because of their own insecurities, because for instance they have internalised that they are fundamentally unworthy of sex with any woman and this is the closest they can get.

Sure. Or because they have internalized that they will be less masculine if they turn down sex, that “real men” always want sex, etc. Acknowledged.

@Sam — Your agreeing with this statement is a tad bit puzzling to me. Maybe I don’t understand – as always a real possibility -, but to me it either implies that AB is talking about some male sexuality that this series of threads is not about, or that there is not much need for a masculinity discussion at all, at least if it doesn’t follow the classic antagonist narrative just described by Hugh Ristik. And since you started this unusual seried of exchanges you probably don’t believe the latter.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m all for accepting and honoring male sexuality (and all consensual sexuality). But no one’s sexuality gets to be “normal”, or at the very least, no one’s sexuality gets to be more normal than anyone else’s. I get that in some circles guys are feeling as though stereotypical male sexuality is under attack in some ways. I sympathize with that, but I still think the mainstream glorifies and centers stereotypical male sexuality, and that uncritical presentation of it feeds into that centering, like what AB was talking about with the guy who commented about how male sexuality is so undervalued and then made an entire website on sexuality that’s described as “for everyone” but is totally centered on stereotypical manliness.

Sagredo April 26, 2011 at 4:38 pm #

Oh I think it’s absolutely about getting laid tonight.

The general PUA conception of LMR is that it’s usually kind of bullshitty, and that it’s based on “anti-slut defence” of self-image. This is what PUAs want to blast through. But of course, women have an absolute right to say “no” at any time as a precondition to all play.

Stopping is, firstly, an immediate acceptance of that “no”. And it certainly is pressure. But it’s the pressure of “you can’t have what you asked for”, the pressure of frustrated desire in the face of the other’s firmly set boundary. It allows her own desire to blast through her own ASD, if that’s what it is, and lets her come to her own “yes”, if that’s what she wants.

But maybe some women have a real urge to be liked. If that’s true, they need to own that. If a woman really wants a man she’s recently met to like her more than he already does, having sex with him can be an effective way to achieve that aim.

Is this LMR-blasting-with-a-handgun-or-whatever unethical or manipulative? It’s a clear expression of boundaries and desires, immediate respect of “no”, and no misrepresentation of attitudes or opinion of the other.

Of course, if a lover does show real distress, that’s a very good time to reassure her that you respect her and her decision and that you still like her.

Sam April 27, 2011 at 2:53 am #

Clarisse,

“But no one’s sexuality gets to be “normal”, or at the very least, no one’s sexuality gets to be more normal than anyone else’s.”

well, I’d say all (consensual) sexuality is equally valuable, but “normal” is also a statistical term. And in a statistical sense, there are certainly some sexualities that are more “normal” than others. Their “normality” should not exert any explicit or implicit compliance pressure, but as you noted, at least an implicit compliance pressure may be an inherent side effect of clustering.

I get that in some circles guys are feeling as though stereotypical male sexuality is under attack in some ways.

Sure. But this makes it sound like the main question was “how to handle male disenchantment”. I always thought that the discussion was about mutual acceptance of mutually accepted *real* issues, not imagined ones.

I sympathize with that, but I still think the mainstream glorifies and centers stereotypical male sexuality, and that uncritical presentation of it feeds into that centering

Or so it is suggested. Again, maybe I’m too much of an outlier to be able to “correctly” perceive reality – like suggested by k above (in general, not with respect to me personally) – but as I perceive it, male sexuality may be centered in the economy because men are more willing to consume and commodify sexuality, but for all the porn and all the naked women on the web, for all the male posturing and grand-standing, it seems to me that male sexuality is mostly shamed, particularly in relation to sexual violence. Honestly, I wish I’d come across a glorification of male sexuality when I was growing up… how is a society whose sexual attitude towards men is based on controlling it’s assumed potential sociopathy glorifying male sexuality?

Again, maybe this is perception bias and the grass is, once again, greener on the other side. But for all the discourse about the awesomeness of the vagina, I never had the feeling there’s anyone celebrating the penis. There’s guys competing with their penises, and size matters. But how is that glorifying male sexuality?

Maybe that’s just me, maybe that’s my personal filters, I don’t know. And as I’ve wondered numerous times, maybe my personal story is making it impossible for me to fairly evaluate my perceptions. You may be better able to decide that than I am.

But even accepting that male sexuality is centered by society through porn and even assuming it were presented positively there, I don’t consider that a useful counterweight to all the toxic messages about male sexuality that our culture, certainly not only feminism, produces.

So, I’m really not sure what “no uncritial presentation” of male sexuality is supposed to mean. Where is male sexuality presented uncritically? By whom? I don’t think anyone here does that. But if presenting experiences critically means that guys’ accounts of their life and experiences are not given the same epistemic value that women’s acconts are given, because of the axiomatic male privilege in life, and the corresponding female epistemic privilege in gender matters, then their telling it will be limited to venting, listening will be – intentionally – therapeutic at best, and actual understanding will be impossible.

Should that really be the goal?

Infra April 27, 2011 at 9:19 am #

@Sagredo:

Stopping is, firstly, an immediate acceptance of that “no”.

It is, but it isn’t necessarily an acceptance, immediate or not, of the reasons for that “no.” That’s where a major part of the problem comes in, because it can produce a response of “why did he react that way?” and, as with many situations in which someone seems to have taken a statement differently than we intended, that can produce the pressure to set things right.

Once that’s introduced, it can play upon any number of reasons for continuing.

machina April 27, 2011 at 10:43 am #

Hey again.

Society mostly promotes mainstream male fantasy, and mostly does so with images of attractive women. What is presented as mainstream male fantasy isn’t actual male sexuality, and the female figures presented aren’t female sexuality either. Pick up artists are most visibly focused on trying to fix the discrepancy between the fantasies presented and the reality of many men’s, i.e. mainstream, actual sexuality by trying to live the fantasy, but the stats given upthread indicate that a large majority of men use pick up services mainly to actually have a mainstream sexuality. The attempts to produce both positive views towards women’s bodies and towards mainstream female sexuality is much more deliberate, coming from much more common disillusionment with simply being fantasy figures, but I think that they are both coming from the same discrepancies between reality and fantasy.

Sagredo April 27, 2011 at 12:46 pm #

It is, but it isn’t necessarily an acceptance, immediate or not, of the reasons for that “no.”

Her reasons are her own concern. He doesn’t even know what they are when he accepts her “no”. It’s up to her to decide between her reasons and her desire.

That’s where a major part of the problem comes in, because it can produce a response of “why did he react that way?”

The answer is supposed to be clear. It’s that he’s not interested in continuing if this isn’t moving towards sex. And she needs to accept and respect that boundary. Yes, it can be frustrating to run against someone’s boundary.

and, as with many situations in which someone seems to have taken a statement differently than we intended, that can produce the pressure to set things right.

Once that’s introduced, it can play upon any number of reasons for continuing.

The statement wasn’t taken differently than intended: she said “no” and he immediately stopped. He absolutely understands her intent. His stopping completely might not be what she intended for him to do, but there’s not supposed to be any misunderstanding.

She needs to decide what’s right for her. If she feels the need to continue just to please him, for instance, she needs to own that desire to please.

nathan April 27, 2011 at 1:10 pm #

In case anyone here is interested, I started a dating and relationship blog – partly inspired by all the conversations we have had here. The first post is here.

http://21centuryrelationships.blogspot.com/2011/04/love-of-unsettled-hearts.html

I hope to dig into some of the more philosophical, psychological issues in the future, but the first post is quite confessional in nature.

Thanks for reading!

Infra April 27, 2011 at 1:39 pm #

@Sagredo:

Her reasons are her own concern. He doesn’t even know what they are when he accepts her “no”.

Yes, they are her own concern (or his, as I’ve encountered women who also employ LMR tactics). However, this does not rule out the benefit of attempting to understand another’s state of mind, and it’s far from obvious that the individual employing the tactic would be unaware of what the other individual’s motivations might be; the characterization that you’re giving here is one that omits the roles played by theory of mind, subcommunication, empathy, et al., but I’m not convinced that the roles played by those elements can be omitted in any accurate evaluation of the situation.

The answer is supposed to be clear. It’s that he’s not interested in continuing if this isn’t moving towards sex.

If we admit the statement quoted above, then there could be no reasonable expectation that she would know this (i.e., his reasons are his own concern and she doesn’t even known what they are when he stops). OTOH, even if we admit the roles played by ToM, et al., we’re still left with the possibility of misinterpretation. Unless he states this directly, it isn’t reasonable to assume this from either position.

The statement wasn’t taken differently than intended: she said “no” and he immediately stopped. He absolutely understands her intent.

If he doesn’t know what her reasons are when he accepts her “no,” then there’s no way to reach this conclusion. At best, what can be said is that he understood the literal meaning of the message, and that’s a separate issue from the intention in saying it, which is precisely what I was getting at with my previous comment.

In sum: the statements that you’re making, in combination, would suggest a position in which no insight into the mind of the other is required of or can be reasonably expected from the person employing the tactic, but that some amount of the same insight is required of and can be reasonably expected from the person experiencing it, without providing a justification for or explanation of that difference.

With all due respect, Sagredo, I don’t think that you’re providing an argument that would produce a better view of these tactics, here. If anything, it’s a line of argument that would lend some support to viewing someone who employs them as being potentially high-risk.

Clarisse April 27, 2011 at 3:51 pm #

@Sagredo — She needs to decide what’s right for her. If she feels the need to continue just to please him, for instance, she needs to own that desire to please.

Awesome! And also, I should totally flirt with men that I know, insinuate that I’m interested in them romantically in a plausibly-deniable way, convince them to buy me expensive gifts and take me out for expensive meals, and then if they have the gall to think I might have a romantic relationship with them, I should tell them “Hey, why don’t you just own your desire to please me?”

/sarcasm

No. Sometimes, the answer is just no. It’s not that these situations never arise accidentally — sometimes they do. It’s not that people are always callously manipulating other people — sometimes they are, sometimes they’re not. Especially when people are young or inexperienced, this stuff can happen and be nobody’s fault. But if you have more experience and more strategy at your command and you know the scripts better than your partner, it is not okay to build a situation that basically exploits those scripts in a way that YOU KNOW could end up hurting them and then say: “But you didn’t have good boundaries.”

Clarisse April 27, 2011 at 3:54 pm #

Sam, machina –

both of you are very smart and say smart things. I will think about them more.

nathan April 27, 2011 at 4:47 pm #

“It’s not that people are always callously manipulating other people — sometimes they are, sometimes they’re not. Especially when people are young or inexperienced, this stuff can happen and be nobody’s fault. But if you have more experience and more strategy at your command and you know the scripts better than your partner, it is not okay to build a situation that basically exploits those scripts in a way that YOU KNOW could end up hurting them and then say: “But you didn’t have good boundaries.””

This makes a lot of sense and I think a lot of men (and women) could benefit from checking their initial assumptions about anothers’ motivation or intentions. And having been on both ends of dating someone inexperienced (once when I was the inexperienced dating a much older woman, and a few times being the much older experienced man) I think these cases require special care because that younger, inexperienced person is more likely to assume you have good intentions, even if you don’t. And they also might be more likely to take gestures like buying expensive meals and gifts as signs that you’re seriously interested.

Sagredo April 27, 2011 at 5:25 pm #

insinuate that I’m interested in them romantically in a plausibly-deniable way,

Hmm, this part strikes me as deceptive. Misrepresenting your own desires to hold out the promise of a romantic relationship that you have no intent of getting into isn’t all that ethical.

Likewise, it wouldn’t be ethical to hold out the promise of a night of “just cuddling” to extract favours, and then not follow through. But I don’t think that counts as an LMR tactic.

On the other hand, if a woman really wants to please a man by having sex with him she wouldn’t be interested in otherwise, I think that’s great. Afterwards she can say “I feel good about having pleased him” because that’s what she wanted. That’s what owning one’s desires looks like. But you know, I don’t think this is actually what LMR tactics are all about.

Reading the PUA accounts of LMR tactics, they don’t suggest pressure to please. They work under the assumption that it’s her own desire for touch and for sex that blasts through all handgun-like her own worries about sluttiness and self-image. The PUA claim is that usually the woman really does want sex, but can’t admit it to herself for various silly reasons. It’s not about trying to manipulate someone who doesn’t have the wherewithal to say “no”, and certainly not about hurting her. It’s setting a clear boundary and giving a choice.

Now he might have his own theories about her reasons for saying “no”, but it’s not his place to debate them or discount them. It’s entirely her choice as to how much to value those reasons in the face of her desire. She may feel frustrated about not getting what she asked for, and that he didn’t react the way she intended him to react, but she’s in a place where she can own her own reasons, her own desires, and her own decision whether to, not passively consent, but actively initiate. She’s a big girl now, she can do this.

You know, this stuff isn’t really all that complicated. The guy is not interested in where this is going, so he stops. She has the choice to take it where he does want it to go, by actively re-initiating, and owning her own choice if that’s what she really wants, or stopping there.

No. Sometimes, the answer is just no.

That’s what he says, actually. She just needs to accept that she’s not entitled to his touch, and make up her mind.

Clarisse April 27, 2011 at 5:43 pm #

I had a random sample of people I in a co-op I visited (none of whom actively identify as feminist) read the Love Systems section on freeze-outs the other day. They were ALL appalled. One described it as “just an awful thing to do to someone”. Etc.

When I first read the section on freeze-outs, I had to think about it for a while as I worked out my feelings, and I showed it to my then-boyfriend. He reacted much more strongly than I had and compared it to tactics like “love bombing”, used by certain cults to manipulate their members.

I have read other accounts of PUAs by people I have never spoken to, that focused on freeze-outs as an example of how manipulative and screwed up PUA tactics can be.

Freeze-outs are not something only feminists react badly to, they are not a harmless quirk of a genuinely nice boundary-setting PUA, they are a TACTIC that MANY people immediately recognize as problematic.

There are other LMR tactics that are less coldly aggressive. Those, I have less of a problem with. But the freeze-out exemplifies the most fucked up approach to LMR, the most fucked up attitude on the part of PUAs, and often (when problems with it are described) the continued refusal of most PUAs to acknowledge other people’s reality. As long as the freeze-out remains a popular and often central LMR pattern, you are never going to be able to convince me that PUAs are not callously manipulating their partners in a way that they have good reason to think the partners may not like, a non-negligible portion of the time.

Sagredo April 27, 2011 at 6:18 pm #

What does Love Systems say?

Clarisse April 27, 2011 at 6:36 pm #

Hugh Ristik talks about the Love Systems LMR stuff and quotes it here:
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/03/23/ethical-pick-up-artistry/#comment-40007

I responded briefly 120 comments later (sorry):
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/03/23/ethical-pick-up-artistry/#comment-43776

Sagredo April 27, 2011 at 7:13 pm #

Ah, as usual Hugh is more perceptive and nuanced than me. LS says:

Candles, incense, dim lights, mood music – all gone.

I guess this depends on how it’s done, but this could come off as a bit petulant.

After all, you like her and you enjoy her company. Let her know this.

Quite.

Then do something else – ideally something boring. Check your email. Play “go fish” with a deck of cards.

Now these are two different things, one that involves her and one that doesn’t. The trouble with checking email is that it’s active involvement in things other than her, so it’s like a rejection. Go Fish is good, though. Sure, it’s teasing to do something deliberately boring, but he’s right there engaged with her, just not in the way she wants.

Taking a shower is good too, because that’s more a temporary break while she stews in her unmet desire, which is totally hot, and she has the option of joining him.

Lathe of Heaven April 27, 2011 at 8:23 pm #

Replying (mostly) to Sagredo at #110, but related to others as well:

I’m not and have never been a PUA, but if I understand their literature then I think there’s a point you’re missing in the mechanism of the “freeze-out” counter to the LMR hurdle. This will also go a ways toward illustrating Clarisse’s point about not wanting or needing to appreciate other people’s experience.

The PUA worldview, as I understand it, is quite simple: (i) A man is defined as “attractive” if women in general, and particularly the woman of his interest of the moment, want to have sex with him; (ii) If those women don’t want to have sex with him, then he should do something to make himself more attractive to them (what evo-psych/bio people would call preening or displaying). If the woman of the moment doesn’t actively want to have sex with him in what you would describe as the LMR situation, then what can he do that will increase his attractiveness in that moment?

The uttermost bedrock of PUAdom is the idea that the least attractive quality a man can display is not any kind of meanness or selfishness, but eagerness or neediness. This comprises a short, fundamental description of female sexual psychology — note that I’m not endorsing it or agreeing with it, just naming it as the PUA touchstone. So, in PUA thinking it is always worth considering a move that will demonstrate the opposite of neediness most directly.

In the case of the LMR situation, the way to demonstrate the opposite of neediness is to say “OK, I don’t need you, and I won’t be crushed or disappointed if you want to stop; I have desire but I don’t have need.” It seems to me that demonstrating this is a fair description of what the “freeze-out” is supposed to accomplish. In pure PUA-think, this display of anti-neediness raises the mans’ attractiveness in the woman’s eyes, after which she is more motivated to take the initiative for sex.

This is not the whole story, of course; but in PUA-land I do think the “raising one’s value” mechanism is part of the logic of the freeze-out response; it’s really one of a whole stable of “aloofness maintenance” techniques that derive from the same core PUA principle.

Scootah April 27, 2011 at 8:39 pm #

@Sagredo

They work under the assumption that it’s her own desire for touch and for sex that blasts through all handgun-like her own worries about sluttiness and self-image.

Yeah, but does that really wash? The freezeout thing seems to me much more like a manipulation of people’s insecurity and need for acceptance/attention than a manipulation of their lust and desire.

Yes, the women who go along with the Freeze Out nonsense are big girls who have every power to say no, and tell the PUA running that game to go fuck himself then. And I applaud anyone with enough self awareness/self confidence to do so. But I think the reality is that this tactic isn’t about letting lust drive horny people to move past their anti-slut defences – it’s about manipulating people’s insecurities and need for acceptance to herd them toward something they don’t want, or at least weren’t ready for yet.

It feels like a very deliberately constructed microcosm of teen peer pressure – where you’re only cool if you’ll shoplift a soda for us. No you don’t have to, but you can’t hang out with us if you’re not cool.

Human nature is vulnerable to that sort of bullying/manipulation and human nature is to recast the events after the fact so that we don’t feel like suckers for going along with it. Nobody wants to mentally review those events and think ‘wow, I’m so insecure that I whored myself for attention from a douche in a furry top hat’. We just recast those events, or don’t dwell on them to maintain our self view as strong willed and intelligent who won’t be bullied.

Sagredo April 27, 2011 at 8:41 pm #

Lathe, I alluded to this at the end of #96. I think you’re probably right.

Sagredo April 27, 2011 at 8:44 pm #

it’s about manipulating people’s insecurities and need for acceptance to herd them toward something they don’t want, or at least weren’t ready for yet.

I’m not seeing this in, for instance, the Love Systems piece Clarisse pointed to.

After all, you like her and you enjoy her company. Let her know this.

Scootah April 27, 2011 at 10:31 pm #

@Sagredo – I’m not sure that the pretty words wrapped around the ugly idea change the mechanics of what’s going on. Even if the original idea of freeze outs was intended to be puppies and sunshine, I think the reason that it works is quite dark and cold.

And while I’m not at all confident that good intentions were ever in place around the freeze outs concept, all the good intentions in the world don’t make manipulative bullying any less awful.

Infra April 27, 2011 at 10:43 pm #

@Lathe of Heaven:

In the case of the LMR situation, the way to demonstrate the opposite of neediness is to say “OK, I don’t need you, and I won’t be crushed or disappointed if you want to stop; I have desire but I don’t have need.” It seems to me that demonstrating this is a fair description of what the “freeze-out” is supposed to accomplish.

I’d agree that it’s a fair description of what the freeze-out aims to accomplish, but it’s questionable whether or not it actually achieves that. To use the Love Systems description as an example, the use of a boring game such as “go fish” communicates something different from playing an interesting game, such as poker or gin; if the PUA weren’t needy, or overly invested in the outcome, would there be much of a reason to focus on a game that’s unlikely to hold someone’s interest?

Seems to me that doing this communicates the opposite of “After all, you like her and you enjoy her company,” because boring games aren’t the kind of thing that’s likely to keep someone involved and engaged; a part of communicating that one is enjoying someone else’s company is doing things that are likely to keep them around. But boring things tend to make people look elsewhere, and what doing this communicates is that the game’s been selected in order to redirect attention back to sex by providing an unattractive option, and that’s something that’s likely to come off as needy, not as its opposite — as an attempt to appear detached from the outcome when the PUA is, to the contrary, heavily invested.

Lathe of Heaven April 27, 2011 at 11:22 pm #

an attempt to appear detached from the outcome when the PUA is, to the contrary, heavily invested.

To me, as an observer, this always seemed to be the fatal flaw in PUA-dom: the pose is one of power, control and aloofness, but it’s all in the service of catering to exactly what women (really, actually; just not nominally) what to see in a man. The accomplished PUA has really made himself a complete serf to women’s value system, the same one that he professes to disrespect; must cause some serious cognitive problems, I guess.

There’s really a profound clue here, I think. Old-fashioned masculine men traditionally sought to obtain the approval / respect / obedience / deference / etc. of other men. Gaining the desire of women was a pleasant secondary effect, but the masculine man’s self-satisfaction or “score” was primarily determined by what other men thought of him. The PUA’s are in stark contrast: their “score” is entirely determined by women’s opinions, and in their PUA occupation they have almost no life among other men at all, beyond sharing field notes and comparing notch counts.

For all that PUA’s and feminists are said to be antagonists, it seems to me that their value systems really have a lot of overlap, beginning with the rejection of old-fashioned masculinity (though not ending there…).

Sagredo April 27, 2011 at 11:29 pm #

Infra, I think there’s actually a qualitative rather than quantitative difference between want and need. “Need”, in this unattractive sense at least, is not just a large amount of “want”. I think a teasingly boring game of Go Fish is an excellent way of expressing want rather than need. Here’s Momus on the difference.

Sagredo April 27, 2011 at 11:57 pm #

Lathe, I think it’s Roissy, in one of his less cynical moments, who says “make your mission, not your woman, your priority”. Even then, many of the OP criticisms of the PUA community apply.

But for those who are more trusting in the basic goodness of women, congruence is the essential trait, perhaps even before dominance. It simply means what you express is who you are. The ideal here is a man who feels good about himself and has reason to, and expresses it naturally. He wants women, and doesn’t hide it, but isn’t needy or desperate about it.

The PUA community has a great deal of criticism of the sexual/romantic values they believe that women profess, not of the values they believe women actually have. I suspect the difference is rather exaggerated, and that the values they hear and the values they observe are often coming from different sets of women.

Ali m April 28, 2011 at 2:03 am #

Is there any generalization of pickup-as-social/romantic-skills to people who aren’t men interacting with women? Because I could see that a) being helpful for people who aren’t straight men and b) being a good contribution to the death of gender norms, including the ones that make men the pursuers. I (female) haven’t got more than a bit of an idea how to approach a man or a woman as a person I am sexually interested in without being awkward, making an ass of myself, or walking all over boundaries.

If pickup *is* just a male-only thing and can’t ever be generalized, that strikes me as maybe more tellingly problmeatic than a discussion of LMR tactics or whatever (assuming, of course, that one wants both genders to be equally “allowed” to do most things).

Sagredo April 28, 2011 at 2:19 am #

Ali, hearing about “female PUAs” makes the PUA community go all breathless. It’s like the ultimate validation of their stuff.

Ali m April 28, 2011 at 2:25 am #

@Sagredo #110 — I think the time to establish that as an actual boundary is around the time cuddling starts, so it doesn’t end up coming across as a bait-and-switch or a punishment for her not putting out. The woman starts cuddling on you, you murmur a sexy proposition in her ear and either she’s not interested (in which case you stop, before you hit *her* boundary for the night), or you go somewhere more private and make out/fool around/fuck.

Infra April 28, 2011 at 2:35 am #

@Sagredo:

I agree about the difference between want and need. What I’m having some difficulty wrapping my head around is this:

I think a teasingly boring game of Go Fish is an excellent way of expressing want rather than need.

How does that work, exactly?

The most charitable impression that something like that would give me is that, aside from sex, they can’t think of anything worthwhile to do; and if we’d done interesting things earlier on, it would be obvious that choosing to do something boring was an intentional tactic for trying to get back to getting laid.

Both would suggest that they were preoccupied with having sex, maybe even to the point of being desperate — and that would definitely suggest need, not want.

@Ali m:

Can’t say that I’ve come across anyone who’s attempted to generalize it, but I have been in a situation in which the woman who approached me did things in a way that was strongly reminiscent of M3 Model-/Mehow-style outer game (including DHV spiking and false time constraints). I didn’t start to make the connection until after she’d started on kino, and I wouldn’t conclude from it that she’d studied pickup materials, but there were definite, strong similarities in both technique and sequence.

That ended up being one of the most comfortable interactions of that kind that I’ve had (the others were brutally uncomfortable, when they weren’t just awkward), so it’s led me to believe that the techniques can be generalized. It’s just that I haven’t come across anyone who’s explicitly acknowledged exploring that possibility.

Scootah April 28, 2011 at 2:39 am #

@Ali – A lot of guys would argue that every episode of Cleo, Cosmopolitan, Girlfriend, and every other womens magazine in the history of magazines aimed primarily at women is infact a pickup guide for heterosexual women.

Sex and the City, and a large portion of Oprah shows could well be classed in the same vein.

Lots of those information sources are also awful, and are far more vitriolic in their classification of all men as horny morons who’ll hump anything that wears high heels and cheat on anything that doesn’t read the latest episode of Cleo… but we’re talking about awful PUA advice at the moment.

Advice for non heterosexual women who might want to pick up – is much harder to find. Partly because Lesbians have a lot of prejudice towards bisexual women or women who aren’t invovled in the Lesbian community… for reasons that are somewhat understandable. But it does make life a bit difficult for women who are exploring that side of their sexuality for the first time.

There are lots of gay youth focused publications that provide a lot of context on things like flagging and terminology (If you meet a woman who’s got grey and black hankies hanging out of her left pocket and self identifies as stone butch – most human beings would have no fucking idea what any of that meant without a lot of reading or exposure to the community first). A lot of material is cross community applicable – so checking out gay mens stuff can be helpful.

In my experience, which is all purely observational (I’m a dude, I just have lots of female friends who are into girls) – the easiest way to pick up a girl, is to have an iphone and install Crusher. Other than that, any advice a guy gives you is speculative in the extreme.

Sagredo April 28, 2011 at 3:04 am #

Ali, isn’t the start of cuddling is a bit early for sexy propositions?

Infra, playing Go Fish is supposed to be teasing. It’s prolonging unmet sexual desire for erotic effect. She wants him, but can’t have him so easily. In fact he should make her finish the hand even if she does go for him.

Ali m April 28, 2011 at 3:10 am #

@Scootah

A lot of guys would argue that every episode of Cleo, Cosmopolitan, Girlfriend, and every other womens magazine in the history of magazines aimed primarily at women is infact a pickup guide for heterosexual women.

It’s true, but I think a lot of that advice — inasmuch as I’ve read it — is about making yourself so attractive/whatever that the man will make moves on you. There are ways to signal your interest, but no ways to go beyond signaling to transparently and assertively saying “Hey, I find you extremely attractive and would like to do sexy things with you.” In the case of non-het women trying to pick up women, it’s even worse — a lot of the things that are “flirting” with a guy are just the stuff you do with your friends. Female and some mixed-gender friendsgroups admit a lot of physical interaction without implied sexual attraction, and so there has to be a way to state clearly that you ARE sexually interested before you fall into the realm of potential creep by taking someone’s friendship as a sexual interaction.

DFL April 28, 2011 at 5:37 am #

Lathe of Heaven (#115):

In the case of the LMR situation, the way to demonstrate the opposite of neediness is to say “OK, I don’t need you, and I won’t be crushed or disappointed if you want to stop; I have desire but I don’t have need.” It seems to me that demonstrating this is a fair description of what the “freeze-out” is supposed to accomplish.

With some of the PUA tactics, such as LMR tactics, I also have the feeling that there is a difference in the reasons why they supposedly work that are sold to PUA followers as opposed to the reasons why they actually work.

In the case of LMR busting, the reason that is sold is “display non-neediness”, while the actual reason is playing on her insecurities.
But they can’t openly say that because most PUA followers aren’t assholes of that caliber and might not accept these tactics.

Same with e.g. the “neg”.

So, in a way, PUA seems to be manipulative towards both the women targets and the male customers.

Hugh Ristik April 28, 2011 at 6:48 am #

DFL said:

In the case of LMR busting, the reason that is sold is “display non-neediness”, while the actual reason is playing on her insecurities.
But they can’t openly say that because most PUA followers aren’t assholes of that caliber and might not accept these tactics.

Wait a sec, how do we know what the PUA gurus think is the “actual reason?” Maybe the gurus, just like the students, aren’t complete assholes (at least, not in that way) and prefer to think that their teachings have a positive impact on women. Different women are different, the mechanism for certain techniques working might vary. PUAs (gurus or not) might understand some of these mechanisms, but not others.

Rather than saying that the gurus are deceiving their followers, it’s much more likely that they are deceiving themselves… and what’s even more likely is that they are simply ignorant of the ways that some women might react to their techniques. Never underestimate the power of ignorance, self-deception, generalization, and bias.

It’s more likely that the gurus are biased true believers who are sincere, and who want to believes that their teachings are positive for all women… rather than having covert and knowing malice in their techniques that they hide from their followers.

Hugh Ristik April 28, 2011 at 6:52 am #

Clarisse said:

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 think you managed to say what I was trying to say a bit more concisely. And I think I was having trouble saying it because I’d always just assumed that even with a freeze-out, the goal wasn’t to break the intimacy. Because deliberately breaking rapport after someone refuses you sex seems like a jerk move.

I think this is yet another example of how the descriptions of many PUA techniques are ambiguous, and different people construe them in different ways. Someone like me or Sagredo takes the standpoint of “could I implement this in a way that would be positive for both people?” Whereas you seem to take the standpoint of “could this be implemented in a way that could be harmful to me or someone else?”

Personally, I think there isn’t any contradiction in saying that the Love Systems LMR advice gets a “yes” for both questions. Nothing in their advice about breaks (remember, they dumped the term “freeze outs”) necessarily means breaking the rapport or intimacy. Expect perhaps one: removing candles or music. This is actually the “taking a break” tactic that bothers me the most; I agree with Sam that it easily risks looking petulant. In contrast, it’s not at all difficult to imagine excusing yourself to check your email for a few minutes in a way that maintains intimacy.

Freeze-outs are not something only feminists react badly to, they are not a harmless quirk of a genuinely nice boundary-setting PUA, they are a TACTIC that MANY people immediately recognize as problematic.

I have trouble reconciling this with what you wrote above. I agree with you that PUAs don’t conceptualize “freeze outs” as boundary setting (though I think they should think a lot more about their own boundaries). The thing is, “freeze out” is a horrible term that actually encompasses a lot of very different behaviors. If you believe (as you suggest above), that it’s possible to take a break without breaking the intimacy, then you accept a behavior that PUAs would categorize as a subtle “freeze out.”

There are other LMR tactics that are less coldly aggressive.

That’s one possible interpretation of the tactic, but it’s really not the only one. If you want to say that “freeze outs,” as currently described, will often be implemented with coldness or aggression, I would completely agree: the language used to describe them may encourage such attitudes.

However, if you are saying that “freeze outs” literally require coldness and aggression, then I would absolutely disagree, and I think you would need a lot more quoting to make such a case… especially considering that some descriptions of the tactic say to not act angry at all.

I read your update to the OP, and I’m going to have to point out that it’s still got some inaccuracies:

If they’re playing a card game, he packs up the cards.

No tactic actually advises this; the actual tactic is to start playing cards, not to pack them up. That’s different.

Basically, he goes cold and ignores her until she agrees to have sex with him.

That’s not what the advice literally says. The Love System’s advice is check your email for a few minutes. That’s miles away from ignoring someone until they have sex with you.

Here is Mystery’s description of “freeze outs” (from his book, p. 203):

If last-minute resistance seems insurmountable, do a freeze-out: Turn on the light, snuff out the candle, check your e-mail, head to the kitchen to make a sandwich, or pull out a checkerboard and challenge her to a game. The power of this is in its sincere delivery. If you were sulking or angry, that would show that you were affected. Just act as if your arousal circuitry has simply been shut off.

- snuffing out the candle: I’m not a fan, for reasons explained above.
- checking email or making a sandwich: fine, as long as he doesn’t break rapport
- checkers: potentially fun way of taking a break

Nowhere does he say to ignore her until she agrees to sex. Nowhere does he advise being cold and aggressive. If you’re getting that notion from something PUAs have written, then I’d like to see the quotes; otherwise, what PUAs actually say, and your interpretation of it, are getting too hard to separate.

Mystery explicitly says that you should sincerely show a lack of anger or sulking. He then says “just act” like your arousal circuitry has been shut off. So is he insincere that you should be sincere? Is he encouraging merely a performance of sincerity? Or is he encouraging you to cultivate the ability to shut off your arousal circuitry upon resistance, so you will then be able to demonstrate that sincerely?

Who knows. Only Mystery knows, and I’m not sure even he does. But either way, his description of the technique is significantly different from your interpretation, even though it has problems of its own (e.g. it might result in guys acting passive-aggressive when they implement it, even though it clearly says that you should be sincere).

Mystery concludes:

She will feel the sense of loss and will allow herself to raise her LMR threshold level

The question is: the loss of what? Loss of affection? That would be fucked up… but it’s not necessarilyy what he says. Loss of attention? Maybe, but the checkers example still involves attention. Loss of sexual contact? It’s perfectly reasonable for the guy to stop sexual contact altogether if she refuses something. If the loss of sexual contact makes her realize that she was enjoying it, and that she wants it to escalate, then that sounds positive.

Notice that “allow herself to raise her LMR threshold” could imply agency on her part.

As usual, the language is ambiguous, and what sort of “loss” he means, and how it motivates the woman, really influences the ethics of this technique. I kind of want to go kick Mystery for being so ambiguous so we have to have these endless debates over what he meant, where everyone is so sure of their own interpretation. I disagree with Scootah that we can intuit some “real” meaning under these words, or that if we can, the more cynical interpretation is more likely to be “true.” We just don’t know.

Back to your older post:

the freeze-out is not just mentioned in Love Systems. It’s also mentioned in other places, including The Game

I completely agree with you that many of the descriptions of “freeze outs” are problematic for various reasons (including many that I’ve already pointed out, and a few that I haven’t mentioned). What I disagree with is some of the particular problems you describe with them, such as aggression, coldness, or intentional calculation to take advantage of someone’s vulnerabilities. All of those outcomes are possible in implementations of this tactic, but I do not see those things literally suggested by either your Strauss quote, Mystery, or Love Systems.

You’re welcome to your interpretation, but your original post doesn’t really distinguish between what PUA texts actually advise, and your interpretation of the meaning and consequences of that advice. If you have some other sources that are leading to your interpretation, then I would love to see them, and I think they would be helpful for your future writing on the subject.

How does Strauss know that she wants to have sex and just wants him to call her later?

I agree with you that PUAs ideas about the range of motives for women refusing sex is narrower than what is in these quotes on LMR. Elsewhere I’ve seen PUAs suggest more reasons, but LMR tactics tend to be linked to the theory of ASD, which only describes one sort of motive. I agree that this is a gap in the typical PUA understanding of women’s experience.

In this scenario, Strauss actually does have reason to believe that she might want to have sex, because he describes her “whining ‘no’” when he withdraws. What I don’t like was his response, which was to tell her to take off her pants. I think a little more confirmation of her desire for sex should be required for such a bold order.

But the freeze-out exemplifies the most fucked up approach to LMR, the most fucked up attitude on the part of PUAs, and often (when problems with it are described) the continued refusal of most PUAs to acknowledge other people’s reality.

Wait, really? Other LMR tactics bother me much more than even the worst-case implementations of “freeze outs.” I am far more worried about the tactics that agree with supposedly “token” resistance and keep going, and I think these tactics are much more potentially harmful.

It’s interesting how some of things you have problems with, I don’t see as so problematic, and some of the stuff you don’t mention (or don’t focus on so much), I have problems with.

If you don’t mind me providing a hypothesis, it seems like “freeze outs” trigger you a lot, based on what you’ve said about a past version of yourself being potentially vulnerable to them, which leads you to react more strongly to them than to other LMR tactics that (I think) are more problematic, and to focus on the worst possible interpretation of what “freeze outs” could mean. If you’re not open to that sort of hypothesis, then I won’t make one like that again, and I apologize in advance if it’s inappropriate.

As for me, it is still educational hearing about what the worst case scenarios could be, because I hadn’t really even considered that guys might actually break rapport intentionally in response to refusal of sex, because I personally can’t imagine myself responding that way, and the very idea seems monstrous. I just want to separate what the original advice says from the ways that it could be pulled off. I think part of the reason some PUAs are mystified by ethical criticisms is because they’ve taken the ambiguity of the original texts, and come up with their own sanitized and positive interpretations.

Hugh Ristik April 28, 2011 at 6:56 am #

Infra said:

I’d agree that it’s a fair description of what the freeze-out aims to accomplish, but it’s questionable whether or not it actually achieves that.

Exactly, I agree that there can be a gap between the theory and the actual results.

To use the Love Systems description as an example, the use of a boring game such as “go fish” communicates something different from playing an interesting game, such as poker or gin

It’s not the game that makes the situation interesting or boring, it’s the emotional communication. A simple, “boring” game could be an excellent way to give something to do, while they both assess what they want. You don’t want anything too mentally taxing or skill-loaded, because both people have stuff to process.

PUAs are used to taking mundane things and making them emotionally engaging, so it’s absolutely not true that Go Fish has to be boring (though it’s probably going to be more boring that continuing to mess around). Furthermore, I like Sagredo’s interpretation of the game as flirtatious.

As usual, the tactic is ambiguous, and we can spend all day thinking up different implementations and different scenarios.

But boring things tend to make people look elsewhere, and what doing this communicates is that the game’s been selected in order to redirect attention back to sex by providing an unattractive option, and that’s something that’s likely to come off as needy, not as its opposite — as an attempt to appear detached from the outcome when the PUA is, to the contrary, heavily invested.

Maybe. But what are the other options? I did a run-down of options in another comment, but basically, taking a break to play a game (even a break intentionally calculated to increase the other person’s chances of wanting to have sex) still looks attractive compared to many of the other options. For instance, continuing to make out or cuddle can also look needy, and the person who just refused something will have to wonder: is the other person trying to turn the making out or cuddling into something more?

Basically, if you try to initiate and you get refused, then you are in a double bind: if you keep cuddling or making out, you risk looking needy. If you try to take a break and do something non-sexual, then you also risk looking needy.

Hugh Ristik April 28, 2011 at 7:06 am #

I’m not sure what is the correct standard for how to deal with rejection without risking triggering the other person’s people-pleasing motives, but I do feel like there is a currently a double-standard based on gender.

If I have to dash a woman’s hopes of sex or of a relationship with me, I don’t expect her to be all zen about it. In fact, the very notion seems ludicrous. I’ve gone out with someone who got visibly upset when I resisted classifying us as “officially dating” on about the 4th date (and the 1st outside a club, which was a little soon for me, even though I liked her). She clearly wasn’t worrying about guilting me into something I didn’t want. Should she have?

I’m willing to meet a higher ethical bar than what women meet with me, but I have to say that the double standard is surreal and feels extremely unfair. If I’m dealing with rejection, I need to watch out for her feelings and suppress my own. If she’s dealing with rejection… then same thing: it’s me who needs to watch out for her feelings and suppress my own.

Generally whenever I’ve rejected a woman, she’s been visibly upset in some way, even if she was trying to hide it. In some cases, I wasn’t a fan of how she expressed it, but in general, I wasn’t expecting women to give me a cuddle and tell me it was OK that I was rejecting them, and how much they respected my right to do so!

Heck, it’s considered acceptable for women to break down in tears at any sort of sexual or romantic objection, and nobody ever worries about the guy feeling guilty or giving in out of “people-pleasing.” And yet if a woman rejects me sexually, I’m supposed to be Mr. Zen Stoic Guy because of her hypothetically going along with something while non-obviously not being into it.

And the thing is, I pretty much am that guy now. But in some circumstances, a part of me is not happy about being rejected, at least for a couple minutes, even though I respect her right to do so and don’t want her to do anything with me that she isn’t enthusiastic about. I’ve learned to suppress my emotional reaction and watch out for her… but maybe that’s not always healthy. I would like to see a world where we don’t expect men to be stoic about rejection, but where women don’t take any negative emotional reactions from men to create some sort of obligation for them.

There appears to be a double standard now. I’m not sure which side of it should be the norm (how men are expected to react to rejection, or how women are expected to react to rejection), or something in between, but I would like to see this double standard go away.

DFL April 28, 2011 at 7:12 am #

Hugh Ristik:

Rather than saying that the gurus are deceiving their followers, it’s much more likely that they are deceiving themselves… and what’s even more likely is that they are simply ignorant of the ways that some women might react to their techniques. Never underestimate the power of ignorance, self-deception, generalization, and bias.

Yeah, maybe that is true. At least it’s the simpler hypothesis.

I guess my point is that I don’t find it so useful to explain over and over again how it is supposed to work, but maybe rather think about whether the mechanism that is assumed is in fact the one that is in play.

Sam April 28, 2011 at 10:33 am #

Clarisse -

re: glorification of male sexuality -

Hugo Schwyzer, on Tuesday:

“We live in a world that is deeply suspicious of male desire. Rightly so, I think.”

http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/how-to-stare-at-women

AB April 28, 2011 at 11:35 am #

@Hugh Ristik:

Sagredo said:

AB, I don’t mind similar behaviour assigned to a similarity in gender. But there is a toxic line of thought that runs men and women are the same except for social effects, so when they behave differently, the male behaviour is wrong.

AB said:

That doesn’t happen. What does happen is that female behaviour is criticised all the time, including (perhaps especially) by feminists, but every time the same happens to men, people resort to the old cliché about men not being allowed to be men, as if improving themselves is some betrayal of who they are as a sex.

Without you presenting more of your reasoning about why you disagree with Sagredo, it looks like you are dismissing him.

In a way, I am. I’ve written repeatedly, in details, about my opinions and my reasoning for them, and often included links and concrete examples to go with it. But why am I supposed to contribute all that in response to something which is basically just stating yet again that men are oppressed without any support behind it?

I’m a bit of a tomboy, the kind of girl who prefers AC/DC to Beyonce, who’s not opposed to walking 8 kilometres home alone at night (in heavy flat boots and a leather jacket), and who knows the rules to D&D better than boys, and I know a lot about how masculine qualities are appreciated (and not). And even as a girl, where a lot of boyish behaviour is interpreted in the most negative way (rude, slobbish, hostile), there’s no line of thought that when men and women behave differently, the male behaviour is wrong.

Quite the contrary, save for the increased expectations of politeness, cleanliness (e.g. shaving in places men don’t shave), and ‘taking care of yourself’ (e.g. makeup, long nails, painful shoes), I often get praised for my supposedly male qualities, and this hasn’t changed as I’ve gotten older. Even the words, in both Danish and English, are more positive in regards to girls who behave like boys than boys who behave like girls.

Now, I agree with you that the “men not being allowed to be men” meme is B.S. I don’t agree with Strauss bringing it up in his interview. I think his point was about women trying to change men in relationships. In that case, his real beef is with people trying to change their partners. If he believes that women do this more often, then he should complain about women trying to turn men into projects, rather than women “not allowing men to be men.”

And funny enough, a lot of the PUA techniques he write about are made to change women, and make them behave the way men want them to. But it’s not so much the staggering hypocrisy that bothers me, it’s that claims like these come without any form of support, or even just examples of what people are talking about.

In this thread, and threads like it, there is a steady stream of remarks that loosely translate into “men aren’t allowed to be men”, like Sagredo’s claim that when men and women’s behaviour differ, the male behaviour is considered wrong. And they seem to expect their words to be taken face value, in a way I certainly don’t see my claims (or those of any other female poster, now that I think about it) be.

Wait, which men are you talking about? I think that most of the men here feel that both male and female sexuality encounter lack of appreciation, in different contexts. These threads just happen to mostly focused on lack of appreciation towards male sexuality.

I’m not sure there’s actually a recognition here (let alone among PUAs) of how female sexuality is rarely appreciated. Sometimes, I’m not even even sure there’s a recognition of female sexuality to begin with.

Can’t it be both? Couldn’t there be oppression both towards women who don’t feel uncomfortable expressing their sexuality, and towards men who then missing on women exploring their sexuality with them? I haven’t seen men here saying anything contradicting this interpretation.

It could, but not when those men simultaneously want to be appreciated for using techniques that make me uncomfortable exploring my sexuality, and want to be pitied because I’m not there to explore my sexuality with them.

Now you are going somewhere I’m not willing to follow you. Saying that women have worse sex than men isn’t just a claim about women’s experience, it’s also a claim about men’s. It’s possible that you are correct, but I’m not going to accept assertions like this as a condition for discussion, nor am I marginalizing your experience if I’m skeptical of this claim.

I’m referring back to when Sam said men would rather have bad sex than no sex, but women wouldn’t. His interpretation was that sex was a bigger urge for men, my interpretation was that bad sex for women was so unbelievably bad that it is beyond what most men can imagine. From what I recall, the one male poster who could relate had been in an abusive relationship, though I could be wrong.

Because you know how sexually repressed men feel. Pardon me for not getting on board with this sort of oppression olympics. If you wanted to present this as a hypothesis, then I would be open to it, but I’m not OK with you just asserting it.

Most men I’ve heard ask for advice or talk about their sexuality being repressed (including the vast majority of PUA material) have had concerns in the range of “I feel good about my own sexuality and have no problems getting sexually aroused or feeling safe, but I need willing holes to stick my dick in”. Or in other words, if women just made themselves more sexually available, most male sexual concerns would disappear. Even the guys who complain about being called creeps are often more concerned with how (they think) that label prevents them from getting laid than any negative effect it has on their libido.

The vast majority women I’ve heard ask for advice or talk about their sexuality being repressed have had concerns in the range of “I’m afraid, sex hurts, I can’t get sexually aroused, I hate my body” etc., or in other words, actual problems with their own sexuality, not just a lack of suitable partners.

I’m a lot more sympathetic to this claim, because it’s more measurable. There is evidence that women are judged more on their appearance.

It’s not just that women are judged more on their looks, it’s also that they’re judged a lot more sexually, period. I remember a guy being interviewed about what he thought about allowing topless women in swimming halls (public indoor pools), and he answered that it would offend his modesty, because some of those women would be old. In the same way, I’ve experienced guys going crazy over some unsexy woman, as if it was a personal insult against them. Not even the ugliest man in the world can inspire just half the outrage of a moderately ugly woman, unless that man is gay.

The difference here is not just that men think physically unattractive women are unsexy, because I think the same about old men. If I imagine old men in sexual context, the first things that spring to mind is how many of them have bloated, almost pregnant-looking bellies, slightly saggy breasts, and body-hair which goes really badly with the overall (ugly) female shape of their body. But I generally don’t think that way, because I don’t go around passing sexual judgement on people unless they belong to a category I’m actually sexually interested in.

This kind of disgust is dependant on seeing the recipient in a sexual context. Your mother isn’t disgusting, but sex with your mother is (for you). A man generally isn’t disgusting, but a gay man can easily be (to men who see him in a sexual context they wouldn’t see straight men in). And in this case, the breasts of an old man (no matter how saggy) are not disgusting enough to require the law to cover up, but the breasts of a creature belonging to the category that straight men find potentially sexually interesting need to be firm and young, lest they disgust. It’s one thing to know that getting old or gaining weight means you’ll not be considered as sexually attractive to most people as before, it’s another thing entirely if it means you’ll be considered an offence against nature, especially if you engage in sexual activities.

Well, my experience differs. Guys in the top 10% of attractiveness seem to do quite well, but short of that, being above-average in looks is no guarantee of dating success.

Perhaps my sample group consists of more guys who actually socialise with girls (though not on an equal basis), or perhaps I just recall being corrected in the creep thread when I talked about how guys could socialise with girls and was told that for most of them, just getting to talk to girls was problem enough, but in my experience, the significance actual women place on looks stands in sharp contrast to the lengths many men will go to to make it about something else, which again is contradicted in how they then complain that good looking men are treated better by women.

These guys are confused. But I hope you realize that plenty of men can make the same complaints without aiming for women who are vastly more conventionally attractive.

They probably can, it just rarely happens. We have these crazy cultural norms where men complain about not being found attractive enough by women, while doing very little to improve their appearance, and women complain about unwanted sexual attention while going to sick lengths in order to look sexy enough. The whole thing is justified by women supposedly not caring about appearance and men supposedly not caring about women except in terms of appearance, and every time something appears to support that notion, it’s reported widely and mentioned repeatedly. But every time reality contradicts it (due to men and women being surprisingly similar as sexes, and surprisingly diverse as individuals), someone has to make up a BS theory about male sexuality not being appreciated enough.

Sagredo April 28, 2011 at 2:36 pm #

In this thread, and threads like it, there is a steady stream of remarks that loosely translate into “men aren’t allowed to be men”, like Sagredo’s claim that when men and women’s behaviour differ, the male behaviour is considered wrong.

This is something I see specifically behind criticisms of male behaviour coming from a social constructionist background, and perhaps often from those who consider the sexes to be “surprisingly similar”.

AB April 28, 2011 at 3:35 pm #

@nathan:

I agree with this in general; I’ve seen this kind of derail over and over again. But I fail to see how it applies to this particular thread. I’m not seeing the men here defending stereotypical straight guy masculinity, at least for the most part. In fact, some of the male comments here are pointing to exactly how any man who doesn’t fit that stereotypical masculinity also suffers because of that centralized and privileged masculine norm.

I was mainly referring to Sagredo whom I was having a discussion with at the time, though I’ve seen it several other times. And I do see many defences of stereotypical masculinity, and posts about not shaming men.

And you know, when I hear those MRA type comments about masculinity being threatened, they aren’t representing me. I’m part of the “threat.” Hell, I’ve been told in activist circles that I’m “not much of a man” because I am against war, and advocate for non-violent action and compassion as a basis for any social intervention. Traditional masculinity fucks guys like me over and over again, and certainly not just in the realm of dating and relationships.

The difficulty with participating in these discussions as a woman is that you simultaneously have to be ready to respect and accept stereotypical masculinity, such as not assuming that a guy would have developed some fondness for girls they’re about to have sex with, or be interested in intimacy with them, but on the other hand, any reference to stereotypical masculinity is immediately met with “I’m not like that, stop acting like I am”.

If, say, looking at your partner more as a masturbatory device than as someone you care for (“Why should I want intimacy when i can’t have sex?”) is a fundamental part of masculine sexuality for many men, no amount of acceptance is going to change that it creates certain problems with expectations and communication which we ought to address. But there’s really no way of doing this without running into the same two reactions, 1 “You’re not accepting male sexuality enough”, and 2 “Not all men are like that”. So how exactly are you supposed to discuss it?

Perhaps it’s best to not comment in these case anyway, but I can’t help but thinking that this is part of the problem. (I.e. The men who represent different views from the privileged norm are basically silenced, told that they are an “exception to the rule,” or that they are playing “what about the menz”) For the record, I have never felt silenced on Clarisse’s blog – I’m talking about other spaces when I speak of being silenced.

I think part of the issue is that as a woman, traditional masculinity is something you have to deal with, even if it’s not the way of all men. If traditional men don’t like intimacy and company that’s not leading up to sex, then that’s what we have to count on, because we wont necessarily know which kind of man we’re bringing home and they don’t announce themselves. Sometimes that means eschewing a guy’s company, and sometimes whole scenes (like bars), because we don’t feel ready to guarantee sex, and aren’t enthusiastic about a whole night of him acting indifferent and checking his mail.

Being expected to both accept the possibility of traditional masculinity and at the same time behave towards men as if it wasn’t an issue is next to impossible. Either we have to accept as our premise that expecting a certain amount of emotions (or at leats consideration) between sexual partners is unfair to traditional men, or we’ll have to be able to have a frank discussion about how certain aspects of traditional masculinity are turning many women off, without being accused of not accepting men.

AB April 28, 2011 at 3:47 pm #

Sagredo

This is something I see specifically behind criticisms of male behaviour coming from a social constructionist background, and perhaps often from those who consider the sexes to be “surprisingly similar”.

I rarely use the word, but it takes a serious amount of privilege to make unsupported, absolutist statements about the lack of acceptance to masculinity, and be unsurprised when all the other posters in the thread are not falling over themselves to criticise it.

AB April 28, 2011 at 4:19 pm #

@Sam:

Clarisse -

re: glorification of male sexuality -

Hugo Schwyzer, on Tuesday:

“We live in a world that is deeply suspicious of male desire. Rightly so, I think.”

Yes, and we’re also deeply suspicious of politicians and the mass media, but that doesn’t change that they’re usually the ones to set the agenda for the rest of us. I fail to see how women’s fear of sexual assault (encouraged by both men and other women) is the same as male sexuality being marginalised. I recall an article Hugo linked to earlier (trigger warning) about the coverage of a story about sexual assault, blaming the 11 year old victim and treating the behaviour of the boys and men involved as something to be expected. Just to give the other side.

But I’m starting to wonder if part of the discrepancy isn’t who we look at. I don’t see most of the things that tell me how normalised (stereo)typical straight male sexuality is in the way we talk about men and male sexuality, I see it in the way treat women and female sexuality. If you only look at straight, traditionally masculine men, I’m sure you’ll see a lot about fear (and also a lot about how hysterical women are for having that fear), but if you start looking in areas that aren’t supposed to be about those men, it’s very informative what you see, and even more what you don’t see.

Sam April 28, 2011 at 4:32 pm #

AB,

I’m referring back to when Sam said men would rather have bad sex than no sex, but women wouldn’t. His interpretation was that sex was a bigger urge for men, my interpretation was that bad sex for women was so unbelievably bad that it is beyond what most men can imagine.

well, problem here is that it’s really impossible to rank experiences in terms of how bad they are because we really lack the ability to judge each others experience. A nominal scale is all we have in this respect, everyting ordinal or even cardinal in this debate is deduced from some axiomatic set of beliefs. All we can do is listen to the experience and really try to refrain from who has it worse contests. Because it’s really impossible to tell what is worse ordinally or even cardinally because we’re all closed systems, and there is no way to compare subjective experiences on a non-nominal scale.

To continue with the picture you’ve painted – what’s worse? Lack of suitable partners but being allegedly fine with one’s own body? Or being uncomfortable in one’s own body but having sufficient access to sexual partners?

It’s really an unanswerable question. Chances are, the grass is greener on the other side. But *that* is precisely why listening to subjective accounts is important, and why the nominal accounts of women cannot be logically be considered more valuable than those of men.

We cannot rank our suffering. Which is what social justice movements tend to implicitly do when they rank their priorities. But just as clustering things will have a tendency to create a set of clusters in which one will be numerically dominant and that numerical dominance will likely lead to implicit compliance pressures, implicitly ranking the experience of people will lead to some experiences being glossed over, and even create the belief that some experiences are rightly glossed over, in order to fight larger-order battles.

And maybe that’s even necessary in a political sense. But when it comes to people talkig with each other, all we can do, all we should do, is listen and try to find ways to improve the situation for each individual within the common structure.

Sam April 28, 2011 at 4:53 pm #

AB,

I fail to see how women’s fear of sexual assault (encouraged by both men and other women) is the same as male sexuality being marginalised.

It doesn’t have to be. And it shouldn’t be. But if you fail to see the connection between masculintiy and male sexuality and violence, particularly sexual violence, you have probably never felt your toch is at least potentially “toxic”, or dangerous. You probably have never been told “don’t push a girl”, you never worried that you may be some sort of rapist when you’re misunderstanding signals and move in for a kiss and she doesn’t like it. The fear of potential male sexual sociopathy – “men are like that” – and ways to manage male sexuality (usually by managing access to female sexuality) is probably among the oldest governance challenges of humanity.

Feminism has identified a neat way to have their cake and eat it, too, by adhering, for all practical intents, to the principle that “men are like that”, but also claiming that, in a culturally liberated post-patriarchical world, men wouldn’t be like “that” (without any proof, of course). Because if men *actually* “were like that”, it would make the feminist demand that the still assumed male sexual sociopathy (if culturally caused) is a problem to be dealt with by men and men only much harder to justify.

The contradictory nature of the argument becomes occasionally particularly visible – as in Hugo Schwyzer’s arguments about the “myth of male weakness” when compared to his belief that male sexuality is rightly feared. Or in the discussion between Thomas Millar and me (in which we actually agreed in the end) that took place on a recent feministe-thread (“Monday readings”, a month or two ago or so).

But I’m starting to wonder if part of the discrepancy isn’t who we look at. I don’t see most of the things that tell me how normalised (stereo)typical straight male sexuality is in the way we talk about men and male sexuality, I see it in the way treat women and female sexuality. If you only look at straight, traditionally masculine men, I’m sure you’ll see a lot about fear (and also a lot about how hysterical women are for having that fear), but if you start looking in areas that aren’t supposed to be about those men, it’s very informative what you see, and even more what you don’t see.

I don’t think I understand what you’re trying to say here.

Sagredo April 28, 2011 at 4:55 pm #

If, say, looking at your partner more as a masturbatory device than as someone you care for (“Why should I want intimacy when i can’t have sex?”) is a fundamental part of masculine sexuality for many men, no amount of acceptance is going to change that it creates certain problems with expectations and communication which we ought to address. But there’s really no way of doing this without running into the same two reactions, 1 “You’re not accepting male sexuality enough”, and 2 “Not all men are like that”. So how exactly are you supposed to discuss it?

AB, I can help you with that. Start, firstly, by fairly representing what others (men and women) are saying. For instance, “Why should I want intimacy when I can’t have sex?” is not the same as “Why should I want intimacy when I’ve already got sex?” Sex without intimacy is exactly the relationship one has with a masturbatory device, and it is a bit creepy. But I don’t think anyone here is recommending it.

“No sex without intimacy” and “no intimacy without sex” are both reasonable boundaries. The first is something we’d expect from everyone (unless they’re doing some kind of consensual scene). The second is something that some people need at some particular times. I think it is more a characteristic of male sexuality than female overall, and I daresay it’s precisely because of that difference that you are complaining about it. Taking a position that the sexes are surprisingly similar and then complaining about the male differences isn’t all that helpful.

Lathe of Heaven April 28, 2011 at 5:01 pm #

AB: “someone has to make up a BS theory about male sexuality not being appreciated enough.”

Perhaps those “BS theories” you deride are inspired by so many people using vicious, hateful language like this:

Most men I’ve heard … have had concerns in the range of “… I need willing holes to stick my dick in”

So much for the glorification of male sexuality; sheesh.

Infra April 28, 2011 at 6:51 pm #

@Hugh (#134):

It’s not the game that makes the situation interesting or boring, it’s the emotional communication. A simple, “boring” game could be an excellent way to give something to do, while they both assess what they want. You don’t want anything too mentally taxing or skill-loaded, because both people have stuff to process.

I get what you’re saying here, and in the other parts of your comment. But having said that: as I mentioned upthread, I’ve encountered women who’ve used LMR tactics, including one that was along the lines of a freeze-out (she checked her Myspace account instead of her e-mail, but it was otherwise pretty much to the letter of the LS description). When I place myself back in the context of those experiences, I have an incredibly difficult time seeing the use of games like Go Fish playing out in a positive way, especially as coming off as flirtatious.

In a different situation, sure, I can see them being used like that. Successfully, even, though I think that it’s something that has a narrower window of application than might be assumed; it’s kind of like how the comedy of a Steven Wright joke is strongly dependent on delivery. Based upon my experiences, I’m not convinced that the context of an LMR response would much allow for it.

Taking the time out to do something absurd might work — like, say, introducing them to Tobuscus’ “literal trailers” — because that kind of reflects the confusion of the situation, and can be a way of acknowledging what’s happened without directly stating it. That might be the kind of thing that playing Go Fish is aiming at, really. It’s just that, given the specific dynamics of an LMR situation, I don’t think that doing so would be able to effectively communicate that meaning.

I suppose that that’s the main issue that I have with the way in which LMR tactics are usually framed: they don’t seem to acknowledge that LMR is a situation within which the dynamics have shifted. In other parts of seduction, it’s about moving things forward; in LMR, it’s about working with a backward flow, aiming at recovery, not gain. IME, at least.

Sagredo April 28, 2011 at 7:41 pm #

I’m seeing two different interpretations on the “appreciation of sexuality” issue. The media overwhelmingly displays sexual images of women rather than men. Is that an appreciation of male sexuality, because it is conforming to male desire, or an appreciation of female sexuality, because female sexuality is shown as appealing and desirable while male sexuality is shown as dirty, ugly and troublesome?

SnowdropExplodes April 28, 2011 at 8:34 pm #

@ Sagredo:

I’m seeing two different interpretations on the “appreciation of sexuality” issue. The media overwhelmingly displays sexual images of women rather than men. Is that an appreciation of male sexuality, because it is conforming to male desire, or an appreciation of female sexuality, because female sexuality is shown as appealing and desirable while male sexuality is shown as dirty, ugly and troublesome?

It is definitely not the second option. Media representations of women sexually does not, in fact, tend to portray women as sexual in themselves – their interest is not “female sexuality” but rather “women conforming to male sexuality”, or at best, “women’s sexuality from the point of view of their value for male sexuality”.

In other words, media representations of sexuality (although I have argued that the more “hardcore” the porn gets, the less true this is) present female sexuality as in some sense belonging to male sexuality or men, and not belonging to women. It does not present female sexuality as something desirable in its own right, but rather as something that should conform to what male sexuality desires, and when it does not conform, there are plenty of nasty terms used for women who step out of line and whose sexuality is defined by those women themselves.

Lathe of Heaven April 28, 2011 at 9:05 pm #

The media overwhelmingly displays sexual images of women rather than men. Is that an appreciation of male sexuality, because it is conforming to male desire

Is an ad for a fancy sports car an appreciation of the love of motoring? No; it’s an appreciation of the love of motoring by the tiny few who have the money to afford a fancy sports car.

Displays of sexual images of desirable women are an appreciation of the sexuality of the tiny few men who can conceivably attract such women. The sexuality of the typical male is, on any given day or year, more likely a waking purgatory of frustration and rejection. Despite being widespread, you can be sure that this kind of life gets no appreciation, sympathy, or even acknowledgment in the general culture.

Sagredo April 28, 2011 at 9:15 pm #

The sexuality of the typical male is, on any given day or year, more likely a waking purgatory of frustration and rejection.

Is this true?

Lathe of Heaven April 28, 2011 at 9:39 pm #

Is this true?

If you want to get all technical, you probably have to specify things like “straight”, “unmarried” and some age range like “16-28″, or what have you. But regardless of these kinds of nitpicks, the general idea you have of the relevant demographic toward which the media you described are pitched is whom we’re talking about.

And, yes, it’s certainly true; how else do you think people manage to sell aftershave lotion? The fact that you can even ask makes me wonder, and highlights again the idea of the “apex fallacy”. When people, and especially feminists [oop! blanketing again], make statements about men having power and privilege, or having the upper hand in relationships, they typically don’t realize that they’re mis-using the general word “men” to refer to what is really only the tiny fraction of men who actually do have power and privilege, and the charm and/or good looks to hold an upper hand. The rest, the main run of men, may just as well not exist.

That’s why I find these kinds of remarks about generic “male privilege” to be so infuriating, destructive, and in fact borderline genocidal: they totally dismiss the very existence of an entire class of human beings — men without much power or attractiveness — which is actually a very large group, and one that deserves more sympathy. I would have thought that feminists in particular would be sensitive against rhetoric which makes large but politically inconvenient groups of downtrodden people simply disappear; but experience shows that they’re actually the leaders in this particular airbrushing of the world. I’m sorry if Clarisse thinks that’s harsh, but a general perusal of, say, feminist blogs will show that it’s absolutely true.

AB April 29, 2011 at 6:47 am #

@Sam:

well, problem here is that it’s really impossible to rank experiences in terms of how bad they are because we really lack the ability to judge each others experience.

But we do have valuable indications. For instance, when someone wishes to avoid something completely, there’s a reasonable chance it was pretty bad, whereas if someone sees it as the lesser of two goods (not optimal, but still desirable), chances are it’s not that terrible for them.

To continue with the picture you’ve painted – what’s worse? Lack of suitable partners but being allegedly fine with one’s own body? Or being uncomfortable in one’s own body but having sufficient access to sexual partners?

I wasn’t talking about what was worse, I talked about who felt most repressed. It seems to me like the majority of both men and women primarily have a problem with the way women feel (insofar as they have any problems), so whatever goes on in our culture in regards to sexuality, it seems to hit women the hardest, while male sexuality appears to be working pretty much as it is supposed to (hence why you and other men keep opposing attempts to change it, whereas many women seem to wish they could feel differently than they do).

It doesn’t have to be. And it shouldn’t be. But if you fail to see the connection between masculintiy and male sexuality and violence, particularly sexual violence, you have probably never felt your toch is at least potentially “toxic”, or dangerous.

You probably have never been told “don’t push a girl”, you never worried that you may be some sort of rapist when you’re misunderstanding signals and move in for a kiss and she doesn’t like it.

I have never been told to not push a guy, and I have never needed to be told, because I have been the girl who was pushed enough times to know how it feels, and I know enough about the ways men and women are similar to be careful around them all by myself. Perhaps that’s the source of my lacking respect for men who complain about being told to be careful, because to me, it’s not an alien demand imposed on me by strange vagina-people who couldn’t possibly understand and appreciate my valuable masculine self, it’s just common decency which I would have wished had been imposed on more guys in my past.

I had an affair with a guy from social circle in which I was the pursuer, and when I first figured out that this hot and interesting guy I’d always noticed had also started to notice me, I reacted by thinking back to what guys had done to me in similar situations (with me being interested in them, but less so than vice versa), and decided to do the exact opposite in all ways. It had nothing to do with “toxic femininity” and everything to do with me knowing he was vulnerable and endeavouring to not take advantage of it.

I was probably overly careful, especially compared to how most guys would have handled it. Even the guy himself said multiple times that he was sending mixed signals and expected me to hold him up to them, but he was relieved when I didn’t (which was why I hadn’t). In the end, I found it not at all hard, as long as I accepted that he might never come around and feel ready to date me. I didn’t try to read his signals and move in for a kiss, I made it clear that I would like to kiss him but that I would let him decide when he was ready, because in that situation, I knew I was probably more in touch with my desires than him. I’ve always found that it’s better to make it as easy for your partner to say yes as possible, than to push forward in the hopes of not encountering a no.

The fear of potential male sexual sociopathy – “men are like that” – and ways to manage male sexuality (usually by managing access to female sexuality) is probably among the oldest governance challenges of humanity.

Actually, the sexuality that’s most ‘managed’ by this is female sexuality (and female lives in general). Don’t go out alone, don’t go out at all, don’t wear revealing clothes, don’t flirt with men, and don’t kiss or otherwise engage romantically with a man, because you can’t expect him to accept that it’s all you want to do. You talk a lot about accepting and appreciating male sexuality, even if it’s vulgar and shallow by feminine standards. Perhaps you should reciprocate by accepting female fear, even when it’s inconvenient.

Feminism has identified a neat way to have their cake and eat it, too, by adhering, for all practical intents, to the principle that “men are like that”, but also claiming that, in a culturally liberated post-patriarchical world, men wouldn’t be like “that” (without any proof, of course). Because if men *actually* “were like that”, it would make the feminist demand that the still assumed male sexual sociopathy (if culturally caused) is a problem to be dealt with by men and men only much harder to justify.

Again I don’t see the contradiction. As I wrote to nathan, even though not all men are like that, as a woman you still have to deal with the fact that any man you’re with could be.

The contradictory nature of the argument becomes occasionally particularly visible – as in Hugo Schwyzer’s arguments about the “myth of male weakness” when compared to his belief that male sexuality is rightly feared.

There’s a difference between believing men have to be like that, and recognising that enough of them still choose to be that way. The guys chanting “No means yes, yes means anal” aren’t born with an inherent violent sexuality and lack of empathy for women, but they’re still colossal jerks. Accepting their views and behaviour as an inherent part of male sexuality would be to do everyone a disservice, but seeing it as disconnected from the way masculinity and male sexuality is defined in our society is just ignorant.

I don’t think I understand what you’re trying to say here.

I think you’re focussing a lot on men, and what is said about men and male sexuality. I focus a lot on women, and what is said about women and female sexuality. That probably gives us different perspectives on how prevalent and normalised stereotypical male sexuality is.

Clarisse April 29, 2011 at 8:37 am #

well, I am now hung over, having just awoken after a night out with the Asian playboy and his master instructor Gareth Jones. I went to see them speak at UChicago and ended up going out. it is so weird to meet PUAs I’m as attracted to as Gareth, who has some history with alternative subcultures and has long hair but is clearly vanilla and is like a fucking wall of I-so-don’t-care-about-you-woman-and-also-I’m-onto-you-journalist-scum. I mean, he was friendly and flirtatious and bought me a drink and everything, but, damn, he had some WALLS.

point being, during their talk I sort of pinned down what I think is the Biggest Problem with PUAdom, which seems to be there no matter whether they’re misogynist or non-misogynist or trying really hard or whatnot. because these dudes, even though they focused on inner game and confidence and all that good stuff, and even though they said things about how some guys have misogynist attitudes about women and that’s bad etc etc, they are still within the incredibly strong PUA “women don’t know what they want” frame. and I get why that frame exists, and I get some of its advantages, because sure, women are going to have a harder time teaching men how to flirt than men who actually flirt with women are. but they still promoted tactics like “get her clothes off in the minimum number of steps” (which essentially means that she has many fewer chances to interrupt the action if she wants to and is much more likely to get steamrolled into something) and concepts like “buyer’s remorse” (she totally wanted to fuck you, she TOTALLY did, but chicks are just weird and sometimes they go crazy the next day, seriously, we KNOW this, it’s SCIENCE).

and what makes me really mad about the “buyer’s remorse” thing, is that Gareth ACKNOWLEDGED — he outright stated — that you don’t want to rush things too much with a girl you “really like”, you want to take it slow, because you don’t want her to get “buyer’s remorse”. but this acknowledgment came without any discussion of what so-called “buyer’s remorse” might actually FEEL like, and what a woman might actually be thinking if she’s upset at you the day after you fucking steamrolled her feelings and ignored LMR and treated her like an accomplishment rather than a person. and it is so incredibly fucked up that the discussion talked about how you only care about “buyer’s remorse” with girls who make the cut, and it is cool to treat girls who don’t make the cut that way, because, whatever, you are never going to be held accountable or really even talk to her again, right? it couldn’t ever conceivably be date rape, or even skeevy manipulative bullshit that’s not date rape but is still skeevy: it’s just “buyer’s remorse”. we swear. SCIENCE backs us up.

Clarisse April 29, 2011 at 8:47 am #

oh, another example: “you can’t change a woman’s mind, you can just change her mood”. typical comment. centered in their lecture too. jesus christ.

Sam April 29, 2011 at 10:23 am #

Clarisse,

but on the other hand, you could go back through the masculinity threads, and just count the stories I’ve told about female mixed signals… The problem is that mixed signalling is some sort of push & pull, which will enhance attraction, but at the same time creat a higher risk of miscommunication, particularly when the mixed signalling is also about credible deniability, which helps ego protection. Someone who’s initiating doesn’t have the advantage of credible deniability (“oh sorry, I slipped and fell onto your mouth…”) and mixing signals also works only to a much lesser extent. Add to that the quite likely possibility that people aren’t at all times prior to something happening aware of all possible contingencies of their desire or how they would like to let themselves be overwhelmed by it. Sometimes appetite just comes with eating.

Of course, I’d doubt that’s a condition that women are more aflicted with than men, but men, usually being required to initiate don’t usually have the opportunity to demonstrate uncertainty of desire, whether they actually have doubts or not. Of course, that’s a position women who intiate are also in, that part of the difference seems role-related, not gender-related. But I suppose decisiveness is also a component in “confidence”, which women seem to be particularly attracted to in men. And having doubts/being undecisive also helps playing the gatekeeper.

Point being, no one knows whether women or men are less aware of their actual desires at any particular point in time, it’s just that the roles they are usually playing in the mating game will put them in positions that both allow and require them to allow those feelings to a different degree within themselves and to communicate those feelings to a different degree to the other.

With respect to *you* there’s also the fact that you seem to be particularly aware of your desires *and* able to communicate them. Most people will *never* get to that point.

In other words, it’s not unlikely that both you and the PUA you talked to are right about your perceptions of what’s going on. You from your subjective experience of being aware and being able to ask for what you want, he from his experience of women, sending mixed signals about, say, wanting to be pushed against a wall, to use one of my favorite examples.

Again, as I’ve always said, the higher the stakes, that is, the less clothes are involved, the higher the risk of miscommunication. I think it’s ok to take all the double binds of communication into account in earlier stages of an interaction as the risk of being wrong mostly consists of awkwardness, but when it comes to actually having sex, the risk of actually hurting someone is too high.

As for the “minimum steps” –

which essentially means that she has many fewer chances to interrupt the action if she wants to and is much more likely to get steamrolled into something

or, again, she’s given less opportunity to listen to her social conditioning that would keep her from doing something she actually wants to do?

“but this acknowledgment came without any discussion of what so-called “buyer’s remorse” might actually FEEL like, and what a woman might actually be thinking if she’s upset at you the day after you fucking steamrolled her feelings and ignored LMR and treated her like an accomplishment rather than a person.”

Similar for “buyer’s remorse”. You’re supposing a scenario in which “buyer’s remorse” is a fair reaction to the guy’s behaviour, and not a natural reaction to having made a decision, when humans – all humans – are quite likely to second guess all their choices once given the opportunity. If you ever buy a computer, try not to look at computer ads for a while, it will help you avoid cognitive dissonance about your earlier decision. So, with respect to “buyer’s remorse”, how is slut shaming and the social attribution to female sexuality not sufficient reason for “buyer’s remorse”? We’ve discussed how women may feel like they’ve lost value and “gave it away” too easily. Add to that the possibility ot not too stellar, possibly non-orgasmic sex. I don’t think it’s too absurd to assume that all this could easily kick in and make her second guess her earlier decisions once the arousal is over. That’s not crazy, that’s probably quite “natural”.

Particularly *IF* the guy in question is treating the situation as an accomplishment rather than a shared experience.

But in the end, as long as you assume a difference, or an incompatibility, in what women and men are looking for, for all the discussion and people being attracted to each other and liking each other, and assuming actual awareness of what they want and ability to talk about it, there may be a point at which incompatible interests will surface: Like when he wants actual sex but would be ok with, say, making out if she really doesn’t want sex and she wants to make out but would have sex if he really wants it. In that situation it will really be hard to find an extra dimension to balance those interests, particularly in short term relationships, like (likely) ONS.

And if only one set of interests can prevail, whose should it be? The feminist answer is simple: her interests should take precedence because her consent for sex may not be enthusiastic if she prefers something else. But neither is is consent to just making out.

It seems to me it’s not that simple, after all. And the possibility of not getting exactly what one wants out of an interaction will likely increase “buyer’s remorse” (men are just not assumed to have buyer’s remorse, because, well, they “scored” – there’s the whole transactional stuff again) Time really seems like the only way out of the dilemma – if there’s more pleasure in the future, the conflict of interestes can be eased by stretching and increasing gratification over time.

So, in the end, this will really only become an issue in cases of “I’d like to have sex but I’d really not like to see her again”. And it seems to me that your problem is really more with that mindset, because it is diametrically opposed to what you want from sex, even a one night stand – a human connection.

I do too, but for those who don’t, the description of the conflict seems correct. If there’s no way to balance interests over time, it’s about whose (marginally different) interests prevail at that one point.

Infra April 29, 2011 at 10:30 am #

@Clarisse:

There’s a bit of ego defense that comes into the concept of “buyer’s remorse,” too, IMO. Without minimizing the possibilities that you mentioned, but considering cases in which they don’t apply: if a woman reacts badly to a guy afterward, or ignores him, or talks shit about him, etc., it’s a lot easier to frame this as regret on her part than it is to consider another possibility.

“You got used.”

Patch April 29, 2011 at 11:57 am #

Without devaluing the experiences of women in this thread, I think that there is a valid point to be made that there is a moralistic thread running through modern Western thought that demonizes male sexuality. Our society simultaneously celebrates and elevates “normal” male sexuality — we’re a species that is perfectly capable of doing profoundly self-contradictory things — but as a male, I do find that I harbor a certain amount of disgust towards myself for what are perfectly natural feelings and desires. Interestingly, I believe that this disgust has roots in a Christian upbringing, but it finds a comfortable home in my current feminist mindset as well.

So fundamentally, I agree with some of the sentiments expressed in this thread. I strongly disagree with some of the conclusions drawn from those sentiments, however.

Sex is a two (or more!) person thing. Selfishly tricking or coercing somebody into sex is _at least_ as wrong as selfishly tricking or coercing somebody into any sort of activity. Since sex is such an emotionally, biochemically, and culturally powerful thing, trickery and force in sex are much _more_ wrong than trickery and force in just about any other activity.

This does mean that one’s own desire for sex must sometimes be set aside because the person (or people) you want to have sex with do not desire it. Sometimes, this can happen at the last minute. I don’t believe that this is nearly as big a problem as some of the men in this thread make it out to be. Your biological urges can still be met by going somewhere private and masturbating (it’s a pity our society attaches so much shame to that activity), and your wounded pride will heal (really!)

I think that there is a lot of room for discussion about how to build up confidence, and how to openly communicate one’s desires in a “sexy” way. There’s also a lot of room for self examination when it comes to what you are looking for in a relationship (no matter how short), and the body types that you find to be sexy (do you really need to bed Megan Fox, or are you just ashamed of admitting that you’re madly attracted to someone with a quirkier body?)

I’m both a shy kinky/polyamorous male, and a father trying to figure out how best to raise a new baby daughter, so a lot of these issues are bubbling around in my brain. Thanks to Clarisse, for providing a forum for the discussion, and to everyone else, for all their thought provoking comments :-)

Sagredo April 29, 2011 at 2:03 pm #

What kind of feeling is this remorse?

Lathe of Heaven April 29, 2011 at 8:43 pm #

Sam, to Clarisse:

With respect to *you* there’s also the fact that you seem to be particularly aware of your desires *and* able to communicate them. Most people will *never* get to that point.

WIthout detracting from Clarisse’s accomplishments, this claim strikes me as utterly bizarre when applied to men (or didn’t you mean to include men when you wrote people?). I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who wasn’t aware of his desires and able to communicate them; being basically shallow, this is not hard. The reason men wouldn’t do that, generally, is entirely practical: it would greatly lower the chances that those desires would ever be met.

Isn’t this obvious? We’re not talking brain surgery here.

Lathe of Heaven April 29, 2011 at 9:16 pm #

the Biggest Problem with PUAdom, [is that] they are still within the incredibly strong PUA “women don’t know what they want” frame.

I have to say that I’m confused by the word “frame” here. Pardon me for being all pre-post-modern and such, but where I was trained we talk about statements about the world, and whether statements used as organizing principles are efficient at modeling reality and predicting future outcomes — the better a statement is for this, the more we push it toward being considered “true”. So I don’t know what to do with the word “frame”, but can only in my more simple-minded way ask: does the statement “Women don’t know what they want,” as a general statement and not about individuals, actually do a good job of describing the world around us? Does it meet with reality? Does it explain a lot of what you see? Are the predictions you would make based on it generally come borne out?

Instead of hiding behind a relativistic word like “frame”, I think you should come out and answer these plain questions; and then talk about what is true in the world and what is not, independent of its political utility.

Infra April 29, 2011 at 9:57 pm #

@Lathe of Heaven:

I have to say that I’m confused by the word “frame” here.

“Frame” has a specific meaning in the context of pickup theory, particularly related to the influence of NLP. Clarisse’s wording is just a standard (and quite common) use of the lingo.

Your criticisms may have merit — “women don’t know what they want” is often boldly asserted in pickup materials, without much supporting analysis, if any — but they’re also misdirected.

Lathe of Heaven April 29, 2011 at 11:28 pm #

Infra

“Frame” has a specific meaning in the context of pickup theory, particularly related to the influence of NLP. Clarisse’s wording is just a standard (and quite common) use of the lingo.

As I’ve said, I’m not a PUA and could not play one on television, so I apologize for being behind the curve. But, I still don’t see that Clarisse’s usage is consonant with the standard PUA terminology as I’ve seen it in many places like the one you linked to.

My understanding is that a “frame” as used by a PUA is like a whole-body pose: a set of assumptions about a situation that will advantage the PUA if he can keep his every move and utterance consistent with that set. A common PUA “frame,” for example, is the assumption that “you need me more than I need you”; the PUA stays “within the frame” by never doing anything that can be interpreted as needy, and acting as though the woman clearly is desirous. Does this sound right?

Under this definition, though, the assumption that “women don’t know what they want” wouldn’t IMO serve as a “frame” that a PUA would stay within in dealing with a woman; that is, it wouldn’t be useful for him to project to a woman that he believes that. I would think rather the opposite, in fact: the PUA works within the frame that the woman wants sex, and that her desire is obvious and undeniable to both of them.

Clarisse can speak for herself, of course. But what made more sense to me is that the “women don’t know what they want” statement is more of an underlying, behind-the-scenes part of the PUA technology; and that Clarisse finds this, and its consequences, objectionable as a description of reality. (Real reality is different from frames, which are constructed reality). My objection was that she appeared to be indifferent as to whether the statement is true or not, focussing instead on how it is unpleasant.

In any case of her intent, though, I think my basic point remains: we should strive to discuss what is and is not true, even when it’s inconvenient.

Sam April 29, 2011 at 11:42 pm #

Funny, a week ago or so I said I never got the “are you gay” question. Tonight I got it, for the first time. From a girl who was wondering why I was not more sexually aggressive (she litteally asked that, as she was apparently wondering why I didn’t at least try to sleep with her when we last met, a year or so ago, because tonight we met at a party where I was greeted by girls left and right, and that kind of female attention coupled with what she considered lack of sexual aggression could apparently only explained by gay or lack of interest in her specifically). She later kissed me and apparently decided I wasn’t gay, and while I liked the kiss, I still wasn’t into her.

Clarisse April 30, 2011 at 12:24 am #

ok, hangover dealt with, managing to relax (kind of) accomplished. I’m feeling more clear-headed now. More responses in another comment, but here’s something that’s bothering me right now. I’m picturing a PUA who runs a set using the following tactics:

1 — Get her home without telling her they’re going to his apt (I don’t know if there’s a name for this, but I know some PUAs do it)
2 — Convince her to come inside by using a false time constraint (“Come on up, I want to show you my XYZ, don’t worry I won’t put the moves on you because I have to be somewhere else in 10 minutes”)
3 — Make out with her, ignore her when she says “I thought you said you had to be somewhere in 10 minutes” because he assumes it’s a shit test
4 — Ignore her when she gives LMR by saying “No”
5 — Later she avoids him, ignores him, whatever and he decides it’s just “buyer’s remorse”.

This seems like a totally plausible scenario to me, and it really grosses me out. It’s basically an incredibly strong frame for enabling a guy to have sex with a woman that she didn’t want, and then convince himself afterwards that her negative response has nothing to do with how he acted.

It’s not that I don’t think PUA tactics can be used well, but this is an example of a scenario where I think they’d be used really, really badly, and not only that, it’s a scenario that PUAs don’t often even acknowledge, and if they do acknowledge it, they dismiss it as a distant possibility (or maybe even as rare and acceptable collateral damage, though I’ve never seen a PUA outright say this).

* final paragraph edited for clarity

Hugh Ristik April 30, 2011 at 1:01 am #

Yay, it’s nice to talk about a concrete scenario. I get why that scenario is worrisome, but how probable actually is it? And how much is it actually what PUAs advise?

1 — Get her home without telling her they’re going to his apt (I don’t know if there’s a name for this, but I know some PUAs do it)

What’s the actual probability that she is “duped” by so transparent a ruse? Where else does she think she is? Once she realizes she is at the guy’s house, she can simply leave.

2 — Convince her to come inside by using a false time constraint (“Come on up, I want to show you my XYZ, don’t worry I won’t put the moves on you because I have to be somewhere else in 10 minutes”)

I’m not sure a PUA would promise not to put moves on her.

3 — Make out with her, ignore her when she says “I thought you said you had to be somewhere in 10 minutes” because he assumes it’s a shit test

It may not be a shit test, but it’s ambiguous.

4 — Ignore her when she gives LMR by saying “No”

This part is where things get fucked up. If you are saying that some PUAs But can you quote any pickup guru saying that an explicit “no” should be pushed past?

Here is what Love Systems says about an explicit “no”:

“No”, “stop”, and “I don’t want to do this” are pretty unambiguous.
[...]
If she says “no” and you sense that she doesn’t mean it, tell her that, to you, no has to mean no. Don’t make
it a lecture, just a quick statement and then move back to what you were doing before she said no. Even
if you know for sure that she doesn’t mean “no”, reread the paragraph above that ended with “welcome to
hell”. If she’s really insistent on having you ignore her when she says no, she’ll know what a safeword is and
how to use it. If you don’t know what a safeword is, you’re not ready for this kind of situation.

So I disagree with characterizing this scenario as pickup “working as intended.”

If you’re saying that some PUAs might do something like this out of inspiration from pickup, even though actual PUA gurus don’t advocate it (or explicitly tell them not to push past an explicit “no”), then I think you have a point. I’ve seen field reports where the PUA judged a “no” as “token resistance.” (In one of these cases, I’ve seen another PUA respond and say that the field report sounds like rape, and the original poster responded saying something like “it wasn’t, but it’s hard to explain, and you would have had to have been there.”)

If you think that pickup gurus are failing to acknowledge how some men might interpret their advice, then you have a point (for instance, Mystery’s book doesn’t have the safeguards that Love Systems has).

Clarisse April 30, 2011 at 1:14 am #

On explicit “no”: there’s always “The first two “no”s don’t mean much, and should be expected“, which I already linked to in the ePUA thread. And that’s in an LMR example that didn’t even strike me as particularly misogynist.

What’s the actual probability that she is “duped” by so transparent a ruse? Where else does she think she is? Once she realizes she is at the guy’s house, she can simply leave.

She can’t just leave if he drove her there. She may not realize that’s where they’re going if she’s in an unfamiliar place and he told her or implied they were going somewhere else. Concrete example: an actual PUA once asked me at a club, “Hey, do you want to go get something to eat?” “Sure,” I said, and we went to his car. I assumed he meant at a diner or somewhere, because I have literally never in my life had a guy ask me an ambiguous question like that and then take me to his home.

After driving for 10 minutes, I realized we weren’t in the diner district and asked, “Wait a minute, are you taking me to your apartment?!” — a question that would not even have OCCURRED to me if I hadn’t known he was a PUA. (So it’s reasonable to assume that he could have ended up getting me there without ever having this conversation.) He said yes, I eventually agreed to go to his apartment to talk for a while. When we got there, I told him multiple times that I wanted to go home, and he told me that I was definitely sleeping over. I finally had to tell him I was just going to walk home before he agreed to drive me back.

I honestly have no idea if this guy would have acted more aggressive if we didn’t have mutual friends, if he hadn’t been seen leaving the club with me, or if he’d just plain liked me less (and therefore viewed me as someone whose “buyer’s remorse” he wouldn’t care about :P).

I’ve seen field reports where the PUA judged a “no” as “token resistance.” (In one of these cases, I’ve seen another PUA respond and say that the field report sounds like rape, and the original poster responded saying something like “it wasn’t, but it’s hard to explain, and you would have had to have been there.”)

I’ve actually been looking for more of these, do you have links? Especially to the one in parens.

Clarisse April 30, 2011 at 1:42 am #

@Scootah — @Sagredo – I’m not sure that the pretty words wrapped around the ugly idea change the mechanics of what’s going on. Even if the original idea of freeze outs was intended to be puppies and sunshine, I think the reason that it works is quite dark and cold.

And while I’m not at all confident that good intentions were ever in place around the freeze outs concept, all the good intentions in the world don’t make manipulative bullying any less awful.

Quoted for agreement …. My instinctive reaction to those words (and that of others I’ve discussed this with, including the aforementioned extremely heterosexual male ex-boyfriend) was initially that they had to be dishonest or hypocritical or at the very least self-deceptive. I’ve come around to the idea that some PUAs may be more unaware about this than dishonest … as HR says,

Rather than saying that the gurus are deceiving their followers, it’s much more likely that they are deceiving themselves… and what’s even more likely is that they are simply ignorant of the ways that some women might react to their techniques. Never underestimate the power of ignorance, self-deception, generalization, and bias.

… but that unawareness can only last because of a routine refusal to accept critique, and frames that support this refusal (e.g., “women don’t know what they want”).

@Infra — To use the Love Systems description as an example, the use of a boring game such as “go fish” communicates something different from playing an interesting game, such as poker or gin; if the PUA weren’t needy, or overly invested in the outcome, would there be much of a reason to focus on a game that’s unlikely to hold someone’s interest?

Quoted for agreement.

@Lathe — The PUA’s are in stark contrast: their “score” is entirely determined by women’s opinions, and in their PUA occupation they have almost no life among other men at all, beyond sharing field notes and comparing notch counts.

This goes against my observations with many PUAs. The effect of making friends with other PUAs seems quite powerful and important to most of them, and the opinions of other PUAs end up likewise being quite important to them. Getting a social network of other guys is a non-negligible benefit for many PUAs.

@Infra — Can’t say that I’ve come across anyone who’s attempted to generalize it, but I have been in a situation in which the woman who approached me did things in a way that was strongly reminiscent of M3 Model-/Mehow-style outer game (including DHV spiking and false time constraints). I didn’t start to make the connection until after she’d started on kino, and I wouldn’t conclude from it that she’d studied pickup materials, but there were definite, strong similarities in both technique and sequence.

Given that most PUA techniques are learned from field observation, it’s no surprise that mainstream people are already frequently using them without any of the jargon. False time constraints are the most obvious example I’ve seen — they’re incredibly common (hell, I use them sometimes).

@Ali — There are ways [for women] to signal your interest, but no ways to go beyond signaling to transparently and assertively saying “Hey, I find you extremely attractive and would like to do sexy things with you.”

Agreed. I’ve written about this.

@HR — I am far more worried about the tactics that agree with supposedly “token” resistance and keep going, and I think these tactics are much more potentially harmful.

I guess I see those tactics as so obviously bad that they don’t even need critique. I do see the freeze-out in its worst forms as being equally bad as ignoring “token” resistance, though.

If you don’t mind me providing a hypothesis, it seems like “freeze outs” trigger you a lot, based on what you’ve said about a past version of yourself being potentially vulnerable to them, which leads you to react more strongly to them than to other LMR tactics that (I think) are more problematic, and to focus on the worst possible interpretation of what “freeze outs” could mean. If you’re not open to that sort of hypothesis, then I won’t make one like that again, and I apologize in advance if it’s inappropriate.

I’m open to that sort of hypothesis coming from you, and I want to make that very clear before responding to it — I’m open to that kind of hypothesis coming from you because I think you respect me and my ideas, and I think you’ve made an effort to understand my experience, and because you’ve read quite a lot of my writing and have a feeling for where I’m coming from. There are other regular commenters I’d be completely open to getting this kind of personal critique from, but I just need to make it really clear that it’s limited to commenters who have a solid history here, and who have made an obvious and sustained effort to communicate, with an agenda of sharing rather than of some kind of political (especially anti-feminist) smackdown.

Also, you did a really good job with humility on that paragraph, and I appreciate that.

It’s possible that freeze-outs do trigger me more than many other people, and you are correct that I see a past version of myself as having been very vulnerable to them. But again, I really don’t think I’m alone in this … as noted, my ex-boyfriend had a stronger reaction to reading that section than I did (and while I may have biased him with my own feelings, I seem to recall that I just showed it to him and said “This is interesting and I’m still working out how I feel about it, what do you think?” — which was much milder than his response). Scootah (who is, for unaware observers, male) seems to have a similar reaction.

I’m trying to think of concrete examples of other people getting mad about freeze-outs. I thought that The Point lit crit article that we linked once in the original manliness megathread had a pretty skeptical tone about freeze-outs, but now that I reread it, perhaps I was biased by my own opinions. It does still seem skeptical and somewhat hostile, but I don’t have any real evidence for that reading. I’ll keep an eye out.

Generally whenever I’ve rejected a woman, she’s been visibly upset in some way, even if she was trying to hide it. In some cases, I wasn’t a fan of how she expressed it, but in general, I wasn’t expecting women to give me a cuddle and tell me it was OK that I was rejecting them, and how much they respected my right to do so!

I’ll cop to having expressed unfair and manipulative behavior towards men who rejected me in the past (I’ll write about this in Confessions and I’ve thought about doing a separate post on it as well). It was not more okay that I did that because I was emotionally affected. I am proud of the Zen way I usually react to men who don’t want to have sex with me now. I don’t always succeed at being Zen, but I usually do. And, in case it needs to be said: I don’t think freeze-outs are somehow magically more okay when women do them than when men do them.

That having been said, I really don’t think that a girl who (say) makes out with a guy on the first date, who doesn’t want it to go further, who says “no”, is “rejecting” him. I think she just doesn’t want to fuck on the first date. Do you really see it as a rejection?

Clarisse April 30, 2011 at 2:09 am #

@AB, Sagredo –

AB wrote,
If, say, looking at your partner more as a masturbatory device than as someone you care for (“Why should I want intimacy when i can’t have sex?”) is a fundamental part of masculine sexuality for many men, no amount of acceptance is going to change that it creates certain problems with expectations and communication which we ought to address. But there’s really no way of doing this without running into the same two reactions, 1 “You’re not accepting male sexuality enough”, and 2 “Not all men are like that”. So how exactly are you supposed to discuss it?

Sagredo wrote,
“No sex without intimacy” and “no intimacy without sex” are both reasonable boundaries. The first is something we’d expect from everyone (unless they’re doing some kind of consensual scene). The second is something that some people need at some particular times. I think it is more a characteristic of male sexuality than female overall, and I daresay it’s precisely because of that difference that you are complaining about it. Taking a position that the sexes are surprisingly similar and then complaining about the male differences isn’t all that helpful.

I don’t think your positions are incompatible, and I think AB is asking a fair question. All she’s saying is that if not wanting intimacy is, in fact, a common (or “fundamental”) part of sexuality for many men, then we have to acknowledge that and talk about expectations and communication.

My main problem here is that it’s not at all clear to me that not wanting intimacy is a fundamental part of sexuality for men. When men talk to me about intimacy and sexuality, I often hear them saying that they want more intimacy and don’t know how to talk about it. While it may be true that men are generally less likely to want intimacy in order to have good sex for hormonal reasons, my hypothesis is that when that tendency is translated into a stereotype, it hurts men more than helping them.

@Lathe — The sexuality of the typical male is, on any given day or year, more likely a waking purgatory of frustration and rejection. … If you want to get all technical, you probably have to specify things like “straight”, “unmarried” and some age range like “16-28″, or what have you.

These are strong words (especially “typical” and “waking purgatory”). I could make similar statements about typical young women’s experience being a “waking purgatory” of frustration and objectification; how would you react if I did that?

That’s why I find these kinds of remarks about generic “male privilege” to be so infuriating, destructive, and in fact borderline genocidal: they totally dismiss the very existence of an entire class of human beings — men without much power or attractiveness — which is actually a very large group, and one that deserves more sympathy.

I don’t want to derail this into a conversation about male privilege, but I think you’re missing the point of a lot of it. While I am obviously big on sympathy for men without much power or attractiveness (and other genders without much power or attractiveness, actually), that doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as male privilege. One classic example would be that even men “without much power or attractiveness” are not limited in their movements by fear of sexual assault in the same ways women are. How anxious do you get walking through an empty parking garage?

@AB — I have never been told to not push a guy, and I have never needed to be told, because I have been the girl who was pushed enough times to know how it feels, and I know enough about the ways men and women are similar to be careful around them all by myself.

I’ve pushed guys occasionally, especially when I was younger. It didn’t lead to very functional relationships, though, which is I think the self-interested argument against doing that. I work really hard not to do it now. I think it’s possible that some women push guys into uncomfortable situations more than is acknowledged. I’ve heard plenty of stories of women acting rowdy and objectifying/grabbing/whatevering men in certain situations where they felt they had social license to do so, though part of me has always wondered whether this is more out of a kind of Stockholm Syndrome to male models of what horny rowdiness should look like, rather than an expression of genuine desire. Bottom line, I wish boundaries trainings were cross-gender.

Sagredo April 30, 2011 at 2:54 am #

On explicit “no”: there’s always “The first two “no”s don’t mean much, and should be expected“, which I already linked to in the ePUA thread. And that’s in an LMR example that didn’t even strike me as particularly misogynist.

It strikes me as a terrible idea. OK, so even if the first two “no”s don’t mean much, if that’s really true, what about that one time when they do? And even then, it sets a frame for the future that her “no” is subject to his interpretation.

Trying to take a more PUA-ish angle here, it’s also (or for the same reasons) weak. It lowers the PUA’s own value. It breaks the high-value frame you desire me with the message I’m so desperate I’ll ignore your “no”.

Sagredo April 30, 2011 at 2:58 am #

I don’t think your positions are incompatible, and I think AB is asking a fair question. All she’s saying is that if not wanting intimacy is, in fact, a common (or “fundamental”) part of sexuality for many men, then we have to acknowledge that and talk about expectations and communication.

No no no this is not what I’m saying at all. I really don’t think men don’t want intimacy. Men do want intimacy. It’s just sometimes we don’t want it without sex.

machina April 30, 2011 at 3:57 am #

Lathe of Heaven,

I think the problem is that PUAs seem very selective in the way they apply the idea that women’t know what they want. They’re right but not forthright. They’ll say that many women want sex but that society shames their promiscuity. They won’t say that many women don’t particularly want sex, especially if they’ve rarely orgasmed during sex, but that they know it’s a requirement in having a romantic relationship. They don’t acknowledge that in some cases women not knowing what they want makes it more difficult to achieve meaningful consent. Ultimately their frame seems less like “women don’t know what they want” than “women don’t know that they want to fuck you”.

machina April 30, 2011 at 4:04 am #

Eh, I think the problem is that PUAs seem very selective in the way they apply the idea that women’t know what they want. should be: I think the problem is that PUAs seem very selective in the way they apply the idea that women don’t know what they want.

I have a habit of missing negatives. An IM conversation with a girlfriend about another girl went like,

machina: oh no, I’m fucking her
girlfriend: (much cursing)
machina: no really, I’m fucking her
–about an hour of calming down girlfriend and assuring her that I’d managed to make the same typo twice–

Clarisse April 30, 2011 at 4:10 am #

I think the problem is that PUAs seem very selective in the way they apply the idea that women don’t know what they want. They’re right but not forthright. They’ll say that many women want sex but that society shames their promiscuity. They won’t say that many women don’t particularly want sex, especially if they’ve rarely orgasmed during sex, but that they know it’s a requirement in having a romantic relationship. They don’t acknowledge that in some cases women not knowing what they want makes it more difficult to achieve meaningful consent. Ultimately their frame seems less like “women don’t know what they want” than “women don’t know that they want to fuck you”.

YES THIS. Also, of course, PUAs very rarely acknowledge the idea that men don’t know what they want. Smart (and often, more experienced) ones do, but most don’t. I mean, I’d agree that most people of all genders don’t know what they want … it’s a journey. When you apply this concept in the limited way that they apply it, then it gets super fucked up.

Sagredo April 30, 2011 at 4:36 am #

I don’t think freeze-outs are somehow magically more okay when women do them than when men do them.

I don’t know, maybe they are. There’s something very bracing about a woman who’s all “fuck me and fuck me HARD or GTFO” instead of going all nurturing in a moment of uncertainty.

Infra April 30, 2011 at 4:57 am #

@Sagredo:

There’s something very bracing about a woman who’s all “fuck me and fuck me HARD or GTFO” instead of going all nurturing in a moment of uncertainty.

Sure, there can be, if that’s what you like. But that isn’t a freeze-out — it’s an overt statement of desire. And I have to go back to what I wrote earlier when it comes to that: saying something like “fuck me and fuck me HARD or GTFO” is one thing in normal circumstances, but it can be something very different in the context of LMR. The dynamics aren’t the same.

Saying “go balls to the wall or get out” has one effect when someone’s already moving forward, but you want them to move forward harder and faster. It has a very different one when someone’s moving back.

If you want to move forward in that way, or you’re open to it, but you’re not sure that she wants to move forward at all, or in that forceful of a way, then sure, hearing that can be bracing. But if you’re not sure that you want to move forward, yourself, or things are already passing/have passed your threshold for comfort, then hearing that can come off — very, very easily — as a severe amount of pressure.

Sagredo April 30, 2011 at 5:30 am #

There’s something very bracing, to me, about a woman who expresses a clear subtext of “fuck me and fuck me HARD or GTFO” instead of going all nurturing in response to my LMR. A woman who goes to have a shower and leaves the door open. A woman who insists on a round of Go Fish and refuses touch that isn’t sexual, to use earlier examples.

At least, I imagine.

Infra April 30, 2011 at 5:46 am #

@Sagredo:

I’m not saying that “fuck me and fuck me HARD or GTFO” can’t be insanely hot. That kind of aggressive sexuality is what I prefer, in fact (cliché as it is, think Angela Gossow’s voice applied to sex), and the majority of the women who have initiated with me have been along those lines.

But, experientially, it’s a different thing in the context of LMR.

At least, I imagine.

Okay… are you talking about your experience of LMR, then? Or the fantasy of LMR?

machina April 30, 2011 at 7:14 am #

Clarisse: YES THIS. Also, of course, PUAs very rarely acknowledge the idea that men don’t know what they want. Smart (and often, more experienced) ones do, but most don’t. I mean, I’d agree that most people of all genders don’t know what they want … it’s a journey. When you apply this concept in the limited way that they apply it, then it gets super fucked up.

Yeah, I was half way through a second complementary paragraph on how men don’t know what they want either before deleting that and posting; I wasn’t sure what PUAs actually had to say there. It seems, from a few sources in this thread, that this is an area where there’s some amount progress currently. I guess it’ll be interesting how that plays out.

Sagredo, I agree with Infra here. I think the situation you describe isn’t actually a matter of last minute resistance but of ratcheting up the physicality of sex. This isn’t what a man is typically against.

Infra April 30, 2011 at 7:52 am #

@machina:

Yeah, I was half way through a second complementary paragraph on how men don’t know what they want either before deleting that and posting; I wasn’t sure what PUAs actually had to say there.

Extrapolating from my personal experience, which, of course, comes with its caveats: I think that guys do know what they want, so long as they haven’t explored their own sexuality and sexual response much. Once they start to do that (for me, an initial part of it was learning to MMO), it becomes increasingly clear how much they didn’t know, how little of their own sexuality is actually visible, how much the little that is visible is unduly privileged, and how little of a structure there is for finding out more.

That’s one of the major problems with the fact that there’s a strong, consistent normative representation of male sexuality: it’s easy to use that as a default and assume that it applies, especially when divergences from that norm are referenced as “exceptions,” and never figure out what your actual wants and desires might be (or confirm that they are what they seem to be). When it’s a matter of kink, that doesn’t work out so well, but less substantial variations tend to get choked off before they can germinate.

Sam April 30, 2011 at 12:42 pm #

AB,

But we do have valuable indications.

Not really. We just choose to interpret perceptions according to our axiomatic system. The subjective level of pleasure or pain cannot be measured or compared. For a non-sexual illustration of the problem, go to any hospital and ask nurses how they evaluate relative pain levels. They can’t. I’ve seen some attempts to create ordinality with smily-or-not-smily faces, but people react differently, so that’s a pretty helpless illustration of the problem rather than a potential solution.

I wasn’t talking about what was worse, I talked about who felt most repressed.

How is “most repressed” not “worse”? Again, *feeling* is something that is taking place on a *nominal* level, and is thus logically incommensurable. You have no way of telling whether I am *feeling* more oppressed than you are feeling oppressed, and vice versa.

Perhaps that’s the source of my lacking respect for men who complain about being told to be careful, because to me, it’s not an alien demand imposed on me by strange vagina-people who couldn’t possibly understand and appreciate my valuable masculine self, it’s just common decency which I would have wished had been imposed on more guys in my past.

Right. Except that I was told to be afraid of my sexuality a long time before I could have even found out whether behaving decently would have been an alien demand or not. It didn’t occur to anyone that it *might be* an alien demand… it was preempting the possibilty of it being an alien demand, and, in my case – but not only in my case – contributed significantly to a phsycho-sexual dysfunctionality that took me a decade or so to sort of work through. I’m still not there.

Actually, the sexuality that’s most ‘managed’ by this is female sexuality (and female lives in general).

I would agree with respect to most patriarchical societies.

As I wrote to nathan, even though not all men are like that, as a woman you still have to deal with the fact that any man you’re with could be.

There’s differences in how that is played out though. Which brings us back to the question of how to deal with Schrödinger’s Rapist. Of course, every man *could* be a rapist, but so could every woman. Or a mugger, or an axe murderer.

It’s one thing to know that women need to feel more safe than men, and men have a higher degree of socialised belief in their ability to control situations, but another to let that turn biased policies against women into biased policies against men.

“Accepting their views and behaviour as an inherent part of male sexuality would be to do everyone a disservice, but seeing it as disconnected from the way masculinity and male sexuality is defined in our society is just ignorant.”

Of course that’s a part of masculinity, whoever denied that? There’s probably about 3000 comments on this blog alone trying to connect masculinity with such phenomena. It’s sort of the original question of the entire thing: how to perform the masculinite dominance appreciated by women without the added jerkism/sexism.

But again, you need to take male problems seriously and accept their desire in order to have that discussion.

That probably gives us different perspectives on how prevalent and normalised stereotypical male sexuality is.

True. But that’s why we’re here, to try and understand each other’s perceptions better.

Sagredo April 30, 2011 at 5:07 pm #

I’m thinking there are different reasons why someone might say at the last minute that they don’t want sex. If the idea of sex distresses them or even uninterests them, that’s a last minute issue and their partner should react attentively.

On the other hand, PUAs claim that resistance is different: the woman still wants sex as much as she ever did, but also has some notion of proper behaviour which is holding her back. The PUA claim is that women do not need extra-special emotional comforting at this point, and since the man is not interested in sexless intimacy, it’s reasonable to withdraw that while she makes up her mind.

AB April 30, 2011 at 5:34 pm #

@Clarisse:

I don’t think your positions are incompatible, and I think AB is asking a fair question. All she’s saying is that if not wanting intimacy is, in fact, a common (or “fundamental”) part of sexuality for many men, then we have to acknowledge that and talk about expectations and communication.

My main problem here is that it’s not at all clear to me that not wanting intimacy is a fundamental part of sexuality for men. When men talk to me about intimacy and sexuality, I often hear them saying that they want more intimacy and don’t know how to talk about it. While it may be true that men are generally less likely to want intimacy in order to have good sex for hormonal reasons, my hypothesis is that when that tendency is translated into a stereotype, it hurts men more than helping them.

That’s part of what’s so difficult about discussions like these. Sometimes it seems like the men you’re trying to understand behave like the gamers who defend the D&D alignment system. I noticed very early that whenever alignment was up for debate on a message board, the same thing happened: Someone would say that the rules for alignments were completely clear and understandable to everyone, and give their interpretation of it, then another poster would agree that the rules for alignments were completely clear and understandable to everyone, and then give their interpretation of it, which contradicted the first ‘clear’ interpretation, and then a third poster would offer a third interpretation while agreeing with the first two posters that the rules were clear, etc., etc.

And they never seemed to talk to each other when it came to convincing outsiders of the validity of the alignment system, so one would claim that a lawful alignment meant always following the official law of the land, another would claim it just meant being orderly, and those people would always agree that the rules were clear and understandable, while simultaneously doing their best to ignore each other’s differences, leaving onlookers like me very confused.

I sometimes get the feeling male posters in discussions like these are doing a bit of the same. One will talk about this alien masculine sexuality that’s supposedly totally different from the feminine sexuality, and of the need to accept these differences and never criticise them (except, it seems, in women), and they will be ignored or supported by other male posters, giving the impression that they agree. But as soon as you start addressing these alleged differences, or even ask about them, you’re quickly fed the same line about how men want a lot of the same things as women, but are afraid of being seen as unmasculine if they admit it.

I’ve pushed guys occasionally, especially when I was younger. It didn’t lead to very functional relationships, though, which is I think the self-interested argument against doing that. I work really hard not to do it now. I think it’s possible that some women push guys into uncomfortable situations more than is acknowledged. I’ve heard plenty of stories of women acting rowdy and objectifying/grabbing/whatevering men in certain situations where they felt they had social license to do so, though part of me has always wondered whether this is more out of a kind of Stockholm Syndrome to male models of what horny rowdiness should look like, rather than an expression of genuine desire. Bottom line, I wish boundaries trainings were cross-gender.

That wasn’t what I meant. Or actually, it’s kind of the point. I don’t think being told to not push your sexual partner is a bad thing, I think it’s something everyone should be aware off (hence my anecdote about me worrying about it without being told to, and the guy being thankful for it). But to Sam, it’s apparently a case of a “toxic” sexuality being ascribed to the person being told not to push their partner. In this case, I don’t find that toxicity to be the least bit problematic, and I think it should be implemented more (such as in the advice given to girls), not less.

You seem to be in the opposite category of “men aren’t allowed to be men”, you seem to argue that it’s more a matter of men not being allowed to be women, so to speak. And I agree. But the actual complaints of actual men on this thread aren’t about that, they’re primarily about men not being allowed to be men. Sam wasn’t arguing that women needed to respect men’s boundaries more, he was arguing that the warnings and focus on potential boundary violations between men and women were making him feel bad.

Infra April 30, 2011 at 6:16 pm #

@Sagredo:

What struck me in reading your last comment is that neither case description included what is probably the most evident possible cause of resistance: the behavior of the PUA. That, in general, that cause doesn’t get factored in is one of the major criticisms of LMR tactics.

@AB:

But to Sam, it’s apparently a case of a “toxic” sexuality being ascribed to the person being told not to push their partner.

I can’t speak for Sam, but when it comes to the notion of “toxic,” it’s more that the concerns over pushing boundaries, etc. aren’t just those concerns. It’s that they’re often, even as a rule, accompanied by a visceral sense of disgust, revulsion and even hatred for our own bodies — for whatever reason that might be. From what women have told me about their experiences with body image, it seems like a similar thing.

On a different note, though: I can only speak for myself on this, but silence in respect to these discussions shouldn’t be interpreted as agreement with the male posters, or as disagreement with the female posters, including you. It’s more an issue of having observed enough of these discussions to have decided to engage with them only when I’m confident that I can do so clearly, and only with regard to those points where I feel that it can be achieved; others might feel the same.

Sam April 30, 2011 at 6:32 pm #

Sagredo,

The PUA claim is that women do not need extra-special emotional comforting at this point, and since the man is not interested in sexless intimacy, it’s reasonable to withdraw that while she makes up her mind.

I think the problem here is, again, one of presentation of interests. I think Clarisse and others would agree that withdrawal is a generally appropriate strategy, and I think she has said so repeatedly, but the matter then becomes: what kind of withdrawal.

I’m thinking what she (and others) is mostly objecting to is the idea of “what good are you to me if I can’t fuck you” that tends to be communicated in the subtext of statements like “since the man is not interested in sexless intimacy…”. I don’t like the term objectification at all, but I think this kind of mindset is what people have in mind when they’re using it.

So I think their main concern is related to a question about said (assumed male) mindset – “if you don’t actually *like* the person (respect them *AS A PERSON*, not merely a body) you were just going to have sex with, what’s the point of having sex with that person at all? Why not go have a wank to take the edge of?”

And that’s, I believe, a rather fair question. Because that mindset is a prime contributing factor to the social belief in male sexual sociopathy, and the corresponding social sexual value attributions.

It’s not that people need to be in love to have sex, but there should be a recognition of and respect for the others personhood that is not readily tangible in statements like “I’m only interested in you for sex”. Of course, it is possible to be only interested in someone for sex, and that *can* be communicated respectfully, but it’s tricky, and probably will not yield the hoped for result.

Which, in turn, sort of validates much of Clarisse’s concern: Because it means that, not rarely, in such cases, LMR techniques don’t merely seem to be intended to let a woman realize what she’ll be missing out, they’re intended to convince by causing her emotional pain. And while that pain *can be* a some sort of therapy helping her overcome her double binds, I doubt that’s likely to be a guy’s motivation in cases of “what good are you to me if I can’t fuck you.”

In those cases, it’s really seems more like “it’s ok to cause her pain because you don’t care about her anyway.” Intent matters, particularly since those tactics are going to look similar to people not present. Subtext matters. I think that’s what Clarisse referred to when she said that “take aways” are ok, but “freeze outs” aren’t.

Sam April 30, 2011 at 6:53 pm #

AB,

“Sam wasn’t arguing that women needed to respect men’s boundaries more, he was arguing that the warnings and focus on potential boundary violations between men and women were making him feel bad.”

indeed, they were (and, partly, are).

But to Sam, it’s apparently a case of a “toxic” sexuality being ascribed to the person being told not to push their partner. In this case, I don’t find that toxicity to be the least bit problematic, and I think it should be implemented more (such as in the advice given to girls), not less.

See, AB, you’re late to the debate and you’ve thus missed a lot of context that may be help to understand each other. In this case, maybe you should have a look at the “mistle toe” discussion between (mostly) Clarisse and me – just look for mistle toe in the original “followup”-thread and subdiscussion about general feminist claims for specific interests.

We should also define push, because that’s a key concept here. Firstly, because what I heard when I was told not to push was “don’t express your sexuality, ever”, you might hurt someone. And secondly, because boundary testing is a natural aspect of all kinds of relationship and intimacy building.

If you’re saying that you think that it’s ok if there’s feminist collateral damage (again, feminist guilt was only a part of it in my case) then ok – say so. But don’t expect someone suffering from the collateral damage to agree with you, and don’t claim that your position is inherently morally superior.

Sagredo April 30, 2011 at 6:54 pm #

Sam, pickup is about sex. If the PUA doesn’t get laid, he will feel the encounter is not worthwhile. Is that objectification? Because that would be a larger criticism of PUA than that of LMR tactics.

I think if that attitude is acceptable, then it’s acceptable to express it in the subtext of one’s actions. That is not intended to cause emotional pain besides the frustration of sexual desire. And the PUA claim is that it does not. If I understand them correctly, there’s supposed to be a consistent frame of “you desire me, so we’re going to take care of that”.

Sagredo April 30, 2011 at 7:26 pm #

Since “withdrawal”, “stopping” and “freeze-out” seem to be terms, here’s what I don’t think is ethical: ignoring distress, or a subtext of I don’t like you anymore or I don’t respect you or you broke your promise of sex or I don’t approve of your “no” or especially your “no” is subject to my interpretation.

Here’s what I do think is ethical: a subtext of this is all moving towards sex, but if you want to stop it, I respect that. “All” might include everything sexy he’s doing for her. As Love Systems says, you’re not punishing her, you’re simply doing something else.

Lathe of Heaven April 30, 2011 at 8:17 pm #

It’s sort of the original question of the entire thing: how to perform the masculinite dominance appreciated by women without the added jerkism/sexism.

It sounds nice in principle; but in practice I think this is a self-contradictory and hence hopeless project. Can you define “masculinity” or “masculine behavior” in a way that is not self-evidently sexist?

Another way to phrase the question is to ask any woman directly: other than providing interlocking anatomy, what is there that you want a man to do for you that you wouldn’t also/equally want a woman to do for you? Whatever she answers, we can take as her definition of masculinity. And, of course, the answers will be different for different women. But, they will all be intrinsically sexist, by design. A woman, even a straight woman, is free to say “nothing,” of course; and for her I would say that masculinity doesn’t even exist, and that’s fine. But I’m guessing that most of the answers will be something rather than nothing and would prove extremely revealing.

[It should go without saying, but just to be clear: an answer like "I want men to respect me" is _not_ a valid response in the experiment _if_ the statement "I want women to respect me" is also true. I'm really looking for the explicitly sexist response, if you have one: what can a man do for you that a woman can't?]

AB April 30, 2011 at 8:23 pm #

@Sam:

Not really. We just choose to interpret perceptions according to our axiomatic system. The subjective level of pleasure or pain cannot be measured or compared.

So I’m free to not address your concerns because what you actually feel is subjective?

How is “most repressed” not “worse”?

Because they’re two different things. A repressed sexuality is bad, but so are other things. But you have already declared this conversation meaningless, because sex is about feelings, and feelings can’t be measured, and therefore none of it is relevant.

Right. Except that I was told to be afraid of my sexuality a long time before I could have even found out whether behaving decently would have been an alien demand or not. It didn’t occur to anyone that it *might be* an alien demand… it was preempting the possibilty of it being an alien demand

Honestly, what did you expect? You wanted your own personal guardian to follow you around and check if you had trouble perceiving or respecting others’ boundaries before telling you to? It seems to be an alien demand for most guys, in my experience, and even if it wasn’t, there’s no reason not to imprint it in people (of both sexes).

There’s differences in how that is played out though. Which brings us back to the question of how to deal with Schrödinger’s Rapist. Of course, every man *could* be a rapist, but so could every woman. Or a mugger, or an axe murderer.

Since you have chosen to discard both feelings and behaviour (except when it’s your own) as relevant, you probably wont care, but it is a very common behaviour to exhibit greater watchfulness in the presence of greater risks. For instance, I tend to enjoy riding a bike more, and pay less attention to my surroundings, in areas of little traffic. That’s not because I’m constantly thinking that every car could be the one to smash into me when I’m in the middle of the city, but I still behave like it, and most people would think me stupid for doing otherwise.

One of the biggest risks to women’s safety are men in their close surroundings, and while it’s impossible to constantly keep up your guard, it’s pretty natural to do it in the beginning of your acquaintance. I read somewhere that worldwide, the risk of women age 15-45 being killed or seriously injured by violence was bigger than the risk of being killed or seriously injured by cancer, malaria, traffic, and war, combined. And a very large part of that violence comes from their romantic partners. Of course the risks are different in different countries, but considering how great lengths people go to in order to protect themselves against the other 4, asking women to not worry about intimate partner violence, just because you don’t, seem hypocritical.

It’s one thing to know that women need to feel more safe than men, and men have a higher degree of socialised belief in their ability to control situations, but another to let that turn biased policies against women into biased policies against men.

I’m not asking for biased policies, I would be fine with women being made more aware that men could feel unsafe and bad about being pushed too. But I do not think that it’s fair to avoid addressing women’s fear just because men don’t share it.

Of course that’s a part of masculinity, whoever denied that? There’s probably about 3000 comments on this blog alone trying to connect masculinity with such phenomena. It’s sort of the original question of the entire thing: how to perform the masculinite dominance appreciated by women without the added jerkism/sexism.

I’m not following you.

But again, you need to take male problems seriously and accept their desire in order to have that discussion.

I’m all for accepting their desire, but if their biggest problem is the way my desires work, I can’t help them. Believe me, if I could get rid of my desires and replace them with something more practical, easily enjoyable, and in line with male demands, I would have done it already.

The seduction community was made because men had a problem with women. Practically every criticism aimed at PUAs have been about the lengths they’re willing to go to in order to deal with the problems they have with women. Your complaints are mainly about women. The techniques discussed here (negs, freeze-outs) are designed to give men tools with which to change the behaviour of women. Notice a pattern here?

Most guys have been pretty straightforward about this: They don’t have any problems getting a hard-on, they have problems getting something to stick it in, and they don’t have any problems enjoying sex, they just need someone to enjoy it with. And those somethings and someones are women. Just like most porn focus on women but is really about men, most of the issues discussed here are men’s but they’re just as much about women.

You have a problem with the way many women need to feel safe before having sex. Sagredo has a problem with the way many women expect some form of intimacy with their romantic partners even if when doesn’t lead to sex. Lathe of Heaven has a problem with what he feels is men adjusting to women’s expectations. You have plenty of problems with women’s behaviour and women’s sexuality, and you haven’t presented any solution to it, except to frame it as women trying to intrude on male sexuality.

AB April 30, 2011 at 8:53 pm #

@Infra:

On a different note, though: I can only speak for myself on this, but silence in respect to these discussions shouldn’t be interpreted as agreement with the male posters, or as disagreement with the female posters, including you.

I don’t interpret silence as anything but silence, but I can’t help noticing patterns in when people chose not to be silent. In the situation in question, I was having a conversation with Sagredo I think (or maybe Sam), who expressed the typical view that male desires were different form female desires and not appreciated enough.

When I answered, trying to stay on that premise to see what we could make of it, Nathan disagreed with my answer, and expressed the similarly typical view that men had many of the same desires as women, but weren’t allowed to express them. I’ve experienced this a couple of times now, going with the view expressed (be it that men are different or similar to women) in a post to address the concerns expressed in it, only to have someone else, who didn’t speak up before, disagree with that premise.

I guess part of it is a communication issue, possibly due to language difficulties on my part, but there seems to be two lines of thought running in debates like these “Men are oppressed because they’re expected to be like women and masculine sexuality is not appreciated” and “Men are oppressed because they’re forced into a restraining masculine role and are afraid to express their more feminine needs”. Sometimes these sentiments are both expressed by the same person, other times they’re expressed by different people on the same thread without any of them appearing to notice.

Sagredo April 30, 2011 at 8:55 pm #

The techniques discussed here (negs, freeze-outs) are designed to give men tools with which to change the behaviour of women.

All seduction and courtship behaviour is tools to change the behaviour of the other. For instance, all displays of value are intended to change the other’s perception and therefore change their behaviour. Arguably a “neg” is just this: she no longer perceives him as supplicatory.

Sagredo has a problem with the way many women expect some form of intimacy with their romantic partners even if when doesn’t lead to sex.

AB, you would appear to have a problem with the way many men expect some form of sex with their pickup partners. What’s your solution? Is “sorry you can’t have that” reasonable in both cases, or not?

Strictly, I’m only considering pickup situations where there is a strong frame of “you desire me sexually, let’s go satisfy that”. In a more romantic situation, there’s going to be plenty of both sexual and non-sexual intimacy, and they can generally work it out.

On the other hand, call me an objectifying non-personhood-respecting man, but if a long-term romantic partner wasn’t much interested in sex, I’d dump her for someone who was. Sex can be as vital a need as intimacy generally, and I suspect a deep understanding of that is the key to understanding a big class of male (and others) sexuality.

AB April 30, 2011 at 9:02 pm #

@Lathe of Heaven:

Another way to phrase the question is to ask any woman directly: other than providing interlocking anatomy, what is there that you want a man to do for you that you wouldn’t also/equally want a woman to do for you?

Arouse me sexually. Give me access to experiences and cultural perspectives usually not found anywhere else. Assume the cultural male role when useful, while also possessing the usual male body to go with it. That’s it really.

Of course, I also want the people I’m with sexually to respect me, and I like it when there’s something more than the physical aspect going on, and since I’m a heterosexual woman, only men can give that to me. But they’re not directly able to give me that because they’re men, they’re able to give it to me because I’m sexually attracted to them, and they’re able to be sexually attractive to me because they’re men.

Clarisse Thorn April 30, 2011 at 9:02 pm #

I would just like to note that Amanda Marcotte just requested to be friends on Facebook. Since I met the Asian Playboy last week, that means I now have this actual sentence on my FB wall: “Clarisse is now friends with Amanda Marcotte and J.t. Tran.”

Clarisse Thorn April 30, 2011 at 9:12 pm #

Also Sam, your mailbox is full.

Sam April 30, 2011 at 9:34 pm #

AB,

“asking women to not worry about intimate partner violence, just because you don’t, seem hypocritical. … You have a problem with the way many women need to feel safe before having sex.”

wtf? Please, stop putting words in my mouth. Whenever you reply to something I’ve written I feel like, “but wait, I just addressed that very concern. How is it possible she’s replying to the reply to her concern with the same point that made me reply earlier?”

I’m glad we manage to have a civilized conversation, AB, but I’m afraid we’re apparently just unable to understand the other’s position.

Lathe of Heaven April 30, 2011 at 9:42 pm #

AB, I appreciate your quick reply. I think a compendium of these kinds of answers from different women might be very enlightening to read. However, I don’t think you’re playing quite within the rules of the game, or I didn’t explain it sufficiently.

In particular I want to re-emphasize this stricture: “other than providing interlocking anatomy”. This is not to invalidate anyone’s liking the male body! but to focus instead directly on behavior specifically. A man having a nice body might well be something you desire, but it is not a behavior on his part and so can’t count as “masculine behavior”. I’m sorry if I didn’t explain this better originally: in my working definition, something that only a man can do by definition, like yodeling while male or providing a Y chromosome, doesn’t count as “masculine behavior”.

So, if you’re willing to testify further let me ask you about your replies; there are no valid answers expect your own, but they aren’t all within the stricture:

“Arouse me sexually.” Of course! a traditional favorite. But, if this is something that only someone with a male body can do for you, then it doesn’t count as masculine behavior by my working definition.

“Give me access to experiences and cultural perspectives usually not found anywhere else.” Is this really something you wouldn’t want women to do for you also? Or, if by “not .. anywhere else” you mean some kind of male experience space that women cannot access by definition, then this doesn’t count as masculine behavior for my purposes.

“Assume the cultural male role when useful” This could cover many things, and so begs to be unpacked further (as you’re willing). Are we talking about killing spiders in the pantry? opening doors? paying for dates? volunteering to fight in wars overseas? It seems to me that the part of your answer that I want to see is all locked up in this tiny phrase and we can’t learn much unless you unpack it.

“possessing the usual male body to go with it” This is straight anatomy and so not behavior, same as described above.

Sam April 30, 2011 at 9:45 pm #

Sagredo,

“Sam, pickup is about sex. If the PUA doesn’t get laid, he will feel the encounter is not worthwhile.”

I never had the impression that the SC was only about getting laid. Sure, getting laid is the perspective through which self-improvement is approached, because getting laid is such an important factor in a guy’s life. The Game and Neil Strauss explicitly mention how it’s a way for guys to deal with themselves in ways they wouldn’t *because it’s about picking up girls.” Now guys can wear “gay” clothes, because it’s called peacocking. For all the routines, there’s a lot of breaking up of traditional male behaviour, and it’s ok, because it’s about picking up girls. But the effect is much larger, and Strauss alluded to that in Clarisse’s interview with him.

Honestly, look at the guy’s from the Authentic Man Program who did a “no women diet” as a paid pickup programme. To say that all that is only about getting laid in the narrowest sense possible is, I believe, missing the point.

This is going back to a lot of the criticism voiced by Marc in the OP. His criticism is entirely valid in a narrow definition of SC – like you appear to use it. But I don’t think such a narrow definition is appropriate in general, while it may be appropriate for a significant part.

Clarisse Thorn April 30, 2011 at 9:48 pm #

The writer of the OP is named Chris; is that who you meant? A coach named Mark has also been linked and commented on this thread.

Sam April 30, 2011 at 9:55 pm #

Clarisse,

my mailbox should be ok again…

AB April 30, 2011 at 9:55 pm #

@Sagredo:

All seduction and courtship behaviour is tools to change the behaviour of the other. For instance, all displays of value are intended to change the other’s perception and therefore change their behaviour. Arguably a “neg” is just this: she no longer perceives him as supplicatory.

A neg is nowhere near just that.

AB, you would appear to have a problem with the way many men expect some form of sex with their pickup partners. What’s your solution? Is “sorry you can’t have that” reasonable in both cases, or not?

First off, what exactly is a pickup partner? The guy who took Clarisse to his house after asking her to lunch probably saw her as his pickup partner (though the accurate term for women PUAs hit on is targets), but I doubt she had the same idea. Men aren’t often direct about these things, and their intentions and expectations tend to be hidden behind a jumble of mixed signals, hints and innuendos they expect you to get, and plain misdirection.

Secondly, he’s already engaging in intimacy, typically on his own initiative. He’s not hinting at her that if she goes down on him, there’ll be a lot of intimacy afterwards, he’s being intimate with her right now (even if it is with the expectation that she’ll go down on him later). He appears, for all intents and purposes, to actually like the intimacy and seek it out. That’s a big difference.

If we could reverse the situation, it would like if a couple met at a bar, and decided after a minute of conversation to go out and have a quick fuck in the men’s room. Or if they met a club specifically for people to have sex with strangers. Of course it would be natural if they would want to get to know each other better afterwards, but there’s no guarantee of a relationship. You don’t fuck a stranger and then complain about it if they don’t want a relationship afterwards, you fuck them because you want to, for its own sake, and build a relationship by getting to know them over time and fall into it when the time is right for both of you.

And in the same way, even when you take someone home and there has been intimacy before, there’s no guarantee of sex either. People are different in that regard. I know several men who enjoy flirting, intimacy, and making out for its own sake. The same with women. And sometimes, it’s a matter of finding out if the right chemistry is there, and people wont know if they’re ready or not before they’re in the actual situation. I once spent several nights with a guy sleeping nearly naked, just touching and caressing each other increasingly intimately, while we figured out where we wanted to go with it. That’s a legitimate way of doing it too, and not just for women (it was on his initiative).

If you want to be guaranteed (as close as it’s possible with humans) to not waste your time on someone who wont give you sex, you have to actually talk about it. Tell your partner that intimacy without sex is frustrating to you, and offer to leave (or, if at your place, make sure they have a safe method of getting home) instead. Or better yet, don’t waste your time and PUA techniques trying to get reluctant women to express interest in you, do your best to screen for women who aren’t likely to meet your needs.

On the other hand, call me an objectifying non-personhood-respecting man, but if a long-term romantic partner wasn’t much interested in sex, I’d dump her for someone who was. Sex can be as vital a need as intimacy generally, and I suspect a deep understanding of that is the key to understanding a big class of male (and others) sexuality.

A ‘deep’ understanding? I think it’s pretty commonly accepted. I once had a boyfriend I had dated for almost 6 months, and when my mother heard we weren’t having sex because I didn’t feel ready for it, her first reaction was “Then why is he still with you?”. I was around 18 at the time. Really, the only thing I have to do to learn that sex is considered a fundamental need for men (but not women) is to look at some of the questions sexual therapists here are most often asked, from girls whose lack of ability to enjoy sex (or a particular kind of sex, like anal), or the pain associated with it, is making them afraid they can’t satisfy their boyfriends.

Sam April 30, 2011 at 9:55 pm #

Yes, Chris, sorry.

AB April 30, 2011 at 10:12 pm #

@Sam:

wtf? Please, stop putting words in my mouth. Whenever you reply to something I’ve written I feel like, “but wait, I just addressed that very concern. How is it possible she’s replying to the reply to her concern with the same point that made me reply earlier?”

You have expressed sympathy for women’s concerns several times, but I’m not sure I can recall a single concrete example which you actually agreed with. Your last point about Schrödinger’s Rapist was just dismissive. Every man could be a rapist and lightning can strike you anywhere. But you’re missing the whole point of it.

Sagredo April 30, 2011 at 10:24 pm #

The effect of the larger SC phenomenon or whatever is great, but the actual pickup is about sex. When a PUA takes a woman home, it’s not to peacock his “gay” clothes. He’s looking for some kind of favourable “close”: either take her home for sex, or an indication that sex might happen on a later occasion.

I’m not sure I follow you. You are suggesting that communicating an uninterest in sexless intimacy is somehow objectifying, is that correct? And that’s because… the SC isn’t only about getting laid. OK, but much of the time it really is about getting laid.

On the other hand, there are men who use PUA techniques to find long-term romantic relationships.

Sagredo April 30, 2011 at 11:18 pm #

A neg is nowhere near just that.

It mostly is, actually. A “neg” is a scary term for gently teasing someone to make them more interested in you and less likely to see you as supplicatory. It is not, as is sometimes alleged, an insult or a way of damaging someone’s self-esteem to make them more pliable, because people who feel insulted don’t feel sexy.

The idea is that women who are attractive and have high self-esteem are largely bored by the supplicatory attentions of so many men that they attract, and react to the neg’s subtext of “I’m as good as you” with interest and a little excitement.

First off, what exactly is a pickup partner? The guy who took Clarisse to his house after asking her to lunch probably saw her as his pickup partner (though the accurate term for women PUAs hit on is targets), but I doubt she had the same idea.

What that guy did was deceptive and unethical. A pickup partner is, at the very least, someone who wants to get it on with the other, some kind of physical attention. Ethical pickup is supposed to be driven by the “target”‘s desire for the PUA, and at that point, the “target” is very much an active participant.

Secondly, he’s already engaging in intimacy, typically on his own initiative. He’s not hinting at her that if she goes down on him, there’ll be a lot of intimacy afterwards, he’s being intimate with her right now (even if it is with the expectation that she’ll go down on him later). He appears, for all intents and purposes, to actually like the intimacy and seek it out. That’s a big difference.

He does! He likes the intimacy and seeks it out, especially because he hopes it is moving towards sex. If it turns out not to be moving towards sex, he might very well decide to stop. Or maybe he’ll decide to continue for awhile, depending on what he wants. The point about LMR is that it’s at the LM, it can’t necessarily be anticipated beforehand. Of course, one could discuss “are we going to have sex” beforehand, but people don’t necessarily know what they want ahead of time.

A ‘deep’ understanding? I think it’s pretty commonly accepted. I once had a boyfriend I had dated for almost 6 months, and when my mother heard we weren’t having sex because I didn’t feel ready for it, her first reaction was “Then why is he still with you?”. I was around 18 at the time.

Well, different men have different needs. If he had dumped you, I’d agree with your mother that you wouldn’t have cause to complain. Not because you’d be at fault either, but because the two of you would not have been compatible.

If one partner doesn’t enjoy sex, and the other parter needs sex, then they aren’t compatible. It’s no-one’s fault if they break up over it. One of them has the choice to have sex they don’t want, just to please their partner, or not. The other has the choice to be patient, just to please their partner, or not. Each may feel a great deal of pressure, but it’s no-ones fault. I think if you appreciate that the way I daresay your mother might, then you “get it”.

Sam April 30, 2011 at 11:22 pm #

AB,

“Your last point about Schrödinger’s Rapist was just dismissive. Every man could be a rapist and lightning can strike you anywhere. But you’re missing the whole point of it.”

again, wtf? That’s exactly why I’ve said it really depends on how this is done. The whole manliness thread is full of comments in which I say how I *like* the Schrödinger’s rapist post for attempting to be constructive and giving advice rather than *merely* making that point about all men can be rapists.

You seem to be asking men to accept it as their moral duty to only see the world through your eyes (well, rather, accept your word about what the world is like and how they have to behave) without thinking about ways to consider their point of view yourself. That’s not going to work, because self-denial will only lead to resentment in the end. If you want to change someone’s behaviour you have to offer them some tools to fulfil their own desires, too. I’ve said above that effectiveness is a moral category in this respect, because absent effectiveness, there will be no “reaching across the aisle”.

You’re accusing me of being dismissive of your (women’s) concerns yet you’re stating over and over how it is appropriate that you believe my (generalized) problems aren’t worth addressing. The weird thing is that I actually do think you’re arguing in good faith, that we’re just having unusual amounts of difficulties understanding each other. But you’re making it harder everytime you claim that I’m not dealing with your concerns when I just spent an hour replying to you and at the same time tell me in every reply how it’s appropriate to not address mine.

Sam April 30, 2011 at 11:56 pm #

Sagredo,

“You are suggesting that communicating an uninterest in sexless intimacy is somehow objectifying, is that correct?”

Think about the situation in which this is taking place. I’ve said that this does usually come across (to me) with a subtext of “what good are you to me if I can’t fuck you”. This isn’t about focusing dating energy on available women, this is saying “I want x FROM YOU” not “I want x WITH YOU”.

Sagredo May 1, 2011 at 5:42 am #

Think about the situation in which this is taking place. I’ve said that this does usually come across (to me) with a subtext of “what good are you to me if I can’t fuck you”.

It’s supposed to be more “what good is this intimacy to me if I can’t fuck you”. It’s not supposed to be evaluating the person.

Of course, you might say the one-night stand is unethical, on the grounds that at least one person is “using” the other just for sex. Perhaps the one-night subtext is all you are worth to me is what you do on this one night. Is that ethical?

If I dump someone from a relationship because I’m not getting the sex I need, is there a subtext of “what good are you to me if I can’t fuck you”? Is that ethical?

This isn’t about focusing dating energy on available women, this is saying “I want x FROM YOU” not “I want x WITH YOU”.

If one believes the other really wants x, then there is no difference. The PUA attitude to LMR is very much “she wants sex really but is afraid of her image as a slut”.

Lathe of Heaven May 1, 2011 at 6:00 am #

If you want to be guaranteed (as close as it’s possible with humans) to not waste your time on someone who wont give you sex, you have to actually talk about it.

I believe the whole PUA theory is that, if a man talks about what he wants he will greatly reduce the chance of his getting it. So this advice fails.

Or better yet, don’t waste your time and PUA techniques trying to get reluctant women to express interest in you, do your best to screen for women who aren’t likely to meet your needs.

Again, for many men the reason they consider resorting to PUA techniques is that there are exactly zero women who would otherwise “express interest” and “meet [their] needs”. Doing one’s best to “screen for them” is an empty practice that yields nothing.

I really think that it would benefit your understanding if you take a moment to appreciate the starvation mentality to which most men are condemned. It’s not that they’re taking a PUA approach out of fun or ideology, they’re doing it because it’s their only option for anything like a decent life. If you read comments on PUA discussions it’s remarkable how many men say that that they have come to these practices only with great reluctance and would rather things were otherwise.

Sagredo May 1, 2011 at 6:12 am #

Again, for many men the reason they consider resorting to PUA techniques is that there are exactly zero women who would otherwise “express interest” and “meet [their] needs”.

If this is true it’s only because PUA ultimately consists of everything men can do that is effective in attracting women. If there is something you do that attracts women, PUA want to know about it. PUA is unavoidable in this way.

Sam May 1, 2011 at 10:25 am #

Sagredo,

“It’s supposed to be more “what good is this intimacy to me if I can’t fuck you”. It’s not supposed to be evaluating the person.”

Right. I think that is already quite a difference. As I said, it’s not readily apparent to me from what’s been said about how to communicate the withdrawal. As I said in my comment above, I suppose that the matter really is “how to withdraw”.

“Of course, you might say the one-night stand is unethical, on the grounds that at least one person is “using” the other just for sex. Perhaps the one-night subtext is all you are worth to me is what you do on this one night. Is that ethical?”

I think everything is ethical here as long as the nature of the transaction is apparent to everyone involved and everyone consents in action or words. The phenomenon of LMR as such implies that that’s not the case on some level. I’ve once seen some youtube-pua footage where a guy is making out with a girl and he says something like “you know, we can stay here buy more drinks and make out all night long but we could also go to my place and have sex right away…” to which she replies not particularly enthusiastically “hmmm, well, sure, we can have sex, I guess…” and he’s really sort of upset about her less then enthusistic reaction, saying “no, that’s not good enough for me. You have to want it, too.” and she insists “of course I like sex. I always like sex…” I think that’s a good example of how to do it (apart from my earlier suggestion of a pillow fight ;)).

“If I dump someone from a relationship because I’m not getting the sex I need, is there a subtext of “what good are you to me if I can’t fuck you”? Is that ethical?”

No, in my opinion, that’s quite different. If you’re in a relationship, you’ve already demonstrated that the other person is valuable in more than one dimension.

AB May 1, 2011 at 10:38 am #

@Sam:

again, wtf? That’s exactly why I’ve said it really depends on how this is done. The whole manliness thread is full of comments in which I say how I *like* the Schrödinger’s rapist post for attempting to be constructive and giving advice rather than *merely* making that point about all men can be rapists.

Then what was the point of bringing it up and adding the part about how everyone could be a mugger?

You seem to be asking men to accept it as their moral duty to only see the world through your eyes (well, rather, accept your word about what the world is like and how they have to behave)

Where have I said only through my or women’s eyes? I have just remarked that the acceptance people seem to demand of male sexuality is rarely showed towards female fear.

without thinking about ways to consider their point of view yourself.

I do a lot to consider their point of view, but honestly, that’s not relevant here. I don’t need to understand men’s point of view as long as I leave them alone, I would need to understand it better the moment I picked up a manual about inducing sexual (or any other sort of) compliancy in men and intended to use it. In this case, men (PUAs) are doing stuff to women, not the other way around.

I’m perfectly fine accepting that guys in the seduction community are pursuing their desires. I reserve the right to think that few of them actually know what would make them most happy in the long run, but that’s their problem. The desire of men to receive sexual services from conventionally attractive women is accepted roughly on par with gravity. Everyone who doubts it is considered a complete idiot. You don’t get more accepted than that, and we don’t have to constantly be reminded of it as if it was some sort of grand secret that needed to be understood.

But to me, it’s not about desires, or points of view, it’s about the consequences. I can accept just fine if Clarisse gets turned on by a guy holding her down and ignoring her pleas for him to stop, but I’d be much less tolerant of it if she went around saying no when she meant yes in the hopes that men would ignore it. I can accept that she’s into BDSM, but if she posted some elaborate guide on how to ‘convert’ previously unwilling partners into going along with it, chances are I would find at least part of it problematic. And I don’t need to understand her point of view for any of it, be it acceptance or objection.

You can’t equate disagreeing with a method with not accepting the desire. And you can’t demand that other people figure out a way to fulfil your desires for you before you’re going to cease potentially harmful behaviours yourself. No one should need any sort of special understanding if the male psyche, or any potential goodwill gained from teaching men how to get laid, in order to be allowed to say that things like freeze-outs are a shitty tactic.

AB May 1, 2011 at 10:59 am #

@Lathe of Heaven:

I believe the whole PUA theory is that, if a man talks about what he wants he will greatly reduce the chance of his getting it. So this advice fails.

Actually, a lot of PUA theory seem to be about owning up to your desires and be comfortable expressing them, as well as not seeming desperate. Going along with a ton of cuddling that isn’t pleasurable to you just for the off chance that the woman would be willing to progress to intercourse is the exact opposite of what most PUAs recommend. A lot of it is about changing the power balance so that it heavily favours the man, and that includes making demands.

Again, for many men the reason they consider resorting to PUA techniques is that there are exactly zero women who would otherwise “express interest” and “meet [their] needs”. Doing one’s best to “screen for them” is an empty practice that yields nothing.

No, being desperate enough to go for everything is one of the fastest ways to ensure that you’re not getting anything. People who’re desperate come across as pathetic and unattractive, which is why a lot of PUA techniques are about not seeming desperate.

I really think that it would benefit your understanding if you take a moment to appreciate the starvation mentality to which most men are condemned.

‘Most men’? Wow, that’s quite a claim. Men are getting more sex than women (especially if we only count sex had for one’s own enjoyment), and I know many men who’re happy in their relationships, believe it or not.

It’s not that they’re taking a PUA approach out of fun or ideology, they’re doing it because it’s their only option for anything like a decent life.

If men simply need a steady string of purely sexual relationships in order to have anything like a decent life, there’s something a lot more wrong than what we’re talking about just now.

SnowdropExplodes May 1, 2011 at 11:21 am #

On this discussion about male sexuality and “not pushing boundaries”, I’m pretty much 100% with Infra’s interpretation in #184.

I want to add a little more, quoting Infra for context here:

I can’t speak for Sam, but when it comes to the notion of “toxic,” it’s more that the concerns over pushing boundaries, etc. aren’t just those concerns. It’s that they’re often, even as a rule, accompanied by a visceral sense of disgust, revulsion and even hatred for our own bodies — for whatever reason that might be.

I think one key problem is that what does not get communicated is the difference between the “pushing boundaries” and the desire that motivates that pushing. Thus the internalised message is that it is wrong for a male to have sexual desires towards a woman or express them in any way, when the intended message is something quite different.

This question of “what I said” versus “what I heard” is also key in the “freeze-out” debate, I think.

Sam seems to have identified how I feel (and several others feel as well) with this:

I’m thinking what she (and others) is mostly objecting to is the idea of “what good are you to me if I can’t fuck you” that tends to be communicated in the subtext of statements like “since the man is not interested in sexless intimacy…”. I don’t like the term objectification at all, but I think this kind of mindset is what people have in mind when they’re using it.

So I think their main concern is related to a question about said (assumed male) mindset – “if you don’t actually *like* the person (respect them *AS A PERSON*, not merely a body) you were just going to have sex with, what’s the point of having sex with that person at all? Why not go have a wank to take the edge of?”

And that’s, I believe, a rather fair question. Because that mindset is a prime contributing factor to the social belief in male sexual sociopathy, and the corresponding social sexual value attributions.

To which the reply appears to be variously, “it’s not complete withdrawal”, and “it’s about rejecting the (non-sex-based) intimacy, not the person” – but unfortunately, there is no way to control how the other person hears it and understands it. Typically, intimacy is about accepting another person; withdrawing intimacy carries a subtext of “my acceptance of you was conditional upon…”, where in this context, the condition is “you putting out for me”.

AB has a good point that intimacy has already been initiated, with some suggestion that it is pleasurable in itself (even though that may actually because the PUA expects that to be the most effective route to sex).

Staci Newmahr, in her book, “Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk and Intimacy” develops based on her studies, a generalised understanding of intimacy (one that I find very powerful), on the basis of intimacy as, “allowing others to see, and being allowed to see others, in ways that are normally hidden or are not normally experienced” (paraphrasing from Newmahr’s text, but getting the gist across). Obviously, allowing others to see what is normally hidden about oneself is emotionally charged, and if the shared experience of intimacy is then made contingent upon some other act, it shifts from consensual intimacy to a forced situation – Newmahr’s interpretation of feeling “violated”. It may well feel as though the “partner” has shown intimacy when the PUA has not.

Since intimacy, in Newmahr’s interpretation, involves exposing something about oneself that is normally hidden, it follows that withdrawing from intimacy cannot help but appear to be a rejection of the person as well.

nathan May 1, 2011 at 1:26 pm #

I just made this blog post in response to comments made by AB and Sam at 142,43, and 144. Feel free to check it out and comment if you’re interested.

http://21centuryrelationships.blogspot.com/2011/05/dangerous-interests-men-romance-and.html

Sam May 1, 2011 at 1:30 pm #

AB,

“Then what was the point of bringing it up and adding the part about how everyone could be a mugger?”

Because that’s how I tend to perceive what you’re saying about male desire.

I have just remarked that the acceptance people seem to demand of male sexuality is rarely showed towards female fear.

To which I can only say I don’t see that. From my point of view, female fear is totally centered in the gender discourse and even outside it. Whenever someone mentions masculinity, the next level of the discussion is about sexual violence. It was centered when I’m was told to accompany my sister to the bus stop as when I was told to “never push a girl”. The point of order for men is to both be aware of that discourse *and* to ignore whatever disfunctional effects the discouse may have on themselves.

Again, my perception of reality may be biased by my personal story, but so may yours.

And I don’t need to understand her point of view for any of it, be it acceptance or objection.

I think you need to. At least to the extent that is possible.

You can’t equate disagreeing with a method with not accepting the desire.

I don’t. The whole point is discussing a method to identify the extent of agreement and disagreement. But you keep explaining how you’re concerned with the desire itself, and how you feel that your belief that male desire is accepted on par with gravity is the only admissible point of view.

It is not.

AB May 1, 2011 at 2:01 pm #

@Sagredo:

It mostly is, actually. A “neg” is a scary term for gently teasing someone to make them more interested in you and less likely to see you as supplicatory. It is not, as is sometimes alleged, an insult or a way of damaging someone’s self-esteem to make them more pliable, because people who feel insulted don’t feel sexy.

No. As a rule, PUAs always assume that women are interested in sex and never harmed by whatever tactic they use. If they didn’t, they couldn’t recommend them without looking like assholes. But that’s why its useful to look behind the obligatory “of course this is all designed to make women horny and happy” and look at what the tactic actually does. Given that PUAs do experience their targets regretting sleeping with them (buyer’s remorse), and are probably oblivious to quite a few of the times when it happens, it’s reasonable to assume that there are PUA tactics which work primarily by pressuring the targets and playing on their insecurities in order to induce potentially unenthusiastic sexual compliance (especially since plenty of women have said so).

Wikipedia have a short definition of a neg: “a seemingly accidental insult with the intent of actively demonstrating a lack of interest.” The PUA encyclopedia from the original pickup thread says: “A backhanded compliment or similar comment that is used to bring hot women down a notch.” and also mentions active disinterest.

So the definitions agree that it’s partly about making the woman you’re interested in aware that you’re not interested in her, which is a lie but not inherently damaging. The PUA encyclopedia also mentions bringing the woman down, which I guess is one method for not seeming supplicatory, but here we run into the issue of how the ways to communicate “I’m not overawed by you” and “You’re not all that” are often quite similar. PUAs seem to rely on expressing the latter (bringing her down) while assuming that their target will perceive it as the former (raising him up), and there’s absolutely no guarantee that will happen.

The encyclopedia also mentions that if she’s interested “she will start chasing the PUA, and trying to win his approval”. As practically all PUA material, it assumes the target is acting out of sexual interest, but it still mentions the goal of the target being to win the PUA’s approval. Usually, having sex to gain the approval of someone is not a good experience, but plenty of people will still do it, so the idea that negs can only be successful if they make the target feel good is pure fiction. This raises the question whether or not it is ethical to play on (some) people’s hunger for approval by deliberately making unflattering remarks about them. It’s far more complex than just teasing to make someone interested.

What that guy did was deceptive and unethical. A pickup partner is, at the very least, someone who wants to get it on with the other, some kind of physical attention. Ethical pickup is supposed to be driven by the “target”‘s desire for the PUA, and at that point, the “target” is very much an active participant.

I have to agree with Clarisse and Machina on this. To quote: “their frame seems less like “women don’t know what they want” than “women don’t know that they want to fuck you””. PUAs have always, and will always, say that what they’re doing is for the good of the woman and designed to free her from the cultural restraints preventing her from expressing her true nature (which always seems to be to be sexually compliant towards whichever man is currently making use of her). Whether or not the tactics they use line up with their words is completely accidental.

He does! He likes the intimacy and seeks it out, especially because he hopes it is moving towards sex. If it turns out not to be moving towards sex, he might very well decide to stop. Or maybe he’ll decide to continue for awhile, depending on what he wants.

If you stop, you should stop (and leave, preferably in a nice way), not lurk around trying to ignore her without removing yourself from the vicinity.

The point about LMR is that it’s at the LM, it can’t necessarily be anticipated beforehand. Of course, one could discuss “are we going to have sex” beforehand, but people don’t necessarily know what they want ahead of time.

Plenty of LMR is just the target expressing in the last minute what she has felt all along. Anyone who knows and accepts the least bit of women’s point of view already knows that.

Well, different men have different needs. If he had dumped you, I’d agree with your mother that you wouldn’t have cause to complain. Not because you’d be at fault either, but because the two of you would not have been compatible.

And why exactly is that relevant? When will you start getting that we get it? Men feeling like they need sex is nothing new. In fact, men being obsessed with sex is a freaking cliché. You seriously believe in the BS PUA explanation for LMR, while I was told already as a teenager that I should never, ever expect a guy to want intimacy without sex, and yet you have the nerve to accuse me of being the one who’s ignorant about the other sex?

I think if you appreciate that the way I daresay your mother might, then you “get it”.

My mother didn’t appreciate shit, she was making the ignorant assumption that because my boyfriend was male, sex would per definition be his primary reason for entering a romantic relationship (or alternatively, she didn’t believe I was the kind of girl who could make a guy interested in something other than sex). That’s not getting it, that’s just stereotyping, and just because you fit that stereotype to a T it doesn’t make it less of a stereotype.

AB May 1, 2011 at 2:24 pm #

Sam:

Because that’s how I tend to perceive what you’re saying about male desire.

?

To which I can only say I don’t see that. From my point of view, female fear is totally centered in the gender discourse and even outside it.

To quote a men’s studies expert: “Men are used to seeing themselves as people, and see women as the sex”. I’m not talking about the gender discourse, I’m talking about society in general.

I think you need to. At least to the extent that is possible.

No, that’s a slippery slope. If I have to understand the desire for BDSM before I can be qualified to say how having it forced on me would feel, and I need to understand stereotypical/traditional male sexuality in order to be qualified to say that certain tactics would make me feel pressured into having sex, then why shouldn’t you have to understand my anger before being qualified to say how it feels to have my fist smashed into your face?

I do think I understand quite a bit about how Clarisse feels, but even if her sexuality was as alien to me as being attracted to children or animals, it doesn’t make me unqualified to talk about the possible ethical consequences of saying no while meaning yes, or making people feel bad for not being into BDSM.

I don’t. The whole point is discussing a method to identify the extent of agreement and disagreement. But you keep explaining how you’re concerned with the desire itself, and how you feel that your belief that male desire is accepted on par with gravity is the only admissible point of view.

It is not.

Hmm, now we’re in familiar territory. You say I started it, and I think it was already there (i.e. the “male sexuality is not accepted enough” line of complaint).

Sam May 1, 2011 at 3:01 pm #

AB,

“To quote a men’s studies expert: “Men are used to seeing themselves as people, and see women as the sex”. I’m not talking about the gender discourse, I’m talking about society in general.”

Well. That statement by that gender expert has about the intellectual depth of the Scum manifesto. I’m going to refer you to my earlier statements about the logical and philosophical problems inherent in axiomatically devaluing the experiences of people because of assumed “privilege”. Why are you talking to me at all, why are you trying to argue with me if you believe that my perception of gender matters is inherently wrong and yours is inherently right, and thus all you can even theoretically hope to achieve is to convince me with an abstract philosophicl argument that it is my moral duty to trust your word about what the world is like more than my own perception (which is what feminist standpoint epistemology is asking for, basically, claiming that women are able to understand gender, and men are not (including the male experience itself…) – based on, well, the desire of feminism to have the appearance of an actual philosophical foundation that’s not merely misunderstood marxism. Luckily Judith Butler explained some Hegel to radical feminists, but the idea that women are right and men are wrong about these things (because men are privileges and women are oppressed) is too convenient an argument for a lot of feminists to let go and face the reality that they do not posess any epistemic privilege in gender matters as a consequence of having a uterus.

I can’t tell you that your perception of the world is wrong. I can just tell you that you’re wrong about claiming that my perception is inherently wrong.

You say I started it, and I think it was already there (i.e. the “male sexuality is not accepted enough” line of complaint).

I’m not saying you started it, I’m saying you keep saying that it’s not an admissible perspective. And that is wrong.

AB May 1, 2011 at 4:50 pm #

@Sam:

Well. That statement by that gender expert has about the intellectual depth of the Scum manifesto. I’m going to refer you to my earlier statements about the logical and philosophical problems inherent in axiomatically devaluing the experiences of people because of assumed “privilege”.

That’s an interesting context to place that quote in. Originally, the guy argued (with a feminist no less) that the way men were perceived as the norm was ultimately harmful to them, because they were less aware of many of the special risks and weaknesses they had as a sex, causing their health to suffer. The interview was about a book about the male body, and took place just a couple of years after a local hospital got its first department for specifically male illnesses – not that it hadn’t treated said illnesses before, they just belonged in the general department, whereas female illnesses had always been set apart. So it was actually a recognition that the status quo was hurting men.

But of course, if you want to ascribe it all to some feminazi SCUM manifesto privilege-obsessed attack on men, be my guest. You can hardly make any less sense to me as it is. Actually, you’re starting to make more sense, because I get the context of your posts now. However, I have long ago admitted that I’m not as much into American feminist rhetoric, so now that I’m aware of it, I think I’ll withdraw from that part of the discussion.

I’m not saying you started it, I’m saying you keep saying that it’s not an admissible perspective. And that is wrong.

I’m saying that it’s not going to help.

Infra May 1, 2011 at 5:47 pm #

@AB:

That’s an interesting context to place that quote in.

You provided the quote with zero context aside from the statement that it was made by a men’s studies expert, and, on its own, it reads as a standard statement that men objectify women. Sam may have gone too far in drawing the parallel with the SCUM Manifesto — which goes far beyond that statement — but the context he placed it in isn’t unwarranted, given the way in which you referenced it, especially considering that (1) the kind of discussion that you referenced as the actual context is an uncommon one, and (2) there isn’t enough information provided in order to identify the original context even when someone Googles it.

With all due respect, it comes off as a “bait and switch” method of dismissing his position.

Sagredo May 1, 2011 at 6:39 pm #

The encyclopedia also mentions that if she’s interested “she will start chasing the PUA, and trying to win his approval”. As practically all PUA material, it assumes the target is acting out of sexual interest, but it still mentions the goal of the target being to win the PUA’s approval. Usually, having sex to gain the approval of someone is not a good experience, but plenty of people will still do it, so the idea that negs can only be successful if they make the target feel good is pure fiction.

“Down a notch” means “off her pedestal”. Of course, she didn’t place herself on the pedestal, it was all the supplicating guys who did that. The PUA who negs is not so much knocking her down as making clear that he is not putting her on a pedestal in the first place. That’s why negs are always very mild. They demonstrate enough value to indicate that the PUA is worth chasing.

What kind of woman has sex with a man just to obtain approval lost because he offhandedly suggested she had fake nails? And note that all PUA sources only advises negging the most attractive women, and specifically women most likely to have high self-esteem. If negs worked by pressuring women to have sex to seek approval, women with lower self-esteem would be more susceptible. What actually happens is that they feel insulted and unsexy.

PUAs have always, and will always, say that what they’re doing is for the good of the woman and designed to free her from the cultural restraints preventing her from expressing her true nature (which always seems to be to be sexually compliant towards whichever man is currently making use of her).

You must bear in mind that a lot of PUA stuff overemphasises how powerful they will make the PUA. For instance, in the early days of PUA there was a great deal of interest in neuro-linguistic programming and how, for instance, certain words or certain touches at certain times would “program” a woman to be attracted. All that manipulative power for the PUA! But all that came out of it AFAIK is the rather banal observation that touching a woman who is attracted to one at the right time can make her feel sexy. This is given the scary name of “escalating kino”. Maybe setting a sexy frame came out of NLP also, I don’t know.

So it is with the notion that negs make a woman want to win his approval. Sure, now she sees him as having higher value, and conversationally people like to seek the approval of people they look up to. That doesn’t mean she’s going to have sex she doesn’t really want with him just so he’ll approve of her.

Plenty of LMR is just the target expressing in the last minute what she has felt all along. Anyone who knows and accepts the least bit of women’s point of view already knows that.

The PUA theory of LMR is that women sometimes have some reasons relating to perceived sluttiness for refusing sex that they otherwise want. Of course, they are aware of these reasons all along. But sometimes, the need for sexual touch in the heat of the moment becomes more important to them. It’s their choice.

Men feeling like they need sex is nothing new. In fact, men being obsessed with sex is a freaking cliché. You seriously believe in the BS PUA explanation for LMR, while I was told already as a teenager that I should never, ever expect a guy to want intimacy without sex, and yet you have the nerve to accuse me of being the one who’s ignorant about the other sex?

I don’t doubt you’ve been told it. What I’m not sure about is whether you resent it or accept it. Yes, men are “obsessed” with sex. How inconvenient.

For instance, did you feel a great deal of gratitude to your boyfriend for being willing to wait for you? Or else feel very lucky to find a man for whom it was not a big deal? Despite her ignorance, which I don’t doubt, you mother did kind of have a point as well. Did you appreciate it?

Lathe of Heaven May 1, 2011 at 9:05 pm #

AB:

The desire of men to receive sexual services from conventionally attractive women is accepted roughly on par with gravity. Everyone who doubts it is considered a complete idiot. You don’t get more accepted than that,

You’re eliding two meanings of the word “accepted” here: (1) a statement that you would expect everyone to believe is true, versus (2) that you expect the reality behind the statement to be generally taken as OK / unobjectionable / not evil. The statement that men generally aspire to have sex with attractive women is trivially in category (1) but trivially not in category (2). Male sexual desire is vilified and criminalized regularly and widely in US culture, and not just on this blog thread.

Though it is a leader! thanks largely to your own efforts. As a relatively minor but immediate to hand example, let’s just take a moment to make the obvious point that the phrase

“desire of men to receive sexual services”

is revolting and offensive (and, presumably, deliberately so); and, as I said above in #146, so is language like “looking for willing holes to stick [one's] dick in.” Do you have any justification for proffering this disgusting language, beyond pure hatred of men?

So, no; I’m afraid that even within being in error you’re also flat wrong. It is not accepted as surely as gravity that men desire to “receive sexual services” from anyone. I’ve never wanted anything that could be described as “receiving services” or “a hole to stick [my] dick in” — it’s revolting even to re-type — and neither has any man I’ve ever known. We don’t favor prostitutes or cantaloupes or anything else that could be described by phrases like “access to vaginas” and the other similarly charming, misandrist euphemisms that feminists so often trade in. I don’t know from where you developed your view of men, but whatever it was I pity you your experience.

Sagredo May 2, 2011 at 1:42 am #

Sam wrote

I’ve once seen some youtube-pua footage where a guy is making out with a girl and he says something like “you know, we can stay here buy more drinks and make out all night long but we could also go to my place and have sex right away…” to which she replies not particularly enthusiastically “hmmm, well, sure, we can have sex, I guess…” and he’s really sort of upset about her less then enthusistic reaction, saying “no, that’s not good enough for me. You have to want it, too.” and she insists “of course I like sex. I always like sex…” I think that’s a good example of how to do it (apart from my earlier suggestion of a pillow fight ;)).

This does, of course, give him a very strong pretext to stop cold if he encounters LMR. Is that still ethical?

Sagredo May 2, 2011 at 1:51 am #

I think the key to the ethical kind of freeze-out, stop or withdrawal is to act like your arousal’s been switched off.

It’s your arousal. You don’t owe it to anyone.

machina May 2, 2011 at 4:00 am #

Sagredo:

What kind of woman has sex with a man just to obtain approval lost because he offhandedly suggested she had fake nails? And note that all PUA sources only advises negging the most attractive women, and specifically women most likely to have high self-esteem.

Lot’s of attractive women have low self-esteem though. Moreover fake nails, miniskirts, thick mascara, bleached blonde hair and so on are due to these particular women doing everything they can to be attractive because of their low self-esteem. I knew a woman who was quite attractive, and did all of the above, who spent a year going out and sleeping with guys she met at bars. She went out with one guy, and stayed with him even though he hit her, because, she said, he was the only guy who called her the next day.

Clarisse May 2, 2011 at 4:07 am #

OMG machina, that is now my stock anecdote for every time a man tells me “You know that women have all the power.”

On negs: I do actually think that different PUAs use negs differently. I already posted some of this on the ePUA thread, but again, here’s the neg section from my current Confessions draft:

***

One of the most widely-discussed PUA ideas is the “neg” tactic, where the PUA subtly insults the target or gives her a backhanded compliment. (“Neg” stands for “negative hit”.) Like many terms, the deeper meanings and usage vary from PUA to PUA — but it’s an especially dramatic range of meanings with “neg”.

Some PUAs just see negs 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. But how harmful is it? Aren’t we all a little bit manipulative, aren’t we all trying to pretend we don’t care too much about what other people think, aren’t we all trying to be taken seriously by people we like? My main concern about it goes back to the “fake” thing — personally, I sometimes 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. On the other hand, Strauss does specify that negs can be viewed as a “temporary patch” intended to fake confidence rather than honesty.

Anyway, that’s a mild concern compared to how some PUAs use negs: some 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 these guys 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.

Sagredo May 2, 2011 at 4:49 am #

I actually cannot imagine flirting without just occasionally teasing just a little bit. I suspect making someone laugh at themself is even a demonstration of a relationship skill: I can criticise you without upsetting you. The sunburn neg Clarisse mentioned is an excellent example of the kind of thing I aim for.

Machina, here’s Kezia on bitch shields. I posted this earlier but it’s worth having a look if you missed it, just to get a sense of pickup context. The bitch shield thing may or may not be relevant to the negging tactic actually, but Kezia and the women she talks about are the kinds of women that PUA approach in bars, and especially the kinds they are likely to neg. Really these are “alpha” women who give as good as they get. Can you imagine them feeling pressured into unwanted sex due to an offhand remark?

Clarisse, thanks for that, you have a much more thorough analysis of the neg.

My main concern about it goes back to the “fake” thing — personally, I sometimes 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.

This strikes me as tricky logical territory: if someone deliberately acts blunt to appear honest, are they not actually simply choosing to be honest? I mean are they saying true things, in the end?

Anyway, that’s a mild concern compared to how some PUAs use negs: some 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.

You may be right, but I haven’t seen it in the PUA stuff I’ve read. Always there’s this caution that negs are counterproductive on a woman with low self-esteem, no matter how pretty she may be: they simply make her close up and shut down. And there seems to be a lot of suggestion that negs are overused these days anyway.

Lucky 72 May 2, 2011 at 5:00 am #

@ Clarisse

OMG machina, that is now my stock anecdote for every time a man tells me “You know that women have all the power.”

Machinas anecdote doesn’t really disprove that theory.

I’d rather say the anecdote is in line with nice guys theory that women end up with bad boys and douchebags, no matter what women state as their preferences (which is probably never “dating guy that hits me”).

But why does she end up with these guys anyway? I know a lot of quiet guys, myself included, who would probably have called her back (it’s hard to know in the actual case, so I’m switching to general terms now). Where do women meet these guys? Do they get approached by several men? (my experience tell me that they probably do)? Do women give the quiet guy in the bar a chance at all?

That’s where the power is Clarisse, the possibility of choosing between partners. If the quiet guy gets rejected, he has NO choice and therefore NO power. The women will probably have the choice between more men, which give them the power to pick between partners . All the anecdote shows is a case of continous bad judgement on her part.

I talked about this recently, with a friend of mine. She complained that she was no good at picking up men. I asked her how many sexuals partnes she had had; around 130 was the answer (at age a couple of forty, with a seven year marriage along the line). I was stunned at the mismatch between her perception at her ability to pick up men, and how many men she had been with. Granted, there might have been some duds, but that would have been har poor ability to spot quality men, rather than her ability to attract men, that was the issue.

Let me give you a concrete example of this gatekeeper effect. I use a net dating site. Out of around forty mails written by me, about half got no response at all (not being acknowleged as a human being is worse than rejection, I might add, though it’s much worse in real life). About 15-18 wrote more or less courteus outright rejections or resulted in short exchanges. I got on three dates, resulting in one short term affair (with sex). During this time three women wrote me, resulting in one great friend and one affair (with sex). No long term relationships, unfortunately.

Sometimes I would ask the women on the dates about how much mail they got, and it was a lot. Certainly a lot more than I get without writing first.

(you’ll have to assume I’m normal looking and can write a mail that’s not totally stupid)

So basically women can pick and chose between a variety of partners to date (and probably bed, if I know men right). That is power. If the women choose to date partners who don’t call back, that’s not a lack of power, that’s a lack of bad judgement, assuming there are men out there who will call back – and I certainly believe there is!

Just my 2 cents from the forward trenches of dating … Women have the power, but also have the responsibility to choose well, which can be tough admittedly.

Clarisse May 2, 2011 at 5:05 am #

@Sam #156 — So, in the end, this will really only become an issue in cases of “I’d like to have sex but I’d really not like to see her again”. And it seems to me that your problem is really more with that mindset, because it is diametrically opposed to what you want from sex, even a one night stand – a human connection.

I do too, but for those who don’t, the description of the conflict seems correct. If there’s no way to balance interests over time, it’s about whose (marginally different) interests prevail at that one point.

This is interesting. I’ve often thought that I’m sometimes better at setting boundaries in one-night-stands because I don’t have the same degree of emotion wrapped up in the guy. It’s harder for me to say no to someone I care about more, and I’m more likely to push my own boundaries for (or let them be pushed by) someone I care about more. On the other hand, I’ve had one-night encounters where I didn’t set boundaries very well because I didn’t have the energy for exhaustive communication, or he didn’t seem able to handle/understand a careful communication framework.

Perhaps it’s ironic, but it seems to me that more explicit communication is more necessary earlier in the relationship. Yet communication gets easier as the relationship continues, and many people feel incapable of communicating about sex at all until after sex has happened. Maybe this is an argument for not having sex until later in the relationship, when people tend to understand each other better on multiple levels. (Lately I’ve been stacking up different arguments for having sex later rather than earlier in a relationship … and better communication might actually be one, but I’m not sure.)

Similar for “buyer’s remorse”. You’re supposing a scenario in which “buyer’s remorse” is a fair reaction to the guy’s behaviour, and not a natural reaction to having made a decision, when humans – all humans – are quite likely to second guess all their choices once given the opportunity.

I guess this is fair, and it’s true that I’ve occasionally had a reaction that could be called “buyer’s remorse”, that was less about feeling manipulated and more about feeling embarrassed or confused (“wow, did I really do that?”) — this happened a lot more when I was younger and had much less clue what I was looking for, of course. But I’m pretty sure that in most (not all, but most) of the cases where I experienced that, it would have been wholly circumvented if the men in question had given me more opportunities to get out of the encounter in (what I then perceived to be) a socially graceful way.

@Infra — There’s a bit of ego defense that comes into the concept of “buyer’s remorse,” too, IMO. Without minimizing the possibilities that you mentioned, but considering cases in which they don’t apply: if a woman reacts badly to a guy afterward, or ignores him, or talks shit about him, etc., it’s a lot easier to frame this as regret on her part than it is to consider another possibility.

“You got used.”

Good point.

@Patch — I don’t believe that this is nearly as big a problem as some of the men in this thread make it out to be. Your biological urges can still be met by going somewhere private and masturbating (it’s a pity our society attaches so much shame to that activity), and your wounded pride will heal (really!)

Thanks. (Once again a kinky/poly guy comes in and says things that make me feel saner … this makes me feel validated, too :P) I really don’t think the PUA desire to make it “all the way” to penis-in-vagina sex is about biological urge at all, although most of them frame it that way. PUA is at least 50% about the notch on the bedpost. AT LEAST. Maybe this is part of sexuality in general for many people, that seems reasonable. But the biology is hardly overriding, that’s for sure. The central accomplishment trope isn’t about the biology.

(On a tangential note, I had a sexual encounter within the last few months that took place with the lights out, and when I asked the guy afterwards what got him off, he mentioned that he’d been thinking about how hot I looked earlier. That really made me think. I mean, it was dark when we actually had sex, but he got off on the idea that he was having sex with someone he thinks is hot? Sex is so weird, man.)

@Sagredo — What kind of feeling is this remorse?

I mean … it’s different in different circumstances, right? I’ve had a kind of sick/grossed out feeling after some encounters where I felt like the guy didn’t pay attention to a boundary. I’ve also had a perfectly neutral feeling after some encounters where I thought the guy was fine, but I just wasn’t very enthusiastic about having sex with him again.

I would imagine that after a really serious boundary violation, like a guy who had sex with me while I was saying “no” and we hadn’t negotiated that beforehand, I’d feel REALLY REALLY sick and grossed out and bothered, but the likelihood that I’d press charges wouldn’t be high … I know too much about how badly the criminal justice system treats rape survivors. :P What bothers me is that PUAs would group all of these reactions under “buyer’s remorse”, and none of them are actually what they seem to think “buyer’s remorse” is (Gareth Jones described it as a biological reaction that women go through because we’ve been programmed to feel weird about having sex with men early in a relationship).

I’ve also experienced an incredibly confused feeling after some encounters when I couldn’t reconcile myself with what I wanted, because it was too stigmatized (cf my S&M coming-out story). In general though, I’ve found that I feel attracted to guys who I actually enjoyed having sex with, if I felt like they treated me well. I’ve also noticed that more confusion kicks in if I enjoy having sex with a guy and I don’t feel like he’s giving me the relationship I need (as you can see from later in the coming-out story) … then I need to make a decision about whether feeling ignored and used is worth the sexual experience. They might call this “buyer’s remorse”, too, but it’s even further away from the other examples above.

@Lathe — I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who wasn’t aware of his desires and able to communicate them; being basically shallow, this is not hard.

Um, so, do you have sex with men? Because I do. Fairly frequently. I don’t have a huge number of data points, but I have a bunch. And my experience is that plenty of men are quite confused about their desires, and are not “basically shallow”.

And when I speak to men who have thought deeply about their sexuality, they often say something along the lines of what Infra so admirably articulated in #180, especially:

That’s one of the major problems with the fact that there’s a strong, consistent normative representation of male sexuality: it’s easy to use that as a default and assume that it applies, especially when divergences from that norm are referenced as “exceptions,” and never figure out what your actual wants and desires might be (or confirm that they are what they seem to be).

@Sagredo — It strikes me as a terrible idea. OK, so even if the first two “no”s don’t mean much, if that’s really true, what about that one time when they do? And even then, it sets a frame for the future that her “no” is subject to his interpretation.

Trying to take a more PUA-ish angle here, it’s also (or for the same reasons)weak. It lowers the PUA’s own value. It breaks the high-value frame you desire me with the message I’m so desperate I’ll ignore your “no”.

100% co-sign, and this is a really great concise description of something I’ve been trying to articulate.

* some edits to paragraph #15 for clarity

Clarisse May 2, 2011 at 5:14 am #

You may be right, but I haven’t seen it in the PUA stuff I’ve read.

I’d like to find a good online citation for it, because I know it happens, but it means that I’ll have to go into some icky territory. If anyone reading this thread happens to have a good citation for this, please do post it or email it to me (clarisse dot thorn at gmail dot com).

AB May 2, 2011 at 5:19 am #

@Infra:

You provided the quote with zero context aside from the statement that it was made by a men’s studies expert, and, on its own, it reads as a standard statement that men objectify women.

Objectification? A recognition that anything with ‘gender’ in its name is likely to be a about women, and that most other things are more likely to be focussed on men, doesn’t seem the same as objectification to me. Furthermore, Sam said privilege, you say objectification, and from what I know, those are different things. So isn’t this just both of you reading the thing that currently interests/bothers you into it? Because I can honestly see neither.

Sam may have gone too far in drawing the parallel with the SCUM Manifesto — which goes far beyond that statement — but the context he placed it in isn’t unwarranted, given the way in which you referenced it, especially considering that (1) the kind of discussion that you referenced as the actual context is an uncommon one, and (2) there isn’t enough information provided in order to identify the original context even when someone Googles it.

The context of saying that being considered the norm is bad for men might be uncommon, but the context of saying that women are usually considered more gendered than men is not. Just because you and Sam perceive it as inherently negative does not make it so, and you cannot expect me to always know when a neutral statement is going to be perceived negatively because some feminists that you know (and I don’t) have said that men objectify women.

Whatever else, Sam made a complaint centred around the gender discourse, and that is not a neutral statement. I’m starting to think back to what I was talking to Danny about in the feminism thread, that most the complaints seemed to be about the way some men were treated when they voluntarily entered certain feminist spaces again and again, and that, however they might have been wronged there, it didn’t justify treating that limited sphere as the whole world. The gender discourse does not exist in a vacuum, and bringing it up that way is pointless.

Clarisse May 2, 2011 at 5:27 am #

@Lucky 72 — But why does she end up with these guys anyway? I know a lot of quiet guys, myself included, who would probably have called her back (it’s hard to know in the actual case, so I’m switching to general terms now). Where do women meet these guys? Do they get approached by several men? (my experience tell me that they probably do)? Do women give the quiet guy in the bar a chance at all?

As I have written, and repeatedly stated, though I’m not sure if I’ve stated it in this thread: women face higher penalties for attempting to initiate than men do. We freak men out by initiating, assuming they even read our intentions correctly (which they often don’t), or we get written off as “sluts”. I wrote an article about this problem. As a side note, if so-called Nice Guys ™ are going to whine about how women never approach them, then they should quit throwing around words like “slut” and they should try to get other men to quit doing it too.

That’s where the power is Clarisse, the possibility of choosing between partners. If the quiet guy gets rejected, he has NO choice and therefore NO power. The women will probably have the choice between more men, which give them the power to pick between partners.

Or, as an alternative reading, the quiet guy at least has the option to make the approach, without being written off just because he made the approach. And since men are the ones who are expected to approach, they’re the ones who get to choose. Maybe that’s what “having the power” is — since you seem so insistent that one gender has it and the other doesn’t.

Hugh Ristik May 2, 2011 at 5:40 am #

I sometimes 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

What if they are using the “tactic” to try to train themselves to be more honest?

The description of the neg is accurate and fair until the last paragraphs.

Anyway, that’s a mild concern compared to how some PUAs use negs: some cite the neg specifically as a tactic to reduce the target’s self-esteem.

Who cites the neg this way?

In Mystery’s original writings about the neg, did use the words “lower self-esteem.” Yet as machina points out, “self-esteem” is a misnomer for what he is talking about, when he claims that LA club girls have “high self-esteem.” In context, he really seems to mean “narcissism,” or a feeling of higher status (e.g. she feels higher in status because she considers guys who approach her as lower in status).

The goal, in this case,

Wait, wait, wait… is this a “goal” that PUAs have articulated explicitly, or is it the goal that you infer based on their tactics?

is to say things that really hurt her — make her feel bad about herself so that she’s easier to take advantage of.

I’m seeing this theme a lot lately. I’ll buy it an a possible effect of pickup, but I don’t buy it as a goal (note: unintentionally harming someone isn’t OK, but it’s not as bad as intentionally harming someone).

Btw, this discourse of “vulnerable” women getting “taken advantage of” by their self-esteem being lowered is starting to trouble me. Just how widespread do you think that mechanism is? Judging from the talk of it, it sounds like a guy just has to insult a woman a few times, and then she becomes pliable. I don’t think things work that way with the vast majority of women. If it did, then pickup would look much different.

The most common reactions to negs are probably the following:
- her getting annoyed and turning her back
- her getting annoyed, but also intrigued
- her getting intrigued, without getting annoyed

There actually are good arguments for PUAs to use negs, which is that some women (particularly the sorts of extraverted women that PUAs will meet most often) enjoy them.

PUAs believe that negs work for 3 main reasons:

1. a DHV (because only a high status guy would say something like that and expect to get away with it)
2. knocking her off her “pedestal” of excessive belief in her social value (which is believed to be inflated by AFC guys constantly approaching her)
3. communicating “active disinterest,” and “disqualifying oneself suitor.” This is Mystery’s current explanation. The point is to not act like a guy who immediately slobbers over her.

Some combination of 1 and 2 is thought to create a power dynamic where the man has higher status, and this power dynamic is thought to be attractive to women.

My beef with negs is different from yours. I think the problem with negs is that:

- they risk hurting some women’s feelings if you guess wrong that she will enjoy them
- there are more women who don’t enjoy negs than advocates of negs acknowledge
- it’s easy for beginners to get them wrong and just end up insulting women
- they are easy for misogynistic guys to appropriate, and it can be hard to distinguish their negs from more positive use, at least on paper
- they aren’t that much more effective than other tactics (if at all), which makes it hard to justify their risks

Question these guys about it, and they’ll respond with something along the lines of “Those bitches need to be taken down a peg.”

I’d be curious to know who these guys are, and how representative you think they are. I’ve heard this sort of discourse occasionally on PUA forums, particularly in the relatively new MRA/PUA sphere (which is much more misogynistic than the seduction community at large), but I don’t think it’s typical. It’s probably about as common as views in feminism about “getting back at men” for thousands of years of patriarchy.

Even the misogynistic “take her down a peg” view doesn’t necessarily want to lower her self esteem in order to more easily take advantage of weak boundaries. Rather, it assumes that women are turned on by being “taken down a peg.” Problematic though that assumption is, it’s a different problem from intentionally trying to exploit weak boundaries.

The goal may still be enthusiastic consent; the problem is the view of what arouses women to enthusiastic consent is skewed and oversimplified. I suspect that even many bitter and misogynistic guys wouldn’t want to believe that a woman had sex with them because of her “low boundaries.” Just because a guy is misogynistic and has an extremely oversimplified view of women’s preferences, it doesn’t mean that he isn’t looking for enthusiastic consent.

What’s especially alarming is that this can be a way of testing for poor boundaries and low self-esteem

Language like “goal” and “testing” implies some sort of intent. Could you decide whether you think PUAs have this intent, and if so, support it with quotes from the ones who do? (No rush… I realize that research takes a while.)

PUAs don’t think this way, in my experience. Actually, PUAs don’t talk much about some women having poor boundaries, though perhaps they should. As far as I can tell, PUAs typically believe that women have sex with them because they are studly fulfill women’s criteria for sex.

Incidentally, some PUAs (e.g. Franco) use negs in the opposite way: to screen for high self-esteem. He will neg her unprovoked, then see if she responds well or responds badly. If she responds badly, then she passes his test (kind of like a shit test) and he considers her relationship material. Quite a clever tactic, but I would worry that it would damage rapport.

Even if it’s true that some PUA techniques are effective because of low female boundaries, I maintain that public PUA writing doesn’t advocate intentionally using techniques for that reason. (It wouldn’t surprise me if some guys hold that view privately, but I don’t think they are typical.)

Rather, those techniques are advocated because they are considered attractive and enjoyable to some other subset of women (who PUAs believe to be representative of women, correctly or incorrectly).

Since female preferences are diverse, you can have a behavior that some women enjoy, while other women with lower boundaries are harmed by it. That’s what makes the ethical calculations tough: if men had to abandon every behavior that had a chance of some vulnerable subset of women going along with it, then men would have a very limited repertoire (e.g. approaching would be banned, initiating of any sort would be banned, and all non-negotiated touch would be banned).

Since that consequence seems absurd, it looks like we need to examine different behaviors on a case-by-case basis and do a cost-benefit analysis. Approaching passes this analysis, LMR tactics based on pushing through “token resistance” blatantly fail, and negs are somewhere in a gray area.

Yes, many pickup practices potentially marginalize women who are less well-understood by PUAs, such as women who are vulnerable, and women who are survivors. However, this problem is much bigger than pickup: the whole dating culture, including (or perhaps, especially) women marginalize the most vulnerable subset of women as collateral damage. For example, some survivors are triggered by unasked touch. Yet the norm in our culture is that many sorts of touch are unegotiated, and many women would judge men as weird for asking permission for a touch on the arm, for instance.

AB May 2, 2011 at 5:53 am #

@Lathe of Heaven:

Though it is a leader! thanks largely to your own efforts. As a relatively minor but immediate to hand example, let’s just take a moment to make the obvious point that the phrase

“desire of men to receive sexual services”

is revolting and offensive (and, presumably, deliberately so); and, as I said above in #146, so is language like “looking for willing holes to stick [one's] dick in.” Do you have any justification for proffering this disgusting language, beyond pure hatred of men?

To me, men who want to identify with stereotypical/traditional masculinity and yet want romanticised language to describe their sexuality are trying to have their cake and eat it too. It’s similar to women who intentionally date, marry, and sleep with rich men who give them expensive presents and take them to fancy restaurants, and yet want ‘prostitute’ to be considered a dirty word. As long as you wrap things up in idealised euphemisms, you’re going to make the truth sound ugly.

I’m using the most neutral/physical language I can about sex, and even use words like ‘willing’ despite the considerable trafficking taking place in my own country. But just like I’m not going to assume force on behalf of the men, I’m also not going to assume enthusiasm on behalf of the women (hence my use of the word ‘compliance’ instead).

I’ve been the object of enough male sexual attention to realise that there’s often a considerable gap between what the guys experience (and tell each other) and what the girls are actually feeling, and I’m not going to discount the experiences of myself and other women in order to fit the definition of “acceptance of male sexuality” that men here are demanding, because that would be lying.

Lathe of Heaven May 2, 2011 at 6:16 am #

Lucky 72:

Do they get approached by several men? (my experience tell me that they probably do)? Do women give the quiet guy in the bar a chance at all?

Clarisse:

As I have written, and repeatedly stated, though I’m not sure if I’ve stated it in this thread: women face higher penalties for attempting to initiate than men do. We freak men out by initiating, assuming they even read our intentions correctly (which they often don’t), or we get written off as “sluts”. I wrote an article about this problem. As a side note, if so-called Nice Guys ™ are going to whine about how women never approach them, then they should quit throwing around words like “slut” and they should try to get other men to quit doing it too.

*Tired now, so tired*. Clarisse, isn’t it obvious even to you that you’re deliberately mis-directing here? Lucky 72 didn’t say anything in the quoted passage about women doing the approaching; that was entirely your mis-directed, straw-person invention (presumably because you don’t want to address the original point directly?).

The smaller point, to re-state, is: when the quiet guy makes some kind of approach does he even get the time of day? ie “do women give the quiet guy a chance?” If he always gets turned down, then he has no power, just as Lucky has written. The pretty woman, on the other hand, has the power to choose because she’s getting approached all the time. This is just plain common sense, and you look increasingly desperate and convoluted trying to deny it.

The larger point is: why is the pretty woman in the bar at all? if this is the quality of experience she can find there? She could choose to hang out in a different society, one that would be full of decent men who would call her back and never, ever imagine hitting her. She chose to go to the bar instead. Gyrate all you want around the ugly facts, but the most parsimonious conclusion is simply that she finds decency to be unattractive.

Infra May 2, 2011 at 6:26 am #

@AB:

Objectification? A recognition that anything with ‘gender’ in its name is likely to be a about women, and that most other things are more likely to be focussed on men, doesn’t seem the same as objectification to me.

“Men are used to seeing themselves as people, and see women as the sex” is a pretty standard and common way of concisely phrasing things like sex-class theory. Given the context that you gave later on, it has a different meaning (and one that I agree with), but as initially stated, and given the part of Sam’s post that you posted it in reply to, it’s highly unlikely that that meaning would have been picked up.

I’m inclined to think, based upon his previous comments and the remainder of the one referenced, that Sam’s point about privilege was more about the kind of theoretical background that underpins the common usage of statements of that kind than it was about the content of that specific statement.

So isn’t this just both of you reading the thing that currently interests/bothers you into it?

I can’t speak for Sam, but the thing that interested/bothered me about it was the impression that he was being criticised for making a reasonable inference from the information given, instead of understanding the statement in its proper context, which would have required information that wasn’t given and would have been unlikely to have been assumed. It didn’t have anything to do with the issue of objectification itself, or with the question of (epistemological) privilege, or even with the statement that was quoted, aside from that.

The context of saying that being considered the norm is bad for men might be uncommon, but the context of saying that women are usually considered more gendered than men is not.

Which is the issue I’m getting at: without knowing the context that establishes the first part, only the second is likely to be identified. Criticizing someone for failing to see what wasn’t likely to be seen in the first place tends to come off as… sketchy. Though it’s quite possible that it’s just a matter of drift, much as what occurred in the comment to which I’m responding: most of what you’re asserting about my response simply isn’t there, or is being attributed to things other than what they reference.

Just because you and Sam perceive it as inherently negative does not make it so, and you cannot expect me to always know when a neutral statement is going to be perceived negatively because some feminists that you know (and I don’t) have said that men objectify women.

I didn’t perceive the statement as negative (as mentioned in the parenthetical earlier on, given the full context, I agree with it, and even without that context, I only saw it as a statement of a common view, which I see as overstated and overgeneralized, but not unjustified). I was just pointing out that Sam’s interpretation was a reasonable one, given the information provided, and that framing his response as you did — as not considering an interpretation that would not have been evident in the first place, relying as it does upon a context that’s uncommon — casts a negative light upon your argument, and works against you by undermining it.

On a different note, from your reply to Lathe of Heaven:

To me, men who want to identify with stereotypical/traditional masculinity and yet want romanticised language to describe their sexuality are trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Objecting to language like “receive sexual services” and “looking for willing holes to stick one’s dick in” is far from desiring romanticized language. It’s wanting some recognition that, although there are men who approach things that way, that doesn’t justify characterizing male sexuality, overall, as callously mechanical and emotionally barren — which is what that language suggests. The difference between wanting to be romanticized and objecting to statements that are dehumanizing should be apparent; if it isn’t, there’s a problem, regardless of what group is being discussed.

Lucky 72 May 2, 2011 at 6:31 am #

@ Clarisse

As a side note, if so-called Nice Guys ™ are going to whine about how women never approach them, then they should quit throwing around words like “slut” and they should try to get other men to quit doing it too.

I’ll keep that in mind next time I hear someone using the term slut or something similar. I haven’t heard something like that used for a very long time; can’t even remember when.

With regards to women approaching men, my own observations differ from yours, but that might be a case of me coming from Northern Europe.

Or, as an alternative reading, the quiet guy at least has the option to make the approach, without being written off just because he made the approach. And since men are the ones who are expected to approach, they’re the ones who get to choose.

In case of the quiet guy (I think the term nice guy has been spoiled by now), he usually gets to choose who to get rejected by. Which doesn’t give a great sense of power or privilege.

And while it’s true that men is expected to approach, it’s not all of us that feel like this is a privilige or power, but rather a very annoying, debilitating even, societal norm.

Maybe that’s what “having the power” is — since you seem so insistent that one gender has it and the other doesn’t.

OK, sorry for coming across as all black/white.

Obviously there are men with power to choose, and other people than quiet guys, that has even less power and privilege. I thought that went without saying in the context of quiet guys’ troubles, if it didn’t I have just explicitly stated so.

But me personal experience still is, that in the setting of the dating scene of average heterosexuals in Northern Europe, women generally has a choice of more partners, giving them more power over who to date. I hope this more exact statement comes across less combatative.

I used to have a muslim girlfriend, and am very well aware that quiet guys troubles pales into nothing, compared to what some minorities, like muslims, have to go through; the girls and women especially, but also the boys and men to some extent (apart from the fact that they all have to live with unbelieveably narrow gender stereotypes). Come to think of it, that’s probably the last time I heard about slut shaming, from my GF back then. She said that if she was seen with a white man, the muslim men would start calling her a whore. Since our relationship wasn’t public, it was an emotionally draining experience. But whereas I am out of it(she left me, partly because of the crazy norms forced on her), my ex can never fully escape that world and has little choice but to inhabit it.

Compared to that, I can live with my frustrations, but I just rarely feel the privilege I’m supposed to own.

For instance men not having such a high risk of rape is sometimes touted as a male privilege. But it doesn’t really feel as a privilege. Rather it’s how the world should be by default, everybody has the right to live free from fear of rape and violence. But to me it seems more like a case of female disadvantage than male privilege. And I don’t think that’s the same things. I’ll try to come up with a reversed example.

And again, I’m sorry that I wasn’t clear enough to begin with.

SnowdropExplodes May 2, 2011 at 6:43 am #

@ Sagredo – #222

The PUA theory of LMR is that women sometimes have some reasons relating to perceived sluttiness for refusing sex that they otherwise want.

It seems to me that the point of AB’s comment is that there is a difference between what the theory says and what is actually going on. Normally, when that happens, we have to go with reality rather than theory.

Specifically, there is no clear way to tell the difference between situations where the theory matches reality, and situations where something else is going on for the woman, which makes the theory potentially dangerous for the woman involved.

@ Sagredo – #228

This strikes me as tricky logical territory: if someone deliberately acts blunt to appear honest, are they not actually simply choosing to be honest? I mean are they saying true things, in the end?

There is a famous saying, “It is only the half-truths that are dangerous.” Another famous saying says that the best way to tell a lie is with the truth. Honesty is a long way different from “saying something true”.

Thus, in the situation described by Clarisse, the threat posed is that someone is appearing to be open and honest, when in fact they are exercising a deception through the use of a strategically-deployed true statement for ulterior motives.

HR says:

What if they are using the “tactic” to try to train themselves to be more honest?

But I feel that deploying a strategic true statement is not being honest, and does not really “train” oneself to be honest. It trains one to use true statements strategically, like a politician.

SnowdropExplodes May 2, 2011 at 7:20 am #

@ AB, Lathe of Heaven:

To me, men who want to identify with stereotypical/traditional masculinity and yet want romanticised language to describe their sexuality are trying to have their cake and eat it too. It’s similar to women who intentionally date, marry, and sleep with rich men who give them expensive presents and take them to fancy restaurants, and yet want ‘prostitute’ to be considered a dirty word. As long as you wrap things up in idealised euphemisms, you’re going to make the truth sound ugly.

Quoted for agreement. (Although I prefer to revert to the original form of the saying: “Eat your cake and save it too”, which is more direct about what the saying means. But language issues aside, quoted for agreement!) In response to Infra’s objection to the opening sentence, I would argue that the qualifier “stereotypical” is important here. (The value of, or harm done by, that stereotype is another question.)

I think, also, that it is a value-judgement that the phrase, “Looking for willing holes to stick [one's] dick in,” is “disgusting” language. (And, if it is “disgusting” language, then now you know what it feels like to be called a slut, I guess, although women who have had that experience would know better than I do.)

I don’t think there is anything wrong, in and of itself, with wanting nothing more than a willing warm human body with a wet hole, as long as the human in possession of said body and hole is only interested in a willing warm human body with a hard dick, and understands that that is what is on offer and nothing more.

The underlying philosophy, as explained by some commenters in this thread, even, in PUA is that any woman who allows the situation to get to the “last minute” part of LMR, is eager for the hard dick attached to the warm body of the PUA and just is putting up an “anti-slut defence” or some such.

However, making this assumption of mutual “wet hole/hard dick” desire is a huge problem. As discussed in my previous comment, there could be a considerable gap between theory and reality in a large number of cases. Furthermore, I don’t think I have heard any discussion of how to make it clear that warm hole/hard dick is all that’s on offer – in fact, I think one person in this thread (I’m not feeling like going through all of it to find the relevant comment) suggested that the advice is NOT to make it clear, because doing so will most likely scupper your chances of getting to stick your dick in the hole at all.

Generally, though, at least one person (if not both) want something a little more than just a whet hole or hard dick attached to a live human body; they want some kind of response from that human. A lot of the time, that includes more than just physical responses, too: something emotional is also hoped for.

When it comes to sexual encounters, I guess I am really not down with the “caveat emptor” ethos, so if the emotional connection is not on the table (or is contingent upon physical intercourse taking place) then I believe that needs to be up-front, before you get to a point of LMR.

Infra May 2, 2011 at 7:54 am #

@SnowdropExplodes:

In response to Infra’s objection to the opening sentence, I would argue that the qualifier “stereotypical” is important here. (The value of, or harm done by, that stereotype is another question.)

Two points. First, can we say that those statements are used in that targeted of a way? My experience is that they’re applied far more broadly than that; I’ve actually been laughed out of a room by women for making the statement, after that sentiment was voiced, that I actually have to like a person before having sex with them. One of those women even went so far as to say that I must not have been born a male if that’s how I felt, because, if that’s how I felt, I obviously had no idea of how a man’s body worked — nnd I doubt (as suggested by the earlier bit about appearance, but extending beyond that) that appearing stereotypically masculine had much to do with it.

Second, traditional masculinity, and even stereotypical masculinity, covers much more than attitudes promoting or including mechanical or emotionally distant sexuality. The attitudes being referenced are specific to the approach to sex that they embody, which isn’t necessarily reflected by other aspects of those models, and isn’t necessarily accompanied by them. The assertion of the close connection tends to reinforce its presence, rather than allowing it to be severed and addressed; it’s one of the causes of its persistence. And it also tends to hide its occurrence in non-traditional situations — several of the local Goth bois were the worst of it here, in the early ’90s — which doesn’t benefit anyone, either.

(And, if it is “disgusting” language, then now you know what it feels like to be called a slut, I guess, although women who have had that experience would know better than I do.)

Friends and I have discussed that point, and, based upon their experience of being branded with that label, they aren’t equivalent. The women who have said that what they’ve experienced is similar have been sex workers, when met with the stereotype of being “dead inside.”

Which, above and beyond the general idea that people deserve being treated with dignity until and unless they establish otherwise, is one of the reasons why I object to all three.

I don’t think there is anything wrong, in and of itself, with wanting nothing more than a willing warm human body with a wet hole, as long as the human in possession of said body and hole is only interested in a willing warm human body with a hard dick, and understands that that is what is on offer and nothing more.

I don’t think that there’s anything inherently wrong with this, either. But the way in which those statements are usually used rarely includes, or even alludes to, anything that you’ve mentioned here beyond the presence of the hole. To the contrary: the fact that the statements are often combined with others about using women’s bodies as masturbatory devices suggests a massive disconnect between the two.

Sam May 2, 2011 at 10:26 am #

Clarisse,

“Do they get approached by several men? (my experience tell me that they probably do)? Do women give the quiet guy in the bar a chance at all?”

“Or, as an alternative reading, the quiet guy at least has the option to make the approach, without being written off just because he made the approach. And since men are the ones who are expected to approach, they’re the ones who get to choose. Maybe that’s what “having the power” is — since you seem so insistent that one gender has it and the other doesn’t.”

I suppose that’s a classic case of “the grass is greener on the other side”. Clarisse, you also repeatedly said how female choosing in the mating process is underrepresented, because it’s not as visible – men tend to be the ones who approach, but women tend to be the ones who let them know they are approachable. Of course, if you’re the initiator, you can also choose to approach someone who hasn’t signalled approachability in one way or another, and sometimes that can work just fine, but I’d really say *that’s* a sort of social power that not that many men have.

But of course, a significant amount of women, includin particularly beautiful women, who don’t signal sexual availability don’t actually get approached that much (drunk statements like “you have such beauuooootiful eyesssss” don’t count – and I’m not saying they don’t require courage, I remember very well how, about ten years ago, had to rely on liquid confidence just to tell a girl that I thought she had beutiful hair. It felt good overcoming my approach anxiety, but it would be insane to consider that an actual approach. I hope she took it as a compliment, at least, altough I doubt even that.) very often and still won’t give the shy guy in the corner a chance, likely because they’re not attracted to them, and a lot of shy guys in the corner who are too scared by her beauty will not approach less beautiful women they are not afraid of, likely because they’re not attracted to them.

Of course, being in the position those two are in, they’re mainly focusing on what the other has. But, of course, in the current social mating setup, women *DO* have a lot of sexual power in that market because of the perceived scarcity of female sexuality, and if they *were* looking for what men are looking for, they’d be at a considerable advantage.

But what if the desires are actually not that compatible, when comparative advantages don’t matter because the person who has the advantage couldn’t care less. Think of ver talented accountant, the best, who really has no interested in counting. He wants to be a guitar player instead, but sadly, has no talent for that whatsoever. He won’t care very much about his advantages in accounting, he may even consider them an annoyance because people will tell him over and over that he should quit playing guitar and start counting, because he’s so good at it. But it’s just not what he wants.

I think it’s an open question to which extent male and female sexuality, particularly as it plays out in the current mating market are like accounting and guitar playing for women. But it’s certainly possible to see how the current discourse comes about.

But the problem remains. Whether it’s actually incompatible desires or socially constructed obstacles that keep everyone from realizing the compatibility, it does create a level of scarcity, and thus a price, and thus implies a value transfer. As long as there is perceived scarcity in one way or another, there will be a sense of achievement coupled with the problematic thought of taking more than one is giving and the sense of “giving it away” too cheaply.

There’s just no way around it, apparently.

AB May 2, 2011 at 10:40 am #

Sagredo

“Down a notch” means “off her pedestal”.

That’s what you say. But it’s something of an assumption to claim that taking someone down is always just about removing them from an unwilling pedestal, and never about making them unsure.

What kind of woman has sex with a man just to obtain approval lost because he offhandedly suggested she had fake nails?

As people have already said, plenty. Also, I’m beginning to sense a dichotomy between what you’re demanding from others and what you’re doing yourself. You don’t just want me to accept that many men (practically all men, according to you) are motivated by a wish for sex, rather than a wish for anything sinister and negative (which is fair enough), you’re also adamant that knowing about this is not enough, and want me to prove that I also accept it to an appropriate degree, and now (especially in the end of your post) you want details about my emotional life so you can evaluate if I truly appreciate (your version of) male sexually the way I ought to.

But when it comes to female sexuality, you’re not even in the stage of knowing (or being told) anything, and you keep brushing off female experiences. Women having sex to gain approval? Unlikely. Women going along with men they don’t really want to have sex with? Preposterous. Women feeling bad about some of the PUA tactics that PUAs claim are meant to make women feel good? Well, since PUAs are saying that it makes women happy, the women must be mistaken.

If negs worked by pressuring women to have sex to seek approval, women with lower self-esteem would be more susceptible. What actually happens is that they feel insulted and unsexy.

It’s a pretty normal phenomenon that when people feel bad about themselves and lose faith in their own value, they also lower their standards, because they don’t feel they deserve, or can get, anything better. It’s the keystone in many abusive relationships. If you’re actually using negative remarks as part of your dating strategy, this is something you ought to be aware of. That many PUAs and the men who support them are not, is deeply troubling.

You must bear in mind that a lot of PUA stuff overemphasises how powerful they will make the PUA.

That’s not really the point (and if anything, I think it’s closer to the opposite). The problem with PUA terminology that even techniques which many women immediately recognise as potentially abusive and thoroughly uncomfortable are presented as benevolent tactics to empower women to enjoy themselves. So no matter what a PUA says about making women feel good and doing what they want, the only way to asses whether or not a technique is problematic is in how the targets feel about it.

The PUA theory of LMR is that women sometimes have some reasons relating to perceived sluttiness for refusing sex that they otherwise want. Of course, they are aware of these reasons all along. But sometimes, the need for sexual touch in the heat of the moment becomes more important to them. It’s their choice.

I know what PUA theory says about LMR. I also know that the theory is frequently faulty and doesn’t take any part of women’s point of view into account that doesn’t fit what PUAs want it to be.

I don’t doubt you’ve been told it. What I’m not sure about is whether you resent it or accept it.

I’ve said frequently that while I don’t think this is the case with a lot of men (since plenty of them find your masculinity oppressive), but if it is for some, I’m willing to accept that point of view and argue from there. You, on the other hand, have been disbelieving towards pretty much every single aspect of women’s experiences that doesn’t line up with PUA terminology.

For instance, did you feel a great deal of gratitude to your boyfriend for being willing to wait for you? Or else feel very lucky to find a man for whom it was not a big deal? Despite her ignorance, which I don’t doubt, you mother did kind of have a point as well. Did you appreciate it?

Do you feel a great deal of gratitude to every woman who has sex with you? Honestly, I was happy enough about it, but if I truly felt someone was doing me a favour by being with me, I’d rather be alone. It was his choice, and while I did give him permission to sleep with other girls if he found going without sex too hard, he said he loved me and didn’t want anyone else, and to my knowledge, he was never with another girl while we were together.

Clarisse May 2, 2011 at 12:58 pm #

@Lathe — The larger point is: why is the pretty woman in the bar at all? if this is the quality of experience she can find there? She could choose to hang out in a different society, one that would be full of decent men who would call her back and never, ever imagine hitting her. She chose to go to the bar instead. Gyrate all you want around the ugly facts, but the most parsimonious conclusion is simply that she finds decency to be unattractive.

Is there a way you could have written this that didn’t include ungenerous implications about my intent, and that doesn’t effectively blame women who get into abusive relationships for their own abuse? Do I really need to spell out what victim blaming is for you?

One thing I’ve heard a number of smart PUAs say: “Some guys say certain women are attracted to assholes, but what’s actually going on is that those women are attracted to something most closely approximated by an asshole.”

@Lucky 72 — I used to have a muslim girlfriend, and am very well aware that quiet guys troubles pales into nothing, compared to what some minorities, like muslims, have to go through; the girls and women especially, but also the boys and men to some extent (apart from the fact that they all have to live with unbelieveably narrow gender stereotypes). Come to think of it, that’s probably the last time I heard about slut shaming, from my GF back then. She said that if she was seen with a white man, the muslim men would start calling her a whore. Since our relationship wasn’t public, it was an emotionally draining experience. But whereas I am out of it(she left me, partly because of the crazy norms forced on her), my ex can never fully escape that world and has little choice but to inhabit it.

Thank you for acknowledging this.

Compared to that, I can live with my frustrations, but I just rarely feel the privilege I’m supposed to own.

101: People rarely “feel” privilege. I rarely “feel” my white privilege. Instead, much of my white privilege manifests in shit I don’t have to deal with — like the fact that I’m not assumed to be a thief by store owners — or in basic feelings of comfort and feeling “matched” with the world around me — like the fact if I turn on the TV most of the newscasters look like me and talk in a language I speak very well with an accent that matches mine.

For instance men not having such a high risk of rape is sometimes touted as a male privilege. But it doesn’t really feel as a privilege. Rather it’s how the world should be by default, everybody has the right to live free from fear of rape and violence. But to me it seems more like a case of female disadvantage than male privilege. And I don’t think that’s the same things. I’ll try to come up with a reversed example.

Look, the only reason I even mentioned male privilege is because Lathe has a completely skewed view of what it is. I really don’t want to get into this too much. In fact I’m considering deleting this comment, because I feel like I’m encouraging these side 101 conversations, but I guess I want to make it clear where this line of disagreement lies.

But me personal experience still is, that in the setting of the dating scene of average heterosexuals in Northern Europe, women generally has a choice of more partners, giving them more power over who to date. I hope this more exact statement comes across less combatative.

As Sam says, the grass is always greener on the other side. Describing a choice between choices you don’t like as “power” doesn’t make any sense, which was my whole original point when I responded to machina.

Clarisse May 2, 2011 at 1:04 pm #

@HR — I will do my best to citation-hunt, as I said. I may end up deleting some of the claims I made in that neg analysis, not because I think they’re untrue but because they may be too complicated to support and detract too much from the other points I want to make.

I’ve heard this sort of discourse occasionally on PUA forums, particularly in the relatively new MRA/PUA sphere (which is much more misogynistic than the seduction community at large), but I don’t think it’s typical.

If I don’t write about the most misogynist PUA bullshit, then people will immediately pull that out and claim that it contradicts everything positive I’ve written. ALso, measuring what’s typical is difficult, and you and I have, I believe, discussed before that certain types of PUAs tend to cluster (just like types of everything tend to cluster).

Clarisse May 2, 2011 at 1:16 pm #

@Sam — But what if the desires are actually not that compatible, when comparative advantages don’t matter because the person who has the advantage couldn’t care less. Think of ver talented accountant, the best, who really has no interested in counting. He wants to be a guitar player instead, but sadly, has no talent for that whatsoever. He won’t care very much about his advantages in accounting, he may even consider them an annoyance because people will tell him over and over that he should quit playing guitar and start counting, because he’s so good at it. But it’s just not what he wants.

I think it’s an open question to which extent male and female sexuality, particularly as it plays out in the current mating market are like accounting and guitar playing for women. But it’s certainly possible to see how the current discourse comes about.

But the problem remains. Whether it’s actually incompatible desires or socially constructed obstacles that keep everyone from realizing the compatibility, it does create a level of scarcity, and thus a price, and thus implies a value transfer. As long as there is perceived scarcity in one way or another, there will be a sense of achievement coupled with the problematic thought of taking more than one is giving and the sense of “giving it away” too cheaply.

There’s just no way around it, apparently.

well, that’s depressing. But I like your accountant analogy.

AB May 2, 2011 at 1:38 pm #

@Hugh Ristik:

In Mystery’s original writings about the neg, did use the words “lower self-esteem.” Yet as machina points out, “self-esteem” is a misnomer for what he is talking about, when he claims that LA club girls have “high self-esteem.” In context, he really seems to mean “narcissism,” or a feeling of higher status (e.g. she feels higher in status because she considers guys who approach her as lower in status).

I’m not sure that’s actually the case. In my experience, men (and to some extent even women) tend to attribute all sorts of desirable qualities to women they think are sexy, which is why the idea that a woman who’s all dolled up can be less comfortable with her body and sexuality than a woman in a burqa is so alien to many of them. I’ve seen people (many people) ascribe great maturity to a 13 year old because she looked sexy, wore skimpy clothing and flirted with guys, so I find it entirely plausible that Mystery would attribute high self-esteem to LA club girls.

I’m seeing this theme a lot lately. I’ll buy it an a possible effect of pickup, but I don’t buy it as a goal (note: unintentionally harming someone isn’t OK, but it’s not as bad as intentionally harming someone).

Agreed. However, the main reasons PUA use the techniques they do is not that they make a woman feel good, or bad, it’s that they work better than their previous techniques at getting them sex. If a technique works by making women feel bad, it’s not a side-effect, it’s the point of the technique, even if the PUA thinks something else is happening.

Btw, this discourse of “vulnerable” women getting “taken advantage of” by their self-esteem being lowered is starting to trouble me. Just how widespread do you think that mechanism is? Judging from the talk of it, it sounds like a guy just has to insult a woman a few times, and then she becomes pliable. I don’t think things work that way with the vast majority of women. If it did, then pickup would look much different.

It’s gradual. A lot of pressure works by basically communicating “Of course you don’t need to do E just because you did A, that would be absurd!…… However, if you do A, it’s only fair that you also do B, and when you do B, C is the natural continuation, and when you do C, you ought to do D, and if you do D, you can’t just stop before doing E”. It’s about circumventing the mechanisms that would alert the target about what’s going on, violating boundaries while keeping each step reasonable until the target has unwittingly accepted something they would normally be opposed to.

Offences work somewhat similarly. I have experienced not thinking a joke was funny, and yet knowing that if I admitted to being offended it would reflect badly on me, several times. And very often, when people experience that their emotions are not considered legitimate, they react by trying to suppress those emotions and refuse to acknowledge them even to themselves. In contrast, when someone has a clear (and socially accepted) reason to become angry, they’re more likely to let it reflect badly on whoever angered them. So it’s about finding that balance where the target cannot find an acceptable excuse to get offended, but still feel upset.

I can’t help getting reminded of it when I read about PUA techniques. Chances are a woman who feels insulted or embarrassed about a guy remarking on her fake nails wont react with the same immediate anger as if he’d just walked up to her and called her a dump slut, because he was technically paying her a compliment (even if she didn’t think so). There’s a not too remote possibility that she will attempt to gain his approval to soothe her wounded pride, and/or ascribe her feelings of hurt to some deficiency in herself.

The same with freeze-outs, they’re within the limits of most socially accepted behaviours, so a woman who was hoping for more (like having him care about her rather than blowing out the candles and ignoring her) will not feel justified demanding it. It doesn’t activate her defence mechanisms the way more overt methods will, but it can still exert the same pressure that those defence mechanisms where supposed to protect against.

Some combination of 1 and 2 is thought to create a power dynamic where the man has higher status, and this power dynamic is thought to be attractive to women.

And do you agree?

Even the misogynistic “take her down a peg” view doesn’t necessarily want to lower her self esteem in order to more easily take advantage of weak boundaries. Rather, it assumes that women are turned on by being “taken down a peg.” Problematic though that assumption is, it’s a different problem from intentionally trying to exploit weak boundaries.

I think it’s useful to distinguish between techniques and people. If a technique works by exploiting vulnerabilities, then this can be said to be the purpose of the technique, but it is not necessarily the purpose of the user.

The goal may still be enthusiastic consent; the problem is the view of what arouses women to enthusiastic consent is skewed and oversimplified. I suspect that even many bitter and misogynistic guys wouldn’t want to believe that a woman had sex with them because of her “low boundaries.” Just because a guy is misogynistic and has an extremely oversimplified view of women’s preferences, it doesn’t mean that he isn’t looking for enthusiastic consent.

Of course not, nobody wants to think about themselves, or being thought of, as inherently unattractive. But this is often as easily achieved by re-defining enthusiastic consent as by getting it.

Language like “goal” and “testing” implies some sort of intent. Could you decide whether you think PUAs have this intent, and if so, support it with quotes from the ones who do? (No rush… I realize that research takes a while.)

Same dilemma as before. If a technique succeeds because it singles out the most susceptible women, that could be said to be the goal or intent of it. But that is not the same claiming everybody employing that technique is aware of it. In fact, given that practically every tactic suggested by PUAs is served with an obligatory dose of “This is what women really want, you just have to give to to them”, I wouldn’t doubt for a second that a large part of the men using them will be completely unaware of what’s going on.

Incidentally, some PUAs (e.g. Franco) use negs in the opposite way: to screen for high self-esteem. He will neg her unprovoked, then see if she responds well or responds badly. If she responds badly, then she passes his test (kind of like a shit test) and he considers her relationship material. Quite a clever tactic, but I would worry that it would damage rapport.

It’s interesting that most standard PUAs claim that a neg is most useful on high self-esteem women because they’re the ones who’ll like it, whereas low self-esteem women will feel hurt, while this guy is relying on the exact opposite, that women of higher value or higher self-esteem wont take shit from anyone.

Even if it’s true that some PUA techniques are effective because of low female boundaries, I maintain that public PUA writing doesn’t advocate intentionally using techniques for that reason. (It wouldn’t surprise me if some guys hold that view privately, but I don’t think they are typical.)

Of course it doesn’t advocate it, PUAs have a bad enough reputation as it is. But it doesn’t actually make things better if they’re suggesting breaking women’s boundaries with the argument that it’s really beneficial to women. In fact, it’s a little arrogant to respond to women (the actual targets) saying a tactic is abusive by just claiming women don’t know what they want/aren’t honest enough to trust, and that their claims about the female psyche are the correct ones. Especially considering how many guys (here and in other places) are moaning over how they don’t feel the sexuality that they say they have is accepted enough.

A century ago (and less) it was not unusual for people to claim that women benefited from a spanking now and then, and I’ve seen radical Muslims explain that women are too emotional to be allowed access to divorce as easily as men, and demanding the approval of a judge for women to get divorced while men just have to declare themselves divorced is really about protecting women from making terribly mistakes. But we still call these views misogynist.

Since female preferences are diverse, you can have a behavior that some women enjoy, while other women with lower boundaries are harmed by it.

Agreed, but a slight correction: It’s not always about boundaries and vulnerability, sometimes it’s just about what you like. I don’t think Neil Strauss’ girlfriend felt her boundaries were being violated when he tried a freeze-out on her, but she was obviously annoyed and turned off by it. I’m personally very relaxed about physical boundaries, but if a guy acts entitled, or think it’s going to lead to more, I tend to lose interest quickly. There was a time when this made me feel guilty and wrong (and caused me to go further with guys than I really wanted to), but today, I’m more inclined to channel that blame onto the guys than myself.

Clarisse May 2, 2011 at 4:05 pm #

@AB — A lot of useful points. I think it would be better if some of them were framed as “some PUAs” than just “PUAs”, though.

I think it’s useful to distinguish between techniques and people. If a technique works by exploiting vulnerabilities, then this can be said to be the purpose of the technique, but it is not necessarily the purpose of the user.

Co-sign. Concisely said. Thank you.

Of course it doesn’t advocate it, PUAs have a bad enough reputation as it is. But it doesn’t actually make things better if they’re suggesting breaking women’s boundaries with the argument that it’s really beneficial to women. In fact, it’s a little arrogant to respond to women (the actual targets) saying a tactic is abusive by just claiming women don’t know what they want/aren’t honest enough to trust, and that their claims about the female psyche are the correct ones.

Agreed. This ties into what I was saying with the phlogiston example in the ePUA post.

One problem that I keep running up against, though, and that HR has alluded to, is that different women have different preferences. It would be awesome if more PUAs would acknowledge this, but it would also be awesome if more feminists would acknowledge this.

AB May 2, 2011 at 5:01 pm #

@Clarisse:

it’s true that I’ve occasionally had a reaction that could be called “buyer’s remorse”, that was less about feeling manipulated and more about feeling embarrassed or confused (“wow, did I really do that?”) — this happened a lot more when I was younger and had much less clue what I was looking for, of course. But I’m pretty sure that in most (not all, but most) of the cases where I experienced that, it would have been wholly circumvented if the men in question had given me more opportunities to get out of the encounter in (what I then perceived to be) a socially graceful way.

I think this worth noticing. Saying no is not always as easy as it’s made out to, and sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be a good time to stop. I’ve never had sex with anyone due to this phenomenon (the closest thing I’ve done is starting to give a guy a blowjob before breaking away from him), because I always ‘sobered up’ the moment it got too physical, but the price for me was that it seems to have affected my ability to enjoy sex (I tense up and turn off extremely easily).

@Patch — I don’t believe that this is nearly as big a problem as some of the men in this thread make it out to be. Your biological urges can still be met by going somewhere private and masturbating (it’s a pity our society attaches so much shame to that activity), and your wounded pride will heal (really!)

Thanks. (Once again a kinky/poly guy comes in and says things that make me feel saner … this makes me feel validated, too :P) I really don’t think the PUA desire to make it “all the way” to penis-in-vagina sex is about biological urge at all, although most of them frame it that way. PUA is at least 50% about the notch on the bedpost. AT LEAST. Maybe this is part of sexuality in general for many people, that seems reasonable. But the biology is hardly overriding, that’s for sure. The central accomplishment trope isn’t about the biology.

Seconded (or thirded?). I’ve always found it hard talking to guys about, because half of them will be offended if their biological urge to have sex is not recognised enough, and the other hand will be sick to death of the stereotypes about men’s uncontrollable sexual urges.

I still regard my boyfriend as something of an anomaly, because he appears to have an incredibly high sex-drive (at least he gets turned on easily and is always ready for sex), but he also seems to be able to go without sex for a long time without feeling frustrated. I can’t quite decide if he’s real or just pretending, because according to conventional wisdom, guys like that don’t exist.

(On a tangential note, I had a sexual encounter within the last few months that took place with the lights out, and when I asked the guy afterwards what got him off, he mentioned that he’d been thinking about how hot I looked earlier. That really made me think. I mean, it was dark when we actually had sex, but he got off on the idea that he was having sex with someone he thinks is hot? Sex is so weird, man.)

I’m going to borrow this anecdote because it illustrates so clearly that sexual desire is often more about what takes place in a person’s head than what’s happening around them. I don’t think it’s weird at all, and I think women experience it all the time.

What bothers me is that PUAs would group all of these reactions under “buyer’s remorse”, and none of them are actually what they seem to think “buyer’s remorse” is (Gareth Jones described it as a biological reaction that women go through because we’ve been programmed to feel weird about having sex with men early in a relationship).

I feel the same about ASDs. I’ve never been slut-shamed in my whole life (except one time when my mother felt like she needed to explain to me that having too many guys sleep over could give me a bad reputation), and yet I still exhibit the same behaviours that are attributed to ASDs.

I can’t help suspecting that ASD theories are more popular because of how they make men feel (boosting their confidence and belief in their own desirability, as well as giving them leave to use more pressure on women), than because of the actual validity of ASD-busting tactics.

I specifically think that always attributing all LMR to the woman’s ASD kicking in is extremely ignorant, because I can see a vast amount of scenarios where a woman would refuse sex in the last minute that aren’t the least bit connected to how she feels she’ll be perceived or how she perceives herself.

Um, so, do you have sex with men? Because I do. Fairly frequently. I don’t have a huge number of data points, but I have a bunch. And my experience is that plenty of men are quite confused about their desires, and are not “basically shallow”.

And when I speak to men who have thought deeply about their sexuality, they often say something along the lines of what Infra so admirably articulated in #180, especially:

That’s one of the major problems with the fact that there’s a strong, consistent normative representation of male sexuality: it’s easy to use that as a default and assume that it applies, especially when divergences from that norm are referenced as “exceptions,” and never figure out what your actual wants and desires might be (or confirm that they are what they seem to be).

Quoted for agreement. I think it’s something of the same the men’s studies expert I quoted earlier was getting at (though he was talking about health), that being perceived as the norm, despite its advantages, also makes it harder for people to recognise when they don’t fit that norm themselves.

Sagredo May 2, 2011 at 10:08 pm #

It’s a pretty normal phenomenon that when people feel bad about themselves and lose faith in their own value, they also lower their standards, because they don’t feel they deserve, or can get, anything better. It’s the keystone in many abusive relationships. If you’re actually using negative remarks as part of your dating strategy, this is something you ought to be aware of.

And,

The problem with PUA terminology that even techniques which many women immediately recognise as potentially abusive and thoroughly uncomfortable are presented as benevolent tactics to empower women to enjoy themselves.

I think we need to put this in perspective. Clarisse provided a pretty much textbook example of a neg (made to a sunburned woman): “I just wanted to tell you … your face is the cutest … shade of pink at this whole party.”

If I understand you correctly, negs like this work by causing a woman to lose faith in her own value, lowering her own standards, because she doesn’t feel she deserves or can get anything better. She may have sex just to earn his approval. And furthermore, these kinds of remarks are a technique that women immediately recognise as potentially abusive and thoroughly uncomfortable. This is the missing female point of view on negging, is that right?

The thing is, PUA tends to be almost obsessively analytical. So PUA want to know how this kind of teasing, which they certainly didn’t invent, works. The first thing to notice is that it’s in the place of a complement, but it’s making a trivial criticism. Hence, “negative compliment”. Most men offer supplication only to very attractive women and thus present themselves as lower value. So the neg demonstrates higher value by contrast. It also demonstrates wit, which is appealing. It also makes the woman laugh, which disarms her and makes her feel open.

There’s a risk, too. If a woman’s self-esteem is not high, or if she feels really self-conscious about her pinked face, she’s not going to laugh at herself so easily and the neg will just make her feel bad and not sexy. So one should neg sparingly and only on woman who appear to have high self-esteem. By the way, I definitely recommend having a look at the Kezia videos I linked to earlier, just to give an idea of the kinds of women who PUAs are most likely to neg. Then come back and tell me about their approval-seeking behaviour.

This is, at least, how the PUA material I’ve seen describes negs. You end up with some scary names and concepts for teasing someone about a sunburn, something that strikes me as amusing rather than harmful, and apparently I’m not the only one.

Of course, it’s quite possible that the PUA material is presenting negs in the best possible light, and really one is supposed to use negative remarks in a completely different way, by abusively insulting a woman until she’s so desperate for approval that she’ll have sex she doesn’t otherwise want. That might very well be effective on some women, actually, but since it seems to be a quite different technique, and not resembling the way PUAs talk about negs, it should probably have a different name. Like “abuse”.

Do you feel a great deal of gratitude to every woman who has sex with you?

I kinda do, actually. Especially if a woman does something just for the purpose of pleasing me, I feel quite a great deal of gratitude.

Why would I not?

Sagredo May 2, 2011 at 10:30 pm #

@Sagredo — What kind of feeling is this remorse?

I mean … it’s different in different circumstances, right? I’ve had a kind of sick/grossed out feeling after some encounters where I felt like the guy didn’t pay attention to a boundary. I’ve also had a perfectly neutral feeling after some encounters where I thought the guy was fine, but I just wasn’t very enthusiastic about having sex with him again.

I generally take Dan Savage’s campsite rule as the foundation of sexual ethics (regardless of ages), so next day remorse indicates a quite final failure of ethical intent. A sick/grossed out feeling represents a serious ethical problem with the other’s behaviour, as you indicate. The other kind you mention is undesirable, even if it’s less than neutral, but it’s much less predictable. It’s not ethical to have sex with someone if you know they’re going to regret it afterwards, but I think like men sometimes women do things for their own bad reasons and there can be little way of telling.

Sagredo May 2, 2011 at 10:58 pm #

Hugh,

Incidentally, some PUAs (e.g. Franco) use negs in the opposite way: to screen for high self-esteem. He will neg her unprovoked, then see if she responds well or responds badly. If she responds badly, then she passes his test (kind of like a shit test) and he considers her relationship material. Quite a clever tactic, but I would worry that it would damage rapport.

This is, surely, a very different kind of “neg”? That’s got to be more like an insult than the neg examples offered here.

I can imagine this working with lots of apologies, but it does strike me as somehow dishonest as well as unpleasant.

Sagredo May 2, 2011 at 11:08 pm #

Oh, I should add, if Gareth Jones thinks that Buyer’s Remorse is a temporary phase before a woman decides that she liked it after all, then he has a point that it’s not such a bad sign. But he’s really going to have to work to demonstrate that.

On the other hand, even if he’s right that Buyer’s Remorse is a sort of social-biological reaction, it’s still misery and therefore still a sign of ethical failure.

Clarisse May 3, 2011 at 1:05 am #

I did some more reading about buyer’s remorse and I feel more okay with it, because it’s fairly obvious from most examples that (a) PUAs think it’s actually a bad sign that indicates “bad game” and (b) it’s a phrase that, like Infra says, seems to often be used by guys who actually really like a girl and feel hurt that she’s not calling them back. Example: http://www.pick-up-artist-forum.com/buyers-remorse-vt15992.html

@AB — I’m going to borrow this anecdote because it illustrates so clearly that sexual desire is often more about what takes place in a person’s head than what’s happening around them. I don’t think it’s weird at all, and I think women experience it all the time.

I guess the reason I thought it was so interesting is that we always get all these messages about how men are SOOOO driven by appearance, and how it’s all about what they can SEE, and that’s just the way it is. Whereas this example makes it pretty obvious that even though he thinks I’m cute, the fact that he thinks I’m cute is more important to him than my actual cuteness. It actually makes me buy into typical feminist media theory WAY MORE :P

Sam May 3, 2011 at 1:36 am #

Clarisse,

maybe I don’t understand what you’re saying, but -

Whereas this example makes it pretty obvious that even though he thinks I’m cute, the fact that he thinks I’m cute is more important to him than my actual cuteness.

are you shure he thought about your hotness as an abstract value – “I’m having sex with a ten! So hot!” – or that his statement wasn’t referring to him thinking about your hot visual appearance when the lights were on before? Because the latter would make more sense to me (and be in line with easier visual arousal in men). Actually, while it occasionally happened that a female voice turned me on when I had no idea what she looked like, say, on the phone, radio, a singer, I instantly connect some imagined visual to that voice. So, in a way, I don’t know it could be possible to come without thinking in visual terms about the person one is with when that person is not actually visible.

But again, maybe I’m not actually understanding what you find confusing about the episode.

Hugh Ristik May 3, 2011 at 1:38 am #

Snowdrop Explodes said:

But I feel that deploying a strategic true statement is not being honest, and does not really “train” oneself to be honest. It trains one to use true statements strategically, like a politician.

Have you tried it? It worked for me. The problem was that I had trouble expressing myself at all due to social anxiety. So it was helpful to think “how would I want to act in this situation if I wasn’t feeling social anxiety and feelings of inferiority?” and then try to “fake” that hypothetical behavior.

It did train me how to use true statements strategically, and also how to make strategic statements truly. I disagree that “deploying a strategic true statement is not being honest.” There is no virtue to keeping one’s head in the sand about the strategic consequences of one’s behavior.

Social innocence and lack of strategy get a much higher rating than they deserve. Glorifying those things and denigrating strategy merely creates a caste system which privileges those who develop with stronger unintentional social skills (who PUAs would call the “naturals”).

Personally, I would suggest that ethics and mutual benefit are mostly orthogonal to strategy.

I don’t think there is anything wrong, in and of itself, with wanting nothing more than a willing warm human body with a wet hole, as long as the human in possession of said body and hole is only interested in a willing warm human body with a hard dick, and understands that that is what is on offer and nothing more.

Well said.

Hugh Ristik May 3, 2011 at 2:13 am #

AB said:

The problem with PUA terminology that even techniques which many women immediately recognise as potentially abusive and thoroughly uncomfortable are presented as benevolent tactics to empower women to enjoy themselves.

Maybe that’s partly because women’s preferences differ. Some behaviors that some women will enjoy, others may experience as abusive. If the former type of women are more prevalent than the latter (at least, in the experience of PUAs), then those behaviors may become part of pickup.

So no matter what a PUA says about making women feel good and doing what they want, the only way to asses whether or not a technique is problematic is in how the targets feel about it.

What if most of the targets enjoy, but some of the targets hate it? How do you do the moral calculus? The thing is, women’s behavioral selectiveness is so high, and their preferences so diverse, that it’s really hard to please everyone. It’s especially difficult when many women avoid communication and screen for guys who can guess their preferences.

If we get rid of all the behaviors that some women might feel bad about, then the remaining male behavioral repertoire is rather bland. (For instance, some women might feel bad in response to light teasing, or to the sunburn “neg” that Clarisse enjoyed.)

I know what PUA theory says about LMR. I also know that the theory is frequently faulty and doesn’t take any part of women’s point of view into account that doesn’t fit what PUAs want it to be.

I don’t think the vast majority of PUAs really know women’s point of view in the first place. This may be because they don’t give a crap, or they assume that women can’t accurately articulate their preferences. In their defense, a lot of the time, it’s tough to get women to talk about their point of view on sexual matters. It’s not like there is some big survey where men can just go and look up how women prefer that men initiate.

Hugh Ristik May 3, 2011 at 2:58 am #

Clarisse said:

and what makes me really mad about the “buyer’s remorse” thing, is that Gareth ACKNOWLEDGED — he outright stated — that you don’t want to rush things too much with a girl you “really like”, you want to take it slow, because you don’t want her to get “buyer’s remorse”.

I would be interested to know why these cases are different for him. If he just doesn’t give a crap about women who aren’t relationship material, then that’s indeed problematic. On the other hand, it could be that he recognizes that sometimes women will have buyer’s remorse from sex early on even if he takes reasonable care of her, and he wants to avoid that risk with women he has relationship interest in.

On explicit “no”: there’s always “The first two “no”s don’t mean much, and should be expected“, which I already linked to in the ePUA thread. And that’s in an LMR example that didn’t even strike me as particularly misogynist.

OK, looks like you were right. At least it seems that other gurus (e.g. Love Systems) disagrees and says that an explicit “no” should never be pushed past, even if you doubt its sincerity.

After driving for 10 minutes, I realized we weren’t in the diner district and asked, “Wait a minute, are you taking me to your apartment?!”

I have a problem with this.

When we got there, I told him multiple times that I wanted to go home, and he told me that I was definitely sleeping over.

This guy is badly miscalibrated.

It’s clear that his behavior is inspired by pickup, but I wonder if any PUAs are actually advocating taking a woman to your house without telling her as a technique. (I could see PUAs saying that where they are going is a “surprise,” but I don’t know about the bait-and-switch situation where he led you to believe you were going to some sort of restaurant.)

but that unawareness can only last because of a routine refusal to accept critique, and frames that support this refusal (e.g., “women don’t know what they want”).

Well, critique of pickup from people who are actually informed is rare. It’s not like most PUAs are running into this sort of critique and ignoring it. It’s another case of Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of criticism of pickup is crap. Most the talk about honesty, deception, and “being yourself” is crap. Most of the talk about “manipulation” is crap, which merely privileges natural social skills above learned social skills. And remember, PUAs have to deal with all sorts of criticisms that don’t tolerate casual sex, or any form of non-monogamy.

Some of the most compelling critiques of pickup come from feminist-inspired arguments about consent. However, PUAs are hardly unique is being uninformed of those arguments: the majority of the population is, too, including heterosexual women.

It’s not like an aspiring PUA can go to a single website where he can look up the sensible criticism of pickup only (well, there was for a little while, but Chris took it down), and be shielded from the criticisms that are wrong, confused, uninformed, and damaging. I’m someone with pickup background who actively seeks out criticism of pickup, but wading through the crap gets really draining, and I understand why many PUAs wouldn’t do so.

Remember, I’ve been at this for a while. It’s a lot easier for to admit problems with pickup, without feeling that it’s all going to go up in smoke, and it’s a lot easier for me to consider certain ideas without getting defensive (or getting less defensive). While I’ve made some mistakes that I would take back, I feel that my interactions with women have generally been mutually positive, and I’m pretty confident in my worldview. Not all PUAs have that perspective, and they are in a more (dare I say) vulnerable mental place where they are just finding this stuff, and identifying fiercely with it.

Clarisse May 3, 2011 at 3:37 am #

@Sam — are you shure he thought about your hotness as an abstract value – “I’m having sex with a ten! So hot!” – or that his statement wasn’t referring to him thinking about your hot visual appearance when the lights were on before? Because the latter would make more sense to me (and be in line with easier visual arousal in men).

A ten! Sam, you’re too sweet to me ;)

(I was realizing recently that I don’t think I could handle asking a PUA friend for an honest assessment of my point on the number-scale. Like, it would seriously fuck with me. I estimate myself around a 6/7, but of course I secretly hope that I’m higher. Ick, it makes me feel weird just thinking about it.)

Anyway, here’s what exactly happened with that dude: I asked what made him come, and he said something like “thinking about how hot you looked all day today”. Lights weren’t on at any point during that particular interaction, though (yes, we were lying around in the dark).

@HR — It’s clear that his behavior is inspired by pickup, but I wonder if any PUAs are actually advocating taking a woman to your house without telling her as a technique. (I could see PUAs saying that where they are going is a “surprise,” but I don’t know about the bait-and-switch situation where he led you to believe you were going to some sort of restaurant.)

I seem to recall that the reason I guessed that he was doing it was that I’d already read about this tactic in Love Systems, but I could be wrong. I’d certainly read about it somewhere, and Love Systems was my main source at that point.

Well, critique of pickup from people who are actually informed is rare. It’s not like most PUAs are running into this sort of critique and ignoring it. It’s another case of Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of criticism of pickup is crap. Most the talk about honesty, deception, and “being yourself” is crap. Most of the talk about “manipulation” is crap, which merely privileges natural social skills above learned social skills. And remember, PUAs have to deal with all sorts of criticisms that don’t tolerate casual sex, or any form of non-monogamy.

Quoted for agreement.

It did train me how to use true statements strategically, and also how to make strategic statements truly. I disagree that “deploying a strategic true statement is not being honest.” There is no virtue to keeping one’s head in the sand about the strategic consequences of one’s behavior.

Quoted for agreement.

One thing I’ve noticed about myself that makes me a little uncomfortable, though, is that I’ll not only deploy true statements strategically, but I’ll deploy the strategic true statements in a strategic way sometimes, e.g. I’ll write something about how confused I am and write it in an extremely precisely calibrated, well-edited, confused way. Same for deploying social signals, sometimes. The ethics of this may be questionable.

Hugh Ristik May 3, 2011 at 4:08 am #

Clarisse said:

It’s possible that freeze-outs do trigger me more than many other people, and you are correct that I see a past version of myself as having been very vulnerable to them. But again, I really don’t think I’m alone in this …

As I think you’ve already noted, asking people their opinion in real life could easily lead to all sorts of biases, whether introduced by you, or not. Even the context of a pickup manual produces bias.

Moving on the the subject of women not knowing what they want:

What proportion of women do you think know what they want? And what proportion of those women can articulate it? While I think most women know a subset of what they want, I think the real problem is that they can’t articulate in a way that men can understand. This is really either gender’s fault:

- women’s behavioral preferences are simply more complicated and selective than men’s, making them harder to describe
- the preferences of women fluctuate according to the menstrual cycle (except for androgynous women, who’s preferences are more stable)
- women’s short term and long term preferences are different things (also found by that study). When asked to state their preferences, young women often seem to state their long-term preference, while often choosing short term mates with different traits.

Introverted androgynous women with high intelligence and introspective seem to be able to articulate their preferences consistently. The preferences of women without those traits are more elusive. So regardless of whether a woman “knows what she wants” or not, the problem is that PUAs can only learn a bit about the preferences of mainstream straight women from asking them, and they will learn even less if they ask a woman they are dating about her preferences explicitly.

Wouldn’t it be so much simpler if, prior to initiating, men could just ask women how they prefer that men initiate with them, and how they like their boundaries to be treated? That would be awesome… except the vast majority of heterosexual women seem to find that sort of move to be a turn off, which effectively bans it. Instead, men are expected (by non-outlier women) to initiate blind.

It reminds of RTS games where you have to pick your strategy and units before you know what race your opponent is, which can mean that sometimes you are just doomed to fuck things up because you guessed wrong and your strat was inappropriate to what the other person was playing. It reminds me of trying to complete a professional project with a client who looks down on you for asking them for requirements. Specs are for wimps!

Even though I’ve learned to deal with this system, I have to say that it’s ridiculous, and its existence is not the fault of PUAs. Practically all of the sorts of ethical concerns raised in this thread could be solved with explicit communication of the sort that mainstream heterosexual women will punish men for attempting. Stop making men do so much guesswork wizardry, and most of these ethical dilemmas simply disappear.

Hugh Ristik May 3, 2011 at 4:17 am #

Clarisse said:

One thing I’ve noticed about myself that makes me a little uncomfortable, though, is that I’ll not only deploy true statements strategically, but I’ll deploy the strategic true statements in a strategic way sometimes, e.g. I’ll write something about how confused I am and write it in an extremely precisely calibrated, well-edited, confused way. Same for deploying social signals, sometimes.

I do this, too. Something I’ve learned is that if you are being honest and nobody notices, then nobody cares. What’s important is not just being sincere, but being sincere in a way that other people recognize as you being sincere. Juggler talks a lot about this.

If you are being sincere, then you deserve to signal that you are being sincere, and get recognized for being sincere.

The ethics of this may be questionable

I see what you did there…

Personally, if I was to “unlearn” everything I know about social influence, I’m not sure whether it would make me more ethical. But I am sure that it would make me less effective, especially less effective than people who are much less ethical than I am.

I am not convinced that being ineffective is ethical. You can’t do any evil if you’re ineffective, but you can’t do any good, either.

Clarisse Thorn May 3, 2011 at 4:30 am #

Even though I’ve learned to deal with this system, I have to say that it’s ridiculous, and its existence is not the fault of PUAs. Practically all of the sorts of ethical concerns raised in this thread could be solved with explicit communication of the sort that mainstream heterosexual women will punish men for attempting. Stop making men do so much guesswork wizardry, and most of these ethical dilemmas simply disappear.

I wonder how many mainstream women would say the same thing about how men should just explicitly communicate exactly what they want in a wife.

Hugh Ristik May 3, 2011 at 5:52 am #

AB said:

However, the main reasons PUA use the techniques they do is not that they make a woman feel good, or bad, it’s that they work better than their previous techniques at getting them sex. If a technique works by making women feel bad, it’s not a side-effect, it’s the point of the technique, even if the PUA thinks something else is happening.

First, I think a lot of PUAs would disagree with you that they only care about effectiveness. Even PUAs who make women feel momentarily unsure or insecure may do so in the context of interaction that makes her feel good.

Second, even if PUAs only cared about effectiveness, it’s hard to have sex with women without making them feel good at various points. So wanting to have sex with women is intertwined in practice with making them feel good.

A lot of pressure works by basically communicating “Of course you don’t need to do E just because you did A, that would be absurd!…… However, if you do A, it’s only fair that you also do B, and when you do B, C is the natural continuation, and when you do C, you ought to do D, and if you do D, you can’t just stop before doing E”.

You are talking about Cialdini’s principle of “commitment and consistency.” Commitment and consistency is used in abusive and pressuring interactions, but it’s also used in perfectly ethical social interaction. A neg can be used to begin both sorts of interactions. Abusing someone is a problem; merely negging someone doesn’t require you to abuse them.

Any kind of request or compliment can set up commitment and consistency. The fact that a neg can set up commitment and consistency merely tells us that this is an interaction between human beings communicating according to common norms and practices; it doesn’t give us enough information to judge the ethics of the situation.

Light teasing could have all the problematic effects that you describe. So why should be ban negs, but not light teasing? Well, many people enjoy light teasing for other reasons than it setting up commitment and consistency… but the same holds true for negs.

I would propose that there is nothing wrong to use commitment and consistency to create a smooth experience as long as the other person has a choice at each step, and it isn’t being used to create merely grudging consent in the context of high cognitive dissonance.

There’s a not too remote possibility that she will attempt to gain his approval to soothe her wounded pride, and/or ascribe her feelings of hurt to some deficiency in herself.

There’s also a not too remote possibility that she will enjoy the neg and find it refreshing, or that she will find it harmlessly annoying. Watch Keys to the VIP, season 1 episode 1, and you will see a range of different reactions.

I think it’s useful to distinguish between techniques and people. If a technique works by exploiting vulnerabilities, then this can be said to be the purpose of the technique, but it is not necessarily the purpose of the user.

If a technique succeeds because it singles out the most susceptible women, that could be said to be the goal or intent of it.

You could put things this way, but I think it leads to a lot of ambiguity. Many readers might not make that distinction, and believe that the person using or designing the technique holds that purpose/intent/goal.

In the case of negs, they don’t just work by exploiting vulnerabilities, they also work because plenty of women seem to find them fun or intriguing. When a technique has multiple results, you can’t just pick the result you don’t like, and call it “the” purpose of the technique. We need to do a cost-benefit analysis, whereas you are doing a “cost” analysis without examining the potential benefits.

Personally, I don’t think that negs actually do very well in a cost benefit analysis, and only break even, or succeed by a sliver.

It’s interesting that most standard PUAs claim that a neg is most useful on high self-esteem women because they’re the ones who’ll like it, whereas low self-esteem women will feel hurt, while this guy is relying on the exact opposite, that women of higher value or higher self-esteem wont take shit from anyone.

Or, maybe just like the term “freezeout,” the “neg” is an imprecise and ambiguously defined concept that encompasses a bunch of different types of behaviors.

But it doesn’t actually make things better if they’re suggesting breaking women’s boundaries with the argument that it’s really beneficial to women.

Aside from a couple cases acknowledged in this thread (such as regarding “no” as “token resistance”), PUA aren’t suggesting that breaking women boundaries is beneficial to women. PUAs are suggesting fulfilling (what they perceive to be) the majority preferences and requirement of women they are dating.

In fact, it’s a little arrogant to respond to women (the actual targets) saying a tactic is abusive by just claiming women don’t know what they want/aren’t honest enough to trust, and that their claims about the female psyche are the correct ones

Last time I checked, “women” weren’t a monolith who have given a statement on PUA tactics, saying which are abusive or not. While individual women objecting to pickup can describe what they experience as abusive, are you saying that anything that some small minority of women experiences as abusive should be defined as abusive in general? If so, where does that stop?

What if you enjoy behavior X from men, and a small group of women on the internet say that they experience X as abusive? Do you have any recourse, or should you just be fine with the behavior being banned as “abusive”? If you’re a guy, do you need to stop doing X?

For instance, some women might perceive the sunburn neg Clarisse enjoyed as “abusive.” Does Clarisse just have to accept that neg being banned because some women find it hurtful?

machina May 3, 2011 at 6:03 am #

Lucky 72

Machinas anecdote doesn’t really disprove that theory.
I’d rather say the anecdote is in line with nice guys theory that women end up with bad boys and douchebags, no matter what women state as their preferences (which is probably never “dating guy that hits me”).
But why does she end up with these guys anyway? I know a lot of quiet guys, myself included, who would probably have called her back (it’s hard to know in the actual case, so I’m switching to general terms now). Where do women meet these guys? Do they get approached by several men? (my experience tell me that they probably do)? Do women give the quiet guy in the bar a chance at all?

And Lathe of Heaven

The larger point is: why is the pretty woman in the bar at all? if this is the quality of experience she can find there? She could choose to hang out in a different society, one that would be full of decent men who would call her back and never, ever imagine hitting her. She chose to go to the bar instead. Gyrate all you want around the ugly facts, but the most parsimonious conclusion is simply that she finds decency to be unattractive.

I think you’re both over-estimating the power of female attractiveness, especially when it comes to actually meeting a woman’s desires. And a lot of your questions would simply contribute to the low self-esteem of a woman in this situation, which can make them continue trying to appeal to men even though the way they do so isn’t in their best interest. These women can then get into something like what Sam has called “perceived scarcity” where they feel there are very few men that can meet their desires. That can all contribute to them making bad decisions in choosing partners.

Infra May 3, 2011 at 6:14 am #

AB wrote:

Seconded (or thirded?). I’ve always found it hard talking to guys about, because half of them will be offended if their biological urge to have sex is not recognised enough, and the other hand will be sick to death of the stereotypes about men’s uncontrollable sexual urges.

IME, a huge part of this is that the “urges” under discussion aren’t actually the urges themselves: they’re the way in which a man has learned to relate to them — or, to phrase that better, the way in which he’s learned to understand, experience and satisfy his own arousal. If he’s alienated from that (not that “alienated” is necessarily the best term, but it will suffice for now), it can become necessary to have that arousal understood and accepted as an abstract force, something to which he’s subject, because that might be the only way in which to describe how arousal feels for him; but the more that he’s worked to integrate those sensations into his full scope of experience, the more important it becomes to have arousal acknowledged as something that’s connected to, and part of, his existence as an individual, because that’s how he’s come to own them.

To relate this to what Patch wrote earlier on:

Your biological urges can still be met by going somewhere private and masturbating (it’s a pity our society attaches so much shame to that activity), and your wounded pride will heal (really!)

It’s certainly accurate to say that arousal can be dealt with in that way, but the matter of what dealing with arousal in this way means isn’t as clear, because we’re dealing with a varying relation. When a man sees his arousal as integral to himself, as part of a larger world of experience, this works: he’s satisfying something that belongs to him. But if he sees his arousal as something that works through him, as a force to which he’s subject, then it can feel more like a short-circuit: as completing something prematurely, something that inherently requires the involvement of another body in order to be properly expressed. It’s possible to describe these differences as related to shame and pride, and both might be involved in the experience, but I’m inclined to think that those elements are second order effects, not primary concerns; the way in which the man relates to his own body — specifically, to his sensations of arousal — is likely a stronger element in producing them.

Which goes back to AB’s reference to the men’s studies (andrology?) expert: a substantial part of the different reactions probably comes from the fact that a man relating to himself as a man (as gendered) isn’t the same thing as a man relating to himself as a male (as sexed). The concept of male sexuality can take on different forms depending upon the relative strengths of those two relations, but the two are often conflated, which makes the reactions seem contradictory.

With that in mind, @AB:

I still regard my boyfriend as something of an anomaly, because he appears to have an incredibly high sex-drive (at least he gets turned on easily and is always ready for sex), but he also seems to be able to go without sex for a long time without feeling frustrated. I can’t quite decide if he’s real or just pretending, because according to conventional wisdom, guys like that don’t exist.

He’s not an anomaly, really. He just relates to his body in a particular, if not widely acknowledged, way. Or so would be my guess; there are others of us out there who would describe ourselves in much the same way.

Infra May 3, 2011 at 7:43 am #

@Clarisse:

Anyway, here’s what exactly happened with that dude: I asked what made him come, and he said something like “thinking about how hot you looked all day today”. Lights weren’t on at any point during that particular interaction, though (yes, we were lying around in the dark).

Hmm.

Just as an aside… that makes me think that he might have a CFNM fetish, or something along those lines. I’ve had similar responses, myself — sometimes it’s more arousing to think of someone clothed (not lingerie, just the way in which they dress) than it is to think of them, or see them, naked. Not that it’s anything against seeing or being with them naked, just that the style in which they dress, the way that the fabric drapes over them, wraps around them, etc. can be more arousing.

But that’s just a guess.

AB May 3, 2011 at 7:59 am #

@Sagredo:

I think we need to put this in perspective.

If I understand you correctly, negs like this

This is the missing female point of view on negging, is that right?

No. I didn’t provide ‘the’ missing female perspective on negging (unlike you, I believe the sexes are too diverse for that), I was remarking that playing around with backhanded compliments and subtle insults was not inherently benevolent, and didn’t necessarily always work the way PUA manuals claimed they worked. Look at what I wrote to HR in the post 247 for more details.

Really, it blows my mind how most PUAs can have such an easy time accepting that women have defence mechanisms in place to prevent them from being perceived as sluts, and that those defences can be circumvented by not confronting them directly and by giving the target as few as possible chances to stop it, and yet so many of them seem incredulous to the fact that people (including women) also have defences in place that are supposed to help them avoid loss of status, loss of confidence, loss of control, rape, abuse, etc., etc., and that these defences can also be circumvented by subtlety and not giving the target a chance to realise what’s going on.

The thing is, PUA tends to be almost obsessively analytical.

You don’t need to explain yet again how PUAs think their tactics work. You’ve done so repeatedly, despite the fact that these threads have contained plenty of links already. And sorry to say this, but how PUAs describe their tactics is actually among the least useful ways of finding out whether or not criticism towards them is justified, because they’re pretty consistent in describing their methods as benevolent.

There are exceptions, like how the freeze-out entry in the PUA encyclopedia from the first thread includes descriptions like “punishing a target HB for bad behavior, and taking all the prior good feelings away” and “Freezing out will take away the good kino feelings, making her want it back”, but usually, you can count on PUAs to frame it as helping the target along to do what she really wants (assuming what she wants is to fuck you).

There’s a risk, too. If a woman’s self-esteem is not high, or if she feels really self-conscious about her pinked face, she’s not going to laugh at herself so easily and the neg will just make her feel bad and not sexy. So one should neg sparingly and only on woman who appear to have high self-esteem.

There must be a name for the fallacy of ascribing the healthiest and most confident personality to the people who react like you want them to. I’ve found that the opposite is just as likely to be true (which is why I can relate to hitting on the girls who react negatively). There’s a lot of pressure to not get offended, especially for people who’re in danger of being perceived as politically correct (which is more often women than men), and while self-irony and mental stamina are admirable qualities, faking them because you’re afraid of what others think about you is not.

I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older and more confident, I’ve started getting better at owning up to what I don’t like, and don’t feel pressured to laugh at everything. I’ll still not always voice my dislike when I know people will resent me for it, but I’ll avoid the source of it, rather than trying to convince myself and others that I’m fine with it. I’ve also gotten better at foreseeing when something could escalate, so I don’t always brush it off when a comment seems less than tactful to me.

I know from experience that if someone treats me like I need to be taken down a peg while I’m feeling confident and good about myself, I’m much more likely to think that it’s none of his damned business what I need, whereas insecurity is more likely to make me wonder why I wasn’t attractive and try to gain his approval to convince myself I was good enough.

This is, at least, how the PUA material I’ve seen describes negs. You end up with some scary names and concepts for teasing someone about a sunburn, something that strikes me as amusing rather than harmful, and apparently I’m not the only one.

Sure, if a neg was just that one line about a sunburn repeated over and over again it would be as simplified as what you claim. But it’s not, it’s about backhanded compliments and outwardly friendly insults in general, and that’s a far broader issue than gently teasing someone about their tan.

Of course, it’s quite possible that the PUA material is presenting negs in the best possible light, and really one is supposed to use negative remarks in a completely different way, by abusively insulting a woman until she’s so desperate for approval that she’ll have sex she doesn’t otherwise want. That might very well be effective on some women, actually, but since it seems to be a quite different technique, and not resembling the way PUAs talk about negs, it should probably have a different name. Like “abuse”.

Actually, the techniques would need to be similar in order to work, because most people are better at detecting and handling direct and unprovoked hostility than they are at handling indifference and socially accepted shows of disregard.

Infra May 3, 2011 at 9:54 am #

With regard to negs… maybe this makes a difference, or maybe it doesn’t, but when I’ve used them, the result has generally been that our interaction became more relaxed, not one where she was showing any interest in proving herself. But I guess that I’ve been using them differently than the standard approach would suggest: in going over the times when I’ve done so, it’s struck me that I’ve always calibrated them to the situation, not to the person. They’ve always been a reaction to the dynamics of the conversation, not a reaction to her as an individual (although my impressions of her as a person, gathered through the conversation, definitely factored in as qualifying elements), and mostly seemed appropriate only in the context of mixed sets, particularly in cases when she was receiving pedestal-type flattery from multiple men, but didn’t seem particularly interested in any of them.

So it hasn’t been an insult, and it hasn’t been teasing. It’s been more along the lines of communicating “if you want something different, I’m providing you with an opportunity for it, and if not, I’m providing you with an out.”

In hindsight, given the dynamics of those situations, I’m not sure that that’s something that I could have communicated directly, not without disrupting the group dynamics, possibly in an ugly way. So in this kind of case, is it still a neg — at least, in the sense that “neg” is being used here?

Infra May 3, 2011 at 10:15 am #

I should add to that last comment:

When I’ve used them, it’s always been in a situation in which their use wouldn’t reflect well on me (i.e., it was obvious that I was making a faux pas, and I didn’t attempt to hide it). So in using one, I was willingly and intentionally taking an initial hit on myself, likely to a degree similar to that which my comment might impose on her.

AB May 3, 2011 at 10:17 am #

@Hugh Ristik:

Maybe that’s partly because women’s preferences differ. Some behaviors that some women will enjoy, others may experience as abusive. If the former type of women are more prevalent than the latter (at least, in the experience of PUAs), then those behaviors may become part of pickup.

I don’t think the vast majority of PUAs really know women’s point of view in the first place. This may be because they don’t give a crap, or they assume that women can’t accurately articulate their preferences. In their defense, a lot of the time, it’s tough to get women to talk about their point of view on sexual matters. It’s not like there is some big survey where men can just go and look up how women prefer that men initiate.

I think the real problem is that they can’t articulate in a way that men can understand. This is really either gender’s fault:

- women’s behavioral preferences are simply more complicated and selective than men’s, making them harder to describe
– the preferences of women fluctuate according to the menstrual cycle (except for androgynous women, who’s preferences are more stable)
– women’s short term and long term preferences are different things (also found by that study). When asked to state their preferences, young women often seem to state their long-term preference, while often choosing short term mates with different traits.

I’m starting to get really annoyed with this line of thought, especially the implication that men should be less varied, complicated, and changeable. To start with the obvious, men look for different things in long and short term relationships too, and usually don’t differentiate when talking about it either.

Secondly, men tend to initiate. This means that men go after the women they want. Sometimes they also go after the women they think they have a chance of getting, but they’re usually aware of that because they’re making a choice. Women usually don’t initiate, and furthermore often have their value conflated with how much men initiate with them, which means they spend a lot more of their time dealing with whoever approaches them. I often wonder why a guy is with a certain girl, because I can’t for the life of me figure out what he sees in her, but since I’m not trying to approach him and guess his preferences, the confusion isn’t a pressing matter to me (hence why I, and other women, talk and think a lot less about it).

Third, if you want an example of confusing and complex behaviour in men, I’ll give you one (and please don’t resort to saying all these observations are due to my complicated, fluctuating female sexuality and not to the men being confusing): The age-old question of whether men prefer smart women or dumb women, meek women or outspoken women, submissive women or dominant women. The truth is, there is no one answer. I’ve had plenty of success playing dumb(er) and helpless to attract certain guys, but I’ve also found that other guys just ignore me when I do. But it’s not even as simple as that though.

For instance, some guys have a really hard time handling smart women, and yet they can’t get satisfied unless they get intellectual stimulation, so they fluctuate between being drawn to smart women, only to end up resentful, and going after less smart women, only to end up bored. To handle this kind of guy, it’s important to keep his interest without challenging him directly. Offer input, but don’t contradict him. Express agreement, but add something he hadn’t thought off. Tell him your own conclusions, but make sure they seem to be drawn from whatever info he brought up. The same holds true for a dominance vs submission btw, you have to let him lead and take the initiatives, but still resist him sometimes and make it clear you mean it.

Of course, some guys just like feeling superior to the girls they date, while others like the thought of being with someone who’s really ‘too good’ for them, so in this case, the challenge is knowing when to downplay your strengths and draw attention to your weaknesses (assuming you actually want a guy like that), and when to do the opposite. And some men like women to be smart enough to stimulate them intellectually and give them prestige, but not so smart that they feel inferior in comparison, so with them, it’s all about hitting the right balance.

And finally, some men like that you surpass them in some ways, as long as they get to shine in other areas. Sometimes this is dependant on what the man considers his own territory (e.g. an engineer might not be attracted to a woman who knows more about machines than him, and a business man doesn’t want someone who’s too rich, but both would be fine if their girlfriend was more athletic than them), and sometimes it’s not. My boyfriend, for instance, considers himself a geek, but he has concluded a long time ago that I’m probably more overall intelligent than he is, and he’s fine with that as long as he still feel like he’s contributing something.

One guy I talked to, who was unusually aware of this dynamic and often handled it rather well (in that he rarely got into conflicts with women and were never attracted to anyone who didn’t make him feel good) described that “I can’t feel threatened by a woman, because I think the sexes are too different to compare. If a woman surpasses me at something, I assume I wouldn’t have stood a chance anyway, because her sex made her that much better equipped for the task. On the other hand, if I surpass a woman at something, I don’t feel any sense of triumph, because it wasn’t a fair competition”. I later got him to admit that if he’d been beaten up by a woman, he’d probably feel bad, because he’d been surpassed in ‘his’ (male) area.

Women aren’t always aware of this, just like men who use PUA tactics aren’t always aware of it either. I once talked to a girl about her boyfriend, remarking that he was the type who hated opposition and yet got frustrated if he didn’t get it, and I described the way I usually handled him (like telling him “Yes exactly! And don’t you also think…..?” or “I can see that, and I think it’s related to how…..” while slowly leading him to my conclusion while making him think it was his own), and her immediate reaction was “That’s what I do too! I hadn’t even noticed, but now that you say it, it’s the exact dynamic of our relationship.”

There’s a further layer of complexity because men often not only don’t know what they want, they also tend to say something different from what they think they want. For instance, I’ve learned that “I prefer brunettes with curves and a natural looking beauty (like you), who’re smart and independent (like you!), to those shallow Paris Hilton clones” sometimes really means “I’d like you a lot better if you bleached your hair, lost 30 pounds, started to wear more makeup and impractical shoes, and worked on making me look smarter”. He’s just not about to admit it. I’ve heard a couple of blond guys say that brunettes seem more sophisticated, deeper, and smart, and that this is what they’re supposed to go after, but they couldn’t help being attracted to blondes.

But when it comes to what actually satisfies a man, that shallow beauty is often not as appealing as what it seems like at first. There was a stand-up comedian who illustrated this dilemma, talking about Muslim heaven and getting 72 virgins: “At first, you’d think it’ll be great because of all the sex, but then you realise that you’ll be spending eternity surrounded by 16-year-olds! I think that after a couple of years of that, I’d go over to Allah’s place and ask him “If I kill myself for you again, is there a chance I can get sent to a different paradise where I’ll get 72 old whores who know what they’re talking about instead?””.

So sometimes, the guys who feed you the brunette line actually mean it, not necessarily because they’re really that unattracted to Paris Hilton clones (though some of them are, especially if they’ve internalised their disgust), and not because those girls are out of their league either, but because they’ve found out that to them, the initial attraction doesn’t lead to satisfaction in the long run. My boyfriend revealed to me that he tended to avoid girls in high heels, not because they weren’t sexy, but because it said something about them that he didn’t like (he once spent a week in school living as female as a bet, and having worn high heeled shoes himself, so he’s more likely to associate them with discomfort than than the average guy).

Compared all to that, the idea that women are attracted to dominant males, period, is heaven in its simplicity. And I guess that’s the point of it, to offer a simple and appealing explanation for a really diverse and complex behaviour. But the complexity of the real behaviour is due to the humanity, not the femaleness, of the target.

AB May 3, 2011 at 10:41 am #

@Infra:

When I’ve used them, it’s always been in a situation in which their use wouldn’t reflect well on me (i.e., it was obvious that I was making a faux pas, and I didn’t attempt to hide it). So in using one, I was willingly and intentionally taking an initial hit on myself, likely to a degree similar to that which my comment might impose on her.

This is much closer to what I associate with friendly teasing. I’ve often experienced that guys making intentionally rude remarks have literally ducked as if expecting a blow, or even directly said “You can hit me now”, showing that the blame is on him.

When a guy doesn’t do anything obvious to lessen the possible negative impact his remark has had, I’ve found it useful to observe what happens if you answer back in kind. Typically, guys who were just joking around tend to be pleased (sometimes even relieved) if you can give as good as you get, while guys who’re playing power-games either go sullen or do something to fight back and regain control.

Infra May 3, 2011 at 11:01 am #

@AB:

This is much closer to what I associate with friendly teasing. I’ve often experienced that guys making intentionally rude remarks have literally ducked as if expecting a blow, or even directly said “You can hit me now”, showing that the blame is on him.

Yeah, I’m quite familiar with that. :)

But that’s one of the reasons why the neg (in my understanding of it) strikes me as different. The thing that the feel of it brings to mind, more than anything else, is the use of a Queen sacrifice in a chess game. Most uses of the neg seem to be along the lines of lower-level sham sacrifices, instead.

When a guy doesn’t do anything obvious to lessen the possible negative impact his remark has had, I’ve found it useful to observe what happens if you answer back in kind.

Definitely. And I think that that’s what might be happening with the fact that I’ve used negs only in situations in which they won’t reflect well on me. Usually, that results in the other men in the group coming down on me for having said it, even if she isn’t terribly offended by it. The reaction to that seems to be pivotal, and it will make or break how things work out.

Sam May 3, 2011 at 11:09 am #

Clarisse,

I wonder how many mainstream women would say the same thing about how men should just explicitly communicate exactly what they want in a wife.

for all the dating problems women have, I don’t think that’s a fair reply to Hugh’s statement, mostly because the explicitness you’re referring is supposed to take place in a relationship, not while making the first steps towards a possible relationship. So that demand is certainly a justified one, but it’s not a fair “grass is greener on the other side” point with respect to initiating and flirting. At the point you’re referencing people should know each other sufficiently to communicate based on *actual* knowledge about the one person’s idiosyncracies, not reasonable assumtptions. Also, at that later poin in a relationship, the sequencing, which is so decisive in the beginning, is much less important – or, as Neil Strauss says, what’s required in “the game” is often the opposite of what’s required in a relationship.

SnowdropExplodes May 3, 2011 at 12:15 pm #

On the “neg” discussion, I am curious to know if people think this counts as a neg? Personally, I don’t, although it’s kind of related to the “playful teasing” interpretation of “neg”.

The incident is from my own project to try putting the ideas discussed in this and the ethical PUA thread into practice, and see if I can make it work in a way that works for me.

Sagredo May 3, 2011 at 12:25 pm #

You don’t need to explain yet again how PUAs think their tactics work. You’ve done so repeatedly, despite the fact that these threads have contained plenty of links already. And sorry to say this, but how PUAs describe their tactics is actually among the least useful ways of finding out whether or not criticism towards them is justified, because they’re pretty consistent in describing their methods as benevolent.

If you want to criticise something called “negging”, you are going to have to find out what that means. That means looking to find out what PUAs recommend, and evaluating those recommendations at face value.

Sure, if a neg was just that one line about a sunburn repeated over and over again it would be as simplified as what you claim. But it’s not, it’s about backhanded compliments and outwardly friendly insults in general, and that’s a far broader issue than gently teasing someone about their tan.

And when you do look at those recommendations at face value, you’ll find that they’re talking exactly about teasing someone about their tan, and similar remarks. It’s exactly that amused openness that they claim to be looking for, and it’s exactly insulting her that they claim to seek to avoid.

But if you want to evaluate some tactic that PUA practice that differs from the textbook descriptions of negging, you should really give it a different name. If there are PUA out there using insults to make women with low self-esteem more pliable, that’s sufficiently different from the PUA material on negging that it should be called something different.

You see, at the end of the day, gently teasing someone about their tan like that can work really really well and make both people feel good, open and sexy. And PUA happen to like that (that whole feeling good about themselves thing) and feel they need a name for that kind of thing, and this is what they’ve called it. An insult would work quite differently from this kind of gentle teasing, if it worked at all. It would probably, for instance, work better on women with lower self-esteem, which is also at variance with how PUA recommend negging.

If you feel the sunburn neg is unethical, then you have a complaint against negging. On the other hand, if you feel some tactic not described by PUA as negging is unethical, then you’re chasing something else.

Infra May 3, 2011 at 12:47 pm #

@Sagredo:

But if you want to evaluate some tactic that PUA practice that differs from the textbook descriptions of negging, you should really give it a different name.

You’re being selective about “textbook descriptions” here. The sunburn line is an example of one variant (and follows the way in which Mehow’s style of teasing is laid out, including the use of ellipses to separate the components), but it isn’t the only one out there; some descriptions emphasize that humor is an optional element, not a required one, and contain examples that would be a stretch to define as playful teasing (see the ones listed in the article at SoSuave), and others specifically define the neg as a neutral comment.

Maybe it’s the case that the different variants should have different names, but the fact that they don’t is something to be laid at the feet of the community, not at the feet of those who choose to focus on one variant while you choose to focus on another.

Patch May 3, 2011 at 12:57 pm #

@Infra:

When a man sees his arousal as integral to himself, as part of a larger world of experience, this works: he’s satisfying something that belongs to him. But if he sees his arousal as something that works through him, as a force to which he’s subject, then it can feel more like a short-circuit: as completing something prematurely, something that inherently requires the involvement of another body in order to be properly expressed. It’s possible to describe these differences as related to shame and pride, and both might be involved in the experience, but I’m inclined to think that those elements are second order effects, not primary concerns; the way in which the man relates to his own body — specifically, to his sensations of arousal — is likely a stronger element in producing them.

This is an interesting perspective. I’d argue that shame and appeals to pride are powerful factors in the way this sort of thing gets socially constructed, but that’s picking nits, and distracts from the more interesting point.

If pick up artistry is partially about self improvement, then one’s attitude toward one’s own sexuality would seem to be fair game for discussion, and possible change. Viewing your own sexuality as something you have some say in, and control over, seems to be the more “self improved” attitude to me. Not in the sense that you’ve learned to deny your biology (denial doesn’t work), but in the sense that you’ve learned to channel your needs so that they don’t absolutely dictate your actions, and so that you don’t have to step outside of ethical lines to satisfy them.

If one’s urges rule, I can see how one would consider oneself to be powerless in the face of the object of one’s desire. I can see the logical chain: “I can’t control myself, therefore others control me, therefore I must use trickery and deceit to get back at them, and get what I want.” I just don’t think that the last step in that chain represents a particularly _nice_ attitude, or a necessary one, given that there are other, more empowering ways of seeing the world.

There are great road maps for Kinksters when it comes to satisfying potentially ethically problematic needs in safe(r), sane(r) and consensual ways. I don’t actually get to kidnap and ravish princesses, for example, or get flogged to within in a inch of my life by cruel pirate mistresses (ahem. For example), but I’ve had a lot of fun playing with those tropes in consenting ways. It seems like there should be ways to satisfy more vanilla people that don’t involve coercion or trickery. But if the conversation never gets past “I have my needs and don’t deny them!” it doesn’t seem likely that we’ll ever discover them ;-)

AB May 3, 2011 at 2:29 pm #

@Infra:

But that’s one of the reasons why the neg (in my understanding of it) strikes me as different. The thing that the feel of it brings to mind, more than anything else, is the use of a Queen sacrifice in a chess game. Most uses of the neg seem to be along the lines of lower-level sham sacrifices, instead.

The way I see it, most negs seem to be more about power and dominance, whereas this sort of teasing is more about connecting with people in a friendly matter. A neg is supposed to tell the target that you aren’t that interested in her, whereas a lot of friendly teasing is about telling the target that you aren’t overly nervous around her. Both are about communicating confidence and lack of awe, so it’s a small (but vital) difference.

Maybe it’s the case that the different variants should have different names, but the fact that they don’t is something to be laid at the feet of the community, not at the feet of those who choose to focus on one variant while you choose to focus on another.

I agree (obviously), but I just wanted to add that I didn’t intend to choose to focus on only one aspect, I was merely disagreeing with the claim that a neg is only about making the target no longer perceive the PUA as supplicatory, which was made back in post 192.

Sagredo May 3, 2011 at 2:37 pm #

Really, it blows my mind how most PUAs can have such an easy time accepting that women have defence mechanisms in place to prevent them from being perceived as sluts, and that those defences can be circumvented by not confronting them directly and by giving the target as few as possible chances to stop it, and yet so many of them seem incredulous to the fact that people (including women) also have defences in place that are supposed to help them avoid loss of status, loss of confidence, loss of control, rape, abuse, etc., etc., and that these defences can also be circumvented by subtlety and not giving the target a chance to realise what’s going on.

LMR tactics work precisely by confronting LMR directly. In response to LMR, the man switches off his arousal. The woman then decides whether his arousal is more important to her than her anti-slut defence.

I can’t even imagine how switching off arousal and withdrawing would work around a woman’s defence in place to avoid rape.

Sagredo May 3, 2011 at 2:44 pm #

Infra, I’m looking at SoSuave, and like all the others, he stresses that negs are not supposed to be insults and are not supposed to be cruel. And looking at his examples, they mostly seem to be gentle teasing.

Sagredo May 3, 2011 at 2:49 pm #

SnowdropExplodes #274, that was a perfect neg. That’s what all the “it’s gentle teasing, not an insult” that the PUA material stresses over and over again is trying to suggest. And note what happened: In fact, it felt a bit like two humans communicating. That’s exactly what PUA try to achieve.

AB May 3, 2011 at 3:23 pm #

@SnowdropExplodes:

On the “neg” discussion, I am curious to know if people think this counts as a neg? Personally, I don’t, although it’s kind of related to the “playful teasing” interpretation of “neg”.

Since it wasn’t about her, it wasn’t a neg. Looking at the two sites linked to, PUA Lingo defines a neg as a backhanded compliment or similar remark, and all the examples are comments about the target. SoSuave defines it as a remark used to point out a woman’s flaws. Both of them seem to agree that the remark must be about the target, and must serve to discomfort her, make her unsure, or otherwise communicate that you’re not impressed with her.

You remark was playful, and obviously so, and didn’t seem designed to say anything negative about her. SoSuave says that it must be sincere, and I doubt that you sincerely wanted that pack of minced meat, or that she thought you really wanted it. Also, displaying obvious mock-annoyance is drawing attention to yourself (and your preposterous behaviour) and communicating that you know it’s an unreasonable demand. If that was a neg, then practically all instances of teasing can be called negs, and the word would lose its meaning.

Sagredo May 3, 2011 at 3:34 pm #

Clarisse, on women approaching,

As I have written, and repeatedly stated, though I’m not sure if I’ve stated it in this thread: women face higher penalties for attempting to initiate than men do. We freak men out by initiating, assuming they even read our intentions correctly (which they often don’t), or we get written off as “sluts”. I wrote an article about this problem.

I read your article, and I think you may well be right, but I also think you need to make a fair comparison too. I know men often say that they’d just love it if women approached and how easy that would be, but they’re not used to it and are likely mistaken. I think women occasionally take that at face value, think this approaching thing will be easy, and then are surprised and discouraged when it fails.

A woman approaching an attractive man should probably put in as much effort as a man approaching an attractive woman. If you take away anything from PUA, it should at least be that it can be quite a lot of work especially for folks that don’t have a natural self-confidence.

For instance, sometimes when I bother to dress up properly, I attract compliments from women about my appearance. It’s pleasantly boring. I smile and say “thank you” and that’s the end of it because they typically have no follow-up. Are they hitting on me? I have no idea because it’s functionally ineffective. It doesn’t make me interested in them.

A neg (a proper one, not an insult) would be much more effective on me as a way to engage my interest. But, of course, properly calibrating a neg to tease and not insult is effort and requires a certain degree of intelligence and self-confidence. Or really, any kind of opener that demonstrates qualities that happen to appeal to me would work better.

Very occasionally women approach me with a more obvious pickup. But when they do, they generally act like Average Frustrated Chumps. They indicate interest in me thereby (which is great) but fail to give me a reason to be interested in them. They fail to Demonstrate Higher Value. I’m not sure if they expect me to take over the lead at that point, or what.

And then again sometimes they do nothing wrong but are simply not the kind of woman I’m looking for. What I happen to like is for a woman to demonstrate a particular kind of wit. But everyone (men and women) has different things they are looking for and there is often no easy way of telling what they are.

Or sometimes they might be potentially the right kind of woman, but I’m having a bad day.

AB May 3, 2011 at 4:26 pm #

@machina:

I think you’re both over-estimating the power of female attractiveness, especially when it comes to actually meeting a woman’s desires. And a lot of your questions would simply contribute to the low self-esteem of a woman in this situation, which can make them continue trying to appeal to men even though the way they do so isn’t in their best interest. These women can then get into something like what Sam has called “perceived scarcity” where they feel there are very few men that can meet their desires. That can all contribute to them making bad decisions in choosing partners.

I think you’re right. I also think it’s worth looking at what she’s trying to accomplish, which seems to be to compensate for her perceived lack of self-worth by means of sexual attraction. The thing about women is that we learn from a very young age that just being used for sex is not a compliment. I’ve heard men joke about being willing to do even very unattractive women if said women had a paper bag over their head, so having some guy willing to fuck you wont do the trick.

In order to give her the desired boost of temporary confidence, one or more things must happen which disqualify a lot of the more clingy and unattractive guys who would have called her. First off, the man should approach her, because approaching a man is pathetic, and even if he agrees to sleep with her, there’s no guarantee he wouldn’t just think “Hey, a free cum-dumpster!”. Since the kind of guys that guys most often think women should go after rarely initiate, this means they’ll be unable to provide her with the feeling of confidence and self-worth that she’s seeking.

Secondly, the man should prefer her to other women. Again, overly desperate guys who’ll hit on anything will not make the cut, because they don’t make her feel special. Third, the man should be attractive, not necessarily by looking particularly good (though it helps immensely) or displaying admirable qualities, but by appearing to have high(er) social status so that his attention becomes more of a compliment. PUAs are on the right track with this, though they’re often fairly adamant in denying that anything targeting women with low self-esteem takes place.

And fourth, this doesn’t mean that typical Nice Guys don’t have any influence on her, because as much as women like that don’t want to sleep with them, there’s a pretty good chance their approval and admiration will still be important, even when it’s taken for granted. In fact, if a Nice Guy learns to play on her insecurities (like getting close to her and then submitting her to a freeze-out), he can achieve a lot of the same as the more traditional kind of jerk, sometimes even going as far as sleeping with her

Sam May 3, 2011 at 6:52 pm #

AB,

really?

“First off, the man should approach her, because approaching a man is pathetic, and even if he agrees to sleep with her, there’s no guarantee he wouldn’t just think “Hey, a free cum-dumpster!”.”

how you can say stuff that and not agree with me about female sexual scarcity being the root cause of the problems is beyond me.

“Since the kind of guys that guys most often think women should go after rarely initiate, this means they’ll be unable to provide her with the feeling of confidence and self-worth that she’s seeking.”

[sarcasm]I’m knew there was a way the problems could be caused both by the guys who do approach her as well as those who don’t.[/sarcasm]

“And fourth, this doesn’t mean that typical Nice Guys don’t have any influence on her, because as much as women like that don’t want to sleep with them, there’s a pretty good chance their approval and admiration will still be important, even when it’s taken for granted.”

[sarcasm]… and of course, those typical nice guys whose sexual admiration is taken for granted without any intent of reciprocation should have nothing else in mind but helping out selflessly, thus ensuring they will be seen as a doormat and never become the guy who can even appear as if he had higher social status which he could, in turn, compliment her with… [/sarcasm]

Infra May 3, 2011 at 7:53 pm #

@Sagredo:

Infra, I’m looking at SoSuave, and like all the others, he stresses that negs are not supposed to be insults and are not supposed to be cruel. And looking at his examples, they mostly seem to be gentle teasing.

I didn’t say that any of them claimed that negs should be insults, or cruel. (As was discussed upthread, though, even if this were the case, it’s doubtful that it would be openly acknowledged.) But as far as gentle teasing goes… we have very different styles when it comes to that, then. I use teasing quite a bit, sometimes gentle and sometimes “smile and duck,” but most of the examples given in the SoSuave article, like 2-4, 6 and 7 in the “Choice” list, and 2, 4-6, 8, 10 and 11 in the “Physical Trait” list (which amounts to 50+% of each), are ones that I would not consider appropriate for either style.

Using them for teasing would just come off as either (1) amusing myself at someone else’s expense, in which case “cruel” would be an appropriate description, or (2) being completely clueless about how what I was saying would affect them, in which case “insulting” would be a match. In fact, I’d suspect that that’s part of why negs have a reputation for being insulting and cruel: assuming that something can be used as a tease when it shouldn’t be.

@SnowdropExplodes:

I wouldn’t call it a neg; it’s a good example of banter.

Good to see that you’re having some mutually enjoyable and positive results. :)

Clarisse May 3, 2011 at 7:56 pm #

quickly –

@Sam — for all the dating problems women have, I don’t think that’s a fair reply to Hugh’s statement, mostly because the explicitness you’re referring is supposed to take place in a relationship, not while making the first steps towards a possible relationship. So that demand is certainly a justified one, but it’s not a fair “grass is greener on the other side” point with respect to initiating and flirting. At the point you’re referencing people should know each other sufficiently to communicate based on *actual* knowledge about the one person’s idiosyncracies, not reasonable assumtptions. Also, at that later poin in a relationship, the sequencing, which is so decisive in the beginning, is much less important – or, as Neil Strauss says, what’s required in “the game” is often the opposite of what’s required in a relationship.

hmm, well, I didn’t really mean it to be a take-down or a direct response to HR so much as a thought I had while reading what he wrote.

It’s not clear to me when, in the “normal” run of things, people are supposed to feel okay having the Explicit Talk About Emotions. It seems like it can require pretty considerable emotional escalation game to get to that point, actually, depending on who’s playing. (It’s worth noting that many PUAs explicitly encourage guys to derail or head off all a woman’s potential attempts at having an actual conversation about the relationship — part of their “frame control”.)

@Patch — There are great road maps for Kinksters when it comes to satisfying potentially ethically problematic needs in safe(r), sane(r) and consensual ways. I don’t actually get to kidnap and ravish princesses, for example, or get flogged to within in a inch of my life by cruel pirate mistresses (ahem. For example), but I’ve had a lot of fun playing with those tropes in consenting ways. It seems like there should be ways to satisfy more vanilla people that don’t involve coercion or trickery. But if the conversation never gets past “I have my needs and don’t deny them!” it doesn’t seem likely that we’ll ever discover them ;-)

OMG I CAN FEEL MYSELF BECOMING MORE SANE AND TRUE TO MY IDEALS WHEN YOU COMMENT. This is the kind of comment I should have made, and have in the past. As Neil Strauss once wrote, all the sarging is beginning to scramble my brain.

@Sagredo — For instance, sometimes when I bother to dress up properly, I attract compliments from women about my appearance. It’s pleasantly boring. I smile and say “thank you” and that’s the end of it because they typically have no follow-up. Are they hitting on me? I have no idea because it’s functionally ineffective. It doesn’t make me interested in them.

I do approaches and openers occasionally, and it can be really hard. I can’t tell how much of the time it’s because it doesn’t enter the guy’s head that I’m hitting on him. But I’m sure that sometimes it’s because I’m not sufficiently witty, pretty, etc. (The other day I went to a coffeeshop to do work but didn’t bother to wear decent clothing because I really wanted to get work done, and while I was there I ended up attempting to pick up a guy based on the Noisebridge sticker on his laptop — yes! a Noisebridge sticker in Chicago! — and I was sort of successful, but he flaked on me and I strongly suspect he wouldn’t have if I’d looked better.)

Can you give an example of good follow-up you’ve experienced?

(Also, on the topic of flaking: while I have admittedly flaked on a number of guys in my life, especially lately — I think reading PUA material makes me feel more okay with being indirect and stereotypically girly — I’ve had THREE guys flake on me in the past few weeks. One was Noisebridge dude, which I sort of expected. One was a guy who I had a really awesome several-hour talk with and who seemed to really like me, so I was more disappointed, but he’s a grad student and has some kind of unclear-relationship-kinda-ex in his life, so I doubt it’s about me. And one was Richard, of my coming-out story, who I still hang out with sometimes for some reason. Y’all may appreciate the conversation I had with Richard when we were planning to hang out:

Richard: We should hang out.
Me: Okay, when?
R: Well, my schedule’s really busy. How about Sunday or Tuesday?
Me: Mine too, but I can do Sunday.
R: Okay.
Me: Cool.
R: Well, I might cancel. Would you be mad if I did?
Me: I don’t know. It’s been a while since you canceled on me. Probably not. What are the chances you’ll cancel?
R: I’d give it a 90% chance I won’t cancel.
Me: Look, Richard ….
R: Seriously, 90%. I mean it. You have to give me a 90% chance you won’t be mad if I cancel.
Me: Okay, 90%.

Then he canceled. As one of my friends later observed, “Wow, 10% is just low enough to make you feel pretty confident that it’ll happen, but high enough that he can still cancel without seeming like too much of an asshole.” Richard is very precisely calibrated for that sort of thing. I had a backup plan, of course, as I always do with him. I had to laugh, though — mostly at myself. I really don’t know why I’m even still friends with him sometimes. I guess he must have really good game, huh?)

Or sometimes they might be potentially the right kind of woman, but I’m having a bad day.

Thanks for acknowledging that guys can have bitch shields too ;)

Clarisse May 3, 2011 at 7:59 pm #

Also, of the guys who flaked on me, the first two guys did it by just plain failing to get back to me about plans we’d already made. SO DON’T TELL ME THAT THIS IS A FEMALE THING.

Sagredo May 3, 2011 at 8:51 pm #

But as far as gentle teasing goes… we have very different styles when it comes to that, then. I use teasing quite a bit, sometimes gentle and sometimes “smile and duck,” but most of the examples given in the SoSuave article, like 2-4, 6 and 7 in the “Choice” list, and 2, 4-6, 8, 10 and 11 in the “Physical Trait” list (which amounts to 50+% of each), are ones that I would not consider appropriate for either style.

None of them are as witty as the sunburn one, but I like most of them.

“You have very pretty blue eyes… You shouldn’t use so much eye shadow. It detracts from the colour of your eyes.”

I’m more of a flirt than a PUA, but I can definitely imagine using that one on a woman who was sufficiently full of herself. I think I’ve said similar things actually.

In fact, I’d suspect that that’s part of why negs have a reputation for being insulting and cruel: assuming that something can be used as a tease when it shouldn’t be.

I suspect there are a lot of guys trying out this PUA thing who are not calibrating their negs properly and end up being insulting, and that’s giving negs a bad reputation.

Sam May 3, 2011 at 8:56 pm #

Clarisse,

“It’s not clear to me when, in the “normal” run of things, people are supposed to feel okay having the Explicit Talk About Emotions. It seems like it can require pretty considerable emotional escalation game to get to that point, actually, depending on who’s playing.”

I don’t know *when*, just that it will only happen once they’re in a relationship already. And that likely means that they know each other better than people who have just met and can thus work from actual experience with this specific person rather than from assumptions about a person that are derived from past experiences, observations, and third-party advice.

“emotional escalation game”

LOL. Is that an actual term for “falling in love”?

machina May 3, 2011 at 9:59 pm #

Patch:

There are great road maps for Kinksters when it comes to satisfying potentially ethically problematic needs in safe(r), sane(r) and consensual ways. I don’t actually get to kidnap and ravish princesses, for example, or get flogged to within in a inch of my life by cruel pirate mistresses (ahem. For example), but I’ve had a lot of fun playing with those tropes in consenting ways. It seems like there should be ways to satisfy more vanilla people that don’t involve coercion or trickery. But if the conversation never gets past “I have my needs and don’t deny them!” it doesn’t seem likely that we’ll ever discover them ;-)

I’ve thought about this a bit because it comes up occasionally in Clarisse’s writing. I wrote a post on it last year when I actually bothered with blogging, main part was:

I thought I had an epiphany for a little while. I was going to compare dating to the kind of play that occurs in BDSM. Surely if you can have rape play or torture play or castration play, you can have dating play. It seems utterly trivial in comparison. People could just have a “dating kink” that they act out with like-minded kinksters. Except, except, except… dating isn’t play. It’s a game. It’s The Game. Play is co-operative and expressive, while a game is competitive, driven by the outcome. The kind of play that occurs in BDSM occurs after a partner has been chosen, while dating is the selective process by which partners are chosen.

However I’m not going to give up on a good idea just because it happens to be wrong. Maybe it should become right instead. I said in my previous post that the subject of a social theory can respond to that theory, so people should be able to respond to this. The ones that read it at least. The problem with dating from a typical male point of view, such as The Game, is that it is single-mindedly, overwhelmingly, hyperventilatingly focused on sex. Dating then becomes a process of sexual selection of males, and social Darwinist explanations of behaviour reduce both men and women into simple antagonistic constructs. Now I’m a devout atheist and an ardent evolutionist, but social Darwinism rarely ends well. While sexual selection may be a reasonable model of human reproductive behaviour, the goals of men in having romantic relationships with women go beyond sex.

When people say ” go beyond sex”, normally they mean that men want sex, of course, but also like hanging out, going to movies or square dancing with their partner. Their sexual partner. But I wonder if those non-sexual activities can be seen as goals in themselves. Getting back to the idea of play, I wonder whether men can see going to a movie with a girl in a romantic context as an end itself, without seeing it as just another stepping stone towards Ultimate Vaginal Conquest XXXVII. Now BDSM is of course negotiated and consented to, so should there be a similar mechanism for dating to be negotiated? Could how far the date goes be agreed to before the date begins, but not only that, what each person wants from the date? I think it’s possible, but I guess a lot of people will think it takes the romance out of dating. Which is a similar argument that can be made towards BDSM, it seems a bit contrived to agree to be tied up and tortured, or consent to being raped. Yet many people get what they want from such contrived agreements, and I don’t see why they couldn’t from dating agreements.

Scootah May 3, 2011 at 11:45 pm #

@Sagredo

and that’s giving negs a bad reputation.

You don’t think that maybe what’s giving negs a bad reputation is that a neg is by deffinition, a back handed compliment, designed to lower the ego of the target and cause vulnerability that the PUA can take advantage of?

I’m not really sure that you need to be exposed to an incorrectly calibrated neg to follow the concept through and view it in a poor light. The best calibrated neg in the world still sounds like kind of a dick move to me.

Sagredo May 4, 2011 at 2:38 am #

Clarisse,

Can you give an example of good follow-up you’ve experienced?

Sadly, no! It just doesn’t happen often enough. I mean I wouldn’t even mind a woman asking me who lies more or running the Cube on me…

AB May 4, 2011 at 3:05 am #

@Sam:

really?

Yes really. Her particular kind of problem won’t be solved by guys being less interested in her, and the symptoms can’t be alleviated be dating Nice Guys, so really, in her particular Hell, that’s just not going to seem a viable option.

BTW, I think it’s very illustrative how a girl can obviously be feeling terrible, to the point of even staying in a violent relationship, and the first reaction from guys hearing about it is to blame her for not giving giving guys like them more sex. It perfectly illustrates the mentality of Nice Guys, and why healthy girls are rarely interested in them.

how you can say stuff that and not agree with me about female sexual scarcity being the root cause of the problems is beyond me.

Do you honestly think she would be feeling better about herself if men were less interested in her? Do you think her lacking feelings of self-worth would somehow disappear because guys around her got more sex and weren’t as interested in chasing her?

I hope you remember what this was actually about, a woman feeling terrible about herself, not guys getting passed over because a woman was feeling terrible about herself. Do you think it would be easy for her to find a guy who would call her back if those sorts of guys were more likely to already be dating, and do you think it would actually help her feeling better if she dated those sorts of guys?

[sarcasm]I’m knew there was a way the problems could be caused both by the guys who do approach her as well as those who don’t.[/sarcasm]

Here’s the difference between you and me. You see this as an issue of a woman not dating the right guys, I see this as an issue of a woman not feeling good about herself. Unless dating the right guys would make her feel good about herself (which is unlikely because a: lots of clingy guys are terrible at giving emotional support and many healthy guys avoid girls like her, and b: the lacking self-worth probably has some other cause than sex and trying to have sex to compensate for something else is usually a bad idea), her sexual habits are just a symptom of a much bigger issue. And that issue, in case you haven’t noticed, is her lacking self-esteem, not guys’ lack of pussy in their lives.

[sarcasm]… and of course, those typical nice guys whose sexual admiration is taken for granted without any intent of reciprocation should have nothing else in mind but helping out selflessly, thus ensuring they will be seen as a doormat and never become the guy who can even appear as if he had higher social status which he could, in turn, compliment her with… [/sarcasm]

Actually, I think those guys should get out of her life, and everybody else’ life. They’re not helping.

machina May 4, 2011 at 4:47 am #

AB:

I think you’re right. I also think it’s worth looking at what she’s trying to accomplish, which seems to be to compensate for her perceived lack of self-worth by means of sexual attraction.

I’ve been critical of male sexuality being about sexual accomplishment on Clarisse’s blog before and I think you’re falling into that trap with this reply, albeit with regard to female sexuality.

AB May 4, 2011 at 4:59 am #

@machina:

I’ve been critical of male sexuality being about sexual accomplishment on Clarisse’s blog before and I think you’re falling into that trap with this reply, albeit with regard to female sexuality.

I think that if you’re so desperate for approval and regard that you stay with someone who treats you badly just because they called you back, it’s reasonable to talk about accomplishment. I wasn’t making any statements about female sexuality, I was theorising about her sexuality, or rather, her use of sexuality, based on what I know about low self-esteem.

Infra May 4, 2011 at 5:59 am #

@AB:

The way I see it, most negs seem to be more about power and dominance, whereas this sort of teasing is more about connecting with people in a friendly matter.

Yeah, I think that we’re just stating the same thing in different ways. It strikes me that attempts to connect negs to playful teasing are more about trying to connect negging with the push component of push-pull than about viewing the neg as an independent phenomenon, which is where the confusion between the two comes in.

@Patch:

I can see the logical chain: “I can’t control myself, therefore others control me, therefore I must use trickery and deceit to get back at them, and get what I want.”

I can see this, but I think that a more subtle version might be more common: “These feelings come to me from outside, therefore they’re part of an external process, therefore my imperative is to take control of that process, because that’s the means of taking control of myself.” It’s within that frame that I think that the concepts of social proof, dominance, leading, et al. make the most sense, along with the emphasis placed upon biological factors, and it syncs better with statements like “don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

But the two can certainly connect, as when (individual) women come to be seen as representative of that process, or as being skilled in the use of that process in a way in which men (with the possible exception of naturals) are not, which bleeds things over into an assumed power imbalance. And once there, we get into Matrix analogy territory, especially if/when women come to be seen as Agents — or, more accurately, as the people whom the Agents move through and who they take control of. The woman in the red dress.

That might be the best way to describe how “social programming” is viewed in much of the community, really: not as a description of the Matrix, but as possession by an Agent. Which makes breaking through LMR, bitch shields, ASD and the rest into more than tactics. They become, essentially, heroic acts.

So, in a way, it’s almost as if the community is already in scene; but the scene was created upon a premise (the relation of individual to process) that made it inherently flawed — not unlike how, in Greg Egan’s Distress, the illness is related to the proposed TOE — and, ironically enough, members of the community may not even be aware that they’re performing in one at all.

Lathe of Heaven May 4, 2011 at 10:33 am #

Clarisse –

Well, it’s clear that I’m not going to make any headway here so I think I’ll take my leave. I’m de-subscribing and won’t comment again, and here is my Parthian shot for you to use as you see fit.

I think you’re on to some basically good ideas, like investigating how and why people don’t understand the experience of people from differing tribes. [Free hint: men have to invent their own theories of women's psyches because women themselves never say anything interpretable about their experience, ie anything which is simultaneously coherent and not obviously untrue.] And, unlike prolific commenter AB, for example, who is clearly a hopeless case, you seem willing to put at least an iota of effort into being open-minded and learning something. However, overall I think you’re tragically handicapping yourself with your ritualistic obeisance to the Marcottian Prime Directive; which, when translated into plain English runs roughly thus:

Men as a group can always and freely be blamed for anything that’s bad or wrong in the world. But, it is NEVER the case that women as a group can legitimately be blamed for anything bad or wrong; a heretofore-undiscovered law of biophysics guarantees that this simply cannot happen.

If you doubt the plain fact of your allegiance to this principle, simply look over your own writing on this very thread and count: how many sentences conform to the Prime Directive? and how many could be described as outside it or challenging it? If you’re honest I think you’ll find the ratio is at least 30 to 1. Your intellect and energy which could produce something true and useful are instead shackled to this dead religion, and the result is — really, no snark — a loss for everyone.

If you can’t free yourself intellectually, then AB might be an example of how you will wind up: a capable writer, but a destroyed person; blind, vitriolic, saturated with hatred, and most importantly faulty. Don’t take my word for it, just look at the evidence right in front of you: look over AB’s voluminous writing on this very thread, and if you’re honest you’ll see that essentially every one of her substantive statements is simply wrong; illogical, unjustified or just plain made up. It’s like watching a car crash, the self-destruction of what was once probably a decent intellect; do you really want to go that way?

Obedience to the Prime Directive can drive its acolytes to quite embarrassing depths. Taking you and AB as a tag team, just in this thread you’ve deployed nearly every fallacy in the book including (just by my informal count): strategic mis-quotations, non-responsive mis-directions, deliberate elisions, ad hominem attacks, privileging form over content, absurd straw-man [-person?] exaggerations, statistically ludicrous extrapolations, risibly false equivalences, sidestepping objective facts to focus on presumed motivations; and so on and so on. Really, it’s been kind of a logician’s dream: even if you’d tried, the two of you probably couldn’t have generated a better full-spectrum catalog of faulty, bad-faith reasoning than what we see here.

Fulminating is fun, of course! but I don’t know if you appreciate how deeply it hurts your cause: the person deploying faulty reasoning is very likely the person who’s losing the argument. Basically, you and AB and to varying extents all the other feminist-minded commenters are showing all the outward signs of someone who has already lost the basic argument on facts and logic, and needs to stoop to these pathetic rhetorical devices in order to have anything to say at all.

Of course, this is just one tile in the big mosaic. Overall, this kind of academically-inflected feminism always puts me in mind of the old Bourbon monarchies in exile: they forget nothing, they learn nothing, and they waste away their lives dancing out rituals for a world that doesn’t exist. I won’t be watching for the result one way or the other; but I do honestly hope that you don’t wind up that way, and wish you the best of luck in your future.

Lathe

Clarisse May 4, 2011 at 1:12 pm #

I think I’m starting to recognize this strain of MRA argument, since it’s deployed against me so often. It seems to go something like this:

Wow, Clarisse, you are so smart and I genuinely respect your intellect! But the minute you overtly reference feminist theory or feminist activism, I will call you irrational and ignore the point you brought up. Because feminism can’t be correct in any way, you are no longer correct as soon as you mention it, despite the fact that I have previously acknowledged that you are smart and I respect your intellect. Also, I will compare you to Amanda Marcotte.

Patch May 4, 2011 at 1:20 pm #

@Clarisse

OMG I CAN FEEL MYSELF BECOMING MORE SANE AND TRUE TO MY IDEALS WHEN YOU COMMENT. This is the kind of comment I should have made, and have in the past. As Neil Strauss once wrote, all the sarging is beginning to scramble my brain.

Aw shucks. Happy to be of help :-)

@machina

Now BDSM is of course negotiated and consented to, so should there be a similar mechanism for dating to be negotiated?

I like where you were going, especially the above sentence. Fundamentally, I think that it’s got to be about open communication. Which is hard. But it seems like lots of the dead ends this thread has run into have their roots in attempting to take honest conversation off of the table.

One note: honesty isn’t the same thing as being undiplomatic, rude, overly blunt, or unsexy. You can still phrase what you say well, bring up topics at appropriate points in the conversation, etc. But I don’t think that you can get away from clear communication as a requirement.

The sex is better when you’ve talked about what you both like first, anyway.

Clarisse May 4, 2011 at 1:25 pm #

And you know what’s most annoying about that? It makes it harder to recognize legit critiques of feminism, which I really want to be open to. But when so many critiques of feminism come from people who then say things like “women themselves never say anything interpretable about their experience, ie anything which is simultaneously coherent and not obviously untrue” … really? Really, you expect me to take you seriously?

In other news, this goes back to my comment on coherence on the ePUA thread. My theory about that is starting to seem more and more solid.

machina May 4, 2011 at 1:41 pm #

AB:

I think that if you’re so desperate for approval and regard that you stay with someone who treats you badly just because they called you back, it’s reasonable to talk about accomplishment.

Ok, I agree it’s reasonable to talk about accomplishment, and it’s something that I don’t think has been covered much with regard to women, but it seemed to me that you were advocating this behaviour, such as by using the word “should” a few times. I think that kind of behaviour leads to other problems so I don’t think advocating it is a good idea. I think now that you were trying to explain this behaviour, is that right?

I wasn’t making any statements about female sexuality, I was theorising about her sexuality, or rather, her use of sexuality, based on what I know about low self-esteem.

Gah, AB, you did say: “The thing about women is that we learn from a very young age that just being used for sex is not a compliment”. I think that is saying something about female sexuality, at least it’s a generalisation about how female sexual behaviour is perceived. I think you were applying a lot of generalisations, to the point where you seemed to be arguing about the general case.

Anyway, I actually partly disagree with you about this woman’s motivations. I think she liked the sense of accomplishment that came from her being able to attract lots of men; however she seemed primarily interested in getting into a long term relationship. I think that can bring an important sense of accomplishment too. You’re right she was using her sexuality though.

Patch May 4, 2011 at 1:48 pm #

@Lathe (or sideways to Lathe, if they really have left): if you’re going to involve yourself in debates that get into psychology and social sciences, you’re going to have a accept more rational squishiness than perhaps you are comfortable with.

The fledgling fields of neuroscience and evolutionary biology may someday come up with “harder” answers to some of these “soft” questions, but we’re a long ways away from that point.

If we can ever get to it. I don’t know enough information theory (nobody may know enough information theory), but there may be some limitations on how much a self aware process can know about its own inherent biases; we may be stuck with the squishiness forever.

In the meantime, it never hurts to try a little empathy, and attempt to see things from another person’s point of view. That’s what a lot of this boils down to — how do we come up with ways of initiating one night stands, relationships, and other romantic interactions in ways that look cool from within the heads of all the humans involved.

Sagredo May 4, 2011 at 2:59 pm #

Clarisse wrote,

But when so many critiques of feminism come from people who then say things like “women themselves never say anything interpretable about their experience, ie anything which is simultaneously coherent and not obviously untrue” … really? Really, you expect me to take you seriously?

What Lathe said reminded me of the frequent PUA advice to ignore anything that women say about pickup, as it tends to be useless, or at least take it with a grain of salt.

I can see some truth in that, but then when thinking about a kind of female pickup behaviour that might work best on me, I find I can’t be any more definitive. I think it’s an attraction thing, not a female thing.

Sam May 4, 2011 at 3:35 pm #

AB,

BTW, I think it’s very illustrative how a girl can obviously be feeling terrible, to the point of even staying in a violent relationship, and the first reaction from guys hearing about it is to blame her for not giving giving guys like them more sex. It perfectly illustrates the mentality of Nice Guys, and why healthy girls are rarely interested in them.

We really shouldn’t get into a nice guy discussion without explicitly defining what’s being referred to by the term. I also think the topic (and the corollary “girl only like jerks”) has been dealt with thoroughly, in particular by humbition, in the first followup thread. I’ve also contributed my theory what nice guys actually are, Hugh Ristik has an entire theory about it, and, I think, Motley linked to a psychological discussion about present bias that explains the rest of whatever *real* phenomenon there is, the rest is largely myth.

You know, blaming and not understanding are two different things. I don’t think anyone should be easily blamed for individual psychology, however strange it may appear to outsiders. But wondering *why* is a different thing. I don’t think that many people will have the intention to blame her, but I suppose it’s easy to hear that, like you do.

Do you honestly think she would be feeling better about herself if men were less interested in her? Do you think her lacking feelings of self-worth would somehow disappear because guys around her got more sex and weren’t as interested in chasing her?

I do. Well, first off, her lacking feeling of self-worth can only partly be helped by outsider intervention anyway. If she doesn’t like herself in the first place, no amount of male attention will change that. There’s a quote from Baudelaire, originally with respect to men, but it also applies to women, I suppose – “Those men get along best with women who can get along best without them.” And in that quote there’s also the answer to the second part of your question: I believe that the most annoying and potentially harmful aspects of male mating behaviour are a – largely cultural – consequence of perceived sexual scarcity. I believe that reducing that perceived scarcity is the single most effective way to deal with gender problems. Alas, feminists tend to disagree on that… ;)

I hope you remember what this was actually about, a woman feeling terrible about herself, not guys getting passed over because a woman was feeling terrible about herself. Do you think it would be easy for her to find a guy who would call her back if those sorts of guys were more likely to already be dating, and do you think it would actually help her feeling better if she dated those sorts of guys?

I think there would be generally less need for playing games which would benefit her to the extent that she’s in that situation due to her perceied need to play along with a game she likely knows won’t help her.

Here’s the difference between you and me.

No, the difference is that you assume she’s feeling bad about herself is a reasonable reaction to male behaviour, when in fact no one knows what the cause of that hypothetical state is. I don’t see it as an issue of this woman dating the wrong guys, or being pathologically drawn to something that will not make her feel good, but those are likely consequence of whatever makes her feel the need to do what she does. In that respect, I do see this really more as a an issue of a woman not feeling good about herself – but I don’t blame it on guys, and I don’t believe that dating a perceived high status guy will fundamentally help a LSE woman. So we basically agree on that.

“Actually, I think those guys should get out of her life, and everybody else’ life. They’re not helping.”

No, they’re not. But as opposed to you I think that, just as the hypothetical woman in this case, they should get help to deal with their issues.

To the extent that both the guys and her issues are a consequence of problematic scripts and their lacking ability to deal with the scripts’ instructions in their individual reality, a discussion like this may be contributing to mutual understanding of the problem and open a discussion that may contribute to allow people to deal better with the issues at hand.

But, again, acceptance must come first.

AB May 4, 2011 at 3:55 pm #

@Machina:

Ok, I agree it’s reasonable to talk about accomplishment, and it’s something that I don’t think has been covered much with regard to women, but it seemed to me that you were advocating this behaviour, such as by using the word “should” a few times. I think that kind of behaviour leads to other problems so I don’t think advocating it is a good idea. I think now that you were trying to explain this behaviour, is that right?

You’re right that I was trying to explain her behaviour (and thanks for assuming that, not many guys would, apparently). The thing that struck me was that descriptions of women like her always inspire the same two reactions: One of almost unconditional sympathy (“women don’t have it as easy as they’re made out to”) and one of misogynist resentment (“she (i.e. women) must like the abuse, why isn’t she having sex with ~~someone like~~ me instead?”).

And the end result is always the same, the sympathetic side gets (rightfully, I believe) upset and talk about victim blaming, and the resentful side make conclusions like Lathe did here, that women never make sense, are always illogical, and can’t say anything coherent. I’m not really interested in the latter side, because it’s so openly sexist, but I do think this sort of behaviour should be analysed a little deeper than just “she had low self-esteem so she became self-destructive”.

So I thought a little about what she actually got out of those liaisons, and I came to the conclusion that Nice Guys (especially of the misogynist and resentful kind) really don’t have a lot to offer in that regard. Truth be told, I hadn’t even considered that it would be seen as advocating the behaviour, because I had just written a lot about how some of the principles behind certain PUA tactics (namely doing something which confuses, unnerves, and takes away control from the target) were also behind most effective techniques for abuse, without ever being accused of advocating said abuse (and considering that that was close to the only thing I wasn’t accused of…..).

Gah, AB, you did say: “The thing about women is that we learn from a very young age that just being used for sex is not a compliment”. I think that is saying something about female sexuality, at least it’s a generalisation about how female sexual behaviour is perceived. I think you were applying a lot of generalisations, to the point where you seemed to be arguing about the general case.

That was a generalisation, but (I believe) a true one. And I didn’t get it listening to women (though their involvement in slut-shaming really says it all), I got it by listening to men, who frequently make negative remarks about women they’re willing to sleep with. An this woman operates in the context to being a woman. If a man feels bad about himself, there might be a chance that any sexual attention from a woman will be unambiguously positive, but for a woman, having some guys that few other women are interested in moan over her doesn’t really have the same effect.

Anyway, I actually partly disagree with you about this woman’s motivations. I think she liked the sense of accomplishment that came from her being able to attract lots of men; however she seemed primarily interested in getting into a long term relationship. I think that can bring an important sense of accomplishment too. You’re right she was using her sexuality though.

I don’t think it’s one or the other. I think a large part of it is the feeling “I’m someone that others want to be with!”, and while people might not like it, I think a guy who appears like a desperate doormat will be unlikely to inspire that feeling, just like a chubby hippie chick generally wont give the same ego-boost as someone looking like a model, no matter how good a girlfriend she would make.

This whole thing has actually convinced me more than ever that the idea expressed by Hugh Ristik and other male posters in this thread, that men are open and simple, and women are the mysterious and complex ones, is deeply misplaced. Getting the opposite sex (or just people who differ from you in any way) is never easy, and most people who think they’re making it easy for others to understand them are sadly mistaken.

I didn’t foresee the effect a post like mine would have. In fact, I thought I was doing what I was asked to, providing a more detailed explanation for a behaviour that many men appear to have trouble understanding (which is a bit odd, because I often see men act similarly, but I digress). I was trying to avoid the usual “She’s a victim!”/“Women are faulty!” schism, not fuel it, by suggesting a theory that, for a woman looking for confirmation of her worth, that sort of behaviour is actually perfectly logical, within the frame of an unhealthy self-concept.

I think it makes it harder that I’m so often told that men are simple, open, easily understood, blunt, honest, tough, hardly ever offended etc., so I sometimes forget that many men (not necessarily you btw :-) are sensitive to perceived critique, don’t react well to bluntness, and aren’t all that clear on what they want, meaning that “I want to have this feminine behaviour explained” usually means something more along the lines of “I want this behaviour explained in a way that I don’t feel reflects badly on me” (or, for certain people “I want this behaviour explained in a way that reflects badly on women”).

My style is blunt, to both sexes, but I don’t argue in bad faith, and sometimes I let myself get baited more than I ought to because I assume the same of others. But with so many men in this thread blaming women for not saying anything about their wishes and experiences, I wish more of them would be clear on what they actually want answered. “Why do (some) women behave like this?”, “Are there other causes for LMR than ASD?”, “Why should there be a difference between negging and friendly teasing?”, whatever. There’ll probably never be a definitive answer, but if people feel like they’re not even getting any explanations, it would be nice to know.

AB May 4, 2011 at 4:10 pm #

@Sam:

No, the difference is that you assume she’s feeling bad about herself is a reasonable reaction to male behaviour,

Please be kind to point out to me where you think I said that she was feeling bad because of the guys. I thought I was just arguing from the premise that she was feeling bad, and that she was trying to alleviate that in the way she related to men. I thought I was very careful to not get into why she was feeling that way in the first place, because I know it’s a different (and complicated) issue, so I’m very curious as to why that was you first conclusion.

No, they’re not. But as opposed to you I think that, just as the hypothetical woman in this case, they should get help to deal with their issues.

I didn’t say anything about getting anyone help, not even the woman. I didn’t talk about why she was feeling bad, I didn’t talk about which method she should be using to make herself feel better instead, I didn’t talk about who should make her feel better, I didn’t talk about whether or not her behaviour was fair to men, I didn’t talk about why the Nice Guys acted as they did, and I didn’t mention anything about them not needing help. If you must know, I think the woman should get the Hell away from those bars too, but that is not related to why she acts as she does in regards to men.

If you has suspicions about me, by all means voice them and let me answer, but please don’t make assumptions about things I haven’t addressed without giving me a chance to address them.

Hugh Ristik May 4, 2011 at 4:25 pm #

Lathe, I get that you aren’t seeing eye to eye with Clarisse (I’m not, either, on several points), but I really disagree with how you characterize her participation in this thread. If you wanted to accuse her of grass-is-greener-ism, that would make sense. But comparing her to Amanda Marcotte is just overboard.

Anyway, you’ve made some good posts on this thread (aside from your parting one), so you would be welcome to come over to my blog if you want to develop some of the lines of thought you were working on.

Clarisse said:

But when so many critiques of feminism come from people who then say things like “women themselves never say anything interpretable about their experience, ie anything which is simultaneously coherent and not obviously untrue” … really? Really, you expect me to take you seriously?

I sort of made a weaker version of this argument above, which could be summed up as: “women who aren’t high IQ and nerdy often have trouble describing their preferences in a way that is interpretable by men.”

And it’s not necessarily their fault. Women’s preferences are complex, and the language available for discussing them is terrible. “Nice guy”? “Jerk”? These terms have ambiguity so wide you could drive a truck through it. Trying to describe women’s preferences with these terms is like trying to paint a rainbow in black-and-white.

I think that when women talk about their preferences with each other, they learn to make do with these terms by adding nonverbal inflections. For instance, a woman could come back from a date, and say “he was a nice guy”, and her inflection would indicate whether she was really into him, or whether she found him completely boring and unexciting.

Anyway, there are about a million reasons that communication by women to men about their general preferences gets destroyed, from lack of introspection (common among people who aren’t 130+ IQ introverts), social desirability bias, impression management, lack of useful language available, and lack of male understanding of female nonverbal communication when women talk about their preferences. There are also “implicit causal theories,” which is the notion in psychology that when asked about their preferences, people will answer with what society has told them to want. See my old post on what women want.

It’s like the game of telephone: what a woman knows about her preferences is different from what comes out of her mouth (because the available language is limited), which is different from what men hear. Most of the time, this communication gap isn’t either women’s fault or men’s fault. But the result is that men have a lot of trouble getting answers they can interpret from women who are not 130+ IQ introverts. And I don’t know why either PUAs or feminists would ever expect otherwise, given what we know about human psychology.

The problem isn’t that women “never say anything interpretable about their experience”, the problem is that is a guy takes at face value what most non-outlier women say about their preferences, it often gives him no additional ability to predict which guys she will actually be into. Sometimes, a woman’s description of her preferences is enough to explain her choices in men after the fact (hmmm, I guess I can see how that biker really is a teddy-bear), but guys trying to improve their attractiveness with women are trying to make predictions in advance.

Even if women’s self-descriptions of their preferences are true, they aren’t necessarily specific enough to be useful to men who are trying to learn to better predict how women will respond to them, or to other men.

To the women in the thread, I would propose the following exercise:

1. Talk with several female friends who are 10-20 IQ lower than you, or who aren’t introverts (ideally both) and ask them general questions about their preferences in men. If you don’t have any female friends who fit this description, then try making some (and no wonder you have trouble relating to what PUAs are talking about).

2. Try to use their answers to explain (after the fact) and predict (before the fact), their choices in men. See how well you do.

My experience is that women who aren’t high-IQ introverts simply cannot give answers that are useful (to me) about their general preferences. I once asked a girlfriend about what her “type” was… and should couldn’t answer the question at all, as if looking for a pattern simply had never occurred to her. At first, I thought that maybe her preferences were just very heterogenous. But later I met one of her exes, and noticed that he had the same hair color and eye color as me, and some similar personality traits. Another point for pickup theory.

Here the kinds of questions that female friends and girlfriends in my life have been able to answer:

- “do you find that guy attractive”? “Why”?
- “do you find celebrity X attractive”?
- “are you up for doing X activity now”?
- “why do you find me attractive”? (well, they could answer this, but I don’t have good ways of testing it)

Basically, very concrete questions are answerable, but the more general the question, the harder it is to answer and the less useful the answer. Actually, I’ve seen that pattern before: if you ask someone what type of music they like, you will usually get a crappy answer. You will get a much more interesting answer if you ask them what they were listening to yesterday.

Clarisse May 4, 2011 at 4:44 pm #

PUA who doesn’t like freeze-outs and describes them as “creepy”:
http://justlivingthedream.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/last-minute-resistance/

Infra May 4, 2011 at 5:30 pm #

@Hugh:

from lack of introspection (common among people who aren’t 130+ IQ introverts)

On this point, I’ve found that assertion to be accurate in only one sense: people who are 130+ IQ introverts tend to introspect in particular ways, which others do not employ. That doesn’t mean that introspection is absent in those who don’t fit those criteria and, in addition, it doesn’t mean that those particular ways necessarily provide an advantage in introspective awareness and discovery; one of the things that tends to come along with high IQ is the ability to engage in brilliant and bizarre contortions of reason, ones that allow an individual to prove things to themselves that eventually reveal themselves to be, in the end, nigh-synthetic (as a counselor friend of mine once put it, “intelligent people have the uncanny ability to mindfuck themselves into oblivion,” which is an observation with which I tend to agree). People who aren’t in the 130+ IQ introvert group might not provide answers in the form that people in that group would recognize as such, but that isn’t indicative of a lack. Only of a difference.

I’d contend that the assertion that “women who aren’t high IQ and nerdy often have trouble describing their preferences in a way that is interpretable by men” is flawed in a similar way. What’s involved there, IME, is similarity of discourse, and expectations regarding the form that acceptable answers will take (cf. Feyerabend’s critiques, particularly in “Conquest of Abundance”), within which context that observation plays out as billed. But extending it beyond that moves onto much weaker ground.

SnowdropExplodes May 4, 2011 at 6:29 pm #

@ HR:

Speaking as a 130+ IQ Introvert (since that’s likely to be used a lot, and takes some typing, let’s call them (us!) “130I” for short) here, the first thing that comes to mind is that you make generalisations about women who aren’t 130I, but you don’t seem to ask whether the same generalisation might apply equally to men who are non-130I.

And, as a 130I male myself, I have noticed that the more introspection I have made, the harder it becomes to make valid generalisations about my “type”, beyond “kinky as anything” and “good company”. But answering specific questions about, “what do you like about that person?” is relatively easy – it also, in my experience, doesn’t necessarily produce any kind of coherent pattern with any definition beyond what I just described! What makes good chemistry is not always apparent at the surface level, and a lot of romantic fiction (especially the stuff I read when I was a teenager, aimed at my age group) depends upon one lead character being surprised to find hirself in love with/attracted to the other lead character (usually resulting in a love triangle!).

Another problem is that people (of any gender) have a certain element of constructing their expression of tastes according to what they are told people like them “should” like – thus, it is just as unreliable to ask a male non-130I what he wants in a woman, for much the same reasons as for a female non-130I.

All of which is in addition to my total agreement with Infra above.

Lord knows, “intelligent people have the uncanny ability to mindfuck themselves into oblivion,” pretty much describes my life.

Motley May 4, 2011 at 7:43 pm #

Whew, a lot to catch up with. Just a few things I want to highlight:

Clarisse,

On negs: I do actually think that different PUAs use negs differently.

Heh. It’s almost as though they’re different people… :p

Sex is so weird, man

I believe the appropriate abbreviation here is “QFT.”

Sagredo,

I actually cannot imagine flirting without just occasionally teasing just a little bit.

Seconded. I’m not sure I can even imagine interacting with someone* without occasionally teasing just a little bit.

(*I was about to add “socially” right here. But no.)

Lathe, Clarisse (though likely more the latter, assuming)

Lathe —

I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who wasn’t aware of his desires and able to communicate them; being basically shallow, this is not hard.

Um, so, do you have sex with men? Because I do. Fairly frequently. I don’t have a huge number of data points, but I have a bunch. And my experience is that plenty of men are quite confused about their desires, and are not “basically shallow”.

Before I got to Clarisse’s response, I was formulating a rather less polite reply. Because I am, in a lot of ways, a lot more shallow than the average guy. And much more aware of his own desires–and quite able to communicate them (though for reasons that will be obvious to some of you, more than a little reluctant to do so).
And my own desires still surprise me sometimes. Often.
I am, at the core, a very simple creature–but even I’m not so simple as that. Yeesh.

…women face higher penalties for attempting to initiate than men do.

I’m curious as to what you’re basing this impression on. I have a suspicion that you’re basing it on the fact that women, approaching, have a low success rate–and then (incorrectly) assuming that their success rate is lower than men’s, without actually comparing it to men’s success rate. If anything, evidence suggests the opposite (viz., the study you and Sam were talking about on the previous thread).

There are, of course, exceptions. I am one, as, I suspect, are you. But I don’t think that changes anything–though I of course acknowledge that it’s really hard to figure out the way “people” work when you are yourself an unusual example thereof.

But for example,

We freak men out by initiating, assuming they even read our intentions correctly (which they often don’t), or we get written off as “sluts”.

Switch the genders, the sentence still works. (Once you replace “slut” with one of the opposite-gendered equivalents). Speaking of which…

As a side note, if so-called Nice Guys ™ are going to whine about how women never approach them, then they should quit throwing around words like “slut” and they should try to get other men to quit doing it too.

Remember how often men actually use the word, relative to how often women do? If a given “Nice Guy” is somehow responsible for the effects of slut-shaming, then you personally, are much more responsible.
Or, alternatively, we could adopt a framework where individual humans are responsible for their own behavior, and not that of everything that possesses similar genitalia… :p

Or, as an alternative reading, the quiet guy at least has the option to make the approach, without being written off just because he made the approach.

I’m guessing that Lucky’s pissed you off (not without reason)–because otherwise this is quite a bit… off. I mean, I can’t imagine that you think that every approach a guy makes is successful–you know it isn’t.
“Quiet guys” don’t approach for exactly the same reasons that women don’t, and their reasons are just as valid.
And c’mon, you know that. :p

Hugh,

What if they are using the “tactic” to try to train themselves to be more honest?

Good catch. I think something that gets missed in these conversations is that saying about how a person is “a process, not a product.”

But this:

In context, he really seems to mean “narcissism,” or a feeling of higher status.

Do you really think they’re different things?

Btw, this discourse of “vulnerable” women getting “taken advantage of” by their self-esteem being lowered is starting to trouble me. Just how widespread do you think that mechanism is?

My guess? A lot of nerdy introverts who’ve had self-esteem issues are speculating about how they’d feel if treated in a certain way–LSE people aren’t generally any better at imagining what it’s like to be HSE people than the reverse.
(No matter what we introverts think, we don’t understand extraverts any better than they do us.*)

*I’m using “us” here when perhaps I shouldn’t. Apologies.

Judging from the talk of it, it sounds like a guy just has to insult a woman a few times, and then she becomes pliable. I don’t think things work that way with the vast majority of women.

It works that way, but only if she’s already really into you. That’s vanishingly rare, though, for your average guy.

Lucky,

But it doesn’t really feel as a privilege. Rather it’s how the world should be by default, everybody has the right to live free from fear of rape and violence. But to me it seems more like a case of female disadvantage than male privilege.

This is true of almost every privilege, though, isn’t it? I mean, do you think women want men to be raped more, any more than you want women to get killed more?
With some notable exceptions, I suspect most really don’t.

Clarisse,

One thing I’ve heard a number of smart PUAs say: “Some guys say certain women are attracted to assholes, but what’s actually going on is that those women are attracted to something most closely approximated by an asshole.”

That’s pretty much perfect.

One problem that I keep running up against, though, and that HR has alluded to, is that different women have different preferences. It would be awesome if more PUAs would acknowledge this, but it would also be awesome if more feminists would acknowledge this.

I’m more than a little suspicious that there is less difference than we’re thinking–PUAs exist to learn a certain type of social games, and those are the types enjoyed by a certain set of women, who have similar preferences in hang-out spot, sex partners, and social approaches. I’m a bit sleepy to get this one across, but oh well. Does this make any sense? I’m assuming it’s got to be a common enough theory.

Whereas this example makes it pretty obvious that even though he thinks I’m cute, the fact that he thinks I’m cute is more important to him than my actual cuteness.

I’d tentatively agree, but what on earth is the difference?

I was realizing recently that I don’t think I could handle asking a PUA friend for an honest assessment of my point on the number-scale. Like, it would seriously fuck with me. I estimate myself around a 6/7, but of course I secretly hope that I’m higher. Ick, it makes me feel weird just thinking about it.

Heh. If you ever want a really weird picture, ask a few dozen people who find you attractive what, exactly, they find most attractive about you. Results will probably be hilarious.

I wonder how many mainstream women would say the same thing about how men should just explicitly communicate exactly what they want in a wife.

Hah! On this subthread… how many of us reading this, right now, can really accurately describe their “type?”
I’m guessing very few.

SnowdropExplodes,

the first thing that comes to mind is that you make generalisations about women who aren’t 130I, but you don’t seem to ask whether the same generalisation might apply equally to men who are non-130I.

This. It’s gotten so that my brain almost automatically inserts that into blanket statements about gender. And it works so well. “Women [like men] don’t know what they want.”
And so on.

Lord knows, “intelligent people have the uncanny ability to mindfuck themselves into oblivion,” pretty much describes my life.

Mine too, but perhaps not from the same side…

AB May 5, 2011 at 2:15 am #

@Hugh Ristik:

I sort of made a weaker version of this argument above, which could be summed up as: “women who aren’t high IQ and nerdy often have trouble describing their preferences in a way that is interpretable by men.”

I have to echo Snowdrop here, how exactly is this different from men? Perhaps it’s just that men have trouble describing differences in opinion or communication in a way that doesn’t come off as laying it all at women’s feet (to follow your thesis), but the language which the male majority here have chosen to establish continuously baffles me. It’s always female sexual scarcity, never male drive for overconsumption. And it’s always women not being able to explain their preferences clearly, never men, even though (according to both the women and some of the men here) it happens frequently in real life.

And as soon as women don’t actually understand men, it suddenly turns into a question of them not appreciating male sexuality enough, instead of not understanding it because men don’t make it easy to understand. Unless you’re too self-righteously determined that you’re communicating just fine and everything is the fault of women here (mainly me I suspect), I think you should consider trying to formulate more things as being about men sometimes. It might make a difference.

A secondly, I don’t think most men are interested in listening. You certainly aren’t, and look at the sneering contempt Motley treats disagreement about the benevolent nature of PUA tactics with, as “nerdy introverts who’ve had self-esteem issues are speculating about how they’d feel if treated in a certain way”. I get that you don’t think there there needs to be any limit to the hate and insults directed at me (though for the record, I was speaking mainly from the viewpoint of general psychology and experiences with highly sexual mainstream girls in situations guys usually don’t see them in), but Clarisse? Low self-esteem? That’s what you guys are willing to stoop to in order to justify why the viewpoints of women here don’t count?

Clarisse May 5, 2011 at 3:25 am #

@AB — I think it’s totally justified for you to be pissed (especially after that comment from Lathe of Heaven), and I think you’re often making good points, but I also really think it would be helpful for the tone of the discourse if you could avoid making assertions about other commenters’ intent. I’m on board with you a lot of the time, but most people here aren’t trying to be assholes, and I think they’ll get what you’re saying if you assume that they have good intent (e.g. I like your tone in #306, that seems friendly).

Re: self-esteem, in fairness, much of my discussion of the badness of certain PUA tactics has been based on how I would have reacted to them when I was less experienced and had less self-esteem.

But even if we did assume that most of these analyses are coming from a low self-esteem perspective — and I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable speculating about various commenters’ self-esteem levels — I think these analyses are still relevant to PUA analysis even if LSE people are so different from HSE people, because it’s not like there’s any guarantee that PUAs are hitting on women with high self-esteem. And in fact, I seem to recall that HR posted some excerpts in the ePUA thread from a PUA who basically gamed the hell out of a girl with low self-esteem, and then felt bad about it afterwards, because she turned out to be unexpectedly vulnerable, and he’d basically just assumed that women are not vulnerable like that.

Oh hey, want something creepy? Check out this LMR lay report I found earlier in which the PUA even talks about how the girl is low self-esteem:
http://www.abcsofattraction.com/community/hall-of-fame-f64/lay-report-used-1-lmr-tactic-starting-to-set-up-a-routine-t813.html

Also, I finally found a source that explicitly describes negs as intended to lower self-esteem (TylerDurden, who’s surprised?) — “You use self-esteem negs to lower the target’s self-esteem, and crave your attention to re-validate herself”:
http://www.bristollair.com/2011/pua-seduction-methods/examining-different-pua-methods-pt-2/

Sagredo May 5, 2011 at 3:53 am #

PUA who doesn’t like freeze-outs and describes them as “creepy”:
http://justlivingthedream.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/last-minute-resistance/

Clarisse, thank you. This is much more effective way of manipulating a woman into sex she wouldn’t otherwise have.

(just kidding)

A secondly, I don’t think most men are interested in listening. You certainly aren’t, and look at the sneering contempt Motley treats disagreement about the benevolent nature of PUA tactics with, as “nerdy introverts who’ve had self-esteem issues are speculating about how they’d feel if treated in a certain way”.

AB, I think Motley is claiming you’re not the kind of woman who gets a lot of attention from PUA (and therefore shouldn’t speak for their experiences). But perhaps he’s way off-base.

I do think most folks here, besides Lathe, are listening to Clarisse’s experiences of pickup a bit more than your theories of it.

Clarisse May 5, 2011 at 3:57 am #

? But AB is speaking from experience (if not with the PUAs exactly then with the dating scene), and her experiences often align with mine.

Infra May 5, 2011 at 4:47 am #

Motley’s comment came off to me as pretty straightforward reasoning: people tend to base their explanations upon what they know, so if people are focusing on the ways in which pickup techniques impact upon low self-esteem and insecurity, it would stand to reason that they’ve had some experience with low self-esteem and insecurity. At some point, at least. If they hadn’t experienced those things at one point or another, they wouldn’t be able to relate to that kind of criticism. (With the exception of cases in which they were making an argument along the lines of “Those techniques wouldn’t work on me, they’d only work on people with problems,” which is an argument that I’ve seen raised, but not by the regular commenters here. And the discriminatory and dismissive tone of that kind of criticism needs to be noted, which it usually isn’t.)

I can see how the phrasing could be read in a more pejorative way, if having had these experiences was shifted over into are that way, but I’m not convinced that that was what was meant.

Infra May 5, 2011 at 4:56 am #

(To add: the above isn’t meant to challenge Clarisse’s point in #314, with which I agree. With that in mind, I’d modify Motley’s statement to say that people who’ve had experiences with both LSE and HSE states — and it’s safe to say that the majority would fall into that category — would probably focus on the LSE events when considering risks, simply because they know what kind of damage can result in those situations. The more damaging those experiences have been, and the less that other situations have balanced them out, the more weight would be placed upon them in the context of criticism.)

Infra May 5, 2011 at 5:13 am #

Apologies for the triple-post, but I couldn’t leave this one without remark:

@Sagredo:

Clarisse, thank you. This is much more effective way of manipulating a woman into sex she wouldn’t otherwise have.

(just kidding)

Bad form. Very. Bad. Form.

No one here should even have to explain the reasons for that to you.

AB May 5, 2011 at 5:16 am #

@Clarisse:

@AB — I think it’s totally justified for you to be pissed (especially after that comment from Lathe of Heaven), and I think you’re often making good points, but I also really think it would be helpful for the tone of the discourse if you could avoid making assertions about other commenters’ intent. I’m on board with you a lot of the time, but most people here aren’t trying to be assholes, and I think they’ll get what you’re saying if you assume that they have good intent (e.g. I like your tone in #306, that seems friendly).

I was friendly in #306 because the post I responded to was friendly. That is an exception. And in reality, I don’t mind butting heads with people if that’s what they want (whatever you felt about my conversation with Danny in the feminism thread, at least none of us were upset by it and we both seemed to learn from it), but then they should be honest about it. Because it really seems people are more interested in supporting whatever statement they agree with, and shooting down any opposition (i.e. butting heads), than they are in listening to the perspectives of others.

For instance, I don’t recall Lathe of Heaven ever explaining anything, he just made a bunch of claims about the nature of women and the oppression of men, but HR still finds it worth it to praise him for his good point and invite him over to his blog to continue what he’s already doing, probably because he can relate to this POW without needing a long explanation for it. On the other hand, no matter how many explanations you and I could give, the conclusion will always be the same: We cannot represent women in any way because women are too varied so it doesn’t count (whereas men’s observations are apparently valid). This means that actually trying to explain anything is largely pointless.

It’s not just that I find many of the remarks certain men here casually fling around about women to be wildly offensive, and have yet to see anyone admit that they’ve been less than courteous. Or that in contrast, I feel like I have to walk on eggshells around here in order to not give anyone an excuse to dog-pile on me. What really bothers me is that those remarks are often stated as pure fact with little reasoning given, whereas I feel I have to constantly put myself on the line by providing multiple details and examples, which just gives people more ammunition to respond with. It’s not a fair exchange, so I’m not about to pretend it’s fair.

Re: self-esteem, in fairness, much of my discussion of the badness of certain PUA tactics has been based on how I would have reacted to them when I was less experienced and had less self-esteem.

But I think it is as least as relevant how you react when you have more confidence. As I’ve already said, I’m much more likely to fall for PUA tactics when I’m feeling down and insecure, whereas I’ve tended to be put off by them after I’ve gotten more self-esteem. A guy who thinks I need to be taken down a notch is a pillar of confidence who I just want to like me when I’m feeling low, but when I’m confident myself, someone who’s arrogant and ignorant enough to believe it’s his job to regulate how I feel about myself just come off as insecure and pathetic, whereas a guy displaying self-irony is often extremely charming.

It’s not a matter of LSE people not being able to imagine what it’s like to be HSE, it’s a matter of people reacting the opposite of what PUAs predict (LSE people reacting positively to PUA tactics and HSE people reacting negatively). And there are plenty of indications that this happens even among the women PUAs date. Neil Strauss’ girlfriend who was confident enough to ignore his freeze-out, the guy HR mentioned who use negs to see which women were confident enough to not become insecure and eager to win his approval, the PUA you talked about who refrained from using certain tactics on the women he wanted long-term relationships with, and the guys from the links in your last post.

AB May 5, 2011 at 5:48 am #

@Sagredo:

AB, I think Motley is claiming you’re not the kind of woman who gets a lot of attention from PUA (and therefore shouldn’t speak for their experiences). But perhaps he’s way off-base.

Despite of what you seem to think, I’ve dated quite a lot, and been hit on even more. And while no PUA has yet to be kind enough to wear a badge identifying himself, I’ve encountered a wide range of the same behaviours. The overwhelming displays of confidence which, looking back at it, were often a façade for insecure boys. The guys who’d make ‘joking’ remarks that were borderline (and sometimes crossing into) unpleasant, and then turn out to have been interested in you from the start. The guys who’d socialise pleasantly with you, then suddenly go cold, until you came to them. The guys who’d give all their attention to another girl, only to try to get intimate with you later as if you’d been the one they’d hit on the whole time.

These are not unusual techniques for guys trying to get laid, and they’re certainly not ineffective. I’ve not only been the target of this behaviour from guys, I’ve also seen girls like machina’s example. I largely stopped hanging out with those kinds of people around the time I turned 20, so I can’t make any sure claims about how fast they grow out of it, but it’s common among teenage girls (and early to mid 20s guys).

I do think most folks here, besides Lathe, are listening to Clarisse’s experiences of pickup a bit more than your theories of it.

The thing is, those theories are not mine. They’re recognised psychological theories studied by people whose sample size is bigger than all of ours combined. Mate retention through abuse and gaslighting are pretty established concepts, and while I’m not saying this is per definition what PUAs do, I think the similarities are just as relevant to bring up as personal experiences.

Hugh Ristik May 5, 2011 at 6:20 am #

Infra said:

On this point, I’ve found that assertion to be accurate in only one sense: people who are 130+ IQ introverts tend to introspect in particular ways, which others do not employ.

I completely agree. Based on my experience, I would just hazard the hypothesis that 130+ IQ introverts people are more introspective about their sexual preferences, and better about communicating them (which isn’t to say that every introvert with 130+ IQ will have no difficulties in those areas). Of course, it would take actual research to decide this question conclusively, but I’m not going to wait until then to have hypotheses.

SnowdropeExplodes said:

Speaking as a 130+ IQ Introvert (since that’s likely to be used a lot, and takes some typing, let’s call them (us!) “130I” for short) here, the first thing that comes to mind is that you make generalisations about women who aren’t 130I, but you don’t seem to ask whether the same generalisation might apply equally to men who are non-130I.

Actually, I have asked this question, and (I thought) addressed it. I’ve already raised two points about why women who are not high-IQ/nerdy/introverted might have more trouble describing their preferences than men:

1. Non-androgynous women’s preferences fluctuate according to their menstrual cycles (cite). It’s probably easier to describe your preferences when they aren’t constantly changing.

2. Women are more selective than men (conversely, men are less selective than women), leading me to suggest that women’s sexual preferences are simply more complex than men’s sexual preferences. (Relationship preferences are a different story, which is why I think Clarisse made a good point about the complexity of men’s marriage preferences.) I will also add that since men’s preferences can be assessed at the speed of light (since they are highly loaded on looks), while women’s preferences need to be assessed at slower speeds (because they need more time to assess behavior and personality traits).

I’m working on a post for FC writing up the evidence on sex differences in selectivity.

Another problem is that people (of any gender) have a certain element of constructing their expression of tastes according to what they are told people like them “should” like – thus, it is just as unreliable to ask a male non-130I what he wants in a woman, for much the same reasons as for a female non-130I.

You would hypothesize that men’s statements would be just as unreliable as women’s for non-130Is; I would hypothesize differently. Since men’s and women’s preferences and selectivity are different on average, to me it makes little sense to assume that men and women have the same ease of introspecting and articulating their preferences. Of course, some research on this actual question could prove me wrong.

The default hypothesis should not be that men and women are the same until proven otherwise.

Hugh Ristik May 5, 2011 at 6:23 am #

Motley said:

I’m curious as to what you’re basing this impression on. I have a suspicion that you’re basing it on the fact that women, approaching, have a low success rate–and then (incorrectly) assuming that their success rate is lower than men’s, without actually comparing it to men’s success rate. If anything, evidence suggests the opposite (viz., the study you and Sam were talking about on the previous thread).

This. It always amuses me when women try approaching, then give up pretty fast when they learn that it’s hard. I have to wonder, how many times did they actually try? PUAs say “the first 1000 approaches don’t count.”

My guess? A lot of nerdy introverts who’ve had self-esteem issues are speculating about how they’d feel if treated in a certain way–LSE people aren’t generally any better at imagining what it’s like to be HSE people than the reverse.
(No matter what we introverts think, we don’t understand extraverts any better than they do us.*)

This is a very interesting point. In extravert culture, negs are frequently whizzing by, delivered by both men and women. They are simply part of the social fabric. Nerdy introverts often see the principles behind this behavior first described by PUAs on the internet, and they get culture shock.

Personally, I find the constant ribbing of frat boys to be grating, and I think it could potentially be harmful. But I’m not willing to just go define that sort of communication as “unethical.” I’m not a moral relativist, but that doesn’t stop me from being a bit cautious to judge the mutual practices of people of different (sub)cultures or personality cultures.

Hugh Ristik May 5, 2011 at 6:30 am #

AB said:

I have to echo Snowdrop here, how exactly is this different from men?

See previous post: women’s sexual preferences are more selective and complex, and the preferences of non-androgynous women fluctuate according to their menstrual cycles.

Perhaps it’s just that men have trouble describing differences in opinion or communication in a way that doesn’t come off as laying it all at women’s feet (to follow your thesis)

If that’s what you got from my thesis, then either I didn’t communicate very well, or you misread me. Let’s go back and take a look. I said:

What proportion of women do you think know what they want? And what proportion of those women can articulate it? While I think most women know a subset of what they want, I think the real problem is that they can’t articulate in a way that men can understand. This is [not] really either gender’s fault:

I said that this communication gap isn’t either gender’s fault. If you want to make it someone’s fault, you could make it men’s fault for not understanding men’s communication. So I’m going to conclude that you’ve misread me.

Or perhaps you are referring to when I said this:

Wouldn’t it be so much simpler if, prior to initiating, men could just ask women how they prefer that men initiate with them, and how they like their boundaries to be treated? That would be awesome… except the vast majority of heterosexual women seem to find that sort of move to be a turn off, which effectively bans it. Instead, men are expected (by non-outlier women) to initiate blind.

In this case, I am laying a critique at the feet of mainstream heterosexual women, for commonly expecting men to make so many guesses about their preferences while initiating. In this thread, we’ve seen a couple flashes of horror from Clarisse when encountering the preferences of certain mainstream heterosexual women. I don’t understand why more feminists aren’t much, much madder at mainstream heterosexual women who aren’t highly intelligent or nerdy, because many of these women are promoting or expecting models of consent and communication that feminists vehemently disagree with. (Yes, men do this too, but feminists already criticize those men.)

but the language which the male majority here have chosen to establish continuously baffles me. It’s always female sexual scarcity, never male drive for overconsumption.

This is actually a very good point, which I’ve made elsewhere (at least, I know it’s somewhere in my notes of stuff that I’ve been working on writing): even though I talk about greater female selectivity, there is no “default” selectivity. I could just as easily talk about lower male selectivity. Perhaps I phrase it as greater female selectivity because I am male. Don’t hesitate to use the term “lower male selectiveness” yourself (male “overconsumption” sounds more like a value judgment, though).

I have made some arguments in this thread about how men should be more selective about how their sexual experiences with women unfold, so I certainly don’t think that men’s typical level of selectivity is the ideal, or that women should aspire to it.

And it’s always women not being able to explain their preferences clearly, never men, even though (according to both the women and some of the men here) it happens frequently in real life.

Well, of course both phenomena happen. The suggestion I’m making is that on average, men’s explanations of their preferences will be clearer to people than women’s explanations of their preferences. I’ve stated my reasoning for this suspicion: greater complexity of female preferences on average, and non-androgynous female preferences chemically fluctuating more (conversely, lower complexity of male sexual preferences, and less chemical fluctuation). I’ve made no claims about how big this gap is.

Anyone is welcome to suggest additional factors that I’m not considering, or suggest why these factors don’t necessarily entail that men’s communication about their preferences would be more useful than women’s, on average.

And as soon as women don’t actually understand men, it suddenly turns into a question of them not appreciating male sexuality enough

I’m pretty sure I’m never made this argument.

I think you should consider trying to formulate more things as being about men sometimes. It might make a difference.

Suggestion taken. I will note that even a phrase like “greater female selectivity” is not a value judgment, and it is also about men (otherwise… greater than what?).

A secondly, I don’t think most men are interested in listening. You certainly aren’t

If I was, I wonder if you’d notice.

but Clarisse? Low self-esteem? That’s what you guys are willing to stoop to in order to justify why the viewpoints of women here don’t count?

I’ll leave it up to Clarisse to clarify, but as I recall, both you and she have described issues with self-esteem and self-worth at some times in your lives. Consequently, it’s worth wondering what perspective other women, with different experiences and background, might have on pickup techniques, and what are ethical default behaviors for men under uncertainty, in their view.

It’s not just that I find many of the remarks certain men here casually fling around about women to be wildly offensive, and have yet to see anyone admit that they’ve been less than courteous.

Which ones specifically, other than the ones you’ve mentioned in this post?

What really bothers me is that those remarks are often stated as pure fact with little reasoning given

I’ve stated plenty of reasoning and cited specific studies, but people don’t always notice.

Infra May 5, 2011 at 7:37 am #

@Hugh:

I completely agree. Based on my experience, I would just hazard the hypothesis that 130+ IQ introverts people are more introspective about their sexual preferences, and better about communicating them (which isn’t to say that every introvert with 130+ IQ will have no difficulties in those areas).

Here’s my question, though: if 130Is do and communicate their introspection in one way, while 111Is do it in another, and 127Es do it in yet another, how do you distinguish your possibility (that 130Is are more introspective and better able to communicate it) from the possibility that you just don’t recognize or interpret the other two as well as you do the one?

That’s the point that I was trying to make.

See previous post: women’s sexual preferences are more selective and complex, and the preferences of non-androgynous women fluctuate according to their menstrual cycles.

Just as an FYI:

I’d have to look up the references, if I can find my old notes, but IIRC there’s some evidence for testosterone cycling in males, too — essentially, a male sexual cycle, which has been investigated intermittently ever since the 17th century, with some notable research in the 19th century, early to mid 20th century (Harris and Kihlström are two of the researcher’s names that I remember) and some additional papers over the last decade, which, I think, were on salivary testosterone fluctuations. The research just isn’t very prominent, and not many people have followed up on it, and it isn’t widely known. (Which, again, goes to the points that both AB and I have raised with regard to andrology.)

Point being, even if the assertions about variations in female preference hold, there’s some evidence that would suggest that the same could occur in males, and probably does, and for similar reasons. It just hasn’t been publicized or duly examined and explored.

AB May 5, 2011 at 7:50 am #

@Hugh Ristik:

See previous post: women’s sexual preferences are more selective and complex, and the preferences of non-androgynous women fluctuate according to their menstrual cycles.

First off, you have provided no explanation for what makes you think women’s sexual preferences are more complex. Second, the menstrual difference is similar to the different priorities in short and long term relationships. Since men have those difference too (current fertility is more important for short-term mating, while potential reproductive capacity as well as sexual abstinence is more important in long-mating), I’d hardly call that unique to women.

If that’s what you got from my thesis, then either I didn’t communicate very well, or you misread me.

What I got from your thesis was that you considered the communication differences between men and women in this area being due to women’s lack of communication skills (which still leaves me wondering what you attribute it to when women don’t understand men).

I said that this communication gap isn’t either gender’s fault. If you want to make it someone’s fault, you could make it men’s fault for not understanding men’s communication. So I’m going to conclude that you’ve misread me.

If you think that women’s needs are de facto harder to understand and less clearly described, it’s pretty obviously ascribing it to women, even if you don’t think they’re at fault for it. It’s interesting that current research often says the opposite, that women are better at communicating their emotions, having larger broca’s and wernicke’s area and having more neurons connecting the centre’s in the brain dealing with emotion to those dealing with language.

I don’t understand why more feminists aren’t much, much madder at mainstream heterosexual women who aren’t highly intelligent or nerdy, because many of these women are promoting or expecting models of consent and communication that feminists vehemently disagree with. (Yes, men do this too, but feminists already criticize those men.)

Plenty of feminists are, just look at their comments in regards to The Rules (which, incidentally, promote a set of values and assumptions very similar to that of the seduction community, so you can’t say the critique is one-sided). But most men interact with feminism in the context of criticising feminists for something they’ve said about men, so I’m not surprised it gets overlooked. Heartless Bitches International tends to get criticised almost exclusively for being anti-male, and yet some of the strongest negative reactions found on their site are in regards to (certain) women.

This is actually a very good point, which I’ve made elsewhere (at least, I know it’s somewhere in my notes of stuff that I’ve been working on writing): even though I talk about greater female selectivity, there is no “default” selectivity. I could just as easily talk about lower male selectivity. Perhaps I phrase it as greater female selectivity because I am male. Don’t hesitate to use the term “lower male selectiveness” yourself (male “overconsumption” sounds more like a value judgment, though).

Actually, I have to wonder if it would really solve the issue if women just became sexually interested in all men, or ceased to have an opinion on the matter. Many men seem to want multiple partners, but they also often aspire to having said women be monogamous with them. In many patriarchal societies, the men who could afford it have had multiple wives, which created much the same problem without female selectivity being involved.

Add to that that many men also want women who’re younger than themselves, or want a partner of the same age for company and emotional support while still keeping up affairs with younger women on the side, and it becomes doubtful whether these men would truly be content as long as women don’t outnumber men considerably (I think they can, but I think it takes work, like almost everything else in life).

‘Scarcity’ implies an insufficient supply of something in comparison to the demand, and if the male demand is a steady supply of young and/or virginal women, nothing short of killing off 80% of the male population would enable women to meet that demand. I think higher female selectivity, or lower female sex drive (or even lower female sexual satisfaction), is a more neutral expression than female sexual scarcity, but I think the concept is flawed from the start.

Well, of course both phenomena happen. The suggestion I’m making is that on average, men’s explanations of their preferences will be clearer to people than women’s explanations of their preferences. I’ve stated my reasoning for this suspicion: greater complexity of female preferences on average, and non-androgynous female preferences chemically fluctuating more (conversely, lower complexity of male sexual preferences, and less chemical fluctuation). I’ve made no claims about how big this gap is.

You have not explained where you get the idea of greater complexity in female preferences, and while men don’t (to our knowledge) change preferences according to a monthly cycle they still change preferences depending on their age, their mood, and what they’re trying to accomplish. I also think you’re discounting female experiences of misjudging male desire.

It’s easier to believe that the group you belong to communicate clearly and understand all reasonable communication, and that it’s the other group who’s is not communicating reasonably and don’t understand reasonable communication, and in these cases, I believe society and popular culture tend to see things from the male point of view. That is, of course, only my experience, but I don’t think men (or anyone else for that matter, but the view of men in this regard seem more common) are as clear in what they’re trying to say as they often believe they are.

I’m pretty sure I’m never made this argument.

No you haven’t, but I couldn’t help remarking on it, because Clarisse and I have spent a long time simultaneously having our experiences brushed off while being told men’s view was not appreciated enough, so the contrast was notable.

I’ll leave it up to Clarisse to clarify, but as I recall, both you and she have described issues with self-esteem and self-worth at some times in your lives. Consequently, it’s worth wondering what perspective other women, with different experiences and background, might have on pickup techniques, and what are ethical default behaviors for men under uncertainty, in their view.

I think very few people have never had issues with self-esteem and self-worth. If anything, it’s probably more common with women, since they’re at a higher risk of self-harming behaviours, have a more negative view of their body, and a exhibit greater tendency to underestimate themselves than men do, on average.

But as I’ve already said, the point wasn’t so much that these techniques would have a horrible effect on people with low self-esteem, it was that the they, in our experience, were often working because of the low self-esteem, which contrasted the (apparently) common male view that such techniques could only work on women with high self-esteem, and that their effectiveness was proof that most women liked them, even if the price was other women having bad experiences.

Which ones specifically, other than the ones you’ve mentioned in this post?

Off the top of my head: That female sexuality is accepted. That women can’t communicate their preferences as well as men (i.e. the greater female complexity). That women have all the power in sexual relations. That women never make sense. That LMR is due to women’s ASD. That confident/hot women like negs. That women say they like nice guys and really want douchebags.

Sagredo May 5, 2011 at 12:35 pm #

Off the top of my head: That female sexuality is accepted. That women can’t communicate their preferences as well as men (i.e. the greater female complexity). That women have all the power in sexual relations. That women never make sense. That LMR is due to women’s ASD. That confident/hot women like negs. That women say they like nice guys and really want douchebags.

Female desire is erased, while male desire is pathologised, and both of these complicate communication of preferences. LMR is often due to ASD, but not necessarily always, and either way switching off arousal is an appropriate response, but expressing disapproval isn’t. Confident women like the kind of gentle teasing that most PUA material refers to as “negging”, but not the kind of insults that some men do but most PUA material advises to avoid. Women often don’t mention how much confidence is important in who they want, compared to pleasantness, but then again, sometimes they do. I’m not sure about the others.

Clarisse May 5, 2011 at 1:35 pm #

@AB — The thing is, those theories are not mine. They’re recognised psychological theories studied by people whose sample size is bigger than all of ours combined. Mate retention through abuse and gaslighting are pretty established concepts, and while I’m not saying this is per definition what PUAs do, I think the similarities are just as relevant to bring up as personal experiences.

If you have any citations, that would be awesome.

For instance, I don’t recall Lathe of Heaven ever explaining anything, he just made a bunch of claims about the nature of women and the oppression of men, but HR still finds it worth it to praise him for his good point and invite him over to his blog to continue what he’s already doing, probably because he can relate to this POW without needing a long explanation for it. On the other hand, no matter how many explanations you and I could give, the conclusion will always be the same: We cannot represent women in any way because women are too varied so it doesn’t count (whereas men’s observations are apparently valid). This means that actually trying to explain anything is largely pointless.

I agree that Lathe was annoying in the way he framed things, and I was surprised that HR seems to like him, because HR is typically quite rigorous, but they have a lot in common experience-wise, I think.

It does consistently frustrate me that my experiences and my perspective are so often disappeared during PUA conversations, and that PUA theories are privileged over women’s explicitly stated experience. We’ve already discussed, on this thread, how fucked up and problematic ideas like “buyer’s remorse is biological” are, because they’re like a handy shorthand for dismissing women’s entire internal reality. On the other hand, this group is actively interested in questioning PUA theories. Maybe I’m inclined to cut this group more slack than you because I talk to more PUAs than you do, and these guys are paragons of open-mindedness (except for Lathe of Heaven) compared to most PUAs out in the field. In fact, Lathe is pretty representative of a lot of guys I’ve talked to in person: privileged, incurious, and willing to educate me about what my problem is.

It’s not just that I find many of the remarks certain men here casually fling around about women to be wildly offensive, and have yet to see anyone admit that they’ve been less than courteous.

Some people have apologized about saying weird things, or have worked to find common ground … I see places where Sam has said things like “on this we agree”, for example.

I think you should consider trying to formulate more things as being about men sometimes. It might make a difference.

I think this is a wholly reasonable critique (I’m glad HR acknowledged it respectfully when he responded). I also think it’s kind of inevitable when you have a bunch of dudes talking about their experiences in the dating scene, though. It’s one of the reasons I’m glad you’re here, because I think you actually have a lot more experience in the mainstream dating scene than I do, and many of the things you’ve said have usefully balanced the conversation for me. At the same time, though, when the majority of people commenting on a given issue come from a certain perspective, it’s not really fair to blame them for centering that perspective.

While I’m writing this, though, I do want to emphasize one thing to everyone else: my blog commentariat tends to chew up female commenters and spit them out. Other than myself, no other female commenter has lasted as long as AB in any of the manliness-relevant conversations, because the environment is perceived as so hostile. So when she reacts strongly to things, that’s not her being unreasonable or irrational, that’s her being representative, and I think the group is lucky that she’s willing to stick around and explain what’s pissing her off.

Sagredo May 5, 2011 at 2:03 pm #

Clarisse,

Also, I finally found a source that explicitly describes negs as intended to lower self-esteem (TylerDurden, who’s surprised?) — “You use self-esteem negs to lower the target’s self-esteem, and crave your attention to re-validate herself”:
http://www.bristollair.com/2011/pua-seduction-methods/examining-different-pua-methods-pt-2/

There seems to be some uncertainty over how much PUAs’ interpretation of their own behaviours can be trusted. Consider the neg you mentioned earlier “I just wanted to tell you … your face is the cutest … shade of pink at this whole party.”

Clearly this acts to lower something about the woman. What is it? Is it her self-esteem? And it does make her crave attention to regain something. What is she trying to regain?

We could eliminate all this kind of lowering/regaining game in the name of ethics. Would this “ethical flirting” be an improvement?

AB May 5, 2011 at 3:34 pm #

Clarisse

If you have any citations, that would be awesome.

Insults as mate retention (you can locate the full study yourself (it’s even evo-psych), but this summed it up pretty well), wikipedia definition of gaslighting.

In regards to the latter, I want to stretch that I don’t think PUAs engage in this specifically. But one of the things I noticed when I was in a violent relationship myself (incidentally with a guy who was afraid I was going to leave him), was that there wasn’t always such a difference between him denying my experiences (I had said things to provoke him, his statements hadn’t been hurtful, his displays of anger hadn’t been threatening, the sexist remarks he made were true etc.), other people denying my experiences, and myself denying my experiences.

To elaborate (sorry for the long post), hanging out with guys a lot without being an MRA or believer in stereotypes, I hear a lot that’s offensive, but I have to judge when to object and when to keep quiet, because many conflicts just aren’t worth it. I suspect many people do too – I saw an interview with a couple of girls about the growing sexualisation and misogyny in popular culture, who mentioned “sometimes boys will grab you or slap your ass, but if you object they’ll call you a whore or something” (prude-shaming and slut-shaming in one, who’d have thought?). I’ve heard variations of this several times “It’s better to ignore, objecting will just make it worse”.

So many people put up with things that feel wrong, because they’re widely accepted, and the feelings of wrongness are likely to be attributed to the person speaking up, rather than the action they object to. You mentioned something similar in your old post about tickling, that because it was considered innocent, people who don’t want it weren’t taken seriously. And sometimes they’re right, sometimes what people are offended about (like two men kissing) isn’t technically harmful to them, so it’s always a balance.

Anyway, in that particular relationship, part of what made it hard was when my bf did or said things that were hurtful to me, but which I knew that few people in my surroundings would support me objecting to. It became even worse when other guys in our mutual surroundings did it, because I started to doubt my own evaluations, leading me to put up with more than I usually would, and should.

What strikes me about many negs and freeze-outs is that they’re just within the line of (mostly) acceptable behaviour, while still well within the range of being potentially hurtful, which is further underlined by how they’re often described by PUAs as being about confusing the target and making her insecure. I’m not saying they’re per definition abusive, but the similarities are not irrelevant. And I think that brushing it off like Sagredo does right now, saying that confident women like most of the negs suggested, is problematic and denying individual women their experiences.

It does consistently frustrate me that my experiences and my perspective are so often disappeared during PUA conversations, and that PUA theories are privileged over women’s explicitly stated experience. We’ve already discussed, on this thread, how fucked up and problematic ideas like “buyer’s remorse is biological” are, because they’re like a handy shorthand for dismissing women’s entire internal reality. On the other hand, this group is actively interested in questioning PUA theories. Maybe I’m inclined to cut this group more slack than you because I talk to more PUAs than you do, and these guys are paragons of open-mindedness (except for Lathe of Heaven) compared to most PUAs out in the field. In fact, Lathe is pretty representative of a lot of guys I’ve talked to in person: privileged, incurious, and willing to educate me about what my problem is.

That makes sense. I guess I react a bit in the opposite way, cutting less and less slack the more bad experiences I get. Probably because learning to set boundaries early have been such a poignant lesson for me in the past. But I think I’m doing a decent job taking a break now and then and starting again relatively friendly ;-)

Some people have apologized about saying weird things, or have worked to find common ground … I see places where Sam has said things like “on this we agree”, for example.

I don’t exactly take that as an admission of wrong, though it’s definitely not hostile.

I think this is a wholly reasonable critique (I’m glad HR acknowledged it respectfully when he responded). I also think it’s kind of inevitable when you have a bunch of dudes talking about their experiences in the dating scene, though.

At the same time, though, when the majority of people commenting on a given issue come from a certain perspective, it’s not really fair to blame them for centering that perspective.

No, but I still think it’s a rather important aspect. Most people tend to see themselves (and their ingroup) as more neutral and reacting to outside stimuli, and in the case of communication between men and women, this often takes the form of the assumptions that when men don’t understand women, it is due to women being complicated, and when women don’t understand men, it is due to women not understanding men.

What bothers me is not so much that individual men have that perspective (that’s natural), but that the common male perspective is so often treated as the neutral human perspective in mainstream culture (e.g. prejudices that men are rational and women are mysterious). It’s sometimes difficult to see when people are just bringing their own phrasings and perspectives to the table, and when they’re assuming that their experiences are universal because the outside society backs them up in it.

It’s one of the reasons I’m glad you’re here, because I think you actually have a lot more experience in the mainstream dating scene than I do, and many of the things you’ve said have usefully balanced the conversation for me.

I don’t know how much I have compared to you. After my teenage years (which, in all fairness, were extremely busy), I have mostly socialised with geeks and family, and found my partners among my friends. I might interact more with mainstream culture than you (since I’m not spending my time on kink and activism), but I’m not sure there even is a mainstream dating scene. And I’m also not sure people here represent anything mainstream no matter what.

I try to relate back to my experiences with other girls/women and psychological theories because there are so few female posters here and I’m constantly told I can’t represent women. But I appreciate that you mention when you can relate to what I’m saying, because when you, I, and other women here (like k in the beginning of this thread), both/all have a similar perspective, it makes me less likely to dismiss it as irrelevant just because many of the guys are convinced it is.

Sagredo May 5, 2011 at 3:47 pm #

And I think that brushing it off like Sagredo does right now, saying that confident women like most of the negs suggested, is problematic and denying individual women their experiences.

AB, how often do you tease women while flirting with them? I do occasionally and this is my experience. Confident women, especially women who are a bit full of themselves, tend to open up, warm up and become interested.

On the other hand, if you consider yourself confident and you would be offended by the sunburn or similar negs, then I will accept your experience.

Infra May 5, 2011 at 6:14 pm #

@AB:

But as I’ve already said, the point wasn’t so much that these techniques would have a horrible effect on people with low self-esteem, it was that the they, in our experience, were often working because of the low self-esteem, which contrasted the (apparently) common male view that such techniques could only work on women with high self-esteem, and that their effectiveness was proof that most women liked them, even if the price was other women having bad experiences.

Agreed, and it’s one of the reasons that I’ve become increasingly skeptical of the community’s LSE/HSE filtering approaches over the years. (The LR that Clarisse linked bothered me for that reason, among many others: based upon the report, I think that it’s quite possible that what he interpreted as low self-esteem was actually a combination of a specific body image issue, confusion, and a more than justified amount of wariness.) If LSE/HSE hasn’t already become just another ill-conceived and superficial dichotomy, then it’s definitely at risk for it.

I’m inclined to think that much of it is an extension of the “women are emotional creatures” stereotype, which is one that encourages a view in which women are seen to simply express emotional states, often in spite of themselves, minimizing or ignoring the roles of dynamic adjustment and response. In such a view, the overt response is likely to be assumed to be the genuine one (to the degree that the act provokes a strong emotion — this, I suspect, is key to Franco’s approach to the neg, and also seems to be a core element of the “it’s her own desire that breaks through LMR” freeze-out theory), rather than a response that can also reflect, or be dominantly composed of, her attempts to maintain her balance (on multiple levels — internally, socially, with regard to concerns for safety, et al.).

But that just highlights that these techniques involve complex responses, and that neither an LSE explanation nor an HSE one is likely to be wholly accurate.

Sagredo May 5, 2011 at 7:12 pm #

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned (unless I missed it) was the degree to which the PUA view of men and women resembles male-dom. For instance, that women are looking for a man who can dominate them, who they look up to, even perhaps who can defeat them in the single combat of neg vs. bitch shield or whatever. In this view, women, or at least women worth approaching, are submissive, though sometimes bratty submissives: consider the common PUA advice to treat a woman like she’s your little sister. Ideally PUA should one way or another screen for women who match their view.

I think this might be causing some of the confusion, because submissive behaviour can resemble low-self-esteem behaviour in ways that can alarm outside observers. But there’s nothing really wrong with submissive tendencies.

This matches my experiences actually, but then many of the women I tend to attract actually identify as submissive, so I can’t speak for all men.

SnowdropExplodes May 5, 2011 at 7:47 pm #

Women are more selective than men (conversely, men are less selective than women), leading me to suggest that women’s sexual preferences are simply more complex than men’s sexual preferences.

The premise is unsupported, and the conclusion does not follow from the premise anyway. That whole ASD thing (or the culture that makes ASD necessary) means that a woman’s actual selectiveness is masked by how she has to appear to be highly selective. And high selectiveness does not imply high complexity of criteria.

I will also add that since men’s preferences can be assessed at the speed of light (since they are highly loaded on looks), while women’s preferences need to be assessed at slower speeds (because they need more time to assess behavior and personality traits).

Wow. I guess I must not be a man, then? Or did my preferences for “kinky as anything” and “good company” (both of which are my sexual preferences) somehow acquire a highly visual connotation that I seem to have missed (because boy, if I could identify kinky women “at the speed of light”, based on looks, that would make my “practise pick-up project” so much easier!)

The default hypothesis should not be that men and women are the same until proven otherwise.

On the contrary, I think it absolutely should be! I think that, if you are going to assert that there are essential gender differences, then you have to prove them rigourously. I start from the hypothesis that men and women (of comparable IQ and Introvert/Extrovert temperament) are equally capable of introspection and communication. I then look at the fact that society projects strong messages about what are “appropriate” sexual tastes for men and women to have, and conclude that these have a tendency to mask people’s actual preferences. That means that the “display” preferences (what people tell you they want in a partner) may be different from what actually works for them – and they may actually believe in the “display” sexuality if they have not done much introspection. Your assertion that, “men’s preferences can be assessed at the speed of light (since they are highly loaded on looks), while women’s preferences need to be assessed at slower speeds (because they need more time to assess behavior and personality traits),” is the conclusion you reach if you believe what men tell you about men, but it doesn’t tell you what they actually desire.

You would hypothesize that men’s statements would be just as unreliable as women’s for non-130Is; I would hypothesize differently. Since men’s and women’s preferences and selectivity are different on average, to me it makes little sense to assume that men and women have the same ease of introspecting and articulating their preferences. Of course, some research on this actual question could prove me wrong.

You take gender difference (of preference and selectivity) as a given, and from that deduce that men and women are different – a classic “begging the question” fallacy. I assume that the human mind tends to be more similar than different across genders, and therefore demand proof that in this area there is any gender difference that cannot be explained by social factors, before I will accept an essentialist argument for the apparent differences.

Also: everything AB said in her comment #326. In addition to which: The ruling elite have a vested interest in keeping the belief going that (enough) sex is hard to get for men (i.e. scarcity/over-consumption), because that is how it can be used as a motivating force to get men to do other things (like work hard to earn money to support that “bit on the side” as well as the wife and kids; or indeed, to part with their hard-earned cash to buy a load of PUA materials!).

Sagredo May 5, 2011 at 8:52 pm #

Snowdrop,

I assume that the human mind tends to be more similar than different across genders, and therefore demand proof that in this area there is any gender difference that cannot be explained by social factors, before I will accept an essentialist argument for the apparent differences.

Why make that assumption? It seems perfectly possible that any given gender difference is due to social factors or to biology or to some combination.

The trouble I’ve found is that people who make the assumption you do often consider the male behaviour in most cases to be somehow pathological. Of course, you might not be one of them.

Maybe men really do prefer sex with more partners or with less screening than women do. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with women or with men for that. Maybe the difference really is partly innate. I don’t think your assumptions are going to help.

Sam May 5, 2011 at 9:33 pm #

Clarisse,

“Other than myself, no other female commenter has lasted as long as AB in any of the manliness-relevant conversations, because the environment is perceived as so hostile.”

well, to be fair, not a lot of the guys who originally commented in the masculinity threads are still around, others have joined at some point, stayed for a while, then left again, other joined later and stayed. Given that there were more guys in these threads to begin with – and that this is a topic about manliness – I don’t think it’s too surprising to find more men than women in these threads. So, while I cannot speak about the subjective experience of hostility possible experienced by any female commenter, I believe that these threads are examples of non-hostility by any general standard, certainly by any reasonable standard of gender discourse on the web. So, assuming that the female commenter-retention-rate is actually lower than the male commenter-retention-rate (not absolute figures, of course), I’d suggest it’s because women simply aren’t as invested in the topic as men are.

AB,

will reply to your last comment addressed to me later. Briefly, this -

“In many patriarchal societies, the men who could afford it have had multiple wives, which created much the same problem without female selectivity being involved.

…

“‘Scarcity’ implies an insufficient supply of something in comparison to the demand, and if the male demand is a steady supply of young and/or virginal women, nothing short of killing off 80% of the male population would enable women to meet that demand.”

I think the human polygyny factor wouldn’t require the killing of 80% of men to balance that out, but historically, the way cultures dealt with excess testosterone was wars in which considerable amounts of men died. Half of the men reproduced, while about 90% of women reproduced. This has apparently only changed after large scale industrialization and the social invention of the small-family (which reduced positive cultural checks on marriage and coupled people up pretty evenly), which allowed male reproduction rates to equal female ones, and, in that sense, go through the roof by apparently any historical standard. Sure, reproduction rates aren’t the same as “sexual scarcity”. But they may well be the closest thing in actual data that’s available. Society has always been dealing with that scarcity, it’s just that we’re today looking for solutions that don’t require mass cullings of any sort.

Hugh Ristik May 6, 2011 at 1:36 am #

Infra said:

Here’s my question, though: if 130Is do and communicate their introspection in one way, while 111Is do it in another, and 127Es do it in yet another, how do you distinguish your possibility (that 130Is are more introspective and better able to communicate it) from the possibility that you just don’t recognize or interpret the other two as well as you do the one?

I feel I can communicate with <130 IQ extraverted males about their preferences, and be able to predict their choices with reasonable accuracy.

I’d have to look up the references, if I can find my old notes, but IIRC there’s some evidence for testosterone cycling in males, too — essentially, a male sexual cycle,

Very interesting. However, is there actually evidence that this cycling leads to fluctuating sexual preferences, like in non-androgynous women? Unless there is, then I’m going to maintain the view that the fluctuations of preferences in non-androgynous women will cause them unique challenges in describing their preferences.

Hugh Ristik May 6, 2011 at 1:56 am #

AB said:

First off, you have provided no explanation for what makes you think women’s sexual preferences are more complex.

I thought I had, but maybe we need to connect the dots more. First, menstrual fluctuation in preferences seems like a form of complexity to me. Second, higher selectivity would be consistent with greater complexity. Of course, higher selectivity doesn’t prove greater complexity, as several folks have astutely pointed out.

I was going to save it for my selectivity post I’m working on, but I’m talk about a couple specific studies here. When I say that women’s preferences are “more complex,” I mean that they involve an interaction of a greater variety of factors, particularly behavioral factors.

For example, Jensen-Campbell et. al did a fascinating series of studies where they studied the relationship of dominance and agreeableness (i.e. interpersonal warmth, in this context) to attraction.

They found that women’s attraction to men was based on an interaction of dominance and agreeableness. Basically, agreeableness alone enhanced attraction, dominance alone did not, but the combination of the two enhanced it even more. In contrast, only agreeableness result in male attraction. Dominance did not (in either direction), nor was there any interaction. For men, one personality trait mattered: agreeableness. For women, two mattered (agreeableness and dominance), and they had an interaction.

Asendorpf et. al did a speed dating study, and they examined the influence of facial attractiveness, vocal attractiveness, BMI, the Big Five personality traits, and several other variables on speed dating outcomes.

If you look in table 3, the main predictors for getting chosen by one of your speed dating partners (i.e. the “partner effect”) showed sex differences.

Men getting chosen was significantly related to: facial attractiveness, vocal attractiveness, BMI, height, education, income, sociosexuality (i.e. propensity for short term mating), shyness, and openness

Women getting chosen was significantly related to: facial attractiveness, vocal attractiveness, BMI… and that’s all. All these variables are physical; none of the personality variables were related to men choosing their speed-dating partners. (And I can cite you other studies with completely different populations and methodology that found this same result.)

So in this study, men’s preferences were related to 3 physical variables, while women’s preferences were related to 9 variables encompassing not only physical traits, but personality traits, and also income/education. In this study, women’s sexual preferences simply have more going on.

Imagine that you need to describe the results of these studies in plain English. Two traits having an interaction (e.g. dominance and agreeableness) is tougher to explain, especially in the limited language available for women to discuss their preferences (term like “nice guy” and “jerk”). A woman could say that she likes guys who are “sort of nice guys but sort of jerks,” but that will sound confusing and contradictory.

Yet if you look at the actual research, women’s preferences are not contradictory at all: they simply require a fine tuning of multiple interacting variables. With men, we don’t see these interactions, because men on average just don’t care that much about personality traits for their sexual preferences (except perhaps agreeableness). Men care about personality traits for relationships, which is a different subject.

Now let’s try to explain the results of the Asendorpf study in English. Men’s preferences in that study are simple to explain: men care about looks and voice. Yet for women’s choices, it’s a lot harder to put “a 0.49 correlation with facial attractiveness, 0.33 correlation with vocal attractiveness, -0.13 correlation with BMI, 0.17 correlation with height, 0.16 correlation with education, 0.13 correlation with income, 0.24 correlation with sociosexuality, -0.15 correlation with shyness, and 0.2 correlation with Big Five openness to experience” into English.

As an aside, note that the Asendorpf study didn’t find that Agreeableness was related to either men’s or women’s preferences. Of course, it’s a totally different sample of people and methodology, so discrepancies like that aren’t surprising.

However, if you look at the body of mate preferences research, a larger number of traits, particularly personality traits pop up in women’s preferences than men’s, even though different studies have found different personality traits to matter to different population of women. If one group’s preferences depend on a larger number of traits than another groups, particularly involving interactions between specific traits, then we could say that their preferences are more complex.

Hugh Ristik May 6, 2011 at 2:56 am #

AB said:

Second, the menstrual difference is similar to the different priorities in short and long term relationships. Since men have those difference too (current fertility is more important for short-term mating, while potential reproductive capacity as well as sexual abstinence is more important in long-mating), I’d hardly call that unique to women.

I’m not really following you, here. Yes, men have hormonal fluctuations, but there is no evidence so far that it causes changes in their preferences. Androgynous women have hormonal fluctuations, yet their preferences don’t change very much with the menstrual cycle. It’s still looking like the preferences of (non-androgynous) women fluctuate more.

What I got from your thesis was that you considered the communication differences between men and women in this area being due to women’s lack of communication skills (which still leaves me wondering what you attribute it to when women don’t understand men).

It’s not much a lack of communication. It’s a problem conceptualizing the thing to communicate, and then actually putting it into English using the limited vocabulary available. If indeed women’s preferences depend on a larger number of variables than men’s, then it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s harder for women to conceptualize and communicate the relationship between those variables, even for women with better communication skills.

If you think that women’s needs are de facto harder to understand and less clearly described, it’s pretty obviously ascribing it to women, even if you don’t think they’re at fault for it.

If I say “harder to understand,” then there is someone other than women in the picture doing the understanding. If there is a flaw, is it with women’s communication, or is it with the people trying to understand it? I actually don’t know the answer to that question. I would suspect that if only men are confused by women’s communication, but other women aren’t, then we could be justified in saying that the men are having trouble understanding. Whereas if people of neither gender understand women’s communication about their preferences, then it would appear that women’s communication isn’t very clear.

As an example, here are two examples from female friends of them stating their preferences:
- “I like nice guys, but I don’t like weak men.”
- “I like a gentleman with a twist.”

After studying pickup and reading journal articles for years, I have some ideas about what those sentences could mean (e.g. “nice but not weak” could relate to the dominance X agreeableness interaction that Jensen-Campbell et. al found), but at the time, they were pretty opaque. What the fuck is a “twist”? Actually, what the hell does “gentleman” even mean nowadays?

However, I will allow that perhaps other women can decipher those preferences more easily. What do you think?

In contrast, if we hear a guy say something like “I’m into white girls with big booties and small breasts,” I think we actually do have a pretty good idea of his sexual preferences.

Plenty of feminists are, just look at their comments in regards to The Rules (which, incidentally, promote a set of values and assumptions very similar to that of the seduction community, so you can’t say the critique is one-sided).

Yes, some feminists are mad at women for some things, but in my view, they should be much madder at more women about more things. For example, I’ve haven’t heard feminists widely tell women to stop expecting men to just go ahead and do sexual stuff via mind-reading without asking. It seems like the reluctance of many feminists to criticize women is blinding them to the way that many mainstream heterosexual women are doing stuff that is counter to feminist ideals of consent.

‘Scarcity’ implies an insufficient supply of something in comparison to the demand, and if the male demand is a steady supply of young and/or virginal women, nothing short of killing off 80% of the male population would enable women to meet that demand. I think higher female selectivity, or lower female sex drive (or even lower female sexual satisfaction), is a more neutral expression than female sexual scarcity, but I think the concept is flawed from the start.

Scarcity is Sam’s language, not mine. As for “lower female sex drive,” that’s a completely different subject. I’ve been assuming that female sex drive (e.g. desire for sex, or desire for a sex with a given attractive person) is as strong as male sex drive… it just targets a lower proportion of people.

I also think you’re discounting female experiences of misjudging male desire.

Hmm, can you give me an example?

I believe society and popular culture tend to see things from the male point of view.

You might be interested in feminist sociologist Francesca Cancian’s work on the “feminization of love”. She argues that in American discourse on love and romance, female-typical perspectives on love are centered, and men’s are marginalized. She advocates a more inclusive concept of love that includes both male-typical and female-typical expression. Even if society in general sees things from the male point of view, Cancian’s work suggests that in relationships, that pattern is flipped and women’s point of view is considered default.

(Btw, Clarisse, that’s the book that I was recommending you a while ago…)

Infra May 6, 2011 at 3:57 am #

@Hugh:

I feel I can communicate with <130 IQ extraverted males about their preferences, and be able to predict their choices with reasonable accuracy.

Noted, though I’d be quite wary of confirmation bias. IME, >130 introvert males tend to hold this view about <130 extrovert males as a general matter of course, and in regard to subjects extending beyond sexual preference (this being something that I’ve noticed in being involved with high IQ groups over time).

However, is there actually evidence that this cycling leads to fluctuating sexual preferences, like in non-androgynous women?

AFAIK, no research on that particular subject has been done. What research that does exist has focused on whether or not hormonal cycling exists in the first place, and relates it to things like amount of sexual activity, seminal volume, and general activity levels (again, going from memory).

Personally, I’m inclined to think that this does support the possibility of variation in sexual preference, but that’s all anecdotal and related to my own experiments and observations over the years, and primarily hinges upon aromatization and estrogen levels (estradiol, primarily), not T levels in and of themselves.

Unfortunately, though, I don’t have access to a lab, so I can only report that from the perspective of a poor man’s Walter Bishop. I can understand why you might not find that convincing. ;)

Hugh Ristik May 6, 2011 at 4:04 am #

I said:

Women are more selective than men (conversely, men are less selective than women), leading me to suggest that women’s sexual preferences are simply more complex than men’s sexual preferences.

SnowdropExplodes said:

The premise is unsupported, and the conclusion does not follow from the premise anyway.

The premise of sex differences in selectiveness is supported. As I said, I’m going to have to do a post on FC to summarize this research. I’m not begging the question; I’ve acknowledged the need to justify that idea and deferred it to a later time. Unless you’ve done the research, don’t just assume that I’m wrong.

You can start with the Asendorpf study I discussed a couple replies ago. The study did find that young women were more selective than young men, and that older men were slightly more selective than older women.

As for the conclusion of greater complexity not following from the premise, I’m not making a deductive argument. I’m saying that greater complexity of female preferences could be a plausible factor in greater female selectivity, and also in men’s difficulty understanding women’s communication about what they want.

That whole ASD thing (or the culture that makes ASD necessary) means that a woman’s actual selectiveness is masked by how she has to appear to be highly selective.

I haven’t talked about the causes of sex differences in selectivity, not have I claimed that they are fully innate or essential.

And high selectiveness does not imply high complexity of criteria.

No, but high complexity of criteria could be a plausible explanation of high selectivity.

I said:

I will also add that since men’s preferences can be assessed at the speed of light (since they are highly loaded on looks), while women’s preferences need to be assessed at slower speeds (because they need more time to assess behavior and personality traits).

SnowdropExplodes said:

Wow. I guess I must not be a man, then?

Ok, ok, amend my statement to say “on average.” And if doubt that, go back a couple responses and my research discussion.

On the contrary, I think it absolutely should be! I think that, if you are going to assert that there are essential gender differences, then you have to prove them rigourously.

1. I’ve never said anything about gender differences being “essential” or not.
2. I’m not asserting that there are sex differences in complexity of preferences, I’m asserting that this hypothesis is plausible, and that it would neatly explain some other things we know (e.g. sex differences in selectivity, and men’s difficulty understanding women’s communications about their preferences).

If we knew absolutely nothing about men, women, and their preferences, then we would have no reason to expect gender differences. Yet that’s not the case: why do know that men and women have many similarities and differences, and we specifically know that sexual attitudes exhibit some of the biggest sex differences. For a good introduction to sex differences, check out Gender, Nature, and Nurture by Richard Lippa.

If you take the attitude that the sexes are the same until proven otherwise, then if there are sex differences, you won’t accept them until someone comes along and gives you a rigorous proof. But until that proof appears, you’re running blind. It’s better to have a way to give weight to some hypotheses over others, even when none of them are closed cases.

I start from the hypothesis that men and women (of comparable IQ and Introvert/Extrovert temperament) are equally capable of introspection and communication.

Actually, so do I. But they aren’t communicating about the same thing, because women’s sexual preferences have certain average differences from men’s, some of which I’ve summarized in my research comment. When women talk about their preferences, they are talking about a subject that involves a lot more variables, so it would be unsurprising if it’s harder to introspect and communicate about. That’s not a knock on women, it’s a recognition that they are facing a greater challenge.

Your assertion that, “men’s preferences can be assessed at the speed of light (since they are highly loaded on looks), while women’s preferences need to be assessed at slower speeds (because they need more time to assess behavior and personality traits),” is the conclusion you reach if you believe what men tell you about men, but it doesn’t tell you what they actually desire.

On the contrary, looks tell us a lot about who men desired in Asendorpf’s speed dating study, judging by the fact that these men selected those women for potential dates. That’s a real world dating context. The beta values in Asendorpf et. al’s regression (not correlation coefficients, as I inaccurately reported earlier) showed facial attractiveness as the biggest predictor of men choosing women for future dating, out of the potential predictors that the study looked at.

machina May 6, 2011 at 4:27 am #

Patch:

I like where you were going, especially the above sentence. Fundamentally, I think that it’s got to be about open communication. Which is hard. But it seems like lots of the dead ends this thread has run into have their roots in attempting to take honest conversation off of the table.

One note: honesty isn’t the same thing as being undiplomatic, rude, overly blunt, or unsexy. You can still phrase what you say well, bring up topics at appropriate points in the conversation, etc. But I don’t think that you can get away from clear communication as a requirement.

The sex is better when you’ve talked about what you both like first, anyway.

Yeah, I think I’d be a lot more interested in PUA if it were about how to talk about what you both like in order to have better sex. It’s hard, and I think Clarisse’s “Creep” article was trying to point out how women made it harder, although that aspect didn’t get the attention.

AB, I think you clarified you positions in post #306, and I don’t really have much disagreement so I guess not much to say here.

Hugh Ristik,
This paper shows research on variations on male preferences in female body shape over the year and discusses how this may be due to the yearly variations in testosterone that has been found in several studies, although that’s not their main hypothesis: http://www.femininebeauty.info/f/seasonal.change.women.body.attractiveness.pdf

So in this study, men’s preferences were related to 3 physical variables, while women’s preferences were related to 9 variables encompassing not only physical traits, but personality traits, and also income/education. In this study, women’s sexual preferences simply have more going on.

I don’t think you can make that conclusion on an individual level. In a quick look I found nothing to say that individual men don’t have preferences for personality traits, only that there was no overall pattern in their preferences for personality traits. That could be due to men’s preferences being, collectively, more diverse than women’s so that no particular traits were preferred overall. That would actually make men, collectively, less predictable than women.

AB May 6, 2011 at 4:55 am #

@Sagredo:

AB, how often do you tease women while flirting with them? I do occasionally and this is my experience. Confident women, especially women who are a bit full of themselves, tend to open up, warm up and become interested.

I could ask you a similar question, how often do you talk to girls about their insecurities? I’ve seen girls in situations I know no guy has seen them in, and it’s often quite a different image. ‘Women who’re a bit full of themselves’ are not even recognised by many people as a subset of confidence (narcissism is often thought to be a compensatory reaction to a deeper insecurity).

On the other hand, if you consider yourself confident and you would be offended by the sunburn or similar negs, then I will accept your experience.

Will you quit with the sunburn line? Seriously, it’s getting old, we all you know you love that line and think it unnecessary discuss anything else as long as a it’s been mentioned as one example of a neg. And in response to your question, I wouldn’t be offended my most of them, and I might like the bunburn line because a) it’s witty, and b) if I had a bunburn, I would most likely be a bit self-conscious, so having a guy make light of it while still being interested in me would be a relief.

But there’s always the possibility that it’d come across as him actually teasing, and that might be unpleasant. Though in this, trust is actually a lot more important than confidence, because it’s all about whether you perceive the guy as trying to genuinely lighten to mood for you, or as simply trying to make you self-conscious. I’ve had periods of my life were I was very trusting but also had low self-esteem, and periods where I was both cynical about other people and confident in my own ability to handle it.

But to make it more concrete, I can take the negs from PUA Lingo one by one:

“Nice nails, are they real?”

This one will usually just be annoying. I have yet to meet any guy who’s that interested in nails, or that into pointing out fakeness in the girls he’s with, so it comes off as calculated. Not to mention I probably wouldn’t be interested in a guy who cared. And it’s rude, and a textbook example of skirting the line of an insult (if you nails are actually fake, you can’t really object to people noticing it), which I rarely respond positively to.

“Your nose wiggles when you talk! … It’s so cute! … Look at it! There it goes again!”

Obvious attempt at making someone self-conscious. Pointing out people’s little oddities as endearing is fine for a relationship, but to a stranger, especially in a public space, it’s just breaking the rules of social conduct without caring.

“Y’know, I just saw a girl wearing the EXACT SAME dress/outfit a little while ago.”

This one just screams “Hey, look at me! I have the courage to be rude and committing a social faux pas, but not the courage to actually let it reflect on me and not someone else!” Really pathetic, unless I hated the girl and the guy was bullying her for my sake, and even then, it’s just entitled.

“You can dress her up, but you can’t take her anywhere!”

I’m not sure I even understand that one, perhaps because of the language barrier.

“You have some lipstick on your face, here let me wipe it off.”

This one is complete OK in my book, because if I had some lipstick on my face, I’d want to be made aware of it. If the guy smiles at the same time, combined with showing an interest in touching her, it even takes away some of the possible embarrassment. If she didn’t have lipstick on her face, he better be damned sure he’s really into her, because while lying to get into contact with a girl you’re crazy about is understandable (if a bit desperate), casually lying to a string of people in order to get sex with them is crossing the line.

But then again, I take honesty seriously, and I think there’s something incredibly charming about a guy who can be blunt and honest (especially if he still possesses the social skills to not make it uncomfortable), but something incredibly off-putting about faking that sort of bluntness and honesty.

“You have really big ears, don’t worry, I think its cute, kind of like a bunny.”

It’s like the comment about her nose wiggling, I think that sort of thing belongs in a more intimate setting. The “don’t worry, I think it’s cute” is also arrogant, because it implies that the speaker expects the target to be embarrassed, self-conscious, or otherwise needing reassurance. If that’s actually the case, then the whole thing was a misjudgement, and he should apologise instead of assuring her that she still has his approval, and if it’s not the case, then he’s assuming he’s more important to her ego than he is. I suspect it’ll work best if the target really does become insecure.

From SoSuave:

“Hey, I like that outfit. **pause for her response** Yeah, my (mother/aunt/grandmother) has one just like it!”

Backhanded compliment. If I thought he really thought it was a compliment, I’d label him too socially clueless to bother with – I do socialise with guys with Asperger’s syndrome, but I don’t date them (not to mention even they are more socially proficient than this). If I thought he knew what he was doing, then it’s just an insult, fully on par with “that outfit looks really frumpy”, except he’s trying to be clever about it (which makes it worse because these sorts of insults were old back in the 8th grade).

“You have a very pretty face, but you should use less makeup. Makeup should be used to enhance a woman’s beauty, not hide it.” “You have really beautiful hair. **pause** You should grow it (shorter/longer). It would go much better with the shape of your face.” “That outfit is really sharp. **pause** It would look much better if it were (some other color).” “Have you highlighted your hair? **pause for her response** Why do women ruin their luxurious hair with highlights?” “You have very pretty (blue/brown/black/green/hazel) eyes. **pause** You shouldn’t use (so much/so little) eye shadow. It detracts from the color of your eyes.”

A guy acting like a bad gay stereotype. I want a man who will honestly tell me if a dress makes me look fat and who has as least some form of opinion on aesthetics, not a guy going around offering unsolicited fashion advice to random strangers (including me).

“Nice outfit! **pause** I saw another woman here wearing the exact same thing!”

This was mentioned on PUA Lingo earlier, but the interesting part here is the comment attached to it “Women HATE this”, because it’s really honest that the goal is not to make the target feel good.

I’ll take the physical negs and action negs from SoSuave later if anyone’s interested, but I suspect the response will just be “you’re an oddity can’t represent confident women half as well as me”. The point was mainly to illustrate that it’s not a clear case of being offended or not, or having the confidence to take it or not. In fact, some of my biggest mistakes (often made when I was feeling terrible about myself) have been made because I turned my choices into a matter of trying prove myself., rather than being about what I wanted.

Infra May 6, 2011 at 5:36 am #

Just to add on to a couple of the things that AB mentioned, noting that I agree with her analysis in the main:

“Nice nails, are they real?”

IME, it can come off differently, but only when it’s accompanied by two other things: (1) the guy has already shown, in a positive way, that he notices subtle aspects of appearance, such as fabric quality or the aesthetics of one’s accessories, and (2) he demonstrates a similar awareness in his own style and appearance. Those aren’t the most common things.

Additionally, it carries the connotation of implying that someone is cheap, lower class, etc. (comments about blue eye shadow can do the same), which brings in another slew of concerns, including the possibility of it coming off as “Nice nails… are you a whore?” In some ways, it’s along the lines of saying to a guy, “Nice cologne. Is it Jovan Musk?” (Though the impact of that might not be apparent to guys who don’t put any real thought into the scents they use — which is kind of the point.)

All of which is aside from the “nice tits, are they real?” parallel.

“You have a very pretty face, but you should use less makeup. Makeup should be used to enhance a woman’s beauty, not hide it.” [etc.]

In addition to what AB mentioned about coming off as a bad gay stereotype, and in addition to the qualifiers mentioned above in regard to “nice nails” (i.e., this kind of thing could only come off positively if the guy had already established enough interest in and knowledge of style to have some credibility in mentioning it), I’ve known women who specifically view dressing up as a way of taking ownership of their own bodies. Those negs come off as ways of revoking that.

And as an aside, @Sagredo:

Will you quit with the sunburn line? Seriously, it’s getting old, we all you know you love that line and think it unnecessary discuss anything else as long as a it’s been mentioned as one example of a neg.

I have to agree with AB here, but probably for a different reason: the way in which you reference theory, and particular examples, tends to send of a very strong KJ vibe. Doesn’t do much for your argument, and does a lot against it.

AB May 6, 2011 at 8:54 am #

@Hugh Ristik:

I’m not really following you, here. Yes, men have hormonal fluctuations, but there is no evidence so far that it causes changes in their preferences. Androgynous women have hormonal fluctuations, yet their preferences don’t change very much with the menstrual cycle. It’s still looking like the preferences of (non-androgynous) women fluctuate more.

From what I recall from my exam in evolutionary psychology (though that wasn’t focussed so exclusively on mating preferences and sex differences as pop evo-psych, since the university actually took it seriously), age, testosterone, and physical appearance tend to be important to women for short-term relationships, because it signals fertility and good genes. For a long-term relationship, physical resources and personality tend to be given higher value.

This is very similar to the differences in taste during the menstrual cycle: While the woman is most fertile, she goes for the genes (short-term), and the rest of the time, she goes for a good relationship (long-term). Since men have different short- and long-term preferences too, the main difference is simply that women’s preferences are tied to a monthly cycle and men’s are not. Both sexes have different preferences for different relationships. In fact, men’s preferences actually fluctuate more than women’s in some areas (starving men tend to find obese women more attractive, whereas the male body preferred by women is more universal).

It’s not much a lack of communication. It’s a problem conceptualizing the thing to communicate, and then actually putting it into English using the limited vocabulary available. If indeed women’s preferences depend on a larger number of variables than men’s, then it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s harder for women to conceptualize and communicate the relationship between those variables, even for women with better communication skills.

I think machina made a good point, that just because there is not a pattern in men, it doesn’t mean men’s preferences are less complex. I also think women, even in our culture, tend to define themselves more by their relationships than men (even today, a wedding is supposed to be a woman’s big day, whereas the man is more indifferent), so it makes sense that there are social factors which are more important to them. I think this is especially true in the USA (I read a survey which showed that the status of their partner was significantly more important to American women than to anyone else).

I believe human sexuality is fluid, and it makes sense to me that a culture in which women are pretty much all prostitutes of some sort (i.e. gaining their wealth and position in society from the men they sleep with, rather than having their own lives and having sex with men for its own sake), their sexual preferences would depend on a whole lot more than sex, and as PUAs and pop evo-psych experts are eager to stretch, women only recently gained freedom and equality in our society. I don’t see why it’s so unthinkable that the previous status of women could have a social effect as well as a biological one, lingering on even when their official status has changed.

If I say “harder to understand,” then there is someone other than women in the picture doing the understanding. If there is a flaw, is it with women’s communication, or is it with the people trying to understand it? I actually don’t know the answer to that question. I would suspect that if only men are confused by women’s communication, but other women aren’t, then we could be justified in saying that the men are having trouble understanding. Whereas if people of neither gender understand women’s communication about their preferences, then it would appear that women’s communication isn’t very clear.

I’m not a typical woman, but even though I socialise more with men, I often find myself identifying with the women men can’t understand. I find that I’m more likely to project my own emotions to the women I’m trying to understand, and come up with a more useful analysis than with men.

As an example, here are two examples from female friends of them stating their preferences:
- “I like nice guys, but I don’t like weak men.”
- “I like a gentleman with a twist.”

After studying pickup and reading journal articles for years, I have some ideas about what those sentences could mean (e.g. “nice but not weak” could relate to the dominance X agreeableness interaction that Jensen-Campbell et. al found), but at the time, they were pretty opaque. What the fuck is a “twist”? Actually, what the hell does “gentleman” even mean nowadays?

However, I will allow that perhaps other women can decipher those preferences more easily. What do you think?

There’s always the risk of misinterpreting, so I can’t guarantee I get it right, but the first statement seems very clear to me. I’m not even sure how to explain it, because the sentence seems so completely obvious already. Since you mentioned the limited vocabulary of the English language, I think I’ll start with a Danish word which I’ve yet to find a suitable English replacement for, ‘behagsyg’, which literally means ‘pleasing-sick’ (as in, sick/desperate to please). It’s considered an endearing quality in a dog, but not too flattering when applied to a human.

Many nice people are also behagsyge (and conflict-shy, another expression so common Danes have made it into its own word), which is quite obvious when you consider what the word actually entails. The kind of guy who’ll lavish you with compliments and follow you around like a puppy, but wont back you up in any serious conflict, is an excellent example of this, agreeable enough as long as it’s convenient, but unable/unwilling to handle hardships, and therefore ultimately unattractive. The guy who does what’s right because it’s right, not because it’s convenient, and who’s able and willing to handle the conflicts that entails, is the opposite, and much sexier.

I suspect that many men find compliance highly attractive (it’s part of what PUAs are recommended to test for after all), and love the idea of a woman who’ll obey them in everything, and that’s why the idea that someone would want a genuinely good person who isn’t a doormat seems so alien to them. In this case, I actually think young women are more in tune with what they want than young men, because I have seen guys being both drawn and repulsed by strong women without ever admitting it to anyone.

The second statement is a bit less obvious, because as you said, ‘with a twist’ can mean a lot of things. I personally like contrasts in a guy, and this could be part of what she’s talking about, a very stereotypical role but with a personal quirk. It indicates that the man is himself and doesn’t conform to preconceived notions about how his type is supposed to act, even though he’s capable of performing that role. It could also simply be that she likes many aspects of the gentleman behaviour, but not all of them, and this is her way of saying that. Most likely, there aren’t stereotypes for what she’s looking for, or perhaps there is, there just isn’t a name for it, so she’s stuck with being vague.

Infra May 6, 2011 at 9:15 am #

“I like a gentleman with a twist.”

Actually, I have to say that this one sounds pretty obvious to me: mostly Jekyll, with a touch of Hyde, or even Jean Valjean (an honorable man with a past). It’s much the same as “a nice guy, but not a weak man,” except that the qualities that AB mentioned — “who does what’s right because it’s right, not because it’s convenient, and who’s able and willing to handle the conflicts that entails” — are given a sharper, darker edge.

As a literary trope, it’s pretty common.

AB May 6, 2011 at 9:49 am #

@Hugh Ristik:

(continued)

In contrast, if we hear a guy say something like “I’m into white girls with big booties and small breasts,” I think we actually do have a pretty good idea of his sexual preferences.

And when I hear a girl say “I like tall guys” I also have a pretty good idea about her sexual preference. I have a friend who’s always been attracted to tall, black guys. Since this is Denmark, she’s mostly dated white guys, but don’t think I’ve ever seen her with a guy shorter than average, and she’d had more non-Nordic boyfriends than anyone I know.

I think this is just as much about women speaking more in detail about their preferences, and being more focussed on which kind of relationship they’d want. I usually discuss the physical aspects of a guy far more with my female than male friends, and our conversations are very similar to guys’. It’s considerably harder to narrow down which non-physical traits you’re looking for in a partner, and even people (of both sexes) I’ve seen express such preferences have often dated outside of them.

Yes, some feminists are mad at women for some things, but in my view, they should be much madder at more women about more things. For example, I’ve haven’t heard feminists widely tell women to stop expecting men to just go ahead and do sexual stuff via mind-reading without asking. It seems like the reluctance of many feminists to criticize women is blinding them to the way that many mainstream heterosexual women are doing stuff that is counter to feminist ideals of consent.

Again, most men experience feminism in the context of a bunch of men (typically themselves) making attacks on feminism, and mostly female feminists defending themselves. And in that context, it’s completely understandable that the feminists aren’t bending over backwards to pat the guys on the head and talk about the wrongness of women.

To give a concrete example, I was watching/halfway participating in an internet discussion about sexiness, with the usual accusations of prudery and hints that women (especially feminists) must be ugly to hold the opinions they did. During this, Beyonce’s hit Single Ladies came up, and my first impression of that song was very negative. I heard her repeat “If you like it then you should have put a ring on it” again and again, and I couldn’t help wondering “Did she at any point actually ask the guy to marry her?”. Something similar happened with Rihanna’s Unfaithful, when I heard her going “I don’t wanna do this anymore”, my first reaction was to exclaim “Then stop doing it!”.

There’s lots of popular culture which glorifies spoiled girl-children who can’t make up their mind, and calls anything which is about blaming men ‘strong’ and ‘feminist’. In the case of these women (not so much who the performers are in private, but what they’re actually showing and what some women imitate), they seem to be putting a ridiculous amount of work into maintaining a peak of fuckability, but don’t put even half the same effort into taking responsibility for themselves.

But in the actual debate, I never mentioned any of it. It’s easy enough to think, feel, and talk to women about, but when a bunch of guys are screaming the equivalent of “I want to fuck Beyonce a lot, therefore she is more free and empowered than all you feminist bitches”, mentioning that you think she’s being sexist to her ex-boyfriend doesn’t really seem that pressing. Besides, as I have said before, I think there are lots of things women do wrong that many men don’t seem to mind, and many places in which men are discriminated that most men seem to either prefer or not care about. I think the criticism you’re talking about is happening, just not in the way you’d do it.

Scarcity is Sam’s language, not mine. As for “lower female sex drive,” that’s a completely different subject. I’ve been assuming that female sex drive (e.g. desire for sex, or desire for a sex with a given attractive person) is as strong as male sex drive… it just targets a lower proportion of people.

I’m not sure it’s only about selectivity. I think a lot of women are more careful and restrained in their sexuality (I was looking for different words, but they don’t seem to exist), and a lot of them need to feel more safe and relaxed in order to enjoy sex (or alternatively, they have a harder time enjoying sex because they tend to feel less safe and relaxed than men), so it’s more about the mood and how they feel about themselves than about the guy they’re with.

Hmm, can you give me an example?

I’ve already said that there are plenty of times where I can’t see what a man sees in a woman. In fact, there is one girl who dates a guy in my roleplaying group who half the guys have had a crush on, and the other half can’t stand. Some of the guys have remarked how it’s not very flattering the way her fat sometimes spills over her low-cut pants, and her boyfriend’s own brother once mentioned that he couldn’t understand what his brother was doing with her, but despite that, she’s been the source of a good deal of jealousy, even from guys I’ve seen with prettier and slimmer girls before.

But in regards to actually misjudging a guy’s preferences (as opposed to just not knowing or understanding them), I remember one example very clearly. I was hanging out with some guys and I had made an effort to appear attractive. I don’t usually use makeup or lots of hair products, but I did wear a flattering outfit with a good-looking cleavage, my hair looked great, and I was feeling sexy. A while later, I’d just gotten my period, and I was sweaty, had impure skin, a bloated stomach, and felt completely unattractive. I decided not not bother washing my hair, I wore an old men’s t-shirt, and I made it clear to the guys from the start that I just wanted to relax and eat half a kilo of chocolate.

The guys were tolerant about it, and at one point, one of them gave me a massage and back-rub because I was feeling sore, and I had to take my bra of, which I thought just made my breasts look saggy. But later I talked with a guy who’d been present in both situations, and he mentioned finding me very sexy “especially that one time where you were all sweaty and didn’t have a bra on, and you were moaning slightly when getting a massage, it really turned me on”. That was when I first realised how much the appearance of sexual availability could influence a guy’s feeling of sexual attraction. Before that, I thought it was mainly about looking good, because no one had said differently.

You might be interested in feminist sociologist Francesca Cancian’s work on the “feminization of love”. She argues that in American discourse on love and romance, female-typical perspectives on love are centered, and men’s are marginalized. She advocates a more inclusive concept of love that includes both male-typical and female-typical expression. Even if society in general sees things from the male point of view, Cancian’s work suggests that in relationships, that pattern is flipped and women’s point of view is considered default.

I agree that love has a reputation for being a feminine concept, and I’ve already mentioned how weddings seem to be all about the bride. That being said, men themselves aren’t very clear on what they find romantic, so they appear to have little interest for it. In contrast, when all communication differences are traced traced back to women being complicated (or illogical, dishonest, and incoherent), it’s not because women are uninterested or don’t have their own perspective on it.

I found the statement “I like nice guys but not weak men” to be complete straightforward, whereas statements from men about how they want a woman who’ll let them be men, or respect their manhood, or whatever else they’re saying, usually come across as incoherent. Though in all fairness, when women talk about wanting men who aren’t afraid to be men, I find it equally incoherent and idiotic (I still have an idea about what they mean, but it doesn’t make them coherent).

AB May 6, 2011 at 10:14 am #

@Infra:

I’ve known women who specifically view dressing up as a way of taking ownership of their own bodies. Those negs come off as ways of revoking that.

This too. Though giving people unsolicited advice indicating that they’re currently doing something wrong is actually something I’ve experienced girls doing to me in primary school.

It strikes me as often being very much about dominance, and if PUA theory says women want dominance, then it stands to reason that’s what they’ll go for. The problem, of course, is that once you’ve established dominance over them, people are more likely to go along with what you want. It’s not surprising if some PUAs don’t distinguish between a woman following her own sexuality and a human complying with the wishes of a dominant pack-member.

I also think interpreting a woman reacting to it by chasing a guy as a sign of confidence is an example of how the PUA definition of confidence, and the (in lack of a better word) more human definition of confidence are very different. The PUA definition counts on confident women feeling a need to prove their sexual value to guys “So he doesn’t like me? I’ll make him change his mind!”, whereas to some of us, confidence comes in the form of “So he doesn’t like me? Oh well.”.

SnowdropExplodes May 6, 2011 at 11:16 am #

@ H.R.:

Okay, I’ve had a look through the Asendorpf study, and Table 3 does not seem to me to show what you think it does.

I note the confidence levels for most of the “women being chosen” column are not significant, while they are for “men being chosen”, and that earlier, Asendorpf reports that:

The relative amount of actor variances tended to be higher for males than for females. Thus, differences in choosiness and achieved matches were more pronounced in men than in women, which may be attributed to their higher variance in short-term mating interest

Because the data in table three are standardised, we cannot see what the variance was for the effects across all participants (the footnote, “Predictors in boldface were retained in the final set of predictors with significant unique variance” seems to refer to the variance within the predictor, rather than within the effect the predictor had).

The suggestion this raises for me is that men’s selected preferences are not homogenised across all men, but that their desires are more varied by height, education, income of partner, sociosexuality, shyness and openness. Alternatively, due to men’s perception of sexual scarcity, and the social imperative for men to seek sex, more men in a speed-dating situation will report high levels of interest in any woman who meets their basic standards, in the hope that some of them will have felt he meets theirs (since in the study, men on average chose more women than women chose men, this seems like a reasonable hypothesis). This could result in masking the actual interest of men in certain factors, with height, income and openness being the areas on which men were most willing to compromise in order to get the chance of a date. Either way, it suggests that men do not have less complex desires, but rather that they are either more varied between men, or more flexible in themselves, in those desires when it comes to seeking a date.

What isn’t reported is how well those predictors of selection also predict how likely a matched pair would be to end up in a relationship or in bed with each other.

Given that your hypothesis appears to be not “men and women express different preferences” (which is a given), but rather, two hypotheses that “there is a greater difference between women’s expressed preferences and what they actually prefer, than there is between men’s expressed preferences and what they actually prefer”, and, “there is an underlying difference in men’s and women’s preferences”, that element would be crucial to supporting your hypotheses. We might hypothesise that short-term interest (i.e. sex rather than relationship) might lead to successfully bedding each other being more strongly predicted by the features mentioned (but again – we might see that the non-physical features become less important for women as well as for men) but for indicators of “true desires”, the longevity of the selection, rather than the selection itself, would surely be a more useful indicator. Comparing that to the findings of the initial selection would, in fact, be able to support or deny the hypothesis that women are less able to communicate or express their desires than men are.

The evidence you have presented thus far does not support this hypothesis.

I take a feminist view that female selectivity is largely socially-produced, and not indicative of what women actually desire sexually; studies that (like the Asendorpf one) claim an evolutionary basis for the economic selectivity are failing to take into account current social imperatives.

I also take the view that male selectivity is driven by social imperatives, and arguably, a much more performative role in terms of choosing a partner to display status to other men.

You appear to take it as read that when a man says he wants a blonde with big tits, then that’s actually what he desires sexually at a basic level whereas when a woman says she wants a guy with a kind heart and GSOH, then she simply has not done enough introspection or something.

But I have lost count of the number of times that I’ve met men who publicly display “big tits blonde” desire, but privately, when masculine status is not on the line, will express something else, or admit that they don’t really know their “type”.

So I would argue that, if anything, it is harder socially for men to express their genuine preferences, which is why I say that I anticipate equal non-predictability based on men’s stated preferences (it might predict initial approach choices, but not overall relationship choice).

SnowdropExplodes May 6, 2011 at 11:45 am #

@ H.R.

Seeing as I used a more stereotypical example in my longer post, feel I should deal with this as well:

In contrast, if we hear a guy say something like “I’m into white girls with big booties and small breasts,” I think we actually do have a pretty good idea of his sexual preferences.

I’m not so sure. I could quite honestly say, “I’m into short women with red hair”, but as I’ve already expressed, that is a pretty weak predictor of the hair colour and height of women I end up dating (height is a stronger predictor than hair colour, because red hair is not hugely common, due to being a recessive gene or something, IIRC from my GCSE biology classes); the strong predictors are as I discussed before – women who are kinky and “good company”.

We can argue that men who say “I’m into white girls with big booties and small breasts,” and then go on to date only women with those characteristics, are being true to themselves; or we could argue that they are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy and that perhaps if they broadened their approach they might find that other factors (potentially, emotional/personality ones) proved to be a better predictor of enjoyable sexual encounters.

I believe that we might more frequently observe that men who make such a claim about “I’m into…” do not generally stick to those characteristics as a rule, but in fact favour other factors than skin colour, booty size and breast size in terms of the partners they end up choosing to date.

Certainly, in terms of anecdotal evidence, that seems to be what I have observed most frequently to be the case. I don’t know if any long-term studies have been done that could verify or disprove this hypothesis.

Thus, again, I would suggest that men are as complex in their desires, but (if anything) more likely to be less able to communicate them clearly.

Sam May 6, 2011 at 12:08 pm #

AB,

“Hey, I like that outfit. **pause for her response** Yeah, my (mother/aunt/grandmother) has one just like it!”

interesting analysis of the negs.

As for the line above, I think what’s really important here is performance, and that’s something no one seems to have brought up yet.

I *can* be fun but it can also be an insult, entirely depending on the performance, the text itself really doesn’t answer that question wihtout actually seeing how it’s delivered. And that’s a problem with a lot of the PUA stuff – it does require pretty good (comedic) timing for the effect to work, but without that timing, it’s often neither funny nor effective, it just blows.

And that performative aspect also makes it harder to do a semantic analysis of the text, as the text as such really doesn’t contain too much information about the meaning that will be conveyed in the actual performance of the piece.

Think of “here’s to looking at you, kid” performed by a random guy in a bar. It just won’t have the effect it had on Grace Kelly when Humphrey Bogart said it – it will very likely be tacky if taken seriously by the performer and at best funny if performed ironically.

Also, with respect to things that work in a relationship but have different meanings outside, very true. BUT: assuming a certain familiarity is very important part in flirting, as it is by design adding a personal layer to an interaction. So, pointing out idiosyncracies as endearing may well be about being particularly attractive so *THAT* person. There was an article on okcupid recently how it works better for women who have idiosyncracies to showcase them rather than trying to blend in, because it will likely turn on compatible people an turn off incopmatible ones – very useful strategy.

By the way, however much a girl will say she likes an honest opinion about something making her look fat, being honest in that respect is simply a lose-lose proposition for a guy unless you’re actually shopping with her and can offer an alternative piece of clothing that will make her look visbly thinner to everyone *including herself*. Usually, that sort of question is code for something else, but it’s probably too specific to tell what it is code for. But I certainly won’t tell a girl “you know, that skirt makes you look fat” even if I were to think it all night long. Nothing good will come from saying it, however much honesty may be appreciated…

Sagredo May 6, 2011 at 4:31 pm #

AB,

I could ask you a similar question, how often do you talk to girls about their insecurities? I’ve seen girls in situations I know no guy has seen them in, and it’s often quite a different image.

I think when one sees a woman warm up, smile, pay attention, perhaps giggle a little bit, become more animated, more interested and generally give the impression of having a good time, in response to being teased, it’s fair to conclude that she really is having a good time. Of course, it’s possible that it’s all a performance, a mask for deep insecurity beyond my powers of detection. But I don’t think that’s a very helpful approach. I’d rather take people at face value.

‘Women who’re a bit full of themselves’ are not even recognised by many people as a subset of confidence (narcissism is often thought to be a compensatory reaction to a deeper insecurity).

I’m not sure extraversion, even confident extraversion, is a sign of narcissistic disorder. And actually it’s generally the women who tease more who most like to be teased. There may well be women out there who can dish it out but can’t take it, but I tend to be lucky enough not to encounter them.

Though in this, trust is actually a lot more important than confidence, because it’s all about whether you perceive the guy as trying to genuinely lighten to mood for you, or as simply trying to make you self-conscious. I’ve had periods of my life were I was very trusting but also had low self-esteem, and periods where I was both cynical about other people and confident in my own ability to handle it.

Generally I prefer to avoid women who have either low self-esteem or are cynical about other people. Now I’m not a PUA, and I don’t approach women in bars or on the street very often, but when I do get the chance to flirt I prefer to tease those women who show signs of liking themselves and liking others too, and who are already in a mood that doesn’t need lightening. I think extraversion is also a factor in figuring out just how far to go, but it’s all by intuition.

And I admit sometimes I’ve misjudged and had to apologise, or more often gone just a little too far and had to tone it down and show more approval. There’s always a little risk, that’s what makes it fun when it works.

But to make it more concrete, I can take the negs from PUA Lingo one by one:

Sam makes some excellent points about the performance of teasing vs. reviewing negs on paper:

And that performative aspect also makes it harder to do a semantic analysis of the text, as the text as such really doesn’t contain too much information about the meaning that will be conveyed in the actual performance of the piece.

Agreed.

Also, with respect to things that work in a relationship but have different meanings outside, very true. BUT: assuming a certain familiarity is very important part in flirting, as it is by design adding a personal layer to an interaction. So, pointing out idiosyncracies as endearing may well be about being particularly attractive so *THAT* person.

This is something that’s worth echoing. Flirting always involves breaking certain rules of social conduct, but in a very careful deliberate way. There’s an essential daring aspect to flirting: it’s daring to put just one foot over a certain line, as if one is more familiar than one really is, without going so far as to damage the person. I don’t think a flirting in which one adheres strictly to the bounds of propriety is really flirting. AB, I’m not getting any sense from your responses to the example negs, even the sunburn one you earlier described as “gently teasing someone about their tan”, that you enjoy this kind of gentle teasing at all, regardless of delivery. There’s nothing wrong with that, nor does it make you an oddity, but many other women really do like it.

Infra May 6, 2011 at 6:18 pm #

@Sam:

I *can* be fun but it can also be an insult, entirely depending on the performance, the text itself really doesn’t answer that question wihtout actually seeing how it’s delivered.

To a degree, that’s true. But I do suspect that the ability to convey something as fun instead of an insult is often overestimated; delivery is always constrained by the existing plot, characters and mise-en-scène. On my reading, I’d say that those elements, if not explicitly named (though the earlier discussion of PC vs. NPC speaks to it), still play a strong role in many of these critiques. Performance isn’t being overlooked, in that sense. It’s being assumed.

Sagredo May 6, 2011 at 6:38 pm #

To a degree, that’s true. But I do suspect that the ability to convey something as fun instead of an insult is often overestimated; delivery is always constrained by the existing plot, characters and mise-en-scène.

Yeah, this is a problem of the way they’ve been listed out like they’re a grab-bag of lines. Better if each one is understood as an example of something that happened to work in one place and time, and not a substitute for creativity.

Hugh Ristik May 6, 2011 at 8:33 pm #

Sorry, SnowdropExplodes, but you’ve gotten the stats wrong.

I note the confidence levels for most of the “women being chosen” column are not significant, while they are for “men being chosen”, and that earlier, Asendorpf reports that:

They are not significant because there was no relationship (well, there as a relationship, but it was miniscule). Significance is a test of a relationship. What this means is that even the tiny relationships found couldn’t be distinguished from a chance result, assuming the null hypothesis of no relationship. This means that the data did not show any relationship between these variables. This is STATS 101.

Miniscule effect size and high p-value (i.e. low significance) is exactly what you see when there is no relationship between two variables. You can confirm this yourself, by generating two vectors of random variables, regressing one on the other, and seeing the miniscule effect and high p-value staring you in the face.

Because the data in table three are standardised, we cannot see what the variance was for the effects across all participants

The variance they are talking about would the variance in choosiness. That’s completely different from machina’s interesting hypothesis, that men have more variance in their preferences for specific personality traits, and that this variance might lead to men’s preferences canceling each other out and being invisible to a linear aggregation.

This study didn’t measure the variance within men’s preferences. It’s about choices in speed dating. It shows that men vary more in how many women they picked; it does not show that men vary more in their personality preferences.

(the footnote, “Predictors in boldface were retained in the final set of predictors with significant unique variance” seems to refer to the variance within the predictor, rather than within the effect the predictor had).

What Asendorpf et. al mean by “predictors with significant unique variance” is variance of the results, not variance in predictors. When you are doing regression analysis, you care about the relationships of predictors to results, and how much of the differences in results each predictor explains. This is also STATS 101.

The suggestion this raises for me is that men’s selected preferences are not homogenised across all men, but that their desires are more varied by height, education, income of partner, sociosexuality, shyness and openness.

This notion seems very ad hoc, because a moment ago you were telling me how you thing the default assumption should be that men’s and women’s preferences are similar. So how come you are now hypothesizing a sex difference in variance?

But anyway, let’s take this hypothesis seriously and test it. Is there evidence of sex differences in variation over personality preferences?

One of the other studies I’ve been looking at talks about preferences for the Big Five personality traits (which include openness) in relationships. Botwin, Buss, and Shackleford measured the personality preferences of men and women in relationships. The variance for men’s and women’s personality preferences looks pretty similar, and the variance for openness is practically identical. (See the SD columns in table 5. SD stands for standard deviation, which is the square-root of the variance, and the common way that researchers report variance.)

Now let’s talk a look at height: Pawlowski reported the standard deviations of men’s and women’s height preferences, using the vertical bars figure 2. The vertical bars have similar height for the preferences of each gender. Men do not have more variation in their height preferences than women do.

If you want to go dig up some studies showing a higher variance in men’s other non-physical preferences go ahead, but things really aren’t looking good for the hypothesis than men’s preferences vary more, and could consequently mask each other in a statistical analysis. It looks much more like men just don’t care that much about those things in relation to physical qualities, for their sexual preferences (relationship preferences are different).

A better way to try to rescue machina’s hypothesis would be to suggest that even though there isn’t greater variance in men’s non-physical preferences, men’s preferences are non-linearly related to non-physical traits. Some types of non-linear relationships wouldn’t show up in the hierarchical linear model used in the study.

Yes, there could be some sort of weird non-linear relationship, but that possibility isn’t worth considering unless we actually have some evidence that it might be the case. You can check out an illustration of a how a non-linear relationship with no linear component would look, but it would be weird if such a relationship was occurring here. It’s much more likely that there just isn’t a relationship.

Anyway, why would we hypothesize that women’s preferences for personality traits are linearly related to their choices, while men’s preferences for personality are non-linearly related to their choices with no linear component? That makes no sense, and we have no reason to actually put any weight on that hypothesis.

Hugh Ristik May 6, 2011 at 8:34 pm #

Comment stuck in mod due to links…

SnowdropExplodes said:

This could result in masking the actual interest of men in certain factors, with height, income and openness being the areas on which men were most willing to compromise in order to get the chance of a date.

This is a reasonable point. Yet if men are more willing to compromise on their personality preferences than women, that could be because those preferences are weaker.

What isn’t reported is how well those predictors of selection also predict how likely a matched pair would be to end up in a relationship or in bed with each other.

That’s correct, except they did run that analysis for sociosexuality and found that male sociosexuality was related to mating occurring (and women’s long-term interest was related to relationships occurring).

Anyway, this actually raises a good point of what we are talking about. Is the communication gap between what women say (in men’s interpretation), and their choices regardless of reciprocation, or their reciprocated choices?

In the Asendorpf study, we’ve already discussed choices (regardless of reciprocation). Asendorpf have the number for speed dating matches (i.e. reciprocated choices) in the same table. Matches were significantly predicted by men’s facial attractiveness, vocal attractiveness, and sociosexuality (i.e. women’s choices were predicted by men’s short-term mating interest). The only male variable predicting matches was facial attractiveness.

As we can see, mutual mate choice is a lot more complicated, and people don’t always get what they want. The traits and choices of individuals aren’t so strongly related to matches: it’s interaction of the two people that is important (called the “relationship effect” in the study). In table 1, we can see that relationship effects explained 82% of the variance in matches, while men’s choices explained 7% and women’s explained 11%.

Even if the case of matches, more variables predicted women’s choices than men’s choices, and women’s choices had a bigger effect on which matches occurred.

Given that your hypothesis appears to be not “men and women express different preferences” (which is a given), but rather, two hypotheses that “there is a greater difference between women’s expressed preferences and what they actually prefer, than there is between men’s expressed preferences and what they actually prefer”,

That’s part of it, but in some cases, it’s hard to say that women’s preferences differ from what they actually prefer, because it’s too hard to determine what women are even saying about their preferences in the first place. See the two examples I gave (“I like nice guys, but not weak men” and “I like a gentleman with a twist”). While Infra and AB are jumping in with interpretations, those interpretations serve only to convince me of the ambiguity of those statements.

You appear to take it as read that when a man says he wants a blonde with big tits, then that’s actually what he desires sexually at a basic level whereas when a woman says she wants a guy with a kind heart and GSOH, then she simply has not done enough introspection or something.

Not really. More like the man’s statement gives us more information about who he wants to sleep with, than the woman’s. “Kind heart and good sense of humor” just isn’t very meaningful. “Blonde” and “big tits” are simpler concepts.

So I would argue that, if anything, it is harder socially for men to express their genuine preferences, which is why I say that I anticipate equal non-predictability based on men’s stated preferences (it might predict initial approach choices, but not overall relationship choice).

As for overall relationship choice, I’ve already said that I’m not talking about it. I’m talking about sexual preferences, regardless of relationships.

I agree that there is social pressure against men talking about “superficial” preferences. That’s a great point. But if it’s true that men are misreporting their preferences, then wouldn’t that be consistent with them having preferences that are highly loaded on looks?

Still, I will observe that what many men say privately about their sexual preferences (i.e. that looks are a large factor) is consistent with common knowledge, and also consistent with Asendorpf et. al’s results on both partner choice and mutual matches. The same does not appear to be true for women: what I hear women say about their preferences, common knowledge about women’s preferences, and research findings are three different things.

Sam May 6, 2011 at 10:05 pm #

Infra,

Performance isn’t being overlooked, in that sense. It’s being assumed.

I’m not so sure… if so, it’s assumed as a worst case, in my opinion. I’ve seen performance that turned a tragedy into a comedy and vice versa, and in the case of “the game”, the end-game is about *performing* masculinity. So sure, the screenplay comes with a couple of directions, but in the end, the player has to choose to be a PC *HIMSELF* as well, because this play is about playing himself in order to discover himself.

[Josh Joplin's Camera One starts playing during the last sentence of the narrator's voice over... ;)]

Infra May 7, 2011 at 1:36 am #

@Sam:

I’m not so sure… if so, it’s assumed as a worst case, in my opinion.

The difference might be that you’re seeing it from the perspective of the actor, whereas what I’m referencing is more along the lines of the overall production — and, in the case of some PUAs, of trying to work with someone like Chad Palomino from Living in Oblivion, or, to parallel the neg experience, of being cast as a dwarf in a dream. Maybe that’s a worst case view, but anyone who’s had to work with an actor or script like that (especially in an indie production) can probably see the similarities.

@Hugh:

While Infra and AB are jumping in with interpretations, those interpretations serve only to convince me of the ambiguity of those statements.

I’d be inclined to say that they aren’t unambiguous in the way that you’re referencing, but they’re something different than ambiguous: they’re colloquial, or idiomatic, or perhaps even aphoristic. To someone who doesn’t get the references, they’d seem unclear, but to someone who does, they’re quite plain.

Hugh Ristik May 7, 2011 at 4:05 am #

Sagredo, I haven’t have a chance to address you yet, since I’m been debating people who I have more disagreements with, but I’m glad you’ve stopped by FC.

First, let’s get some minor disagreement out of the way. You’ve referred to negs as “gentle teasing” a few times, but I think negs encompass gentle teasing, non-gentle teasing, and stuff that isn’t gentle or teasing.

For instance, “where’s her off button?” from Mystery isn’t gentle teasing. It’s a bit harsh (and it’s used when the woman is being silly in a club, not out of the blue).

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned (unless I missed it) was the degree to which the PUA view of men and women resembles male-dom. For instance, that women are looking for a man who can dominate them, who they look up to, even perhaps who can defeat them in the single combat of neg vs. bitch shield or whatever. In this view, women, or at least women worth approaching, are submissive, though sometimes bratty submissives: consider the common PUA advice to treat a woman like she’s your little sister. Ideally PUA should one way or another screen for women who match their view.

Yes, BDSM and male-dom are a much better way to conceptualize pickup ideas than abuse. I’ve seen several feminists make parallels between pickup and abuse, based on the fact that PUAs and abuse both use certain forms of influence. Yet many other non-abusive people use those forms of influence, too.

Typical social interaction has dominance, power and status elements, yet these are not inherently abusive. Of course, dominance, power and status dynamics can harm people or lead to abusive situations, which is why consent and mutuality are important. Any power dynamic can set things up for abuse. Negs can, but so can light teasing. So can a lot of stuff in BDSM.

One way to view a neg (or other PUA dominance tactics) is as a request to engage in a mild BDSM interaction: “would you consent to a round of verbal sparring in order to explore the possibility of mutual chemistry?” Yes, some people could have trouble raising boundaries against this request, but that’s true of many sorts of requests, and there is no evidence that the neg is particularly special in that regard.

Of course, even if the neg is a request for consent, the initial neg does introduce a non-negotiated power dynamic, which is ethically questionable. Yet as you observe, the actual damage that people with positive intentions are can do with one neg is pretty limited. This potential for harm should be weighed against the potential upside of the neg:

I think when one sees a woman warm up, smile, pay attention, perhaps giggle a little bit, become more animated, more interested and generally give the impression of having a good time, in response to being teased, it’s fair to conclude that she really is having a good time. Of course, it’s possible that it’s all a performance, a mask for deep insecurity beyond my powers of detection. But I don’t think that’s a very helpful approach. I’d rather take people at face value.

I’ve seen the same thing, and I’ve been seeing it since being a teenager (though I was confused by the reaction then). The animated/intrigued/excited response to a neg, or similar dominance tactics, probably isn’t the most common response, but it seems reasonable common when a neg is delivered by a guy who is otherwise socially skilled and stylish. I would be interested to know if AB is familiar with this sort of response, because if not, then no wonder we aren’t on the same page.

Maybe many PUAs aren’t using negs because they are testing for women who are vulnerable to abuse, maybe they are using negs because they like seeing women’s faces literally light up.

This is something that’s worth echoing. Flirting always involves breaking certain rules of social conduct, but in a very careful deliberate way. There’s an essential daring aspect to flirting: it’s daring to put just one foot over a certain line, as if one is more familiar than one really is, without going so far as to damage the person.

Yes. This is an example of negotiation over consent in mainstream social contexts, where you don’t get to sit down with someone in advance to plan out your scene, like people in the BDSM world can.

If it was viable for PUAs to just act neutral, get to know someone, and then introduce play over gendered power dynamics, I’m sure PUAs would be doing this. But that’s not how things work in the mainstream.

In a club in the real world, men who just act in a bland manner won’t have many women wanting to get to know them, unless they are otherwise attractive. They have a limited time to make an impression.

If I’m approaching a woman, and I’m not being emotionally engaging, then I am wasting her time… and I question the ethics of doing so. Dominance dynamics are a way to be emotionally engaging, and negs are an example. Despite their downsides, negs may actually be a way that well-calibrated PUAs can consistently produce strong positive reactions in extraverted women. There are only so many other behaviors that can consistently cause the instant “lighting up” effect we are both familiar with.

If you are a PUA, and if you are an ethical person, then you want to be able to consistently produce strong positive reactions in people. Yes, there is a risk of a negative reaction, but risk is part of the point of the technique. If it wasn’t risky, then it wouldn’t be able to inspire strong positive reactions in women, either!

I don’t think a flirting in which one adheres strictly to the bounds of propriety is really flirting. AB, I’m not getting any sense from your responses to the example negs, even the sunburn one you earlier described as “gently teasing someone about their tan”, that you enjoy this kind of gentle teasing at all, regardless of delivery. There’s nothing wrong with that, nor does it make you an oddity, but many other women really do like it.

Disagree about labeling negs as gentle teasing. Other than that, good point.

The amount of women who do like a certain behavior needs to be considered before feminist or otherwise outlier women on the internet try to ban it as “unethical.” If feminist women want to say that, then fine, but I want see them admit what they are asking for. They need to admit that they want to ban a behavior that commonly results in female enjoyment, and is practically part of the fabric of extraverted club social interaction, because they don’t enjoy it and believe it to harmful. Feminists are welcome to say that the costs outweigh the benefits, as long as they acknowledge the potential benefits.

Really, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I don’t give a crap whether negs are considered ethical or not. I could make an ethical argument either way, and it’s in such a gray area that it really depends on what sort of ethical theory you accept, and on data none of us know (such as the exact proportions of women with each sort of reaction to the neg).

What bothers me is men being demonized for behaviors that reliably produce mutually fun social interactions, and the imperialistic attitude that some feminists seem to show in banning behavior that lights up the faces of other women.

Hugh Ristik May 7, 2011 at 4:19 am #

As an aside, on the subject of ethics:

People criticizing PUAs often ask questions like “are negs ethical?” or “is seduction ethical?” These questions are important, but there are all sorts of other ethical questions that don’t get asked:

- Is it ethical to approach someone, and then act blandly?
- Is it ethical to ask to kiss someone?
- Is attempting verbal negotiation over sexuality ethical?
- Is it ethical to not attempt to seduce someone you are on a date with?

In an ethical theory that centers harm-reduction, the answers to these questions are obvious. Yet in an ethical theory that actually does cost-benefit analyses, these types of questions become a lot more complicated.

Sam May 7, 2011 at 8:30 am #

Infra,

“The difference might be that you’re seeing it from the perspective of the actor, whereas what I’m referencing is more along the lines of the overall production…”

Quite possible. But if so, as a producer, you should know that good acting can change a production entirely.

Living in Oblivion… you know what? One of the about five dates I had in the second half of the nineties took place watching that movie ;) I didn’t get too much of the movie, to be honest, my brain was constantly busy trying to figure out my character’s next move and thinking “wtf, I’m here with her! She’s on a date with *me*”.

So, yeah, my performance on the date probably equalled the meta-bad-acting on the screen ;) In my case (figurative and actual) “acting classes” certainly improved the quality of the sequels… ;)

Clarisse May 7, 2011 at 2:45 pm #

Still can’t offer more substantive commentary, but I have a couple short thoughts:

1) The ethics of conversational tactics like negs seems a lot less pressing to me than the ethics of actions.

2) Hanging out with a natural last night, he actually used multiple PUA lines (which I know for a fact he’s never read), including AMOG patterns like “Can you take her away please?” It was sort of spooky, but to be expected I suppose.

3) This idea that guys are better at articulating what they want or even why they’re attracted to someone is just nonsense. My current favorite example of this is an incredibly articulate guy who I was involved with for much of the past year. At one point I asked him what had initially attracted him to me (I was thinking about my outer game :P) and he said, “You were hot.”

Me: What do you mean?
Him: I dunno, I saw you and I was like “that girl’s hot”.
Me: Could you be more specific?
Him: What? I mean … You’ve got a good body? Also you were at XYZ free speech organization professional event? That’s a good screen.

What’s “good body”? Was he affected by what I was wearing (casual t-shirt and stretch pants)? Did my lack of eyeliner at the time help me or hurt me? Would he have made the same approach in a different context? What role, if any, did my actual behavior play? He was completely unable to answer these questions and thought I was ridiculous for asking them.

AB May 7, 2011 at 4:43 pm #

@Sam:

As for the line above, I think what’s really important here is performance, and that’s something no one seems to have brought up yet.

Since the negs in general are described as working, I’m not sure delivery is that relevant. Secondly, you seem to go by the assumption that negs are just about delivering certain lines with the goal of getting women aroused, and don’t get any more specific than that. From what PUAs write themselves, negs are:

1: Negative, meant to bring attention to a target’s flaws. They’re short for ‘negative hits’ after all, and the only warning is not to get too negative, which is nowhere near the same as being positive. The So Suave article even mentioned specifically that women hated a certain neg, so arguments that they’re really supposed to be flattering are pretty contradictory.

2: Designed to make a target feel self-conscious, show disinterest in her, and make her devalue herself (‘bring her down a notch’). The idea being that, if she’s confident enough, the target will be interested in gaining the PUA’s approval, and because women are usually inherently submissive, the target will also get turned on by how she doesn’t have control over the situation.

The performance isn’t terribly important if we can’t even agree on what negs are, or on whether or not the ideas behind them are ethical or correct.

Also, with respect to things that work in a relationship but have different meanings outside, very true. BUT: assuming a certain familiarity is very important part in flirting, as it is by design adding a personal layer to an interaction.

Familiarity, sure. The kind of stuff mothers tend to get away with only because they’re mothers, not so much. A lot of those examples remind me of my mother when she’s at her most annoying, and of aunts, older women, schoolgirls, etc. (which makes a lot of sense in the context of dominance, but not to so much in the context of seduction).

I’ve gotten odd comments before, from both sexes, like how the back of my head has a nice shape, the small gap between my front teeth is cute, I have cool eye-brows, and the most adorable little pigmentation error. Not to mention healthcare personal tend to always praise me for some reason (like my chiropractor saying I had good looking bones). I don’t mind, but I think that when it crosses into more negative territory (“It’s normally unattractive, but I like it”), it’s not optimal for flirting.

Saying something more unambiguously positive is an easier way to create intimacy (the guy who’ve been most openly sexual with me, telling me how much he wanted to fuck me, is also among the guys who’ve gotten me most sexually aroused), but the idea about a neg is that there need to be a shade of negativity to it, and I find that unnecessary for intimacy to occur.

By the way, however much a girl will say she likes an honest opinion about something making her look fat, being honest in that respect is simply a lose-lose proposition for a guy unless you’re actually shopping with her and can offer an alternative piece of clothing that will make her look visbly thinner to everyone *including herself*. Usually, that sort of question is code for something else, but it’s probably too specific to tell what it is code for. But I certainly won’t tell a girl “you know, that skirt makes you look fat” even if I were to think it all night long. Nothing good will come from saying it, however much honesty may be appreciated…

Hello stereotype. You know, for someone who’s recently spent almost a day trying to argue against the notion that women were confusing and not understandable to men, I sure run into a lot of men who think they have women all figured out, and can make blanket statements about them with complete certainty.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a code for something, and instead of spending so much time trying to decipher some hidden message in women’s behaviour, I think more men should get a basic idea about dealing with these things. When a woman asks me if she looks fat in something, I either say no and tell her why I don’t think so, or I tell her (possibly with a disclaimer that she still looks great in it) that I believe she’d look even better in a another outfit. I never had any problems with it, and for a man who has the added option of telling her how sexy he thinks she is, the task ought to be even easier.

The idea that a man would basically go “Since she’s a woman, and therefore dishonest and illogical, I’ll just make up a theory about her behaviour with my male friends, and then act according to that theory instead of taking what she says seriously” is profoundly unattractive. Part of what I find sexy in my current boyfriend is that he’s never unfazed by these things, he either gives me an opinion, or says that we’re already late and that worrying so much about appearances is silly.

AB May 7, 2011 at 5:25 pm #

@Sagredo:

I think when one sees a woman warm up,

Here’s the first problem. Who says you’re good at telling when a woman warms up?

in response to being teased

We’re not talking about teasing, we’re talking about negs.

I’d rather take people at face value.

Well, PUA theory is based on the premise that women’s opinions are not to be taken at face value. It’s a neat theory if you want to discount women’s experiences, but not quite as useful when you want to use women to back up your argument.

I’m not sure extraversion, even confident extraversion, is a sign of narcissistic disorder.

No one was talking about extroversion.

Generally I prefer to avoid women who have either low self-esteem or are cynical about other people.

How can you tell if you’re just hitting on them based on how sexy you find their appearance? One of my previous friends once had a girlfriend whom the other guys in our mutual surroundings loved, because she seemed so open and friendly all the time. When she talked to me, however, she often mentioned how she needed a break from those guys, because she found them conceited, she just didn’t let it show because there was no need to. She figured that they were entertaining enough in small doses, but she didn’t really respect most of them. The guys never knew, because she was always pleasant.

And that performative aspect also makes it harder to do a semantic analysis of the text, as the text as such really doesn’t contain too much information about the meaning that will be conveyed in the actual performance of the piece.

If the purpose was to make her feel flattered and relaxed, it would make a lot of sense to talk about whether the delivery achieved that. But if the goal is to say things she hate in order to make her self-conscious, shake her belief in her own attractiveness, and come across as uninterested in her, I think it’s just as relevant to discuss what happens when the delivery achieves the goal.

AB, I’m not getting any sense from your responses to the example negs, even the sunburn one you earlier described as “gently teasing someone about their tan”, that you enjoy this kind of gentle teasing at all, regardless of delivery. There’s nothing wrong with that, nor does it make you an oddity, but many other women really do like it.

Negging, not gentle teasing. And generally, I like guys who display overt interest, not active disinterest. If he can communicate “I want you very much, but I’ll be fine without you”, I’ll be both flattered, relaxed, and intrigued, as long as I find him even a little appealing. It seems many PUAs find the latter part of the statement to be important enough to be worth undermining the former part in order to get across, which seems more like a sign of insecurity than anything else to me. I get a lot of sexual teasing from my male acquaintances, but if any of them started to tell me I shouldn’t ruin my lustrous hair with highlights, it would fall completely flat in comparison.

I recall a bunch of my male social circle having a conversation about one of them being afraid to volunteer for a festival because of the unisex communal showers he would have to use. He was afraid he’d get an erection and embarrass himself. The guy I mentioned earlier as being very openly sexual calmly said “If that happens, you just smile at the girls and tell them it’s a compliment”. The shy guy refused, but to me, that behaviour is sexy, because it shows confidence and comfort in his own sexuality. In contrast, guys who correct my choice of wardrobe are acting more like my mother, and while I’m sure a lot of the confident girls that PUAs court like a maternal vibe from their man, I don’t.

Sam May 7, 2011 at 8:25 pm #

AB,

as I’ve said numerous times in these threads (but quite possibly you haven’t seen that, I’m having a hard time to keep up with the threads myself, as I’m currently particularly busy), I thin the “neg” is an oxymoron to me. It just doesn’t fit into the entire assumed readjusted value proposition, in which the PUA presents himself “as the price”. If he’s the price, why would he have to lower her value? These propositions are mutually exclusive.

So my reference to performance was probably more about explaining how the same line can be a neg (like you explain) in one case, and a funny tease in another, depending on both intent and performance (and, of course, the least clear variable, personality structure and mood of the person the tease/neg is addressed to).

I don’t mind, but I think that when it crosses into more negative territory (“It’s normally unattractive, but I like it”), it’s not optimal for flirting.

I think, as I said, that can be perfect for flirting, if you substitute “it is normally unattractive” with “other people tend to think” – but I like it. Because it says “this maes you particularly attractive to me for somehting other people whon’t find you attractive for (“I don’t know how other people work… I totally dig women who’re like xyz”).

but the idea about a neg is that there need to be a shade of negativity to it, and I find that unnecessary for intimacy to occur.

I agree, that negativity is not usually necessary (although I’m sure there are situations that require negativity), but a little bit of ambiguity is, I believe, advisable in the early stages of a relationship, because both women and men appear to be more attracted to ambiguity than to clarity. It sucks that this is also the phase where explicit communication would be best, but that’s the way it appears to me.

Hello stereotype. You know, for someone who’s recently spent almost a day trying to argue against the notion that women were confusing and not understandable to men, I sure run into a lot of men who think they have women all figured out, and can make blanket statements about them with complete certainty.

Yes and no. Yes, it’s a stereotype, and there may very well be some woman who would appreciate honesty in this respect. But the risk of offenidng someone for not being honest is worth taking in my opinion, when the alternative is offending someone for something they’re likely rather apprehensive about.

Hugh Ristik May 7, 2011 at 9:59 pm #

OK, I’m willing to raise my estimate about the confusing-ness of common male communications about their preferences.

Sam said:

It just doesn’t fit into the entire assumed readjusted value proposition, in which the PUA presents himself “as the price”. If he’s the price, why would he have to lower her value? These propositions are mutually exclusive.

Some sorts of negs are about raising the PUA’s value. Lowering the woman’s value happens in some negs, but in others, it depends on interpretation. Sometimes, the “negative” component isn’t supposed to be taken literally. Her outfit doesn’t really look like something your grandmother would wear. Part of the point of this sort of neg is to say something so over-the-top that you couldn’t possibly be serious.

(“I hate you,” and “do you know why you suck?” are other examples of this principles. “Nice nails, are they real?” works different, at least when delivered deadpan like Mystery, because the seriousness is ambiguous. “You have something in your teeth,” is also a different principle, because it’s meant to be taken seriously. Like “freeze-outs,” “negs” referring to a wide range of heterogenous behavior, with heterogenous ethical value.)

Socially-skilled extraverts love implicature. The meaning of the communication isn’t its literal content. That’s probably another reason why high-IQ feminists can’t relate to negs: they take them literally, while a highly social female extravert might not.

This is actually part of why I don’t like negs personally: I like serious women, and I don’t want to screen them out merely because they aren’t into extravert-humor like negs.

Sagredo May 8, 2011 at 3:30 am #

AB,

Here’s the first problem. Who says you’re good at telling when a woman warms up?

I believe the strict logical answer is ethics is about doing what one can with the information one has available. But really? It doesn’t take that much social experience or awareness before it becomes pretty obvious when someone is genuinely warm and when someone is just being polite.

We’re not talking about teasing, we’re talking about negs.

That’s an interesting question. Hugh’s view is that negging includes teasing but also includes remarks such as “where’s her off button?” in response to a woman being silly at a club. Does that also count as teasing? It’s more an expression of disapproval, I suppose, but I can see a continuum. Is it an appropriate thing to say? Depends on how it’s said and how silly she’s being, I guess. It’s worth repeating that a very great deal depends on context and delivery, and that’s true for the example negs you examined too.

No one was talking about extroversion.

Actually, I was. Confident, extravert people sometimes tend to be a bit full of themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that. I certainly wasn’t talking about the kind of narcissism that compensates for deeper insecurity: that was your interpretation.

As far as your own experiences are concerned, I don’t doubt you don’t like being negged. In fact, from your responses to the example negs I get the sense that you don’t enjoy even gentle teasing. According to the PUA material, most women don’t like negs. Generally they say that high self-esteem is an indicator of liking any kind of negging or teasing, but maybe that’s not quite fair: it looks like extraversion is also an important factor. In any case, I think PUA advice works best as informing intuition more than anything: low self-esteem and cynicism are often apparent in a variety of ways, and can even detract from the appearence of sexiness. Mind you, I don’t do a lot of cold approaching.

Hugh writes,

Socially-skilled extraverts love implicature. The meaning of the communication isn’t its literal content. That’s probably another reason why high-IQ feminists can’t relate to negs: they take them literally, while a highly social female extravert might not.

This is actually part of why I don’t like negs personally: I like serious women, and I don’t want to screen them out merely because they aren’t into extravert-humor like negs.

AB, if Hugh is correct that would presumably explain your highly literal responses to the example negs.

I’m not all that extraverted actually but I adore ambiguity and implicature and like a bit of well-calibrated and creative back-and-forth.

AB May 8, 2011 at 4:59 am #

@Sam:

I think, as I said, that can be perfect for flirting, if you substitute “it is normally unattractive” with “other people tend to think” – but I like it. Because it says “this maes you particularly attractive to me for somehting other people whon’t find you attractive for (“I don’t know how other people work… I totally dig women who’re like xyz”).

That’s easily achieved by complimenting her on the feature without including the disclaimer about what other people think. This is probably partly a matter of taste, I find sentences such as “No one can love you like I do” to be mildly insulting, because it’s suggesting that the person is otherwise unlovable, but I can definitely see it useful for making someone clingy and dependant (“You better appreciate me, because no one else is going to appreciate you”), which I guess is part of the game.

I agree, that negativity is not usually necessary (although I’m sure there are situations that require negativity), but a little bit of ambiguity is, I believe, advisable in the early stages of a relationship, because both women and men appear to be more attracted to ambiguity than to clarity. It sucks that this is also the phase where explicit communication would be best, but that’s the way it appears to me.

As you said, ambiguity and negativity are different things.

Yes and no. Yes, it’s a stereotype, and there may very well be some woman who would appreciate honesty in this respect. But the risk of offenidng someone for not being honest is worth taking in my opinion, when the alternative is offending someone for something they’re likely rather apprehensive about.

Most of the time, she’s just saying “I’m not sure of this outfit, I need someone to assure me it’s good enough”. I’ve always found it easy being honest in these contexts, because the best reaction is so obvious (frame the criticism positively). As I’ve already said, it should be even easier for a man. I think the thought that this is just an unreasonable female making unreasonable demands of her more sane partner is very appealing to men, so they cling to it and joyfully complain about the unreasonableness of women, while doing nothing to change the status quo.

machina May 8, 2011 at 7:36 am #

Hugh Ristik:

One of the other studies I’ve been looking at talks about preferences for the Big Five personality traits (which include openness) in relationships. Botwin, Buss, and Shackleford measured the personality preferences of men and women in relationships. The variance for men’s and women’s personality preferences looks pretty similar, and the variance for openness is practically identical. (See the SD columns in table 5. SD stands for standard deviation, which is the square-root of the variance, and the common way that researchers report variance.)

Sure, I agree in that study variances don’t seem to be different. But the actual preference differences between men and women, especially for dating, look to be quite small. This seems to be a different claim: you claimed initially the men don’t really have preferences for personality, and are described by three physical preferences in contrast nine diverse preferences for women, yet this study shows that they do have preferences for personality traits but that the strength of their preference for personality traits is simply weaker if I’m reading it right.

AB May 8, 2011 at 8:48 am #

@Sagredo:

I believe the strict logical answer is ethics is about doing what one can with the information one has available. But really? It doesn’t take that much social experience or awareness before it becomes pretty obvious when someone is genuinely warm and when someone is just being polite.

I’m not so sure. I have seen the scenarios PUAs predict play out for the complete opposite reasons, and yet that doesn’t seem to have occurred to them yet. I have seen clear and understandable sentences be presented as an example of typical female opaqueness. I have seen no indication that men with a vested interest in promoting the view that it is a sign of health and confidence in women if they follow a man around like a puppy would be experts in distinguishing when a girl smiles because she’s insecure and eager to gain approval, and when she smiles because she’s genuinely enjoying herself.

That’s an interesting question.

It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of fact. Negs are not teasing. They’re not even teasing in the sense that all negging is teasing but not all teasing is negging, they’re a distinct tactic which sometimes overlaps with teasing.

Actually, I was. Confident, extravert people sometimes tend to be a bit full of themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that. I certainly wasn’t talking about the kind of narcissism that compensates for deeper insecurity: that was your interpretation.

You talked about confident people, not extroverted people. If you think confidence and extroversion are synonymous, you need to establish that before you make blanket statements about what confident women like. And if you think people being full of themselves is unrelated to narcissism, then you should make a case for it, not just sling the words around and then suddenly change their meaning mid-sentence.

According to the PUA material, most women don’t like negs. Generally they say that high self-esteem is an indicator of liking any kind of negging or teasing, but maybe that’s not quite fair: it looks like extraversion is also an important factor.

I think that’s definitely a factor, but it’s not the whole story. I got a bad case of stress a couple of years ago, and was lucky enough to get consultations with one of the best sports psychologists in the country. After dealing with my stress, we started to discuss motivational psychology, and he told about his experiences with professional athletes breaking down when their careers were over, or when injuries prevented them from playing.

He said that self-esteem is not as much of an inner quality as people have made it out to be, but that it’s heavily linked to achievement. It’s hard to feel good about yourself when you don’t think you excel in anything or have anything to offer, and in case of the athletes, they had often invested so much time and resources into their sport that they didn’t have anything to fall back on when that was no longer a viable source of achievement.

People tend to draw confidence from areas where they excel and/or receive positive feedback. Even amateur athletes are often proud of being in better shape than their surroundings, amateur artists and musicians draw confidence from their talent, handymen/women from their practical skills, intelligent people from their knowledge, etc. And many good-looking people draw their confidence from being attractive. For a woman, being what PUAs would call a 10 is almost without exception extremely hard work, because the standards for women are so high and the use of artificial enhancers is so widespread, and chances are a lot of those women put in the hard work because this is the area they feel they excel in, just as an athlete would.

I’m starting to believe that the alleged positive reaction from some women to negs are dependant on two factors. The first is the target deriving much of her perceived value from male sexual approval, and the second is the target’s confidence in her own ability to gain said approval (a third could be the target’s wish to be dominated by a man, but that is often linked to confidence, or lack of same). By questioning her attractiveness, PUAs are not just creating a challenge, they’re also threatening the very source of her confidence, counting on her to act in order to regain faith in her own sexual value.

It’s little different from someone claiming superiority to an athlete in their chosen field. The idea is that an athlete confident in their own athletic abilities will react enthusiastically to the challenge in order to prove themselves, while an athlete lacking confidence will back off in order to save face. But this presents us with two disconnects. The first is that this is just not always happening. Plenty of insecure girls try to gain male approval anyway, rather than counting their losses and withdrawing.

The second is that sometimes, you can challenge an alleged athlete to a match, only to find out the athlete is really an accomplished musician who couldn’t care less about who plays the best football. PUAs very rarely seem to take into consideration that women are not inherently, or exclusively, defined by how much a subset of men want to fuck them. This is understandable, since PUA theory doesn’t really deal with women in contexts outside their relation to male sexuality, but the narrow focus is in itself problematic.

Two concrete examples come to mind, the first is J. K. Rowling telling about how much it annoyed her that when she got back in touch with a friend after several years, the friend immediately told her she’d lost weight. During the time they’d been out of touch, Rowling had become a critically acclaimed writer of one of the best selling book series in history, and the owner of a multi-million (if not billion) £ franchise, and yet the friend thought it more important to remark on her weight.

The second is a quote from Dame Helen Mirren, after an interviewer asked her how she felt about still being famous for her sex appeal in her 60s. She answered: “A bit cross, actually. We have to let go of this crap. It creates even more pressure on women, and I certainly don’t want to be a part of that. I’m not beautiful; I clean up nice. Why don’t we talk about the fact, for example, that I just did Arthur, and the cinematographer was a woman, the film operator was a woman, and the whole camera team were women? That’s where we should be putting our attention. The fact that I look good at the age I am is bloody irrelevant.”

Incidentally, when I googled this interview in order to get the exact quote, the comment section on the article I found included comments from posters (who seemed male) that she was ignorant and that sex appeal was that important (totally missing the point). For Megan Fox, focus on her sex appeal is flattering because she’s a sex object first, actor second (if at all). For Dame Mirren, who’s first and foremost a great actor, it’s dismissive of her actual accomplishments.

In our society, women who try to focus on something other than gaining male sexual approval are struggling compared to the women who just want men to desire them. PUAs seem to assume that if a woman doesn’t have much faith in her ability to attract men, even if she takes great pride in her non-sexual accomplishments, she must be a sad existence who needs to be treated with utmost care lest she breaks under her own lack of self-esteem. Truth be told, I suspect a lot of the breaking is done under the ruthless treatment by sexists dismissing her worth as anything but a vehicle for male sexuality, not any lack of interest in her sex appeal.

Sam May 8, 2011 at 10:52 am #

Hugh,

“Part of the point of this sort of neg is to say something so over-the-top that you couldn’t possibly be serious.”

As i understood the definition AB appears to apply with respect to negs, if you couldn’t be possibly serious it’s not a neg.

AB,

“That’s easily achieved by complimenting her on the feature without including the disclaimer about what other people think.”

You know, honest compliments are the hardest thing. As someone who’s constantly remarking how men are only interested in a certain kind of woman, how you feel that women who don’t conform to certain visual standards are not even treated as humans by guys who aren’t sexually interested in them, your belief in the power of compliments is a bit baffling to me. I think complimenting works great for women, because men hardly ever get complimented (particularly on their appearance) but it’s a different ballgame when it comes to complimenting women. You know, if a woman *isn’t* particularly conventionally attractive, complimenting her is difficult because she may be too insecure to appreciate the compliment, even feel it may not be honest, even though she loves compliments in general. Actually, that’s also true for attractive LSE women. I have a close female friend and it really doesn’t matter how many model-pictures I take of her, she will still not believe how beautiful she actually is. So, while she may appreciate it when a guy compliments her, she will not believe it, which makes making the compliment sort of pointless. Being her friend, she seems to believe me when I tell her she’s beautiful, at least to the degree that she now accepts “that I seem to live under that impression”. It’s a start.

And women who get generic compliments all the time will likely not believe them anyway – have they ever?

So, how does a guy get credibility for his compliments to work? By not making complments, particularly generic compliments, until there is a basis for trust. Once she believes he sees her as a person and not just a pretty thing, she may well like to hear that he also likes her appearance.

And that’s a very complicated thing to do given that the assumption is always (and for a reason) that guys are mostly attracted by appearance – and in certain environments that’s pretty much the only information one has about someone else when saying hello.

So I have a rule of thumb: if I am not particularly interested in meeting a woman, but I appreaciate her beauty, I tell her, but I will not try to get to know her. If I am interested in getting to know her, I will not compliment her on her appearance until she knows I like her as a person. Of course, that’s a rule of thumb, variations apply. But that’s the idea.

I think the thought that this is just an unreasonable female making unreasonable demands of her more sane partner is very appealing to men, so they cling to it and joyfully complain about the unreasonableness of women, while doing nothing to change the status quo.

I think what’s sane and what’s not in that context is really more of a matter of perspective. Her communication may not be literal, but I suppose there’s a very high chance it’s sane, and probably rational, to do what she does from her point of view. But it’s true that someone else’s rationality doesn’t always make sense to someone else.

while doing nothing to change the status quo.

I think this is an interesting aspect that I touched on with respect to Amanda Marcotte’s advice piece. I think there is a general discontent among feminists that the prevailing motivation in the SC is changing the environmental factors that lead to problems but to increase individuals ability to function within the current problematic environment.

It’s easy for me to say that I believe the latter approach is superior even with respect to feminist problems, but that’s because I believe that everything that alleiviates the problem of perceived male scarcity is a good thing from a feminist point of view (to the extent that I can put myself in a feminists shoes).

Sam May 8, 2011 at 11:22 am #

The second to last paragraph above should, of course, read

“that the prevailing motivation in the SC is ***NOT*** changing the environmental factors that lead to problems but to increase individuals ability to function within the current problematic environment.”

Because it really doesn’t make sense otherwise.

SnowdropExplodes May 8, 2011 at 12:24 pm #

@ H.R.

Miniscule effect size and high p-value (i.e. low significance) is exactly what you see when there is no relationship between two variables.

Oops, yes – you’re right. I threw out my lecture notes from my maths degree a few years ago to make room for other things, and my brain was running a bit slow!

This notion seems very ad hoc, because a moment ago you were telling me how you thing the default assumption should be that men’s and women’s preferences are similar. So how come you are now hypothesizing a sex difference in variance?

Because that was what the information suggested to me. I forget the exact quotation (or who said it) but: “When the facts change, my opinions change,” seems appropriate here.

One of the other studies I’ve been looking at talks about preferences for the Big Five personality traits (which include openness) in relationships.

I found the Botwin et al study fascinating. I agree that it pretty much torpedoes the greater male variance hypothesis.

However, it appears to suggest that desires across men and women are really very similar. The main difference was on choosiness, where women on average were more demanding than men.

That seems to be the same effect as suggested by the Asendorpf study. One point of putative sex difference that would be interesting to investigate is the amount of time it takes to form an impression of someone’s personality. Given the Botwin study’s reference to women’s generally lower Emotional Stability score in the FFM measures, we can argue either that, or that men are less good at processing emotions, or that men assess other variables first, and only then move on to personality, as possible explanations if a difference does occur. The Asendorpf study allowed just 3 minutes to form an impression of a potential date. Would there be differences in the results if the amount of time is varied? If people have longer, would the predictors’ relative influence be altered? Presumably above a certain length, the changes would disappear, and below a certain length of time the same – if you only have 30 seconds to form an impression, one would expect appearance to be the only significant variable for either gender.

The Botwin study seems to contradict Asendorpf on the significance of education, where there was very low correlation of years of education measured on matches, but the education measures in Botwin suggest that couples have some correlation between the partners’ levels of education.

That’s correct, except they did run that analysis for sociosexuality and found that male sociosexuality was related to mating occurring (and women’s long-term interest was related to relationships occurring).

I couldn’t find that information in the study. I did see the information for women’s long-term interest relating to relationships occurring, and for men’s sociosexuality influencing being chosen, but not for men’s sociosexuality influencing mating? You seem to have conflated “sociosexuality” with “short-term interest”, but Asendorpf have treated them as separate variables, as far as I can see (evidenced by the fact that they treated long-term and short term interest as two separate measures, “one-item ratings”, and sociosexuality was measured on a separate nine-item measure). It certainly doesn’t demonstrate anything about how different men’s and women’s preferences are (as compared to what they believe they are or express).

The evidence, I think, does not do anything to support or disprove either your hypothesis or mine concerning the relative mutual predictability of men’s and women’s underlying preferences based on the expression of preferences.

The Botwin study’s investigation of marital satisfaction is slightly indicative in this area, suggesting that stated preferences are not a good predictor of partner’s personality and the difference between the two does not seem to influence marital satisfaction. However, partner’s personality is a good predictor of satisfaction, and these figures look largely similar between men and women (although the breakdown of the individual dimensions of marital satisfaction look different, and women seem to prefer conscientious partners).

***

I agree that there is social pressure against men talking about “superficial” preferences. That’s a great point. But if it’s true that men are misreporting their preferences, then wouldn’t that be consistent with them having preferences that are highly loaded on looks?

Actually, that’s the exact opposite of what I have tended to observe. In my experience, the social pressure is to express superficial preferences, and that in private men tend to express more complex or emotional dimensions. So, in my experience, what men say privately is contrary to “common knowledge”.

See the two examples I gave (“I like nice guys, but not weak men” and “I like a gentleman with a twist”). While Infra and AB are jumping in with interpretations, those interpretations serve only to convince me of the ambiguity of those statements.

…

Not really. More like the man’s statement gives us more information about who he wants to sleep with, than the woman’s. “Kind heart and good sense of humor” just isn’t very meaningful. “Blonde” and “big tits” are simpler concepts.

Well, I thought both Infra and AB were saying the same things, more-or-less, and they also matched my interpretations of the phrase. Now, 3 is obviously not statistically useful, but it seems to me that three similar interpretations makes it not so ambiguous after all.

The really exciting thing, though, is that this offers the chance to design our own study, that can be conducted on the internet.

The easiest thing to investigate would simply be how well men’s and women’s interpretations of preference-descriptions (probably taken from actual dating site profiles) match both within the sexes and across the sexes. If I have followed you rightly now, then according to your hypothesis, men’s interpretations of women’s preference-descriptions should be much more varied than either men’s or women’s interpretations of men’s preference-descriptions.

More complicated would be to use preference-descriptions provided by respondents, coupled with those respondents’ choices from a field of real or fictional dating site profiles (perhaps those provided by other respondents?) and then use that as a basis to see if respondents can predict which profiles were chosen by others, based on the other people’s preference-descriptions. IIRC OkCupid’s “OkTrends” blog did something along these lines, but because they assumed that preference ratings were always primarily indicative of physical attractiveness and not other factors, their findings were questionable. They also did not address their research directly to people’s self-descriptions, but based them on answers to their “match questions”.

This would test directly the ability men and women have to predict partner-choice based on preference-descriptions, depending on gender choice.

In both versions, it would be possible to test the difference between interpreting “emotional/personality” and “physical” descriptions as well.

AB May 8, 2011 at 2:04 pm #

@Sam:

You know, honest compliments are the hardest thing. As someone who’s constantly remarking how men are only interested in a certain kind of woman, how you feel that women who don’t conform to certain visual standards are not even treated as humans by guys who aren’t sexually interested in them, your belief in the power of compliments is a bit baffling to me.

Why?

I think complimenting works great for women, because men hardly ever get complimented (particularly on their appearance) but it’s a different ballgame when it comes to complimenting women. You know, if a woman *isn’t* particularly conventionally attractive, complimenting her is difficult because she may be too insecure to appreciate the compliment, even feel it may not be honest, even though she loves compliments in general. Actually, that’s also true for attractive LSE women

And women who get generic compliments all the time will likely not believe them anyway – have they ever?

Then don’t make them generic. How hard is that?

And that’s a very complicated thing to do given that the assumption is always (and for a reason) that guys are mostly attracted by appearance – and in certain environments that’s pretty much the only information one has about someone else when saying hello.

I’ll agree that compliments are usually bad opening lines, unless they’re sufficiently interesting or witty, but if the goal is to create intimacy, I assume people are beyond that.

So I have a rule of thumb: if I am not particularly interested in meeting a woman, but I appreaciate her beauty, I tell her, but I will not try to get to know her. If I am interested in getting to know her, I will not compliment her on her appearance until she knows I like her as a person. Of course, that’s a rule of thumb, variations apply. But that’s the idea.

Compliments don’t have to be about looks. Again, if you’re already talking to the woman (and the nature of many negs as well as the talk about intimacy here indicate that this often happen) there’ll probably be something else to comment on.

I think what’s sane and what’s not in that context is really more of a matter of perspective. Her communication may not be literal, but I suppose there’s a very high chance it’s sane, and probably rational, to do what she does from her point of view. But it’s true that someone else’s rationality doesn’t always make sense to someone else.

I don’t think it’s about rationality. I think a lot of men love the status quo, despite their complains about it, so going by a stereotypical assumption is more appealing.

I think this is an interesting aspect that I touched on with respect to Amanda Marcotte’s advice piece. I think there is a general discontent among feminists that the prevailing motivation in the SC is changing the environmental factors that lead to problems but to increase individuals ability to function within the current problematic environment.

I wouldn’t know about the prevailing feminist view, but as I just said, I believe men are often quite pleased with the status quo, which is why usually I choose to remark that it’s their own doing when they complain, rather than telling them they’re going about it in the wrong way. Of course that depends on the man and the complaint, but I usually don’t assume that a stereotypically masculine man is interested in changing anything unless he says so.

But I do think that in regards to relationships, it’s OK to do a bit of shit-testing. If you don’t like women asking about what makes them look fat, playing it straight by being honest (but not insulting) is completely legitimate. It’s usually a good idea to find out what kind of person she is, and to establish early what games you aren’t willing to play, and it’s a better way of establishing high value than making disparaging remark and freezing her out when she doesn’t do what you want. There’s always a risk that she’ll be mad at you, but as evolutionary psychology teaches us, the most effective signals work mainly by being costly.

It’s easy for me to say that I believe the latter approach is superior even with respect to feminist problems, but that’s because I believe that everything that alleiviates the problem of perceived male scarcity is a good thing from a feminist point of view (to the extent that I can put myself in a feminists shoes).

Was that a spelling error or are you recognising that perceived male scarcity is an issue too?

Sam May 8, 2011 at 2:40 pm #

AB,

ok, as you seem to agree that compliments don’t really work in the beginning of an interaction, maybe it’s useful to review the basic assumptions about interactional structure that most SC stuff is based on (hope I’m right, not sure, it’s been a while since I read the game: Opening->female to male attraction->male to female attraction->comfort (time and location bridges, possibly multiple dates)->seduction. Most of the material seems to deal with the initial aspects – attration, not intimacy.

Negs are, if I’m not mistaken, usually presribed as effective for female to male attraction, not for opening. The first opportunity for a real compliment would seem to be male to female attraction, which can only happen after she is demonstrating her interest in a noticeable form.

“Why?”

Well. It seems evident to me that any compliment prior to getting to know someone on a personal level *will have to be generic* if it’s a compliment and given lack of additional information about that person it will almost by design be about accessible, hence visible, information. There’s not much else to work on. As such, it will have a tendendy to not be appreciated *and* be boring. Nothing to start a conversation with.

At the same time, I don’t think anyone in the SC recommends using anything but playful teasing in the comfort phase, when it’s about building the relationship, as part of which honest compliments are probably quite important. And these compliments really shouldn’t be generic, and they don’t *have to be* because people will know each other to a degree at that point.

I don’t think it’s about rationality. I think a lot of men love the status quo, despite their complains about it, so going by a stereotypical assumption is more appealing. … Of course that depends on the man and the complaint, but I usually don’t assume that a stereotypically masculine man is interested in changing anything unless he says so.

I think they’re just more interested in results than in potentially changing social structures. It’s like they have read Max Weber while feminists are relying on some French existentialist interpretations of Marx as their baseline approach to social change. Assuming there is a little truth to th latter as well, I’d think of the male approach as some sort of Hungarian Socialism ;)

Was that a spelling error or are you recognising that perceived male scarcity is an issue too?

It was a spelling mistake in this respect. But I do believe that perceived male scarcity is an issue, too, and not just in East Germany, the Ukraine, parts of Russia, or New South Wales – just not that important an issue when it comes to problematic male behaviour.

AB May 8, 2011 at 4:52 pm #

@Sam:

Negs are, if I’m not mistaken, usually presribed as effective for female to male attraction, not for opening. The first opportunity for a real compliment would seem to be male to female attraction, which can only happen after she is demonstrating her interest in a noticeable form.

I don’t recall any PUAs describing negging as a technique specifically for openings. If the goal is to shift the power balance in favour of the PUA and make the target insecure, it could take place at any time.

Well. It seems evident to me that any compliment prior to getting to know someone on a personal level *will have to be generic* if it’s a compliment and given lack of additional information about that person it will almost by design be about accessible, hence visible, information. There’s not much else to work on. As such, it will have a tendendy to not be appreciated *and* be boring. Nothing to start a conversation with.

A compliment doesn’t have to be generic unless the person it’s aimed at is, and there are other opening lines than compliments and insults.

At the same time, I don’t think anyone in the SC recommends using anything but playful teasing in the comfort phase, when it’s about building the relationship, as part of which honest compliments are probably quite important. And these compliments really shouldn’t be generic, and they don’t *have to be* because people will know each other to a degree at that point.

And this is the kind of stuff that makes me whish PUAs would come with handy badges so you knew what to expect. I’m all for rules of conducts and concrete social strategies (in fact, I wish it wasn’t something primarily received by guys), but the idea that a guy would first use something close to a bullying tactic because he thought I needed to be put in my place (below him), then going to a comfort phase where it was all about making me feel safe and appreciated, and then use that trust to hit me even harder when he froze me out is just off-putting.

It’s bad enough when it happens randomly, but going through that and then finding material specifically about dominating women and making them sexually compliant on his computer would be like finding bestiality porn on it. Except the porn isn’t as directly relevant to our relationship as the PUA material, so I can understand if he doesn’t think it’s my business.

But to get back to the point, PUAs are making an obscene amount of judgements about women, what they’re like, why they act like they do, what they really want, what type individual women are, etc. often without having talked to their targets about it. They can look at a woman, decide based on nothing more than her looks that she’s too full of herself for what’s appropriate for a woman and needs to be taken down a notch, but you’re telling me that based on her clothes, her facial expression, her accessories, her posture, her current activity, and whatever aspects they know to focus on, can’t find a single thing to remark or compliment on that isn’t generic?

I think they’re just more interested in results than in potentially changing social structures.

And that would be fair enough if other people didn’t have to put up with their criticisms. But in these discussions, and all similar ones, I constantly see the same complaints – men are marginalised, masculinity is not loved enough, women are making unreasonable demands of men, most men are condemned to a living purgatory, dating (and everything else) is done entirely on women’s premisses and men have no say in it, and similar claims.

They’re usually done to dismiss women’s (and especially feminists’) perspective, and justify behaviours that apparently aren’t ethical enough to justify themselves. And yet, when it comes to changing anything, few people are less interested than these complainers.

It was a spelling mistake in this respect. But I do believe that perceived male scarcity is an issue, too, and not just in East Germany, the Ukraine, parts of Russia, or New South Wales – just not that important an issue when it comes to problematic male behaviour.

On the contrary, I think it’s very relevant. In the Hugo Schwyzer article I linked to about the issue, he mentioned several of his female students putting up with a lot of stuff that bothered them, because they didn’t believe they could anything better. While I’m obviously not for ascribing this huge invisible power to women making them completely responsible for male behaviour, I’m also not for discounting the ways women often do influence men.

If men are considered a scarcity, and the standards for male behaviour (and male attractiveness in general) are low, women will be prone to expecting less and putting up with more, such as not just ignoring a guy if he suddenly starts freezing them out.

Hugh Ristik May 8, 2011 at 5:06 pm #

machina said:

Sure, I agree in that study variances don’t seem to be different. But the actual preference differences between men and women, especially for dating, look to be quite small. This seems to be a different claim: you claimed initially the men don’t really have preferences for personality, and are described by three physical preferences in contrast nine diverse preferences for women, yet this study shows that they do have preferences for personality traits but that the strength of their preference for personality traits is simply weaker if I’m reading it right.

I guess I didn’t communicate very clearly… of course the Botwin study finds more converging preferences, because they explicitly asked about people’s preferences for a spouse! As I’ve pointed out at least once, men’s and women’s long-term preferences are a lot more similar, and personality matters a lot more to men in a long-term context than in a short-term context.

SnowdropExplodes:

However, it appears to suggest that desires across men and women are really very similar. The main difference was on choosiness, where women on average were more demanding than men.

Of course men’s and women’s desires are more similar in a long-term mating context, rather than in a speed-dating context.

One point of putative sex difference that would be interesting to investigate is the amount of time it takes to form an impression of someone’s personality.

That’s a good question. Asendorpf et. al claim that some traits can be judged pretty fast:

In contrast, women included more criteria, namely men’s sociosexuality and shyness as well as cues for current or future resource providing potential, such as education, income, and openness to experience (but not cues of steady resource striving like conscientiousness). Interestingly, there is evidence that all these attribute can be accurately judged in short periods of time (Asendorpf, 1989; Borkenau, Mauer, Riemann, Spinath, & Angleitner, 2004; Boothroyd, Jones, Burt, DeBruine, & Perrett, 2008; Gangestad, Simpson, DiGeronimo, & Biek, 1992; Kraus & Keltner, 2009).

3 minutes is a very real-world assessment, mirroring clubs and parties.

Given the Botwin study’s reference to women’s generally lower Emotional Stability score in the FFM measures, we can argue either that, or that men are less good at processing emotions, or that men assess other variables first, and only then move on to personality, as possible explanations if a difference does occur.

Well, looks can be assessed very fast, so 3 minutes is plenty of time to move on to personality.

I couldn’t find that information in the study. I did see the information for women’s long-term interest relating to relationships occurring, and for men’s sociosexuality influencing being chosen, but not for men’s sociosexuality influencing mating? You seem to have conflated “sociosexuality” with “short-term interest”, but Asendorpf have treated them as separate variables

You’re right. Sociosexuality is related to short-term mating interest, which is why I thought they were talking about sociosexuality.

The evidence, I think, does not do anything to support or disprove either your hypothesis or mine concerning the relative mutual predictability of men’s and women’s underlying preferences based on the expression of preferences.

Prove or disprove? No, as I’ve acknowledged. Support? Well, I would say that if women’s sexual preferences are based on more variables, that fact supports the notion that women’s sexual preferences are more complex. If women’s sexual preferences are more complex, then this could explain some of the the gap between women’s communication of their preferences, and men’s understanding of that communication. That’s all I’m saying. I’m attracted to this explanation because it doesn’t involve blaming either men or women.

To get more conclusive data on this sort of hypothesis, we would of course need some studies that look at it more specifically.

Infra May 8, 2011 at 5:09 pm #

@Sam:

It seems evident to me that any compliment prior to getting to know someone on a personal level *will have to be generic* if it’s a compliment and given lack of additional information about that person it will almost by design be about accessible, hence visible, information.

I’d say that this is accurate, but only insofar as what a person notices tends to be generic. If someone notices things such as the particular design of a ring or pendant, or the varietal of coffee that they ordered, or the author of the book that they’re reading or considering buying, or the subject of conversation being overheard, or the desktop image on their laptop, or the site that they’re viewing, or… then generic compliments can be easily avoided. In fact, I’d say that that’s why generic compliments come off as badly as they do: they testify to how much the individual hasn’t noticed, and isn’t paying attention to.

Sam May 8, 2011 at 5:35 pm #

Infra,

fair.

AB,

“If men are considered a scarcity, and the standards for male behaviour (and male attractiveness in general) are low, women will be prone to expecting less and putting up with more, such as not just ignoring a guy if he suddenly starts freezing them out.”

right. So your point basically is that, since both male and female scarcity are apparently causing bad male behaviour they aren’t important as variables in this matter?

They’re usually done to dismiss women’s (and especially feminists’) perspective, and justify behaviours that apparently aren’t ethical enough to justify themselves.

Well, to be honest, I think it’s really more about a mutual feeling of being attacked by the other.

But in these discussions, and all similar ones, I constantly see the same complaints – men are marginalised, masculinity is not loved enough,

I don’t see how that’s mutually exclusive. You can easily complain about the status quo, and then decide that it’s more useful to work on your individual ability to deal with conradictions rather than hope for a structural change. Doesn’t mean the complaints are wrong.

But to get back to the point, PUAs are making an obscene amount of judgements about women, what they’re like, why they act like they do, what they really want, what type individual women are, etc. often without having talked to their targets about it.

Right, but those assessments are based on the pseudo-empirics they have come up with. It’s not scientific by any means, and a lot of it is probably “phlogistonic” in nature, but watever the reasons, the SC has come up with a global database on “what has worked on women”.

As for the compliments part, fair enough, that kind of observational ability is probably something to work on, although I suppose the same caveats that apply to “situational” openers will apply here, too. Great, if one *can* use them, but they’re a lot more complicatd to do than scripted stuff, and as such, require more social skills.

Xakudo May 8, 2011 at 6:31 pm #

Regarding negs:

I grew up in a pretty sarcastic, teasing, bantering family. It was part of the way we expressed affection for each other and had a good time. But also, because of this, we had terms for distinguishing between positive and negative teasing. We called it just “teasing” when it was the positive kind. We called it “mean teasing” when it was the negative kind.

Both myself and my brothers, moving out into the larger world, have had numerous experiences where we upset people (usually women, incidentally…) with teasing that was intended to be totally positive, and would have been received positively within our family. Telling each other these stories, our reaction is always something along the lines of, “Really? They got upset by that? They stopped the car and kicked you out? Really? Holy crap, that is mind boggling.” Because to us it is so obviously intended as a positive affectionate thing that is not to be taken seriously.

So it has been rather interesting learning that a lot of people do not like to be teased, even in that (to us) positive way. And as such, it has forced us to develop a habit of “testing the waters”, so to speak, with new people to figure out to interact with them.

Insofar as negging and teasing are similar, I would suggest there is a similar “negging” and “mean negging” distinction to be made. And I think it varies across the SC which variant is pushed. But also, as with teasing, even the more positive sort of negging can be received badly by some people. So as a PUA (or even just as a human being) it is then incumbent on us to figure how to apply negging–if at all–in any given situation, to have a positive rather than negative effect.

SnowdropExplodes May 8, 2011 at 6:45 pm #

That’s a good question. Asendorpf et. al claim that some traits can be judged pretty fast:

[snip quoted passage]

3 minutes is a very real-world assessment, mirroring clubs and parties.

Maybe that’s why I struggle in such environments, then. I wonder if that’s another 130I factor? Certainly, it would seem logical that Introversion would tend to imply taking a longer time to assess personality and education-level type variables. I did notice that their claim was slightly tentative, though they gave a lot of literature references to support it.

It also raises the question of whether the quickest-to-assess personality traits were shyness, sociosexuality, and openness, given that the other four of the FFM traits were not significant? Maybe with 5 minutes, or 10 minutes, all the FFM traits would come into play.

I would say that if women’s sexual preferences are based on more variables, that fact supports the notion that women’s sexual preferences are more complex.

Well, yes. But I do not think that the evidence presented offers much, if any, support for the suggestion that women’s sexual preferences are based on more variables. As you say, “To get more conclusive data on this sort of hypothesis, we would of course need some studies that look at it more specifically.”

I went and looked again at the Asendorpf study, bearing in mind your statements that this is specifically about sexual, and not relationship, preferences, the following leapt out at me:

H4b Sex difference: Whereas no sex difference is expected for long-term interest, short-term interest is expected to show a higher mean and variance in men than in women.

…

Confirming hypothesis H4b, the sex by interest interaction was due to the fact that men reported more short-term interest than women, and this effect was due to a higher variance of short-term interest in men than in women.

(statistical details snipped for clarity)

Tentatively, this seems to suggest that the lower correlations for women being chosen presented in Table 3 might be (at least in part) because overall, in proportion to short-term interest, men’s long-term interest was lower on average (due to wider-ranging answers on short-term interest). That might drag down the correlation on long-term factors (although it seems unlikely to account for the difference on sociosexuality, or the size of the difference on income and openness). That means that we see on aggregate, more of women’s relationship preferences but less of their sexual preferences, revealed in that table.

Presumably the raw data that Asendorpf et al collected would be able to distinguish between the two influences if analysed that way, but they don’t appear to have done so that I can see. The closest to such an analysis they give seems to be:

The relative amount of actor variances tended to be higher for males than for females. Thus, differences in choosiness and achieved matches were more pronounced in men than in women, which may be attributed to their higher variance in short-term mating interest

Which seems to support the tentative suggestion above.

Sagredo May 8, 2011 at 7:29 pm #

AB,

I’m not so sure. I have seen the scenarios PUAs predict play out for the complete opposite reasons, and yet that doesn’t seem to have occurred to them yet. I have seen clear and understandable sentences be presented as an example of typical female opaqueness. I have seen no indication that men with a vested interest in promoting the view that it is a sign of health and confidence in women if they follow a man around like a puppy would be experts in distinguishing when a girl smiles because she’s insecure and eager to gain approval, and when she smiles because she’s genuinely enjoying herself.

These are not so separate things. Women who get a lot of supplicatory approval from men typically enjoy finding a man whose approval is worth seeking. But seeking approval from someone we see as higher value is not necessarily a sign of insecurity. Value perception isn’t as simple as you have higher value therefore I am low-value (and therefore insecure).

It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of fact. Negs are not teasing. They’re not even teasing in the sense that all negging is teasing but not all teasing is negging, they’re a distinct tactic which sometimes overlaps with teasing.

Negging is a broad category that includes teasing. Teasing always involves some element of disapproval or criticism, and the person teasing always intends a response of seeking approval. Some kinds of negs, such as “where’s her off button”, might not count as teasing, but it’s the same tactic.

The boundaries of the word “teasing” aren’t all that clear with regard to mildness vs. seriousness, and I suspect that’s why PUA came up with the word “neg”.

You talked about confident people, not extroverted people. If you think confidence and extroversion are synonymous, you need to establish that before you make blanket statements about what confident women like. And if you think people being full of themselves is unrelated to narcissism, then you should make a case for it, not just sling the words around and then suddenly change their meaning mid-sentence.

Confidence and extraversion are not the same, but some people have both. These people sometimes tend to act a bit full of themselves, and these are the kind of people who, in my experience, most like to tease and most like being teased. I don’t think people with narcissism masking deep insecurities react as well to teasing, though I haven’t had much experience with them.

I’m starting to believe that the alleged positive reaction from some women to negs are dependant on two factors. The first is the target deriving much of her perceived value from male sexual approval, and the second is the target’s confidence in her own ability to gain said approval (a third could be the target’s wish to be dominated by a man, but that is often linked to confidence, or lack of same). By questioning her attractiveness, PUAs are not just creating a challenge, they’re also threatening the very source of her confidence, counting on her to act in order to regain faith in her own sexual value.

The trouble with this theory is that the kind of women that PUA approach have plenty of access to male sexual approval, regardless of one man questioning her attractiveness. Whenever such a woman should have the source of her confidence in gaining male sexual approval threatened, she has plenty of men to turn to who will give her as much sexual approval as she wants. However, these women typically show little interest in them. Furthermore, they show little interest in men who passively question her attractiveness (for instance, by ignoring her), only those who make the effort to actively question her attractiveness. So why do they specifically need the approval of that one man when it’s available from so many other men?

From my own experience of flirting, teasing and chasing, I believe it’s because by showing disinterest, he demonstrates that he’s of higher value than the men who approve of her easily. And by showing it actively, he demonstrates higher value than the men who show passive uninterest. It’s from this higher value that the positive reaction comes from, especially if she doesn’t come across men she sees as high-value very often. And this value is inseparable from the pursuit of his approval of her sexuality: if she didn’t have to pursue him, he’d be a “pushover” and therefore of lower value and less attractive.

AB May 9, 2011 at 4:07 am #

@Xakudo:

Both myself and my brothers, moving out into the larger world, have had numerous experiences where we upset people (usually women, incidentally…) with teasing that was intended to be totally positive, and would have been received positively within our family. Telling each other these stories, our reaction is always something along the lines of, “Really? They got upset by that? They stopped the car and kicked you out? Really? Holy crap, that is mind boggling.” Because to us it is so obviously intended as a positive affectionate thing that is not to be taken seriously.

So it has been rather interesting learning that a lot of people do not like to be teased, even in that (to us) positive way. And as such, it has forced us to develop a habit of “testing the waters”, so to speak, with new people to figure out to interact with them.

The thing is, it’s usually not that obviously intended as a positive affectionate thing. It is to you, because you’ve gotten a lot of positive affirmation, but for a lot of people, especially women, large parts of their lives have basically been other people battering their confidence and sense of self, and them trying to hold on to it.

Clarisse touched on something similar in the post “I know you’re smarter than me”, getting brushed off in a outwardly casual and friendly matter, which struck a nerve with her because it was just one a long string of instances where she felt her perspectives were being diminished. She got a lot of flak for it, mostly that since she couldn’t know if he meant to brush her off or was just avoiding an unpleasant conversation, she didn’t have a right to be upset. But a lot of women could recognise it, including me.

I recall a situation where I’d visited friend’s house in a foreign city with a couple of her acquaintances, and we’d had a pretty fun conversation. My friend made a casual remark to the guy at the table about him being a sexist, but I defended him because I didn’t think what he said was that bad. When it became time to go, she made the two (guy and girl) promise to take me back to the place I stayed. On the way there, the guy made a remark about women being illogical, and when I confronted him about it, he kept patronisingly repeating “Come on, you know they are” in a way that made it clear that he thought it was a matter of fact, while the girl stayed uncomfortably silent.

I started to talk about going home alone, but both of them insisted on following me (and I let them) which just added a whole new layer of frustration. I knew the only reason both they and my friend found it so important that I not walk home alone was because I was female, so now I was in the situation of basically having it rubbed in my face that my sex prevented me from walking freely alone, and being forced to listen to disparaging remarks about my sex on the side.

Ironically, I was probably in less danger than anyone else there (men looking to show off their manliness tend to pick male victims, rapists looking for easy victims tend to pick more vulnerable looking girls, and most violence against women is committed by people they know anyway), but the weight of 3 people stretching in how much danger I was, combined with me being too upset to trust my own judgement, made me stay. But I so wished I’d backed up my friend when she was remarking on his sexism, rather than giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Apart from instances like that, where I initially judged a guy to be more pleasant and less sexist than he really was, I’ve found that I’m usually not the one to take negative remarks the easiest. I can have a very raunchy form of humour, but I usually require a certain amount of familiarity before I react positively towards potentially hostile remarks about me or people I don’t think deserve it. I’ve found that on the positive side, I’m also much more likely to get out of abusive situations than most women I know. Ever since primary school, students have told me that I handle being an outsider better than most. One girl even told the teachers that though there was a lot of group pressure in the class, when I said no, it was respected, because the other students knew I really meant no.

I also got out of my violent relationship a lot faster than the norm. Even when I could feel all the psychological mechanisms urging me to stay, I found that I could still rationally see that it was not a good relationship, and after having confirmed that his violent rages weren’t a one or two time event, I pretty much reconciled myself with the fact that I’d eventually leave him, and simply waited until it was most convenient. The price is that things that are fun for others aren’t always fun for me, because I’m more aware of the potentially oppressive undertones, but since many other women who don’t have that defence in place are living in crisis centres right now, I don’t think I got a bad deal.

AB May 9, 2011 at 4:48 am #

@Sam:

Right, but those assessments are based on the pseudo-empirics they have come up with. It’s not scientific by any means, and a lot of it is probably “phlogistonic” in nature, but watever the reasons, the SC has come up with a global database on “what has worked on women”.

No they haven’t. The SC generally don’t care about, or deal with, the majority of women, so the only empirical evidence they have is from a tiny and biased sample. Not to mention that if they think they can ascertain whether a woman is confident or not and extroverted or not based on only her looks, it’s pretty striking that they’ve never come up with a way to judge which non-generic remarks work best on which types of women. I suspect it’s mostly due to a lack of interest.

I don’t see how that’s mutually exclusive. You can easily complain about the status quo, and then decide that it’s more useful to work on your individual ability to deal with conradictions rather than hope for a structural change. Doesn’t mean the complaints are wrong.

If you are actively working to preserve a system, and actively working against those who want to change the system, you’re not justified in blaming anyone but yourself when that system is not to your liking.

Well, to be honest, I think it’s really more about a mutual feeling of being attacked by the other.

Nah, as these types of people are usually quick to claim, it’s women who’re over-sensitive and too easily offended. That pretty much leaves the options that they’re either hypocrites and liars (I believe the hypocrisy thing is given, but I’m not willing to assume lying just like that), or aren’t really hurt or feeling attacked by any of it. You can dismiss the importance of words, and of taking other people’s perspective into consideration, as much as you want, but I don’t think it’s fair to then demand anyone to take your feelings of offence seriously.

Look at this thread. We have so much PUA material about taking charge of the game, dominating women, and getting what you want. And yet, when it is suggested that people take charge by refusing to play all the games it is expected of them, and that this is not only attractive to many women but also aligns with the theory of demonstrating higher value and not taking shit, they fall back on “men haven’t a chance, this is a woman’s game, we can only follow”. Or rather, when it is about ignoring women’s wishes when they don’t align with men’s, dismissing them is fine, but when it is about going against unflattering female stereotypes that many men like make fun of, suddenly there’s no way to change it.

It is at one time completely out of the question for a man to react to the question “Does this make me look fat?” by treating the woman as if she’d actually asked that question (without being a jerk about it) and to take a stand when she’s pulling forth the 6th outfit that’s looking fine, but at the same time, the fact that feminism doesn’t make itself the lone voice objecting to women expecting men to guess the real purpose of their questions is used to criticise it for being biased. Or actually, feminism is already the (mostly) lone voice criticising these things, the complaint is that it’s not doing it loudly enough.

right. So your point basically is that, since both male and female scarcity are apparently causing bad male behaviour they aren’t important as variables in this matter?

I’m not sure I talked about variables, though it depends on which definition of the word you use. I merely said that perceived male scarcity was an issue along with perceived female scarcity.

AB May 9, 2011 at 5:56 am #

Sagredo, I’m getting increasingly frustrated and negatively inclined towards this debate with you. You have shown a pattern of consistently ignoring the posts of mine that you have answered. You don’t just change the topic, you flat out make up your own definitions of what I’ve said, like responding to me talking about negs with “The thing about gentle teasing is that….” and then keep going from there, as if the whole line of conversation was about gentle teasing and negs had never been mentioned. Or assume that because I mainly speak from a general perspective, and is more interested in the social consequences of the attitude PUA manuals tend to promote than in picking people up at bars, I must be unattractive in real life.

I can’t help wondering if this goes back to your statement that there is one definitive way men are (which you represent) and one definitive way women are, and that trying to relate to each other from shared humanity is not as useful as relying on gendered assumptions. Even though you’ve been pretty clear about me not representing women, I still can’t shake off the feeling, which I’ve gotten from a lot of sexists in the past (even before I realised they were sexists), that you’re mainly relating to me from the perspective that I have a vagina, or perhaps more correctly that I am a vagina.

You don’t seem to believe I actually communicate clearly and with as few hidden subtexts as possible, and rely more on stereotypes to ascertain what I’m trying to say than reading it. And in other ways, you seem to rely on me reading stuff into your post that isn’t there either. I don’t know if this is a gendered assumption on your part, some PUA-like technique about ruling the conversation that you’ve picked up, or just plain communicative difficulties between us, but I currently struggle to get to change the premise even a little, while getting very little out of it.

So I’ll not respond to your latest post directly, at least not right now, because most of it, to me, is more about you changing the premisses of the conversation itself than about the issues being discussed. If you want to change the subject, or add some previously undetected nuance, there are ways to do that which don’t include dismissing the other. If you want to respond to a post about confidence by bringing up extroversion, say “I think extroversion is an important aspect of this, because extroverted people are more likely to exhibit this and that behaviour etc.”, don’t jump right into “Extroversion doesn’t work like that” as if anyone had ever said it did.

You’re free to redo your latest post if you can find a way to bring up whatever points you were trying to bring up in relation to my post. But the first paragraph you quoted was about not assuming (especially not as a man who think women are so much different than himself) that you would always know when a woman was comfortable, and your response about how and why women like negs have nothing to do with it. The second paragraph was me stating (yet again, because you have never acknowledged it) that negging and teasing are not the same even though negging can be teasing, so explaining to me (yet again) that negging includes teasing makes me suspect we’re back at square one, with you asserting that people who don’t like negs are opposed to gentle teasing (specifically the sun-burn line)

The third paragraph is not me denying that extroverted people can be confident (and thus the unnecessary explanation about what you think extroverted people are like is, well, unnecessary), it’s me remarking that you shouldn’t make blanket statements such as “confident women like negs” if you were really talking about extroversion, and that if you think being full of oneself is more related to extroversion than narcissism, you should explain why.

In the fourth paragraph, I was not making the example you think I was making. If you really think that as long as a woman receives sexual appreciation from some men, she’s not going to care about the rest, it would be better if you explained why, because the argument that people are only interested in a certain amount of recognition before they’ll be ‘full’ is news to me. Remember that I compared it to an athlete and other people taking pride in a certain talent. If you have a lot of experience with people being good at something, and never taking it as a challenge if someone acts disbelieving towards their competence, be my guest and say so. But at least take the comparison into account, I spent a lot of time formulating it. If this is the way you’re going to continue, I think it would be better if we broke it off now. I can deal with rudeness and mildly offensive remarks, but there’s no point of it if people wont even be rude about what I’m actually saying.

Xakudo May 9, 2011 at 6:21 am #

AB:

The thing is, it’s usually not that obviously intended as a positive affectionate thing. It is to you, because you’ve gotten a lot of positive affirmation[...]

Right, and that is exactly my point. Maybe it is simply the difficulties of text, but the tone of your response feels like you are intending to contradict me, whereas the content seems to be in agreement. Possibly just my misinterpretation.

But yes, when interacting with other people, you have to be mindful of the fact that not everyone is operating with the same social assumptions as you. This is especially true in cross-cultural contexts, but is still true even (broadly) within the same culture. I have a lot of positive associations with teasing behavior, as you say. But many other people do not, and are not equipped to recognize how I intend it, or even if they do, to emotionally process it in the intended way. And this is precisely the lesson I have learned over the years, and I have become quite good a gaging and adapting to other people. But it did take a lot of practice, and I have a lot of interesting stories under my belt from the rather rocky learning process. ;-)

I am not convinced, however, that the only reasons women seem (in my experience, at least) more sensitive to it is because they are torn down more. That would make sense if the things I teased about were about common female insecurities (body image issues, for example). But they were not, and I in fact specifically avoided those things.

I think, rather, that women are less frequently included in that kind of teasing culture to begin with. It is a sort of cyclic self-reinforcing thing. Because women are often not included in it, when it does happen they do not know how to process it. And therefore they are seen as more “sensitive”, and therefore are not usually included in it. Etc.

But this is neither here nor there, as far as the topic at hand goes. My point is that negs (of the teasing sort, not the “mean-teasing” sort) can be perfectly acceptable in interactions, but you have to be particularly mindful of the person you are interacting with.

SnowdropExplodes May 9, 2011 at 7:10 am #

@ Sam:

Right, but those assessments are based on the pseudo-empirics they have come up with. It’s not scientific by any means, and a lot of it is probably “phlogistonic” in nature, but watever the reasons, the SC has come up with a global database on “what has worked on women”.

I have to agree with AB’s criticism of this remark. I also want to say something (that I actually thought she would bring up), which is that a “database on ‘what has worked on women’” is most definitely NOT a database on why something worked. The SC generally have a theory about why, but no corroborating evidence except, “But it works!”

AB May 9, 2011 at 8:21 am #

@Xakudo:

Right, and that is exactly my point. Maybe it is simply the difficulties of text, but the tone of your response feels like you are intending to contradict me, whereas the content seems to be in agreement. Possibly just my misinterpretation.

It probably goes both ways. I didn’t intend to directly disagree with you, it was more that I thought there were aspects of it which you didn’t bring up. The notion that women=sensitive and men=stoic with no explanation for why it could seem that way often leads to assumptions about women being unreasonable, rather than having different experiences. I didn’t want to assume you meant it one way or the other, so my post probably wasn’t as supportive as it could have been, but I thought you brought up a good point.

But yes, when interacting with other people, you have to be mindful of the fact that not everyone is operating with the same social assumptions as you. This is especially true in cross-cultural contexts, but is still true even (broadly) within the same culture.

I think relations between the genders are cross-cultural in themselves.

I have a lot of positive associations with teasing behavior, as you say. But many other people do not, and are not equipped to recognize how I intend it, or even if they do, to emotionally process it in the intended way.

I think this phrasing is problematic (and it was exactly that sort of thing I suspected would follow your first post). “Not equipped to recognise/emotionally process it” suggests that this is a flaw. Not a serious flaw or anything which is their own fault, but it’s kind of like saying we shouldn’t all presume that everybody can get up the stairs, because some people use wheelchairs. My point was that I don’t think not finding stuff like that funny is merely a weakness, I think it can be a great strength sometimes.

I think, rather, that women are less frequently included in that kind of teasing culture to begin with. It is a sort of cyclic self-reinforcing thing. Because women are often not included in it, when it does happen they do not know how to process it. And therefore they are seen as more “sensitive”, and therefore are not usually included in it. Etc.

I definitely wouldn’t discount that option, but in my experience, there is a subset of men (though I can’t say whether they’re the majority or not) who take it too far when it comes to women, often in ways other men don’t always recognise. Sometimes it’s shit-testing or establishing dominance, and in those cases, not making it clear from the start what you’re going to tolerate will only work against you later.

If what Sagredo and High Ristik are correct about PUAs having the mentality of male doms, this actually make a lot of sense. The problem is that not all women are submissive, and those who aren’t are often extremely uncomfortable with that sort of conflict. I accept that I have to put some work into establishing my position in the hierarchy of my male acquaintances, but I hate it when a guy starts focussing on me because of my sex.

But this is neither here nor there, as far as the topic at hand goes. My point is that negs (of the teasing sort, not the “mean-teasing” sort) can be perfectly acceptable in interactions, but you have to be particularly mindful of the person you are interacting with.

Which begs the question why it’s suggested as the opening line.

machina May 9, 2011 at 8:54 am #

Hugh Ristik:

I guess I didn’t communicate very clearly… of course the Botwin study finds more converging preferences, because they explicitly asked about people’s preferences for a spouse! As I’ve pointed out at least once, men’s and women’s long-term preferences are a lot more similar, and personality matters a lot more to men in a long-term context than in a short-term context.

Ok, but then in the Asendorpf study the women are presumed to be mostly following a long term strategy while the quite a few men are following a short term strategy. Do you think that men’s and women’s preferences are different regardless of their strategy or that men and women are fairly similar in their preferences when following a given strategy but that men are more often following a shorter term strategy and thus focus less on personality traits?

Hugh Ristik May 9, 2011 at 5:50 pm #

AB said:

Sagredo, I’m getting increasingly frustrated and negatively inclined towards this debate with you. You have shown a pattern of consistently ignoring the posts of mine that you have answered.

Just skimming over Sagredo’s previous post, I don’t see him being any more dismissive towards you than you have been towards him. Of course, I agree with him much more than I agree with you, so take that assessment with a grain of salt.

don’t jump right into “Extroversion doesn’t work like that” as if anyone had ever said it did.

I don’t recall Sagredo saying anything like this.

The third paragraph is not me denying that extroverted people can be confident (and thus the unnecessary explanation about what you think extroverted people are like is, well, unnecessary), it’s me remarking that you shouldn’t make blanket statements such as “confident women like negs” if you were really talking about extroversion, and that if you think being full of oneself is more related to extroversion than narcissism, you should explain why.

If Sagredo indeed made such a broad generalization as “confident women like negs,” then I would disagree. However, confidence, extraversion, and being “full of oneself” (e.g. minor narcissism) may indeed be related. Anecdotally, that definitely seems to be the case, but I spent a little while on Google Scholar and found some interesting research.

In the Big Five model of personality (basically, one of the main tools that psychologists use to assess personality), factor 1 is labelled “Extraversion,” but that factor isn’t just about talkativeness. In the Big Five model, traits loaded on that factor include words like domineering, dominant, aggressive, assertive, bold, and daring. In fact, some psychologists call factor 1 “surgency“, which better reflects the assertiveness/dominance component.

This study found that extraversion predicted people’s overconfidence in the accuracy of their beliefs.

It does appear that extraversion is directly related to confidence:

Regressional analysis revealed that extraversion and neuroticism were direct predictors of happiness and self-confidence, while psychoticism and extraversion were direct predictors of loneliness. The effect of sex on happiness and loneliness was moderated by friendship and neuroticism, and by neuroticism and psychoticism, respectively. Extraversion was also a significant predictor of general confidence and social interactions which directly influenced loneliness whilst psychoticism was a direct predictor of loneliness.

As for narcissism and extraversion, this study found that “The Extraversion and Psychoticism scales of the EPQ were positively and significantly correlated with the narcissism measure.”

As for narcissism and attractiveness, Holtzman and Strube found a small (0.14) but significant correlation between narcissism and attractiveness (that is, observer-rated attractiveness). That’s not a stronger correlation, but it’s conceivable that in some environments (e.g. LA clubs), that correlation could be even higher.

On the subject of the ability of PUAs to assess extraversion, Borkenau et. al found that extraversion is accurately perceived after a 50-second millisecond exposure to the face, and “Particularly strong were correlations between perceived extraversion and self-reports on items measuring the extraversion facets excitement seeking and positive emotions.”

In summary, extraversion is related to be confidence and narcissism. It is also related to assertiveness and dominance. It’s reasonable to extrapolate that extraverts are a different phenotype, and have their own set of preferences and norms that are distinct from introverts. These preferences and norms could include a higher acceptance and perhaps enjoyment of all sorts of social dominance games, including, but not limited to, the neg. Furthermore, people are capable of reading extraversion and excitement-seeking very quickly.

I don’t think Sagredo is changing the premises of the discussion by hypothesizing extraversion as a predictor of enjoying negs. He already acknowledged that the self-esteem theory of negging wasn’t fair to women, but he (and I) seem to share the intuition that it’s predictable what sorts of women are more likely to be into socially dominant male behavior, and we are trying to figure out how to describe our intuitions about the real predictors.

Hugh Ristik May 9, 2011 at 5:51 pm #

Another comment stuck in mod due to links.

AB said:

If what Sagredo and High Ristik are correct about PUAs having the mentality of male doms, this actually make a lot of sense. The problem is that not all women are submissive, and those who aren’t are often extremely uncomfortable with that sort of conflict.

That’s true, which is part of why I’m not a big fan of a lot of PUA dominance behavior (my own style involves as little social dominance as she will allow). Yet the PUA mentality may be somewhat accurate for the sorts of women that PUAs run into regularly: female extraverts in clubs.

The Hawley and Hensley study I recently discussed on my blog had a somewhat countintuitive finding: the women with the least socially dominant personalities actually fantasized less about dominant men. It was socially dominant women who fantasized the most about dominant behavior from men:

For the bi-strategic women, the proﬁle taken together suggests the preference for a ‘‘warrior lover’’ (Salmon & Symons, 2003), and for the non-controllers, a romantic ally such as a ‘‘white knight’’
(Rudman & Heppen, 2003). Thus, it appears as though socially assertive women (i.e., bi-strategic controllers)
seek out characteristics similar to their own in their idealized fantasy mates. Conversely, less socially prevailing
women idealize their fantasy lovers a` la the ‘‘white knight’’—a gentle character who will rescue them while assuring his love and devotion (Rudman & Heppen 2003).

On the other hand, we uncovered important resource control type differences in the factors revealing meaning—namely, socially dominant, bi-strategic women appear to invoke powerful partner, self-enhancement, and ally–provider; that is, when she entertains this fantasy theme, she is seduced by a virile and successful man who wields power over others and is driven by uncontrollable urges consequent to her allure. Moreover, he is an ally, protective of her, and capable and willing of paternal investment. In contrast, subordinate non-controllers deemphasize power and self-enhancement in favor of softer romantic attributes, as well as characteristics associated with alliance, protection, and paternal investment. In this way then, we seem to have zeroed in on Salmon’s and Symons’s (2003) ‘‘warrior lovers,’’ and tied them more closely to aggressively dominant women than to other groups. Perhaps the fantasies of subordinate women could be better characterized as the ‘‘chivalrous knight’’ (e.g., Rudman & Heppen, 2003).

Of course, this was a study on fantasies, so we don’t know how it generalizes. However, the notion that socially dominant women go for socially dominant men is fascinating, and not well understood by either PUAs or feminists. PUAs think that desire for dominance comes from female submissiveness, yet what we are seeing here is a bit more complicated. Socially dominant women desiring dominant men may be related to submissiveness, but it is also assortive mating and a display of gender similarity rather than gender difference: like attracts like.

And as we saw in my previous post, extraversion is related to social dominance. Female extraverts in clubs may well be more receptive to male socially dominant behavior than other groups of women.

Yes, PUA club techniques are increasing inappropriate for the types of women who go to clubs less often. And when PUAs pickup outside clubs (e.g. “day game”), they use different techniques.

Sagredo May 9, 2011 at 9:00 pm #

AB, it should be straightforward.

In your first paragraph (that I quoted), you suggested men might not be able to distinguish approval-seeking behaviour from having a good time. But this is a false distinction, because PUA like women to have a good time seeking their approval.

In your second paragraph, you claim teasing and negging are distinct tactics. But they are in fact the same tactic, expressing disapproval to elicit approval-seeking behaviour. There are some kinds of negging that don’t count as teasing, but the boundary is vague.

In your third paragraph, you seem unsure about what I meant when I said “a bit full of themselves”. I clarified that I meant extraversion and confidence, not narcissism, but also that extraversion and confidence are not identical. I’m not sure why this is important.

For your athlete analogy, let me make a slightly different argument.

If I understand you correctly, you claim part of the identity of certain women is I can sexually attract any man just as an athlete might say I can beat anyone. But athletes make challenges in support of their self-image, they don’t just respond to them, because their self-image is confronted by other athletes who merely perform well.

One of the things PUA have noticed is the difference in effect between active disinterest and passive disinterest. Both, on the face of it, challenge the notion “I can sexually attract any man”. But these women’s reaction to them is quite different. The passive kind of disinterest doesn’t seem to elicit any kind of approval-seeking behaviour, or any kind of distress associated with having one’s identity challenged. Women seem perfectly happy, by and large, to ignore men who ignore them.

What does seem more credible to me is an identity of I can sexually attract high-value men. Passive disinterest doesn’t challenge that, because it doesn’t demonstrate any value. Active disinterest does. But I think we identify as being good at the things we enjoy, anyway.

- -

You know, I think you’d get more out of this if you focused less on trying to prove your position and more on trying to discover the truth. I think you’d be more open to other people’s perspectives. Now I struggle with this too, but I do try to revise my notions where appropriate. For instance, earlier I said (#327):

Confident women like the kind of gentle teasing that most PUA material refers to as “negging”, but not the kind of insults that some men do but most PUA material advises to avoid.

But then I said (#367):

Generally they say that high self-esteem is an indicator of liking any kind of negging or teasing, but maybe that’s not quite fair: it looks like extraversion is also an important factor.

For instance, earlier I identified negging with gentle teasing, but then I said (#367):

Hugh’s view is that negging includes teasing but also includes remarks such as “where’s her off button?” in response to a woman being silly at a club. Does that also count as teasing? It’s more an expression of disapproval, I suppose, but I can see a continuum.

If this seems like moving goalposts to you, you’re probably taking a too combative approach.

Motley May 10, 2011 at 6:44 pm #

Clarisse,

(Don’t know if you’re interested in following up on these three here, but I figure I’ll ask)

1) The ethics of conversational tactics like negs seems a lot less pressing to me than the ethics of actions.

I agree, broadly, but with the caveat that I’m not a hundred percent clear on the distinction. Does that make sense?

2) Hanging out with a natural last night, he actually used multiple PUA lines … It was sort of spooky, but to be expected I suppose.

Heh. Where d’you think the PUAs get it from?
(I’m sorta speculating, of course, but…)

3) This idea that guys are better at articulating what they want or even why they’re attracted to someone is just nonsense.

Yes! I thought of this about five minutes after I posted last. Guys are generally terrible at this. (Women often have their own problems articulating it too, but I suspect that’s mostly due to the conditioned reservations about admitting to actually having a sex drive.)

Did my lack of eyeliner at the time help me or hurt me? Would he have made the same approach in a different context? What role, if any, did my actual behavior play? He was completely unable to answer these questions and thought I was ridiculous for asking them.

I suspect this has a lot to do with the way men aren’t supposed to see their attraction/sexuality as variable or mutable. The impression I’ve gotten is that guys think the guy sex-drive is purely binary–”on” or “off”–and while they experience the effects of, say, eyeliner or certain behavior, they’re not trained to identify the causes of their own attraction.
No, actually, I’d go a bit further–I think they’re trained to actively avoid doing that. The good news is that (in my experience) this seems to fade once they get older than thirty or so. Which is useful to everybody involved.

(Dear the-first-woman-who-slipped-me-her-number-last-Saturday: The eyeliner helped. A lot, actually. But when I’m playing the status-symbol at my wife’s office party is probably not the most politic of times to do that. I mean seriously. I’m married to one of your coworkers.)

(Actually, that whole affair made me think I wanted to discuss it on here. Lots going on there (and at the equivalent, with my own colleagues) that are kinda fascinating, from a certain perspective. Odd.)

But anyway, some time back I guess I neglected to mention that yeah, it’s only funny to ask someone attracted to you what exactly about you attracts them if they’re really high on the self-knowledge scale, I guess. “You’re hot” isn’t really interesting. But things like “that scar, no, that one right there” is hilarious. I mean, all my life, I never knew that this one particular scar on the side of my hand is apparently one of my sexier features. Wow. (Other things I’ve learned seem to apply almost universally: There’s this one spot a couple inches above the hip that is apparently widely considered by women to be the sexiest part of a guy’s body. Huh. Also, that a woman’s sex drive, in my experience, seems to have a lot to do with how well a color in my tie matches my eyes. Good to know, I guess.)

Sagredo May 10, 2011 at 7:17 pm #

Motley, scars as symbols of manliness can appeal to women, but it tends to be a bit hit-or-schmiss.

Scootah May 10, 2011 at 9:10 pm #

@Motley -

I agree, broadly, but with the caveat that I’m not a hundred percent clear on the distinction. Does that make sense?

I’m blindly assuming here but I’d suggest that an unethical conversation example would be telling the bouncer ‘I’m a journalist, my receptionist spoke to your manager about press passes this afternoon’ to gain entry to a nightclub, while an unethical action might be running past the bouncer to gain entry to the nightclub.

The difference between rape by fraud/rape by deception (I’ve had a vasectomy, we don’t need a condom) and rape by force would be another example I imagine.

I’m not so sure that I’d agree that conversational ethics are universally less harmful than action based ethics (If I talk the bank teller into giving me the money, they’re probably more fucked than if I just held them up at gun point) – but in a sexual context, being manipulated into sex is probably less awful than being physically forced into sex.

Sam May 10, 2011 at 10:26 pm #

Motley,

No, actually, I’d go a bit further–I think they’re trained to actively avoid doing that. The good news is that (in my experience) this seems to fade once they get older than thirty or so. Which is useful to everybody involved.

I think you’re largely correct. I reckon it’s a corollary of the “always on” imagined masculinity requirement.

I can also testify to the damaging effect of not being precise about what is attractive about someone – when my best friend was still considering a divorce rather than having made up her mind about it, she once asked her then husband that question – after years of being together, and he didn’t really have an answer that went beyond what Clarisse quoted.

Then again, I suppose it’s also the case that initial specific attraction is superseded by general attraction over time. And that’s a good thing. You don’t notice the beautiful eyes of your girlfriend as much as you noticed them when you met her after a while. They are still a part of your girlfriend, but at that point she’s a lot more than just the features that initially attracted you to her, and I can sort of see why it may be difficult to be more specific, even if guys wanted to, at that point – which I’m not sure about, because they may fear it could come across as objectifying to tell someone “what I like best is your ass” when you’re in a relationship in which the entire person matters, not attraction to particular parts of a body.

I wonder if that’s not at least a part of Clarisse’s boyfriends unwilligness? to answer her question.

It’s not as simple as it may seem, in my opinion.

By the way, a couple of years ago, I did a physical attractivity test on match.com, which basically consisted of clicking on a couple hundred of faces and body types while answering a number of questions. They then sent out a detailed scientific report on what I like best from breast sizes to hair colour and style down to facial bone-structure types (ecto-mesomorphs). Alas, it’s no longer online.

Sam May 11, 2011 at 12:23 pm #

So I’m looking at feministing.com today and what do I see right in the middle of their page: a pretty big area saying “why women love jerks”. Interesting… But it turned out it’s a Google Ad for doubleyourdating.com, David De Angelo’s Seduction workshop…

On the other hand, maybe that advertisement is telling us that feminists and the SC really do have more in common than they think, at least when it comes to semantic analyses of keywords used on their blogs. Google certainly knows best ;)

Infra May 11, 2011 at 9:57 pm #

@Scootah:

I’m blindly assuming here but I’d suggest that an unethical conversation example would be telling the bouncer ‘I’m a journalist, my receptionist spoke to your manager about press passes this afternoon’ to gain entry to a nightclub, while an unethical action might be running past the bouncer to gain entry to the nightclub.

Maybe, but I think that if we look at conversational tactics that aim to throw someone off (or have that effect) through shock, confusion, misdirection, hesitation, etc., then the distinction between conversational tactic and action starts to break down; it’s no longer the content of the communication (including whether or not it contains false information or threats, which could very well be completely absent) that’s of primary importance, but the ability of the communication (including its method and style of delivery) to interfere with or alter subsequent actions.

If a conversational tactic interferes with someone’s ability to process, or with their ability to execute — as opposed to giving them false information to process or information that would be factored into their execution — then it’s probably accurate to classify it as more akin to a physical act than to a conversational one. Language would simply be the method of delivery.

(It’s worth noting that focusing heavily upon the informational content of speech might make a person more vulnerable to this kind of tactic, by the way, in much the same way that placing too much weight on one leg makes a person vulnerable to a sweep of the other. IME, anyway.)

Xakudo May 12, 2011 at 3:00 am #

AB:

“Not equipped to recognise/emotionally process it” suggests that this is a flaw. Not a serious flaw or anything which is their own fault, but it’s kind of like saying we shouldn’t all presume that everybody can get up the stairs, because some people use wheelchairs. My point was that I don’t think not finding stuff like that funny is merely a weakness, I think it can be a great strength sometimes.

Misinterpreting how someone intends something is never a strength, IMO. So I cannot agree as such. However…

You seem to be operating on the assumption that the men in question are intending to be hurtful or mess with a woman’s insecurities. And while that is the case with some men, with a lot of men (such as myself) it is not.

Obviously, being able to distinguish between the former and the latter would be a great strength. But if you always interpret it one way, then the strength of that interpretation is going to depend on your particular situation.

Which begs the question why it’s suggested as the opening line.

Actually, one of my strategies for gaging how tease-tolerant a person is, is to jump straight to teasing them early on when I am still an unknown factor to them. If they react awkwardly or negatively, I back off and (if necessary) apologize, and adjust my behavior accordingly.

Of course, that has its drawbacks. But ramping up slowly has its own drawbacks as well. As does waiting to see how they interact with you (I have known people for months before mutually realizing that we both enjoy teasing). There is no perfect strategy. But once you get a feel for it, you can utilize them very effectively. At some point it is just about gut feelings. But developing that intuition takes experience and (critically) the mistakes that come with that.

In any case, I do not really think that is the reason that some PUA variants suggest negging as an opener. So, indeed, the question is still begged. ;-)

SnowdropExplodes May 12, 2011 at 8:26 am #

@ Xakudo:

You seem to be operating on the assumption that the men in question are intending to be hurtful or mess with a woman’s insecurities. And while that is the case with some men, with a lot of men (such as myself) it is not.

I am not speaking for AB here, but my own understanding of the problem is not that (PUA) men are necessarily intending to be hurtful or to mess with insecurities. It’s that they don’t seem to care whether or not that is the case, or they seem unaware that this might be the case.

Obviously, it makes a difference to you, and you do care about it, but that might not actually come across if you open with teasing early on (as you say your tactic is), and only then apologise and back off if you get a bad reaction.

Xakudo May 12, 2011 at 5:49 pm #

SnowdropExplodes:

I am not speaking for AB here, but my own understanding of the problem is not that (PUA) men are necessarily intending to be hurtful or to mess with insecurities. It’s that they don’t seem to care whether or not that is the case, or they seem unaware that this might be the case.

Sure, sure (variance within the PUA community not withstanding). At this point in the discussion, I would probably sort the “don’t care” guys into the “intending to mess with insecurities” camp, and the “unaware” guys into the “not intending” camp.

Obviously, it makes a difference to you, and you do care about it, but that might not actually come across if you open with teasing early on (as you say your tactic is), and only then apologise and back off if you get a bad reaction.

But that is the strange thing, right? Because in practice it actually does seem to come across. Perhaps even better than in the “slowly ramping up” strategy. I am not entirely sure why that is, though I suspect it is at least partly due to most people’s intuitive understanding that you do not know them at first.

Having said that, I mostly rely on intuition these days. I am not sure all of what it is that I pick up on, but I seem to be pretty good at feeling it out now (I have not–to my knowledge–hurt anyone’s feelings via teasing for quite some time).

AB May 13, 2011 at 7:39 am #

Hugh Ristik

I don’t recall Sagredo saying anything like this.

Here’s the conversation between Sagredo and myself, starting with me:

Post 330: I’m not saying they’re per definition abusive, but the similarities are not irrelevant. And I think that brushing it off like Sagredo does right now, saying that confident women like most of the negs suggested, is problematic and denying individual women their experiences.

Post 331: AB, how often do you tease women while flirting with them? I do occasionally and this is my experience. Confident women, especially women who are a bit full of themselves, tend to open up, warm up and become interested.

Post 343: I could ask you a similar question, how often do you talk to girls about their insecurities? I’ve seen girls in situations I know no guy has seen them in, and it’s often quite a different image. ‘Women who’re a bit full of themselves’ are not even recognised by many people as a subset of confidence (narcissism is often thought to be a compensatory reaction to a deeper insecurity).

Post 352: I’m not sure extraversion, even confident extraversion, is a sign of narcissistic disorder. And actually it’s generally the women who tease more who most like to be teased. There may well be women out there who can dish it out but can’t take it, but I tend to be lucky enough not to encounter them.

He starts talking about confident women, and has often mentioned women who’re too full of themselves and need to be put down, but in the middle of the conversation, he starts to argue on the basis that extroversion is not a sign of narcissistic disorder.

If Sagredo indeed made such a broad generalization as “confident women like negs,” then I would disagree. However, confidence, extraversion, and being “full of oneself” (e.g. minor narcissism) may indeed be related.

But according to Sagredo, being a bit full of oneself is a sign of extroversion, and extroversion is not a sign of narcissism.

This study found that extraversion predicted people’s overconfidence in the accuracy of their beliefs.

First off, you don’t need to explain to me what the Big Five mean. Just because I’ve been on a break from my study for a couple of years to deal with other things doesn’t mean I need to have the basics explained to me. I’d appreciate it a lot more if you started treating the obscure feminist references you sometimes make as obscure references instead. Secondly, the relationship between confidence and narcissism (and the ability of it to help individuals deal with challenges) is not fully explained yet. Overestimating one’s ability is a sign of both, and yet they can contradict each other.

There was an interesting study done several years back (no, I don’t have a link, it was in a scientific magazine) to measure the connection between violence and confidence. The test subjects were made to play a game two and two, and the winner was allowed to punish the loser with a small electric shock afterwards. During the first, round no pattern was found in who chose to subject their opponent to the pain, but as the games were repeated again and again, more and more of the most confident people (narcissists) started administering the shock. It turned out that while they weren’t any more prone to dealing out pain for its own sake, they often administered the shock to their opponent if the opponent had won a previous game.

The theory went that because their confidence was based on viewing themselves as superior, they considered it an injustice when someone beat them in the games, and they reacted by trying to punish the person who threatened their self-concept when they had the chance. The article didn’t mention the sex of the subjects, but since men are both more prone to violence and to overestimating themselves, it stands to reason that men would be behind most of the punishments. That makes me wonder if overconfident women have different defences on place when their self-concept is threatened.

On the other hand, a friend of mine once broke up with a guy because he was too confident in the opposite direction. He flirted a lot with other girls, and he couldn’t understand why she wasn’t always cool with it, since he was so sure of her love for him that he couldn’t conceive of it meaning anything if she flirted with other guys. His mother even told my friend that she believed she’d made a mistake when raising the boy, giving him so much praise and positive attention that he felt too secure and never learned to foresee hardship.

Incidentally, the same friend has also often gotten positive attention herself. Growing up with a sexist father who favoured her brother over her meant she wasn’t as naïve as her then boyfriend (she is, however, one of the women I know who’s best at handling sexism), but she was still so used to being liked that when she found herself in the situation of being socially shunned, it caused her to enter a deep existential crisis. More than a year afterwards, she’s still trying to deal with it, and her mother tells me she sometimes calls at night crying (she’s in her mid 20s btw).

It’s hard to foresee how a narcissistic streak will manifest itself, but I do think it’s very likely that such people will react to a challenge to their perceived superiority by trying to defend their self-concept, whether it’s by trying to punish the challenger or prove themselves. Even PUAs acknowledge that the latter is often the case with women. I think it’s worth noticing that while reasonable degree of confidence (the kind that comes from knowing one’s strengths and not being too bothered by one’s weaknesses, as opposed to overestimating strengths and not acknowledging weaknesses) can have a protecting effect, narcissism often leaves people vulnerable.

I don’t think Sagredo is changing the premises of the discussion by hypothesizing extraversion as a predictor of enjoying negs. He already acknowledged that the self-esteem theory of negging wasn’t fair to women, but he (and I) seem to share the intuition that it’s predictable what sorts of women are more likely to be into socially dominant male behavior, and we are trying to figure out how to describe our intuitions about the real predictors.

I don’t really see him acknowledging that the self-esteem theory doesn’t hold, I see him jump right to “I’m not sure extraversion is a sign of narcissistic disorder.” I believe he was also the one stating that “confident women like the kind of gentle teasing that most PUA material refers to as “negging””. And I’m still wondering how the hell people like you and him can go so easily from “It was successful in getting her to be sexually compliant” to “It was successful in making her enjoy it”.

The Hawley and Hensley study I recently discussed on my blog had a somewhat countintuitive finding: the women with the least socially dominant personalities actually fantasized less about dominant men. It was socially dominant women who fantasized the most about dominant behavior from men:

I don’t see what’s so contradictory about it. Even if we go by the rather male-centric assumption that dominance equals an attraction to doormats, I thought it was slowly beginning to be acknowledged that fantasies, especially women’s fantasies, weren’t necessarily about what they wanted in real life. One of the stereotypical misunderstandings between the sexes (at least from what I’ve read) occurs when the woman shares a fantasy with the man as means of creating emotional intimacy, and the man immediately jumps to the conclusion that he should try to replicate it.

And even if we narrow it down to people who like to live out their fantasies, those fantasies aren’t necessarily an indication of how they want their life to be, like when female submissives have to battle the idea that just because they want to enact specific fantasies about violence and submission, they can’t be dominant or outspoken the rest of the time. Looking at what you quoted from the actual study, I’m also not sure how they reached the conclusions they did. All the women expressed a preference for partnership, protectiveness, and paternal investment, but the dominant women liked their fantasy partner to be a bit more wild. That’s about it.

Of course, this was a study on fantasies, so we don’t know how it generalizes. However, the notion that socially dominant women go for socially dominant men is fascinating, and not well understood by either PUAs or feminists.

I’m not quite sure what there is to not understand.

And as we saw in my previous post, extraversion is related to social dominance. Female extraverts in clubs may well be more receptive to male socially dominant behavior than other groups of women.

I’d be careful about turning ‘dominant’ into an exclusively personal characteristic. It’s often more about an individual’s status in the current situation than about a personality type. In clubs, especially those frequented by PUA-types, women who perform typical femininity will often have higher status simply by virtue of being treated a lot better. It’s not necessarily possible to conclude based on that that the woman in question is of a dominant type.

Clarisse May 15, 2011 at 2:59 pm #

Random ideas that are only tangentially relevant to the thread:

1) The key factor with negs is not just that not all women like them — it’s also that they actually have to be pretty closely calibrated to the woman you’re talking to. Makeup negs seem more likely to work on club girls who (a) know that they’re pretty and (b) VALUE makeup a lot. They’re less likely to work on me because makeup doesn’t matter to me that much and because (I’d guess that) I have less confidence in my appearance than the average blonde 8. On the other hand, negs that have made me laugh include:

* (from a Chicago PUA who had previously read my writing and spoken to me on the phone) “You’re Clarisse? Wow, you’re much cuter than I thought you’d be.” — This was kind of annoying, but it was funny too, because I’m perfectly aware that my writing tends to be somewhat dry and philosophical; I also tend to come across as pretty cold and contained by phone. It’s quite normal for people to assume that I’m older or would appear more scholarly than I am/do. I haven’t pinned down why it was kind of annoying yet … probably because it seems like a reflection of the idea that smart women are never attractive.

* (from a Chicago former PUA) “Are your glasses held together by epoxy? Jeez, everything about you just screams ‘starving artist’, doesn’t it.” — This was completely hilarious and not annoying at all, because the thing he was noticing (epoxy, starving artist) is something that I feel only mildly self-conscious about and have no problem with otherwise. So it did what negs are supposed to do, which is flatter me by convincing me that he’s been paying attention to who I am and what I’m up to, without obviously supplicating.

2) The PUA community could be seen as a reflection of the fact that women actually HAVE been gaining more power in society, and have more power to choose our mates. (I’m sure some MRA asshole has already made this point in a sexist way, I’m trying to do it in a non-sexist way though ….) Women have historically been forced to put more energy into understanding relationships because relationships were historically our only path to any sort of efficacy, and we had a lot less power to choose. Now we have a lot more power to choose. So men have been forced to develop PUAdom. In a weird way, you could see this as a victory for women’s empowerment, actually.

Clarisse May 15, 2011 at 3:04 pm #

I just wrote:

So it did what negs are supposed to do, which is flatter me by convincing me that he’s been paying attention to who I am and what I’m up to, without obviously supplicating.

I should say, it did what negs AT THEIR BEST are supposed to do. Because at their worst, negs are explicitly intended to make women feel bad about themselves, as TylerDurden for example defined them.

Sagredo May 15, 2011 at 4:57 pm #

Clarisse,

The key factor with negs is not just that not all women like them — it’s also that they actually have to be pretty closely calibrated to the woman you’re talking to.

Right, I think this is the key to any kind of teasing or negging. There’s a risk involved, so getting the calibration right demonstrates a certain kind of social awareness and paying attention to the other person that I think is appealing.

(from a Chicago former PUA) “Are your glasses held together by epoxy? Jeez, everything about you just screams ‘starving artist’, doesn’t it.” — This was completely hilarious and not annoying at all, because the thing he was noticing (epoxy, starving artist) is something that I feel only mildly self-conscious about and have no problem with otherwise.

It looks like this works because of the way it expresses disapproval yet reassures, as if to say you look ‘starving artist’ but I think it’s cute. To take a Roissy-ish view, he’s pointing out something that might lower your value on the “sexual market”, but still appeals to him.

Sam May 15, 2011 at 6:40 pm #

Clarisse,

“In a weird way, you could see this as a victory for women’s empowerment, actually.”

this is a point I’ve made a couple of times in the original followup thread, calling the SC “meta-feminist”, and also in one of the later threads when I mentioned how seduction is logically depended on consent (this is from my reading of Foucault’s descriptions of the ancient Greek seduction scripts, which were only relevant with respect to other free men, precisely because seduction required a free will that could be seduced.)

But there’s more to that, of course. Social mating rituals have lost importance so people needed to get a better understanding of how attraction works on an physiological/mental/emotional level rather than merely conforming to some social mating ritual.

Clarisse May 15, 2011 at 7:00 pm #

MOD NOTE: I’m about to move comments from the sex-positive 101 thread to this thread. Comments to be moved originally started around #71 on that thread. On this thread they will be numbered #408, 409, 410, and 412.

Sam May 15, 2011 at 7:10 pm #

Clarisse,

I can understand why Ranai feels that the PUA stuff is so hostile. I feel it that way too, and as it’s gotten easier for me to understand PUA perspectives and read their message boards and talk to PUAs and stuff, I occasionally feel as though I’m losing track of my values and my ideals about well-communicated and egalitarian-structured relationships. It’s really alienating and disconcerting and frankly, painful. I think that I’m only able to do it in the first place because I’ve always had a somewhat pragmatic and cynical perspective on relationships. But it feels like egalitarian feminist, S&M, polyamory ideas about gender and sexuality move me away from being cynical and misanthropic, whereas PUA stuff moves me towards being cynical and misanthropic. Being so fascinated by it feels perversely, intellectually masochistic. But maybe I’m giving it too much credit.

But you can understand how people can feel the other way around, too, right? That feminism is perceived as being antagonistic, whereas the SC is seen as focued on positive collaboration.

I’ve always said that I neither identify as feminist nor as a PUA, but when it comes to my personal experience, my “Towards my personal Sex-Positive 101″, I’d have to say that I’d have to attribute the good and the bad differently. It by far wasn’t only The Game and some other PUA stuff I read that helped me re-learn how to interact with women that helped me reconnect to a part of myself that I felt had been buried under religious and feminist shame, but the “you, too, can make this happen” narrative, backed up by Strauss’ rather credible transformation narrative, was a powerful motivator, and it certainly helped that the motivation came with a coulpe of ready-to-use soundbites attached that would allow for first successes and help my brain believe that change is actually possible for me, too.

It’s not that I wasn’t aware that there’s the good, the bad, and the ugly out there, although I seem to have come across a lot less bad and ugly as you seem to have come across judging by some of the things you posted. But I reckon that just as with everything that a lot of people are involved in, people pick what is useful to them or what they identify with, and discard the rest.

There was a point when I really didn’t care about anyone else’s pain, because my own hurt too much. In that respect, I don’t think that your guest poster Chris was necessarily correct when he said that a bunch of bad attitudes about women that guys may harbour are replaced by bunch of other new bad attitudes about women. That probably *can* happen. But there’s also the chance that lifting the veil of emotional pain is allowing them to emphsize more deeply with others’ pain. At least that is what it feels like to me.

You make it sound like the SC cannot be a positive force in enlightening the gender discourse as such, and I have to disagree with that notion.

Clarisse May 15, 2011 at 7:20 pm #

I didn’t mean to make it sound like the SC can’t be a positive force. But it takes a fundamentally different approach to gendered relationships than BDSM, poly, and feminism. The SC is about mating effectiveness right now. These other approaches are about making a better world, even if it means being less effective at mating right now.

I would imagine that my reaction to much of the SC is similar to Sam’s reaction to much of radical feminism. The place where these communities can communicate is at the juncture where SC guys acknowledge that women are people with real desires and rights, and where feminists acknowledge that sex can be awesome and there’s no right way to do it as long as it’s consensual. But the approach will still be different, and I think that’s what Ranai is partly reacting to, and me as well to some extent.

Sam May 15, 2011 at 7:24 pm #

Clarisse,

but BDSM and poly are also mainly focused on the individual level, not trying to make the world a better place, except by allowing people to be who they are, and that’s – my point from above – is certainly something I believe is a core aspect of the SC. I think all those work on a pretty similar contextual level. Helping people deal with their environment with an accompanying discussion of the environment. I reckon that BDSM and Poly have harder time getting their sexuality recognized as such, but, I mean, seriously, even your discussion, was about questions you wanted to ask cis entitled men.
And within the gender discourse, those cis entitled men have a much harder time getting heard than others.

“I would imagine that my reaction to much of the SC is similar to your reaction to much of radical feminism.”

I’m not sure, I think radical feminism treated our sexualities simliarly. We were both told we’re dangerous and at least potentially hurting someone by being who we are (my by being a guy, you by being BDSM). Given what you said about feeling sexual shame from feminists, I’m thinking we’re in pretty much the same boat with respect to radical feminism, although I may have had a harder time dealing with it given my personality/psychology.

“The place where these communities can communicate is at the juncture where SC guys acknowledge that women are people with real desires and rights, and where feminists acknowledge that sex can be awesome and there’s no right way to do it as long as it’s consensual.”

I’d add that feminists should also acknowledge that guys are people with real desires and rights, even when talking to them, on their turf (on which this debate will have to be held).

“But the approach will still be different, and I think that’s what Ranai is partly reacting to, and me as well to some extent.”

Yes. Probably, as I wrote in reply to Amanda Marcott’s recent advice piece and somewhere in a discussion with AB. I think a lot of the feminist criticism is about the SC teaching guys how to deal with this environment, not some imaginary better one, which is what much of the feminist approach is about – overcoming. But what’s a better way to change the world thinking globally, acting locally, than help to people come together? I can’t think of any. And that brings me to -

“These other approaches are about making a better world, even if it means being less effective at mating right now.”

I can see that as potential consequence of dutiful behaviour in the categorical imperative. But in this world, again, I believe a gender strategy that is not helping people (not only men!) to get to mutually happy outcomes is destined to fail. Effectiveness is a necessary condition, regardly of what other (ethical) aspects are seen as sufficient conditions.

Hugh Ristik May 15, 2011 at 9:52 pm #

Clarisse said:

2) The PUA community could be seen as a reflection of the fact that women actually HAVE been gaining more power in society, and have more power to choose our mates.

In Art of Seduction, Robert Greene suggests that seduction began as a woman’s art (e.g. Cleopatra), but that it became increasingly used by men over time.

Some PUAs would argue that male mating scripts based on being the “provider” come from a time when women’s choices in men were limited by the need to marry a man to put a roof over their heads. Yet now women have much greater choice for short-term mating.

And as we know (stop me if this is controversial to anyone), women’s short-term mating preferences shift towards excitement, flashiness, dominance, and masculinity (see some of the menstrual cycle studies I cited above). Other traits that would be more conducive to stable relationships and marriage are less valued during youth, and now women’s families are less-often forcing them to choose men based on those traits.

Consequently, the bar is now raised for men to become flashier.

Hugh Ristik May 15, 2011 at 11:09 pm #

Clarisse said:

The place where these communities can communicate is at the juncture where SC guys acknowledge that women are people with real desires and rights

While we are at it, can we also get women to acknowledge the desires and rights of other women?

I am increasingly feeling that to a large degree, gender dynamics, especially in mating, are nothing to do with men. They are due to conflict between different cabals of women, who each want men’s default sexual behavior to be in line with their own preferences, rather than the preferences of other women. Men are merely the rope that various groups of women are playing tug-of-war with.

For example:

- mainstream heterosexual women routinely expect men to make lots of inferences and guesses about consent, and proceed by default in ways that might be undesirable or harmful to other women… then look at men as aliens or wimps if they try to be more cautious or communicative.

- some feminist women try to define sexual ethics in terms of their personal preferences and nonconsensually impose it on the population without seeking input from women with different preferences (or from men).

Feminist women who advise men to “listen to women” should be careful what they wish for, since so many women have different perspectives from theirs. If you are a man who “listens to women,” the question becomes: “which women do I listen to?”

Clarisse May 15, 2011 at 11:48 pm #

I am increasingly feeling that to a large degree, gender dynamics, especially in mating, are nothing to do with men. They are due to conflict between different cabals of women, who each want men’s default sexual behavior to be in line with their own preferences, rather than the preferences of other women. Men are merely the rope that various groups of women are playing tug-of-war with.

Um …. Because women would totally design a mating situation where our sexuality is disappeared, we’re expected to set all the boundaries and blamed if our boundaries are transgressed, and we’re failures if we can’t get a big sparkly ring?

No. Just no. Men have plenty to do with the situation, as do women. I could just as easily claim that women are the rope that various groups of men are playing tug-of-war with.

Clarisse May 15, 2011 at 11:50 pm #

Also, ALL gender dynamics are the fault of women, and have nothing to do with men, and it’s just more pronounced in mating? What? I can’t even believe you wrote that, HR.

Clarisse May 15, 2011 at 11:58 pm #

Okay, I overstated what HR wrote, but even when I make it milder, like this –

gender dynamics generally have nothing to do with men’s desires, and it’s just more pronounced in mating

… I’m still really shocked that he wrote it, and I’m having trouble containing my reaction, obviously.

Infra May 16, 2011 at 1:14 am #

@Clarisse:

I think that there might be one area in which Hugh’s statement might be accurate — and that’s when it’s viewed in relation to your second point in #403. It’s an idea that I’ve been toying with myself, lately: that increased power and choice, combined with the existing background, might have produced a novel form of hyperfemininity (which might be especially prominent in high-energy situations like clubs) for which there was no masculine parallel, and to which (the early development of) pickup was a response. From there, the resulting hypermasculine model might have been used as backfill, retroactively informing lower-energy situations, such as daygame.

With regard to that specific dynamic, it could be seen as something dominantly about and driven by women (though I think that it could also be seen as something akin to a phase transition — just as with increasing performance, femininity and masculinity diverge, when performance goes beyond a certain threshold, the two might start to converge again). But that wouldn’t apply to the general scope of gender dynamics, or even to the majority, mating or not.

Hugh Ristik May 16, 2011 at 4:07 am #

None of your paraphrases are close to what I meant, but I guess I did put it in a way that invites misinterpretation. Blah. I said “to a large degree,” but I didn’t say how large. Yes, obviously I believe that large components of gender dynamics are due to men’s preferences, or to some interaction of men’s and women’s preferences.

So, let’s rephrase the beginning of my comment like this:

I am increasingly feeling that particular components of gender dynamics, especially in mating, are nothing to do with men.

And rephrase “nothing to do with men” to “more to do with women’s preferences than with men’s.”

Please pretend I put it that way, re-read my comment, and see if it still sounds so outlandish.

As a specific example, I’m not sure that men care as much as women about certain practices in dating. I have suspicions that many men just don’t care as much as women about sexual communication either way, as long as sex happens in the end. Yes, plenty of men care, but the people who have the strongest feelings about sexual communication, either for or against, mostly seem to be women in my experience. Other people’s observations may be different.

For instance, whether men should ask for the first kiss seems to be something that women have stronger feelings about than men. Men may be less likely to care whether they ask, or don’t ask, as long as whatever method is expected of them reliably results in positive female responses.

And yes, we could probably think up other dating practices that are more strongly driven by men’s preferences.

Sam May 16, 2011 at 4:10 am #

Hugh, Clarisse,

“gender dynamics generally have nothing to do with men’s desires, and it’s just more pronounced in mating”

first of all, aren’t all gender dynamics derivations of mating, or in some relation to mating? As bizarre as cultural constructions of gender can be at times, there’d be really no point for any of that without sexual reproduction. We could come up with all kinds of other fun ways to structure societies… why sex based if it weren’t for mating, even if only in some indirect, obscure sense.

And that’s also the answer to Hugh. Sexual choice is not exclusively female in humans… Men aren’t indiscriminate with respect to mate choice. And that gives us some buying power in that game. I don’t it’s even effort-wise, but it’s probably sort of even painwise given marginally different generalised desire-structures between women and men. If the marginal utility of having random sex were approaching zero for a woman while it would be approaching infinity for a man then the former’s ability to pull would be exceedingly pointless to her, while he would give everything. And they would probably not understand the other.

But at the same time, Clarisee, this sarcasm -

“Because women would totally design a mating situation where our sexuality is disappeared, we’re expected to set all the boundaries and blamed if our boundaries are transgressed, and we’re failures if we can’t get a big sparkly ring?”

is unwarranted, in my opinion, if you actually believe that women aren’t without agency in a patriarchy matrix. Because if they do have agency then, yes, the question why and how women are actively contributing to a structure you (sarcastically) describe as disappearing their own sexuality (which I’m pretty sure you don’t mean literally) including all its double binds (think of human rights activits in Afghanistan telling mothers to not tell their sons to beat their wives, which is apparently common to say for beaten wives who have become mothers) is quite an important one.

Lucky 72 May 16, 2011 at 5:21 am #

Now we have a lot more power to choose. So men have been forced to develop PUAdom. In a weird way, you could see this as a victory for women’s empowerment, actually.

As women has become independent (or less dependent) of men for their income, women can freely choose their spouse or sexual partners, at least with regards to feeding oneself and getting a roof over the head.

This is a good thing for humankind as a whole. But the changed dynamic of dating as a result of this reduction of the role of the male as provider, has obviously also tilted how males are rated – good for some, bad for others.

And the idea that men and women should choose each other for love is pretty new, historically speaking, anyway. Even more so is the idea that men and women can mate freely outside of wedlock. That only goes back a few decades, and is only really accepted in the Western World.

So it is no wonder everybody is struggeling with finding their way around new mating paradigms. Which also includes the feminists (or some), because women suddenly find themselves with a pretty big hand in the choosing of partners, meaning that the old ‘blame the patriarchy’ slogan becomes less believable, at least when it comes to dating.

Irrespective of the fact that the gender roles haven’t changed that much, when looking at what men and women say they are looking for. If you check out dating sites, women are generally looking for men older than themselves and men are looking for women younger than themselves, which is really unnecesary in this day and age. Yet the preference persists.

machina May 16, 2011 at 9:25 am #

Hugh:

As a specific example, I’m not sure that men care as much as women about certain practices in dating. I have suspicions that many men just don’t care as much as women about sexual communication either way, as long as sex happens in the end. Yes, plenty of men care, but the people who have the strongest feelings about sexual communication, either for or against, mostly seem to be women in my experience. Other people’s observations may be different.

I think men don’t care about sexual communications as much, in general, because, in general, they don’t need to communicate to feel safe or have satisfying sex while women generally do. I’m sure most women would prefer to not have to have often awkward conversations about sex.

Hugh Ristik May 16, 2011 at 7:02 pm #

machina said:

I think men don’t care about sexual communications as much, in general, because, in general, they don’t need to communicate to feel safe or have satisfying sex while women generally do. I’m sure most women would prefer to not have to have often awkward conversations about sex.

I’m sure that’s a factor, but I doubt it’s the whole story.

I don’t think sexual communication is equally attractive to people of each gender. As we’ve discussed above, women have more specific preferences around behavior, so it would make sense that they have stronger feelings either way. Asking permission for a kiss, for example, has more potential to be either a turn-on or a turn-off to women. Usually it’s a turn-off.

Furthermore, men attempting sexual communication often runs afoul of women’s preferences for masculinity, because it looks wimpy or insecure. That’s a totally different motivation than “wanting to feel safe.”

I googled “asking for a kiss,” and found this discussion on an online dating site. I went through all 14 pages, looked for stated female preferences for men to ask or not, and added them up.

- 142 women gave an answer
- 98 (69%) preferred that men not ask
- 11 (7.7%) preferred that men do ask
- 31 (21.8%) were fine either way, liked both, or said it depends. (Though many of these women still leaned towards men not asking.)
- 2 (1.4%) preferred to make a move themselves

Words used to describe men asking for a kiss:
awkward
nervous
wimpy
lame
limp
insecure
gross
dull
puss

Many of the messed-up PUA notions about women’s sexual psychology are represented in that thread.

A few howlers:

Asking is just so wimpy! Its a turn off. Unless you’re in a dom/sub relationship. Then its expected.

Oh, God!!! Never ask! Just move slowly to her lips. If she wants to kiss you, she will. If not, she either catch you on the cheek or turn her head. And it REALLY annoys me if a guy asks me if I would like to have sex with him. If he can’t figure it out on his own, the answer is always NO!

If you ask you give me an opportunity to think with my mind and my mind is commonly saying, not yet……if you feel a need to ask, you’re not sure yourself what I’m thinking about you, you don’t know if I’m feeling you too…..lol. If you have to think about it, it’s not time.

If you have to ask, then the answer is no… just kiss!!!

Only a few women mentioned the importance of boundaries or respect from men. When women did mention boundaries, it was mostly women who prefer than men not ask, but rather make it obvious through body language that they are move in, and to avoid slobbering.

My sense of that thread is that most of the women are more focused on fun than safety (of themselves or other women). Many of them said that if they don’t want the kiss, they will just turn their head away. Safety doesn’t seem like a large factor in women’s communication preferences over kissing.

You also mentioned a female motive for satisfying sex explaining women’s communication preferences, which is a lot more plausible. But most of the time, a desire for sexual satisfaction led women to advise men to not verbally communicate, because it was such a turnoff to them. Instead, many of the women advised men to lean in as a warning that they were going for a kiss. Except for some women, who said they preferred to be surprised!

SnowdropExplodes May 16, 2011 at 11:11 pm #

And it REALLY annoys me if a guy asks me if I would like to have sex with him. If he can’t figure it out on his own, the answer is always NO!

I have to say, someone who takes that attitude with me, is not someone I want to have sex with anyway. There again, so far a partner’s always told me without needing to be asked, “I want sex with you!” and let me figure it out from there.

The other quotes provided by Hugh struck me as interesting, because my initial response is “what makes it wimpy?” and “what about his own boundaries?”. But, I have tried to think of a situation where in practice I have asked before kissing a woman I’m on a date with, and I don’t think I ever have. In those “live” situations, the cues were there to be read after all.

I recall reading (possibly in a book by Hans Eysenck) that, if you are going to ask for a kiss, never use more than five words (because doing so really is a sign of insecurity and produces awkwardness).

That said – I am not sure that responses from a dating site are necessarily the best source for what’s successful; the fact that the respondents are on a dating site means that they haven’t been all that successful at finding what works, at their time of writing, surely?

Except for some women, who said they preferred to be surprised!

Except that if they are surprised by someone they don’t actually want to kiss them, then it’s sexual assault. People who say that probably are only imagining a limited range of circumstances, it seems to me. There really does seem to be a socially-constructed thing of “I want him to make the first move, but only if I’ve signalled that I want him to.” (I first encountered that being stated outright in one of my sister’s girlie magazines, Bliss or Just 17 or some such, back when we were both teenagers.) This type of advice is repeated in subtler form by dating advice books such as “He’s Just Not That Into You”. Leading to frustration when men don’t interpret the signals appropriately. The equivalent situation re: kissing then being, “I’m sending all these signals, why hasn’t he attempted to kiss me yet?” Which, hello, is just as much where he can say, “you’re not sure yourself what I’m thinking about you, you don’t know if I’m feeling you too” – he might be going to eventually, but takes longer to get to that emotional point. Which also raises the question of expectations – if it’s assumed he always wants to, but hasn’t yet tried to, then where, “I’m signalling I want to,” the assumption becomes, “he must be insecure/a wimp/nervous”; whereas he just isn’t in that space yet.

I also wonder if there would be a difference in responses for “may I kiss you?” (seeking permission) versus “do you want a kiss?” (implying the kiss is a gift – see earlier discussion regarding “frame” in general) Arguably, the second option is also the more “feminist” option, since it is seeking enthusiastic consent (“yes, I want it”) rather than the acquiescent consent (“okay, I’ll let you”) of the first phrasing.

machina May 17, 2011 at 2:13 am #

Hugh,

I’m sure that’s a factor, but I doubt it’s the whole story.

I don’t think sexual communication is equally attractive to people of each gender. As we’ve discussed above, women have more specific preferences around behavior, so it would make sense that they have stronger feelings either way. Asking permission for a kiss, for example, has more potential to be either a turn-on or a turn-off to women. Usually it’s a turn-off.

I haven’t seen anything (unless I’ve missed it) on women’s preferences regarding short term relationships, particularly one night stands, and it seems that with men they show greater preference to behaviour when pursuing longer term relationships. It seems plausible that women would show less preference for behaviour in short term relationships, much like men.

Furthermore, men attempting sexual communication often runs afoul of women’s preferences for masculinity, because it looks wimpy or insecure. That’s a totally different motivation than “wanting to feel safe.”

Women attempting sexual communication can run afoul of men’s preferences for femininity too though.

I googled “asking for a kiss,” and found this discussion on an online dating site. I went through all 14 pages, looked for stated female preferences for men to ask or not, and added them up.

Ok, is the message there that women have stronger preferences and these drive gender relations? I think it seems more likely that women would prefer to avoid awkward conversations and this case they aren’t usually necessary given the innocuous nature of kissing when following dating scripts and the generality that it’s mutually satisfying.

Sagredo May 17, 2011 at 2:24 am #

Touch her hair first. If she warms up when you run your hand through her hair, then kiss her.

Scootah May 17, 2011 at 2:38 am #

@HughRistik

led women to advise men to not verbally communicate, because it was such a turnoff to them

One of the first tennets of seduction education is that what people say and what they actually want are usually completely unrelated. I’ve been quite successful with communicating intent before kissing and asking before escalating to something more intimate. I communicate intent before 90% of first kisses, occasionally I’ll consider an invite so blatant that I’ll just go with it – but a clear and explicit opportunity for my partner to withdraw that she doesn’t take is both a great indicator that I’m not barking up the wrong tree, and leads to buy in which makes her more likely to say yes to things that I propose further along in our interaction.

Like any part of seduction – how you do it is important – and presenting your confidence and being able to let it go if you get turned down and go back to having a good night is key. And for me, I genuinely do want enthusiastic consent more than I want another sexual partner. I don’t want her to go with it, I want her to beg for it. And I find that the occasional person who takes the opportunity to focus and say no instead of just going with it – usually comes back far more enthusiastic later.

Clarisse May 17, 2011 at 1:47 pm #

@HR — My sense of that thread is that most of the women are more focused on fun than safety (of themselves or other women). Many of them said that if they don’t want the kiss, they will just turn their head away. Safety doesn’t seem like a large factor in women’s communication preferences over kissing.

I’m not sure about this. Safety is not a clearly explained factor, true. But on the other hand, on some level women may be thinking “I don’t really want to jump in bed with a guy who can’t even read me well enough to tell whether I want to kiss him. That doesn’t seem very safe.”

For example, I’m not completely thrilled with statements like this myself:

If he can’t figure it out on his own, the answer is always NO!

But given a culture in which almost ALL sexual communication is implicit, why SHOULD she be excited to kiss someone who can’t figure out whether she wants him to kiss her? How is that person likely to read her signals in other contexts?

Clarisse May 17, 2011 at 1:48 pm #

Yeah, and also this:

Women attempting sexual communication can run afoul of men’s preferences for femininity too though.

You really think I haven’t had situations in which I freaked out guys by being too direct? Sorry, but this is yet another situation in which the fault is on both sides.

Sam May 17, 2011 at 2:08 pm #

Hugh,

“Safety doesn’t seem like a large factor in women’s communication preferences over kissing.”

no, it doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean that safety is not a subconcious concern for women – if she doesn’t feel safe you’ll never get close to finding out about her communication preferences with respect to kissing, at least in my experience.

Sadly, yes, those numbers seem to reflect reality.

Oh, God!!! Never ask! Just move slowly to her lips. If she wants to kiss you, she will. If not, she either catch you on the cheek or turn her head.

I’m trying to get better at verbally communicating, but I do agree that the 90/10 or 80/20 rule for moving in is more useful in most circumstances. I’m not saying that explicit communication is necessarily unsexy, quite the opposite, but it’s really not always appropriate, as much as I would like it *for myself*. But I would imagine that moving in slowly, depending on the performance, will be appreciated more by most women – as per above (I’ve seen a guy doing it close to perfect last week, I was seriously impressed. They were dancing, and he moved her closer to the bar next to the dance floor, picked her up and sat her on a stool, talked into her left ear, smelt her hair, moved back while looking her in the eyes, then moving closer again on the other side of her head. Then he gave her that “I know what you want, but I’m not gonna give it to you yet”-look, and he moved in slowly, but not without interrupting the motion with a smile, teasing her some more – at which point she appeared to want to scream something like “take me now” – and they finally kissed.)

Snowdrop,

The other quotes provided by Hugh struck me as interesting, because my initial response is “what makes it wimpy?” and “what about his own boundaries?”.

Remember the question about how to show vulnerability in a way that does not destroy the ability to perform masculinity? Tricky. Same here – it’s a situation I’m finding myself in quite regularly these days, and I’m thinking of dancing as a metaphor. At this point of the interaction, it’s usually guys who lead the dance. And when someone is quite good at leading the dance prior to kissing, a changing attitude is bound to confuse, at least. It could also easily be interpreted as lack of interest.

“But, I have tried to think of a situation where in practice I have asked before kissing a woman I’m on a date with, and I don’t think I ever have. In those “live” situations, the cues were there to be read after all.”

Right. I think a lot of people will ask for something in abstract discussions that they won’t require in their own lives most of the time, and they’re both right and wrong. They’re right because in abstract discussions it’s important to make abstract points, but they’re often wrong with respect to the applicability of their points, ie they’re making general statements without appropriate contextual qualifiers. We’ve had a long discussion about that in the original followup thread.

Except that if they are surprised by someone they don’t actually want to kiss them, then it’s sexual assault.

It’s probably not legally (well, in Germany it isn’t. An upper court recently ruled that a guy attempting to French kiss another guy without knowing wether the other consented or not wasn’t sexual assaulting him, because kissing, including kissing with tongue, was not considered a sexual activity. It’s quite possible “insult”, though, but he wasn’t accused of that.), but the logical problem, inclusing the problem of potentially hurting someone is obviously valid.

But, as we also said in the manliness follow-up thread: Intent matters. And if subjective reality is taken into account, it must logically be taken into account for both, initator and initiatee?? Accidents may be awkward, or painful even, but they’re accidents.

if it’s assumed he always wants to, but hasn’t yet tried to, then where, “I’m signalling I want to,” the assumption becomes, “he must be insecure/a wimp/nervous”; whereas he just isn’t in that space yet.

Yes, and that’s a problem. But it’s also a problem of scarcitiy, again. If a girl who likes to kiss *and* is looking for classic male performance feels he’s insecure/a wimp/nervous, is what counts *if* he’s losing her attraction by not delivering what she wants. They may well be incompatible and not kissing each other may well be healthy from an external point of view, but that’s probably not their internal point of view.

I think the ideal-type feminist position for this situation is to tell guys – “right… tell her how you’re feeling, she will understand and appreciate your humanity.” to which guys will say “she may absolutely admire me for the guts to be weak in front of her, but it will not make her jump me”.

And both are likely right.

Sam May 17, 2011 at 2:23 pm #

Clarisse,

“I’m not sure about this. Safety is not a clearly explained factor, true. But on the other hand, on some level women may be thinking “I don’t really want to jump in bed with a guy who can’t even read me well enough to tell whether I want to kiss him. That doesn’t seem very safe.””

Makes total sense. But you do realize that such a statement must feel exceedingly cynical and painfully unfair to guys who have been debilitated by the notion of their sexuality, who aren’t able to initiate *because* they of the assumed lack of safety. They apparently can’t win at all…

Clarisse May 17, 2011 at 2:26 pm #

At least 50% of the statements on this thread about how male sexuality works, and how women have to deal with it, have felt exceedingly cynical and painfully unfair to me, too.

Clarisse May 17, 2011 at 2:45 pm #

Okay, I didn’t mean to come off as snippy or cold. But I guess I just don’t know how else to answer you, Sam. I’d guess that we’re all unusual people who really dislike the normative way of doing things (hence why we’re here). Of course I understand how much it sucks to think about these things. It basically equates to being told you’re a total freak in the current dating market, and it feels like being told that you’ll never find love. Which isn’t true, but hurts anyway. I’m sorry. I feel exhausted with it too.

Hugh Ristik May 17, 2011 at 5:13 pm #

Snowdrop said:

That said – I am not sure that responses from a dating site are necessarily the best source for what’s successful; the fact that the respondents are on a dating site means that they haven’t been all that successful at finding what works, at their time of writing, surely?

Lots of people use online dating sites nowadays, with varying levels of success in real life. Do we actually have any reason to believe that their preferences are systematically different from the rest of the population?

Except that if they are surprised by someone they don’t actually want to kiss them, then it’s sexual assault. People who say that probably are only imagining a limited range of circumstances, it seems to me.

I agree about the lack of imagination.

There really does seem to be a socially-constructed thing of “I want him to make the first move, but only if I’ve signalled that I want him to.”

Most of the women in the thread who didn’t like to be asked explained that they wanted men make use of their nonverbal cues, consistent with your observation. Also, many women (including women who don’t like to be asked) complained of men jumping them by surprise.

Yet the funny thing is that I don’t think I saw any woman criticize another woman’s preferences in that thread, even when other women stated preferences that were incompatible with their own! Women who didn’t like surprises didn’t have a word of criticism for women who said “surprise me.”

Something isn’t adding up here. Either the women didn’t want to criticize each other, or they just didn’t understand the difficulty for men to formulate a default strategy that satisfies mutually-exclusive preferences.

Hugh Ristik May 17, 2011 at 5:17 pm #

machina said:

It seems plausible that women would show less preference for behaviour in short term relationships, much like men.

Perhaps, but we don’t have much reason to believe this. The Asendorpf study was on speed-dating, which could develop into something either short term or long term. Women’s preferences for personality/behavior were stronger.

Women attempting sexual communication can run afoul of men’s preferences for femininity too though.

I agree, but I don’t think these pressure are symmetrical, especially in the particular context of asking permission for an advance.

In a context that goes against gender roles, like Clarisse’s experiences attempting to initiate or communicate with men, male femininity preferences become a big barrier. For instance, the madonna-whore complex can come into play.

In a mainstream context, it’s usually the man making the advance. Since he is the one seeking consent, women’s masculinity preferences matter a lot more. His femininity preferences don’t matter so much (in that particular context), because she isn’t the one asking.

In a typical heterosexual context, asking permission simply has more opportunities to run afoul of women’s masculinity preferences than men’s femininity preferences… due to the simple fact that men are doing most of the asking. Outside a typical heterosexual context, masculinity and femininity pressures might be more symmetrical, or even reversed.

If we are talking about a type of sexual communication other than asking permission for an advance, then we might see a different pattern.

I think it seems more likely that women would prefer to avoid awkward conversations and this case they aren’t usually necessary given the innocuous nature of kissing when following dating scripts and the generality that it’s mutually satisfying.

As I acknowledged, awkwardness is a factor, but it’s not the whole story. As I mentioned, many women seem to find it actively gross when men ask; that’s about more than awkwardness. They also judge men as “wimps” if they ask, which is also about more than awkwardness.

Ok, is the message there that women have stronger preferences and these drive gender relations?

Yes, it’s quite possible that in particular areas, women’s preferences are stronger. Alternatively, due to greater female selectiveness, there is more pressure on men to compromise their preferences. In other areas, men’s preferences might be stronger, or the preferences of each gender might be equally influential.

In the particular domain of consent over kissing initiated by men, we should strongly consider that the current system is driven more strongly by women’s preferences than men’s, on average. It’s women who have all these strong turn-offs or turn-ons over being asked or not asked.

It’s not obvious that men (on average, in white middle-class culture) care that much about whether they ask or not. (They might care about women initiating kisses with them, but that’s a different subject.) They mostly care about how the woman will receive their advance. As a result, men’s preferences about how they themselves ask for a kiss might be strongly derivative of women’s.

(In the domain of women kissing men, I’m not sure which gender’s preferences play a bigger role. But this happens less often in a mainstream heterosexual context.)

To underscore these points, let’s look at a case where men’s preferences are probably more influential: women’s clothing. As we know, men’s preferences about women’s appearance are stronger than many women’s preferences about men’s appearance, or about their own appearance. As a result, what is considered “fashionable” and “stylish” for women has a large (though of course, not complete) correlation with what men find attractive.

Sometimes you will hear women talking about how they dress up to feel “confident,” while wearing something like high heels or makeup that men often find attractive. Is this a coincidence? I think not. Some feminists would suggest that these women have internalized the “male gaze,” and their preferences are derivative of men’s… even when no men are physically present.

Likewise, I think it’s no coincidence that men’s notions of masculinity are highly correlated with what is attractive to women. When men say that they do or don’t want to ask to kiss, their preferences are often obvious derivatives of women’s (there are some examples in the thread). For instance, a man might ask because he wants to “respectful” or a “gentleman.” Or he might not ask because he doesn’t want to be seen as a “wimp” (which is a valid worry, after reading that thread). Either way, his preferences are inherited from what he believes women’s preferences to be. Take this quote from the thread:

I tried asking once about 5 years ago and she looked at me and said “you’re asking me?….you just ruined it!!!” she said. She kissed me anyway. I’ll never ask again!!!

Perhaps we could talk about men internalizing the “female gaze” in this case. It’s a standard feminist analysis with the genders switched.

Sam May 17, 2011 at 5:30 pm #

Clarisse,

but you’re saying, well, I guess I’m not sure what you’re saying, but if the effect of not moving in for a kiss is to potentially make a woman feel unsafe, and the effect of explicit communication is potentially making her feel unsafe, and kissing her is potentially making her feel unsafe, then Schrödinger’s cat has been dead all the time in any non-inidvidual sense.

And then there’s really no point in exploring differences between equally flawed approaches and deriving behavioral recommendations from that analysis on a general level. I mean, from what position to you evaluate the differences in this situation?

Hugh Ristik May 17, 2011 at 5:58 pm #

Scootah said:

One of the first tennets of seduction education is that what people say and what they actually want are usually completely unrelated. I’ve been quite successful with communicating intent before kissing and asking before escalating to something more intimate. I communicate intent before 90% of first kisses, occasionally I’ll consider an invite so blatant that I’ll just go with it – but a clear and explicit opportunity for my partner to withdraw that she doesn’t take is both a great indicator that I’m not barking up the wrong tree, and leads to buy in which makes her more likely to say yes to things that I propose further along in our interaction.

Scootah, your personal philosophy is similar to my own. I always communicate intent, for the same reasons that you do. I find asking or announcing my intent to be perfectly viable. But it’s not me who I’m worried about.

Clarisse said:

I’m not sure about this. Safety is not a clearly explained factor, true. But on the other hand, on some level women may be thinking “I don’t really want to jump in bed with a guy who can’t even read me well enough to tell whether I want to kiss him. That doesn’t seem very safe.”

Interesting, I hadn’t thought of that. Screening for someone who can read her well enough to negotiate a kiss nonverbally could be useful to find someone who can read her comfort levels later down the line. I wish feminists who take the “always ask verbally” line would consider how women’s preferences for nonverbal negotiate might be reasonable.

Here is another interesting quote:

I have always hated the can I kiss you question, because then I feel like I’m trapped and I have to kiss him whether I want to or not. What am I supposed to say? No thanks, I think you suck? Or how about no thanks, why don’t we just spit in each other’s drink and call it good? hehe….

I think I said this a while ago, but it’s not completely obvious that asking verbally is always easier to say “no” to than asking nonverbally. This is another case where some women find it easier to set boundaries in nonverbal negotiation, rather than verbal negotiation.

But given a culture in which almost ALL sexual communication is implicit, why SHOULD she be excited to kiss someone who can’t figure out whether she wants him to kiss her? How is that person likely to read her signals in other contexts?

Exactly, and I wish that “explicit verbal consent uber alles” folks would consider this. If you are dating a woman with this preference, then strangely, the best way to achieve enthusiastic consent may be to use nonverbal negotiation, not verbal negotiation.

However, I do think there are ways to ask that get around this problem. The main problem is that asking in certain ways can signal too much uncertainty. The way to fix this is to ask in a way that communicates “hey, I’m pretty damn sure that you want me to kiss you, and I’m just going to check to make sure” or “I’m pretty damn sure you want me to kiss you, so I’m going to do it, but if somehow I’m wrong, now is the time to say so or move out of the way.” Another way to is to give a verbal order, or an announcement, which communicates confidence, but also gives warning and an opportunity for refusal.

With women who understand consent, there is no reason to judge a man as less confident merely because he asks.

Hugh Ristik May 17, 2011 at 6:07 pm #

Here’s a possibility that just struck me after thinking more about this quote:

I have always hated the can I kiss you question, because then I feel like I’m trapped and I have to kiss him whether I want to or not. What am I supposed to say? No thanks, I think you suck? Or how about no thanks, why don’t we just spit in each other’s drink and call it good? hehe….

What if some women prefer nonverbal initiation because it is easier to say “no” to? The problem with asking verbally is that it demands a verbal answer. As we all know, many women have trouble directly verbalizing a “no.” Turning their face away (when a guy is moving in slowly for a kiss) might actually be easier than saying “no,” for some women.

Sam May 17, 2011 at 6:29 pm #

Hugh

“What if some women prefer nonverbal initiation because it is easier to say “no” to?”

I think that’s perfectly possible. In fact, I think that something similar is also a part of why it’s difficult to be explicit about initiating verbally – it’s an explicit committment only to something specific, but it feels like being explicit carries more implicit weight than implicit initiation. I suppose it’s also a reason why I generally prefer to be kissed rather than kiss even though I’d love to be initiating kisssing myself – if I haven’t explicitly committed, it’s easier to say no later should *I* want to.

SnowdropExplodes May 17, 2011 at 7:01 pm #

Safety is not a clearly explained factor, true. But on the other hand, on some level women may be thinking “I don’t really want to jump in bed with a guy who can’t even read me well enough to tell whether I want to kiss him. That doesn’t seem very safe.”

…

But given a culture in which almost ALL sexual communication is implicit, why SHOULD she be excited to kiss someone who can’t figure out whether she wants him to kiss her? How is that person likely to read her signals in other contexts?

I guess this is a good indication of why I feel uncomfortable with the whole “I just want him to go for it and not ask” thing. Because from my side of the equation (and with my BDSM background), the thing I want to screen partners for is, “It doesn’t seem very safe for me to go jumping into bed with a woman who doesn’t feel able to communicate explicitly how she’s feeling about what we’re doing.”

I guess that is in part my insecurities; I tend to be better at reading people than I believe I am, meaning I have the right answer but don’t believe it enough to go with it.

But part of it is trusting the other person as well, which means (for me) expecting good, clear and honest communication. As noted above, in practice kissing (or negotiating kissing) has not been a site where this can be tested (although non-verbal communication can be assessed to a certain degree), so direct negotiation happens elsewhere to establish those boundaries.

Infra May 17, 2011 at 8:19 pm #

@Hugh:

Sometimes you will hear women talking about how they dress up to feel “confident,” while wearing something like high heels or makeup that men often find attractive. Is this a coincidence? I think not. Some feminists would suggest that these women have internalized the “male gaze,” and their preferences are derivative of men’s… even when no men are physically present

Although I wouldn’t minimize this aspect, my own experiences have led me to conclude that there can be a different dynamic in play, something that came out of discussing the effects of dress, with women, when I was wearing more exposing types of clothes (tight fitting, artistic-print mesh shirts, etc.) and involved in alt scenes where makeup and not-so-sensible boots were involved (Goth, black metal, etc.). The sense that that type of dress produced — and with which the women I talked to could relate — was a form of confidence that related to a kind of “voluntary handicapping,” as it were. Much the same as someone challenging another person to a sparring match, but agreeing to do so blindfolded, or with one arm behind the back. In fact, it felt almost the same as going out in full leathers or black BDUs and combat boots, even though the style of dress was on the opposite end of the spectrum.

I suspect that the idea of kissing without asking might involve something similar: by refusing to take advantage of the possibility of asking, the guy is demonstrating/taking on an equivalent type of voluntary handicap, which shows a similar form of confidence.

machina May 18, 2011 at 3:03 am #

Hugh:

Perhaps, but we don’t have much reason to believe this. The Asendorpf study was on speed-dating, which could develop into something either short term or long term. Women’s preferences for personality/behavior were stronger.

We don’t have any evidence to believe that women’s preferences will skew away from behaviours in short term relationships, but we have plenty of reasons, the same reasons for men’s preferences skewing away from behaviours. The Asendorpf study stated that speed dating was mainly for long term relationships but that some men used it for shorter term ones. From the discussion:

Short-term versus long-term mating tactics
Evolutionary theories predict that single women should generally pursue more long-term mating tactics (with certain exceptions), whereas men are more variable in pursuing long-term and short-term tactics (Buss & Schmitt, 1993; Gangestad & Simpson, 2000; Penke & Denissen, 2008). This hypothesis was strongly confirmed by participants’ self-rated interests before the speed-dating event. Despite this expected sex difference, we also found clear evidence that speed-dating is a context dominated by longterm mating interest for both men and women. Due to their higher variability in short-term interest, men reported higher on average interest in short-term mating than women, but still much lower short-term interest than long-term interest, and their overall preference for long-term mating was not moderated by age. Thus, speed-dating is a social context that attracts mainly people pursuing long-term tactics, even at younger age.

I agree, but I don’t think these pressure are symmetrical, especially in the particular context of asking permission for an advance.

In a context that goes against gender roles, like Clarisse’s experiences attempting to initiate or communicate with men, male femininity preferences become a big barrier. For instance, the madonna-whore complex can come into play.

In a mainstream context, it’s usually the man making the advance. Since he is the one seeking consent, women’s masculinity preferences matter a lot more. His femininity preferences don’t matter so much (in that particular context), because she isn’t the one asking.

In a typical heterosexual context, asking permission simply has more opportunities to run afoul of women’s masculinity preferences than men’s femininity preferences… due to the simple fact that men are doing most of the asking. Outside a typical heterosexual context, masculinity and femininity pressures might be more symmetrical, or even reversed.

If we are talking about a type of sexual communication other than asking permission for an advance, then we might see a different pattern.

I may have been reading “sexual communication” more broadly than you meant. If mainstream dating involves a lot of cues and inferences doesn’t that blur the lines between who is initiating and who isn’t though? I think kisses “just happen” because people are unconsciously reading cues and acting on them, and playing a receptive feminine role is necessary for this unspoken escalation to occur.

It’s women who have all these strong turn-offs or turn-ons over being asked or not asked.

It’s not obvious that men (on average, in white middle-class culture) care that much about whether they ask or not.

If men don’t care much, why did a man start a thread asking women about it and, even in a thread directed at women, many men posted their own opinions? Why is there a whole PUA industry devoted to figuring this stuff out?

Lucky 72 May 18, 2011 at 3:55 am #

If men don’t care much, why did a man start a thread asking women about it and, even in a thread directed at women, many men posted their own opinions? Why is there a whole PUA industry devoted to figuring this stuff out?

Because of the males trying to beat other males at the female selection game. It’s zero sum, and very, very confusing, even at the best of times.

Hugh Ristik May 18, 2011 at 5:23 am #

machina said:

We don’t have any evidence to believe that women’s preferences will skew away from behaviours in short term relationships, but we have plenty of reasons, the same reasons for men’s preferences skewing away from behaviours. The Asendorpf study stated that speed dating was mainly for long term relationships but that some men used it for shorter term ones.

You’re correct about the Asendorpf study, so I looked around for some studies that more specifically examine short-term mating.

Li and Kenrick found that in a short term context, women’s self-reported preferences for physical appearance indeed went up, and their preferences for some personality traits went down (table 4). However, women still cared about those personality traits more than men.

For some traits, the story is a bit more complicated, and women actually care more in a short-term context. this study had women look at motion capture data (i.e. “point light walkers”), and concluded:

Overall, these studies demonstrate that women who are likely to engage in short-term relationships (i.e., women in the late follicular phase of their menstrual cycle or women with relatively unrestricted sociosexuality) are attracted to masculinity as presented through point-light displays of
biological motion. Although the displays may not represent actual male walkers, they do demonstrate that women who are expected to be more interested in obtaining genetic benefits from a romantic liaison prefer displays of masculinity.

Preference for masculinity goes up in a short-term context. Same with creativity:

Forty-one normally cycling women read vignettes describing creative but poor men versus non-creative but rich men. Women’s estimated fertility predicted their short-term (but not long-term) preference for creativity over wealth, for both their desirability ratings of individual men (r = .40, p < .01), and their forced-choice decisions between men (r = .46, p < .01).

When women are at the point of their menstrual cycle when they are most fertile and inclined to short-term mating, their preferences for masculinity and creativity increase.

I may have been reading “sexual communication” more broadly than you meant. If mainstream dating involves a lot of cues and inferences doesn’t that blur the lines between who is initiating and who isn’t though? I think kisses “just happen” because people are unconsciously reading cues and acting on them, and playing a receptive feminine role is necessary for this unspoken escalation to occur.

Regardless of who you count as the original initiator, in a mainstream context it seems to usually be the man who initiates at the stage of sexual contact. So, under an imperative that the initiator of sexual contact asks for permission, men will be asking more often, and running afoul of women’s masculinity preferences more often.

I think you are right that we are using “sexual communication” to mean different things, which is why I tried to give the example of asking for a kiss. I just find it strange that consent advocates are constantly trying to get initiators (who are usually men, in practice) to ask for permission… yet the practice of men asking may well be detested more strongly by women than by men, on average.

If men don’t care much, why did a man start a thread asking women about it and, even in a thread directed at women, many men posted their own opinions?

Because he cares about women want. Sure, some men have feelings, but notice that many of their feelings are a mirror image of women’s own preferences. We should wonder where they got those feelings from, and how much they come from men’s own preferences, or just what women respond well to in their experience.

When so many women make it plain that men who ask are wimps, geeks, and pussies, is it any surprise that many men internalize the preference to not ask in order to avoid such derision?

I’m suggesting that many men care more about whether their kiss strategy is successful, than about whether it involves asking or not. I’ve already given one quote as an example, and here’s another from page 4:

I thought & I have been told that you always ask if you can kiss the women. It is respectful. So I do & yes I mostly get told “NO” followed by “You can have a hug.” [...] I would have killed for a kiss from her. Instead I asked, got a great hug & managed to give her a kiss on the cheek. I thought I was being respectful? Do you mean to tell me that “I BLEW IT.?” Do you mean that I should have just dived in. Please, just confirm it so that I don’t screw up again in the future. The last thing I want is to ruin the mood or look wimpy. Excuse me. I have to go kick myself for all the dates that I have had in my life & asked and been told no & gotten a hug instead… The hug was nice, but I don’t want to look wimpy.

No hint of his own preferences; he is just trying to understand women’s preferences so he can internalize them. In fact, he has already started internalizing female derision towards “wimps.”

Why is there a whole PUA industry devoted to figuring this stuff out?

Because PUA’s care about satisfying women’s preferences (at least, enough to also satisfy theirs). PUAs care a lot more about women’s responses than about their own preferences for how the interaction proceeds. Indeed, many PUAs don’t know that they are allowed to have preferences of their own, other than wanting to have sex with conventionally attractive women.

I can guarantee you that if women started showing a preference for men on pogo sticks, PUAs would suddenly start caring about pogo sticks.

Sam May 18, 2011 at 9:47 am #

Hugh,

agreement pretty much all around. It’s my impression that men are caring more about a “happy ending” than about how to get there, while feminists are more concerned with the process – possibly both a meta expression of the female “gatekeeper”-function and an expression of lack of scarcity (with respect to quantity as such).

“When so many women make it plain that men who ask are wimps, geeks, and pussies, is it any surprise that many men internalize the preference to not ask in order to avoid such derision?”

No, it’s not. Yet both Scootah and you have indicated that you prefer to ask. I’m usually working my way around this by making her initiate. So, despite all the pressure you rightly mention above, there seems to be a pretty strong desire for asking, at least in some men.

So, let’s make it easier for them (me ;)) by being a bit more specific here. I’m pretty sure you don’t want to come across as wimpy either. And Scootah certainly doesn’t. So how do *you* do that specifically? What’s your “asking for a kiss-close routine”? If it’s not the Mystery-line… (“Do you want to kiss me? I didn’t say you could.”)

I’ve tried being more forward about asking for the last year or so, and I think if there’s one thing I can say it’s that there seems to be a big overlap between women whom I’d have asked explicitly and women who initiated themselves prior to me asking.

Also, asking, I reckon it’s preferable to state rather than explicitly ask – “I want to kiss you” or something about her “making me want to kiss her”.

Btw, Snowdrop’s “do you want a kiss” reminds me of something parents say to their kids when dropping them off at school – completely asexual.

SnowdropExplodes May 18, 2011 at 6:57 pm #

@ Sam: I actually intended (as I believe I indicated with my explanatory note) my line to be functionally the same as “do you want to kiss me?” Of course, it depends a lot on the vocal and physical context of the situation how those words come across (but then, the same goes for any other line – I could equally say, “Do you want to kiss me?” sounds like something someone’s grandmother says on meeting the children…)

AB May 19, 2011 at 5:05 am #

@Xakudo:

Misinterpreting how someone intends something is never a strength, IMO. So I cannot agree as such.

It’s funny that when we were talking about women reacting positively to negs, you and others were all over the place trying to explain how confident, liberated, empowered, attractive, high-value, etc, those women were, but when it comes to women reacting negatively, you immediately jump to making it about misreading the intention.

You seem to be operating on the assumption that the men in question are intending to be hurtful or mess with a woman’s insecurities. And while that is the case with some men, with a lot of men (such as myself) it is not.

No, I operate on the assumption that some people will like certain lines more than others. For instance, women are supposed to fawn in admiration of a guy giving them unsolicited fashion advice, but my reaction to a guy doing that would probably be something along the lines of “Look, I think this whole metrosexuality-thing is great, I really do. But the style you’re supposed to go for is David Beckham, not a member of The Fabulous Five”, because to me, that kind of behaviour just comes off as a bad gay stereotype.

Obviously, being able to distinguish between the former and the latter would be a great strength. But if you always interpret it one way, then the strength of that interpretation is going to depend on your particular situation.

Very often, it’s not possible to distinguish. I tend to rule out guys who make these kinds of remarks because they’re usually not worth it. Sure, there’s a chance that the guy is really great, but I’m not going to wade through dozens of sexists, PUAs, abusive jerks, and plain idiots just to find that one guy who’s worth my time, when there are so many other guys who’re also worth my time and don’t waste it on making remarks like that.

Actually, one of my strategies for gaging how tease-tolerant a person is, is to jump straight to teasing them early on when I am still an unknown factor to them. If they react awkwardly or negatively, I back off and (if necessary) apologize, and adjust my behavior accordingly.

Clumsy but effective, I guess. Nevertheless, while you’re acknowledging that you can’t really know until you ask (just like women can’t really know what you mean with it until they get to know you), I don’t see the same acknowledgement in PUA material. So I’m still left wondering how they manage to simultaneously stretch the importance of using negs only on women who enjoy it or objectively need to be taken down (and why they feel entitled to be the judge that is yet another unanswered question), and to suggest them as opening lines.

AB May 19, 2011 at 5:14 am #

@Clarisse:

At least 50% of the statements on this thread about how male sexuality works, and how women have to deal with it, have felt exceedingly cynical and painfully unfair to me, too.

It might be snippy and cold, but it sums up my feelings quite well. I’m not sure I have much more to contribute with here, the subject seems to be more and more about guys and their issues with feminism yet again.

Hugh Ristik May 19, 2011 at 7:11 am #

Clarisse said:

At least 50% of the statements on this thread about how male sexuality works, and how women have to deal with it, have felt exceedingly cynical and painfully unfair to me, too.

If you have the energy to be more specific, then we could all talk about it. Or, we could not, and say we did ;)

I’m running out of energy for this thread, also. I’ve suggested some possibilities about how mating preferences might work, including sex differences, which (I think) have important implications for how to go about promotion of consent. The implications are important enough that I find even minor suspicions to be worth considering. Other folks don’t seem to find these possibilities as interesting as I do, or in some cases I may have made them think I’m saying something a lot more conclusive than what I think I’m saying.

Sometimes I’m more interested in a sort of conversation of “if X is true, then what next,” rather people mainly trying to poke any possible hole in X. I really do appreciate it when people are being challenging and critical, because it’s really helpful for me, but I was hoping that people might take certain ideas, mull over them themselves, and then tell me the possible implications… but it seems like differences in background premises may just be too big at this time for those to get considered.

I just wrote up a big post explaining why I found it worthwhile to make a potentially blame-gamey statement like:

In the particular domain of consent over kissing initiated by men, we should strongly consider that the current system is driven more strongly by women’s preferences than men’s, on average.

… but I’m not sure whether folks are interested enough for me to even post it. I don’t want to make this thread all about me and my theories, some of which would really need to be built up in a different format to be palatable to people of sufficiently different perspectives.

Sam, I will try to get back to you on your questions about kissing.

Clarisse Thorn May 19, 2011 at 5:48 pm #

I’m interested in the blame-gamey post. And I have been intending to get back to this thread, I just needed a break to think about it and also take care of some other stuff. So it’s ok with me if it dies down, but I will add some more comments probably sometime tonight.

In the meantime, here are some extremely relevant links I just found on “ask culture vs. guess culture”:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2010/05/askers-vs-guessers/19730/

http://joreth.livejournal.com/238924.html?thread=922188#t922188

It actually reminds me of a lot of interactions I had in Africa, where Americans that I worked with would be really annoyed with Africans who asked directly for certain things (like money), and yet we simultaneously would complain about how Africans were so indirect about other things. It seems to me that ask is probably a more prevalent pattern in certain areas of everyone’s life, and then guess is probably a more prevalent pattern in other areas.

Clarisse May 19, 2011 at 5:53 pm #

I would also add that ask culture probably sometimes develops in reaction to certain other factors, like risk. So, for example, BDSMers have largely developed an ask culture that’s quite different from the mainstream because we run more risks in some of our sexual encounters. Reward would also obviously be a factor. Beggars ask directly for money because the potential reward is high.

This would seem to mirror some thoughts I’ve heard among PUAs, about high-reward PUA strategies like direct game.

Hugh Ristik May 19, 2011 at 7:36 pm #

Here was the post. I wrote it pretty late last night, so some parts of it might be half-baked.

I said:

In the particular domain of consent over kissing initiated by men, we should strongly consider that the current system is driven more strongly by women’s preferences than men’s, on average.

I decided I should explain where this is coming from, lest it sounds blame-gamey. And yes, it’s partly to do with my “issues” with feminism, issues that I have because of an overlap in values, but a disagreement about implementation.

Feminist consent advocacy, in my experience, focuses on
(a) telling men to ask for consent for sexual activity
(b) telling men to support norms around women’s consent (e.g. encourage other men to respect women’s consent), and discourage norms that harm consent

Often, feminist consent advocacy adds these notions:
(c) telling women to ask for consent
(d) telling women to support norms around men’s consent

Yet there are some curious pieces that are usually left out or are massively under-emphasized:
(e) telling women to support norms around women’s consent, and discourage norms that harm consent
(f) telling men to support norms around men’s consent
(g) trying to persuade women to value men seeking their consent
(h) trying to persuade men to value women seeking their consent

There seems to be a strange blindspot towards women’s devaluation of men seeking their consent (or seeking the consent of other women). Other people might have different experiences with feminist consent advocacy; this is mine.

If current consent norms are mostly based on men’s preferences, then the current approach of focusing on men makes sense. But if current consent norms are based on both men’s and women’s preferences, or mostly on women’s, then this approach is going to hit a wall, because many mainstream heterosexual women are running around with attitudes like this:

It is better to ask for forgiveness than permission…and, I’ll gladly give4 (0pps! forgive) if the kiss is good.

i LIKE AGGRESSIVE IF YOU FEEL IT DO IT DON’T BE A PUSS

Since women who don’t like men asking are so prevalent, not all men can afford to just write them off.

If men commonly aren’t asking for consent because they are uneducated, entitled jerks, then trying to get them to care more about consent will be a good program. But if men commonly aren’t asking for consent because they are mainly mirroring what most women want, then the male-centric approach won’t be so helpful.

As a practical matter, it will be very hard to encourage men into dating practices that the majority of mainstream heterosexual women detest. Furthermore, when feminists make one ethical argument, and the majority of mainstream heterosexual women make another ethical argument, then the ethics for men are up in the air. To a certain degree, sexual ethics is a democracy, and mainstream heterosexual women hold a tyranny of the majority. The more women prefer a certain practice, the more ethical it is for men to engage in it (even if it risks harm to other women).

As Julia Serano argues in YMY, some messed up masculine practices need to be examined from the demand side (women), not just from the supply side (men). So if we have even the slightest suspicion that one gender’s preferences are driving a certain practice or norm more than another’s (on average), then that’s actually quite an important possibility to consider. Because if it does turn out to be the case, we don’t want to suddenly get blindsided, and we need to find the appropriate avenue for change.

In my view, feminists have already been exploring the possibility that certain norms are mostly due to men’s preferences. In fact, I’d argue that this is an assumption underlying a lot of consent advocacy.

For instance, in this post on mythcommunication, Thomas explores the possibility that “miscommunication” about consent is a pernicious lie promoted by men who don’t like to hear “no.” Though cynical and unfair-seeming, this sort of possibility is valuable to consider because it could be true, and if it’s true, then it’s a big deal. Both Thomas and the researchers are making extremely confident statements that extrapolate way beyond what the study shows, but that’s a problem with their conclusions.

I’m worried that if the assumption behind the male-centric model of consent norms is wrong (in some areas, at least), then efforts for change will hit a wall. In some areas, women’s preferences may be the limiting reagent, such that no further progress is possible unless those preferences shift. What if male willingness to seek more consent hits a wall of female derision that feminists don’t really even address? That would just be a crappy outcome for everyone, so crappy that we have to consider even the flimsiest hints that it might be occurring.

I don’t understand why feminists don’t pay more attention to female attitude towards consent, and changing those attitudes. I think they are massively underrating the influence of female choice on sexual norms. Perhaps they are coming from a class conflict paradigm, which makes them think messed up consent norms are mainly about men “as a class” being jerks to women “as a class.” And they may be reluctant to criticize other women’s attitudes.

In contrast, I take a mating-centric paradigm, which emphasizes conflict within genders, not just between them, due to sexual competition. I perceive a conflict between different women over what men’s default mating behavior should be. I don’t understand why feminist women interested in consent, and mainstream heterosexual women aren’t madder at each other, given how much their perspectives often differ on what men’s default mating behavior should be.

Men cannot decide for women what default behaviors women should prefer. Men can say what default behaviors they prefer, but what women prefer is women’s business, not men’s business. Men can attempt to persuade women to have different preferences, but other women are probably better positioned for that job.

After witnessing PUAs spend years trying to fit themselves into masculine boxes to appeal to women, I suddenly started wondering: what if consent advocates have it completely backwards? What if the biggest enemies of communication over consent are mainstream heterosexual women? What if women are driving this system, and men are just trying to avoid turning them off? Some men are merely trying to get laid, and some of them care about the woman’s experience, but either way, there is a lot of catering to women’s perceived preferences going on in pickup.

Of course, I don’t think that women actually drive everything, but what I know about PUAs, and research I’ve done indicating greater female selectiveness about behavior, puts me on the lookout for practices that are strongly driven by women’s preferences. Are certain practices driven more strongly by women’s preferences, than men’s, on average? I don’t know. I just think it’s important to consider. I have my suspicions, and I think you all should, too, even if don’t put the same weight on those suspicions as I do, due to different premises.

Perhaps, for political reasons, it would be best for me to shut up about these suspicions and act like everything is driven 50/50 by both men and women. Even that notion would be an improvement on the dominant model of consent norms that is all about the menz.

Clarisse May 19, 2011 at 7:45 pm #

Thanks for posting Hugh. I’m still thinking, but I had another note about ask culture vs. guess culture. I think ask culture works better for more diverse groups and guess culture works better for more homogenous groups. If this is true, we could expect more diverse cultures to have more ask culture (in general), and less diverse cultures to have less ask culture (in general). One might say this applies to BDSM in that sexual preferences in BDSM are quite fine-grained and diverse — it matters a fair bit to me whether my dominant partner slaps me, pierces me, bites me, where he does those things, and how he does them — which helps drive the BDSM ask culture. In contrast, mainstream hets tend to care a lot less about what they actually do in bed, and care more about other factors — how can I show that I love my partner, how can we have a baby, how can I show that I understand the norms around this interaction — which helps drive the mainstream guess culture.

machina May 19, 2011 at 9:03 pm #

Hugh, this discussion has been fairly dense and tiring. I think it’s been useful though. I think we’re fairly close to agreement. As to this:

I just find it strange that consent advocates are constantly trying to get initiators (who are usually men, in practice) to ask for permission… yet the practice of men asking may well be detested more strongly by women than by men, on average.

It’s really not that strange because consent advocates are trying to get people to get consent, rather than trying to get people laid. Now I’m guessing that you’re thinking “how does this work if the people who are asking for consent aren’t getting laid while the people who don;t ask do get laid”, but I don’t think the advocates envision a competitive marketplace.

Also, I think I had an obtuse point with those two questions in my last post… but I guess it was too obtuse to remember. Or I’m just too tired.

Clarisse, regarding asking/guessing. I was going to ask what the responses to a thread titled “Ladies: Anal fucking or asking for anal fucking?” would be like, rhetorically of course. It’s seems to me that non-verbal communication only works effectively within a fairly narrow range of behaviours, given the limited symbolic capacity of body language, so by relying on non-verbal communication you’re greatly limiting the range of sexual behaviour. On the other hand, words come in chunks of meaning while body language can express continuities of meaning, allowing greater nuance. And while there is a fairly standard mainstream assignment of body language responses to behaviours, it’s obviously possible through verbal communication to modify these settings, changing them to be in line with both the behaviours people like to engage in and the body language they communicate their responses to them with.

Sam May 19, 2011 at 9:25 pm #

Hugh,

I think thats a great post.

I don’t think it’s blame gamey at all. I think it puts the finger into some of the axiomatically caused feminist blind spots, most importantly the matter of female agency and, as a consequence, female choice. That a lot of feminists don’t want to acknoweldge epistemological weaknesses of their axiomatic framework, and that feminism is important and successful as a social force, doesn’t make those weaknesses go away.

And of course, this -

“The more women prefer a certain practice, the more ethical it is for men to engage in it (even if it risks harm to other women).”

- is a statement I doubt a lot of feminists would agree with, and I’m not even sure I do. I still think risk and reward have to be balanced with opportunities (risk taking) being rewarded more where risk is low and less/not at all where the risk is high. We’ve had this a couple of times in these threads, but we never really formulated an applicable rule.

Hugh Ristik May 19, 2011 at 10:49 pm #

Ask vs. guess cultures are a very enlightening perspective. I’m not usually a moral relativist, but in some cases, ethics may be relative to the preferences of what culture you are in.

machina said:

It’s really not that strange because consent advocates are trying to get people to get consent, rather than trying to get people laid. Now I’m guessing that you’re thinking “how does this work if the people who are asking for consent aren’t getting laid while the people who don;t ask do get laid”, but I don’t think the advocates envision a competitive marketplace.

I would make that argument, because I think consent practices that don’t work in the present are not “more ethical,” they are simply irrelevant.

Yet that wasn’t the argument I was making. The argument I was making is that when feminists say X, and mainstream heterosexual women say Y, then X is undermined, and it will be incredibly hard to convince men of X.

I said:

The more women prefer a certain practice, the more ethical it is for men to engage in it (even if it risks harm to other women).

Sam said:

is a statement I doubt a lot of feminists would agree with, and I’m not even sure I do.

Well, a practice becomes more ethically defensible when more women prefer it… even it isn’t actually ethical enough to act on. For instance, if 99% of women enjoyed being insulted, then insulting women would be more ethical than it is now. If 99% of women preferred to not be asked for a kiss, then not asking would be more ethical.

Hugh Ristik May 20, 2011 at 12:10 am #

Sam said:

That a lot of feminists don’t want to acknoweldge epistemological weaknesses of their axiomatic framework, and that feminism is important and successful as a social force, doesn’t make those weaknesses go away.

When feminists stab themselves in the foot about goals I disagree with, that’s funny… but when feminists stab themselves in the foot about goals that I care about, then it’s more frustrating. That why I want to speak up about female agency in dating and its influence on norms; this subject is too important to just stand back and let feminists screw it up by underestimate the power of other women’s sexual agency.

It’s like feminists are giving a speech to men, and mainstream heterosexual women are standing behind them putting bunny ears over their heads. Then the feminists are wondering why men aren’t listening to their speech seriously, so they blame the men while oblivious to what the mainstream het women are actually doing.

Yes, that’s a caricature (in reality, there are plenty of men with their own anti-consent preferences, and mainstream heterosexual women aren’t consciously trying to fuck with feminists and undermine them), but I am simply trying to highlight the conflict in perspectives between many feminist women (or advocates of consent) and many mainstream heterosexual women. Men cannot resolve that conflict, only those parties can. But until they do, men cannot engage in mutually-exclusive behaviors at the same time.

Hugh Ristik May 20, 2011 at 3:03 am #

Sam said:

But there’s also the chance that lifting the veil of emotional pain is allowing them to emphsize more deeply with others’ pain. At least that is what it feels like to me.

That was my experience.

but BDSM and poly are also mainly focused on the individual level, not trying to make the world a better place, except by allowing people to be who they are, and that’s – my point from above – is certainly something I believe is a core aspect of the SC. I think all those work on a pretty similar contextual level.

I agree. Isn’t there a common critique of BDSM that it is not sufficiently progressive because it reinforces existing inequalities? Wouldn’t it be more progressive to ban Master/slave relationships and race play (to name just a couple) until after the revolution? Until then, those things only get in the way of us making a better world… right?

Really, I think there is a lot of similarity between pickup and BDSM, because they both involve power dynamics. The main difference is that in pickup, these power dynamics are negotiated implicitly, while in BDSM, they are sometimes negotiated explicitly also. (Of course, that’s a lot because of the norms. If mainstream culture allowed for explicit communication to the extent that BDSM culture does, I’m sure PUAs would use it a lot more.)

Clarisse May 20, 2011 at 3:08 am #

@HR — 1) You’re acting like men have no buying power. If initiating parties (which, yes, is usually men) stopped kissing without asking tomorrow, then receiving parties (which, yes, is usually women) would adjust. No dating norm is going to persist if one side just won’t cooperate.

2) Speaking from my own personal experience, the men I’ve hooked up with who spoke and acted carefully about consent were INCREDIBLY helpful and formative experiences for me, as I have written many times and will doubtless write again. From this perspective, feminists are partially succeeding even if we only successfully convince some initiators to be awesome about explicit consent.

3) This doesn’t mean that the argument you make here and have made in the past doesn’t have merit, but the above points are relevant. Feminist consent advocates aren’t failing, we just aren’t succeeding with everyone. The people we do succeed with will encourage better norms with the people they come in contact with.

BTW, I was looking at assault statistics earlier, and RAINN is currently emphasizing that sexual assault statistics have fallen by more than 60% in the past decade. Is there an alternative explanation for this other than feminist consent advocacy? How much credit can feminist consent advocacy take?

Clarisse May 20, 2011 at 3:36 am #

Also @HR — it seems like when men are in the receiving position, they act like women as described by PUAs. Things we have discussed on this thread:

* When I approach men, they flake on me in patterns that match PUA experiences (and common male complaints) with women.
* Sagredo reports feeling unmoved by approaches and wishing that women would do something more interesting. He also describes having a “bitch shield”.

I get that this is less relevant in a world where women usually are not initiators. What it means in practice, however, is that (a) it seems likely to me that women are acting just as men would in a similar position; (b) most points about initiation dynamics culture could be made in gender-neutral language. Corollary: (c) we could be making these points in gender-neutral language and thereby avoid most of the statements that would annoy most feminists.

Yes, that’s a caricature (in reality, there are plenty of men with their own anti-consent preferences, and mainstream heterosexual women aren’t consciously trying to fuck with feminists and undermine them), but I am simply trying to highlight the conflict in perspectives between many feminist women (or advocates of consent) and many mainstream heterosexual women. Men cannot resolve that conflict, only those parties can.

In case you hadn’t noticed, some feminists have a long history of shaming other women’s actions. See: everything sex-positive feminism has reacted against.

In terms of modern consent advocacy. I apologize in advance if I’m wrong, HR, but it seems to me that your experience with feminist consent advocacy is pretty much limited to a high school program. Is that correct? If so, your knowledge of feminist consent advocacy is somewhat out of date. A lot of modern feminist consent advocacy includes much of Yes Means Yes, which you just cited, and which is generally quite gender-neutral in the relevant essays, as I recall (such as Millar’s “Towards a Performance Model”). My communication workshop is pretty gender-neutral, though I’ve been trying to make myself generally more queer-friendly. The feminist consent advocate organizations I’ve worked with in Chicago have programs that are not only friendly to male survivors, but that focus overwhelmingly on anti-oppression and intersectionality as well, which means that it’s at least as much about attacking structural causes of consent problems.

argh tired …. I don’t have a lot of energy to be Feminism Defender. I never did, really. Why do these threads always make me that.

Men can attempt to persuade women to have different preferences, but other women are probably better positioned for that job.

Why?

What if the biggest enemies of communication over consent are mainstream heterosexual women? What if women are driving this system, and men are just trying to avoid turning them off? Some men are merely trying to get laid, and some of them care about the woman’s experience, but either way, there is a lot of catering to women’s perceived preferences going on in pickup.

“Biggest enemies” is strong language that I don’t think you can defend. I will accept that mainstream heterosexual women’s preferences are playing a role, but you could convince me of that a lot more easily if you weren’t so invested in MHW being the biggest cause of problematic consent communication.

In conclusion, I am okay with a model that argues that MHW are partly driving current dynamics, and that mainstream het men are also partly driving current dynamics, and that rapists are in the system too and are fucking things up for everyone else. I’m not okay with a system that minimizes the effects of rape (which most PUA theory does) or that insists on unprovable differences between men and women (which most PUA theory does) or that encourages people to ignore other people’s psychological reality when it comes to consent (which a disturbing proportion of PUA theory does).

Clarisse May 20, 2011 at 3:38 am #

To add to this:

HR wrote,

Men can attempt to persuade women to have different preferences, but other women are probably better positioned for that job.

And I said: Why?

Also, does it seem like a contradiction that you’ve been putting a huge amount of effort into demonstrating that men’s dating behavior is mostly driven by (some) women’s preferences, but then you say that women’s dating behavior can only be changed by other women?

Infra May 20, 2011 at 3:45 am #

@Clarisse:

Is there an alternative explanation for this other than feminist consent advocacy?

A related question would be that of how consent advocacy has impacted it. Drawing from discussions that I’ve had with women who had decided not to report, I’d say that there are definitely ways other than direct reduction; notably, one woman stated that since everyone knows that you’re supposed to talk about consent openly, now, the fact that she didn’t do so would just make things look worse for her, so there wasn’t much point in reporting. In effect, the emphasis placed upon consent negotiation played out, not as reducing the subjectively-assessed risk of victim-blaming, but as increasing it, and prevented her from filing a report. (The fact that rape is viewed increasingly severely was another theme: the women couldn’t balance out their expectations of the legal severity with the degree of punishment they thought was warranted — noting that the offenders were people that they knew — so they chose to deal with it by social means, not legal ones.)

Of course, that’s all anecdotal, and the lower class socioeconomic factor also needs to be considered. But it’s with the above in mind that I think that your point (1) needs to be qualified. I’m not sure that it would result in a cessation of the behavior; based upon what I’ve seen, there’s a substantial possibility that it would simply result in the formation of self-policing communities, or the withdrawal of the behavior from visibility — as happens as a rule when behavior becomes marginalized, with examples suggesting themselves — without actually affecting its prevalence.

Clarisse May 20, 2011 at 3:54 am #

Infra, right, that’s fair. I find it hard to believe that the actual incidence of rape didn’t decrease at all if reports have gone down 60%, but the incidence decrease of course doesn’t necessarily match the reported incidence decrease.

In assault advocacy I’ve been explicitly trained to keep in mind that women who come from subcultures that have a high incarceration level among the men are often severely pressured against reporting a rape.

EDIT: Study shows that anti-rape advocacy works among frat boys:
http://journals.naspa.org/jsarp/vol44/iss4/art6/

Hugh Ristik May 20, 2011 at 4:00 am #

Clarisse said:

@HR — 1) You’re acting like men have no buying power. If initiating parties (which, yes, is usually men) stopped kissing without asking tomorrow, then receiving parties (which, yes, is usually women) would adjust. No dating norm is going to persist if one side just won’t cooperate.

This is a collective action problem. In practice, men don’t act as an organized bloc, and there is a lot of intrasexual competition between men, so we run into game-theoretic problems.

What I suspect would happen is that 1-10% of men would comply, and simply end up selecting themselves out of dating unless they were otherwise above-average in attractiveness or skill with women. These men would martyr their dating success, and change nothing. They could try to get more men to join them, but their arguments would lack persuasiveness as long as the majority of mainstream heterosexual women disagree.

Rather than changing female attitudes, they would simply intensify female competition over men without such scruples. The problem is that if men ask in the current system, they will be judged as insufficiently masculine and unattractive. Will women actually feel that they are missing out if some pussy guy can’t make a move without ruining the mood by talking? This is not an effective takeaway. There are still plenty more fish in the sea, especially for young conventionally attractive women.

I consider this path to be highly dystopian. Scrupulous men sacrificing present dating success and driving women into the arms of unscrupulous men? Why would any men sign up for that? I personally would probably be just fine, because I have years of pickup background, and I know how to ask attractively. But it’s not me I’m worried about.

So yes, I think the ability of individual men to change women’s attitudes by refusing to cooperate with a “don’t ask” norm is very limited. If we are talking collective action, then I have my own proposals for collective action on the female side.

Speaking from my own personal experience, the men I’ve hooked up with who spoke and acted carefully about consent were INCREDIBLY helpful and formative experiences for me, as I have written many times and will doubtless write again.

OK, now I see what you are getting at. I guess this is an avenue of influence that men can have over women’s attitudes towards consent. Some of the women in that thread mentioned hot experiences where men asked (though strangely, some of these women still insisted that they preferred that men not ask). Of course, the influence has to occur before a woman is too saturated with anti-consent attitudes towards masculinity. How typical do you think your response was?

Men learning to ask attractively could potentially teach women that asking can be hot. Unfortunately, present-day consent advocacy doesn’t seem very successful at this, and a lot of their language sounds like stereotypical posh British people asking each other out for tea, rather than people in a sexual situation. Oh, if only we had a group of men dedicated to figuring out what is attractive to women in the real world to help out with this ;)

From this perspective, feminists are partially succeeding even if we only successfully convince some initiators to be awesome about explicit consent.
[...]
Feminist consent advocates aren’t failing, we just aren’t succeeding with everyone.

I agree, and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I just wonder if progress could be faster with more attention to the demand side, and the incentive structure that the demand is creating. Specifically, this would entail more attention to women’s attitudes towards consent, and their judgments and prejudices towards men who seek it.

I realize that changing things can be tough on the female side, too. For instance, a woman telling a man she is taking that she likes to be asked would take some skill to pull off (just like asking for a kiss). Yet I do think that there are some “low hanging fruit” for improvements on the female side.

For a start, consent advocates could encourage women to stop judging men as pussies, geeks, dorks, and wimps if they ask, or that they are “ruining it.” Women could be encouraged to consider asking as a gesture of confidence, and accept that men have good reasons to ask even when they are sure.

I think that change in this area could help alleviate some of the double binds on men, without costing women anything.

Clarisse May 20, 2011 at 4:06 am #

Up in the 390s there are some comments from Infra, Motley and Scootah about conversational ethics vs. action ethics. I think you guys are right and there isn’t necessarily a meaningful, line-in-the-sand difference between conversational and action ethics. I’ve been trying to figure out why neg ethics bother me less than, say, LMR ethics and freeze-outs and stuff. Intuitively, it feels like negs just aren’t as bad, but maybe that’s because I like them :P

(based on PUA theory, I extrapolate that I’m an HB6/7 daddy’s girl. it’s the only explanation for my behavior!)

Also, Motley said:

No, actually, I’d go a bit further–I think [men are] trained to actively avoid [processing influences on their attraction]. The good news is that (in my experience) this seems to fade once they get older than thirty or so. Which is useful to everybody involved.

I’ve been thinking about this lately, actually. I’m curious to know how the guys on this thread feel about how dudes change as they get older. I hear a lot of complaints from guys my age about how many women want to date older, but not a lot of acknowledgment that there might be reasons for it.

Hugh Ristik May 20, 2011 at 4:14 am #

Returning to a previous comment:

Clarisse said:

I didn’t mean to make it sound like the SC can’t be a positive force. But it takes a fundamentally different approach to gendered relationships than BDSM, poly, and feminism. The SC is about mating effectiveness right now. These other approaches are about making a better world, even if it means being less effective at mating right now.

If the seduction community was only about mating effectiveness now, and BDSM, poly, and feminism were about making a better world, even at the cost of mating effectiveness, then all four of those movements would look different.

As I mentioned in my response to Sam, BDSM and poly do have a big focus on mating effectiveness in the present. Furthermore, I think that quote understates the ability of the seduction community to create a better world. It’s quite plausible that in some ways, the seduction community is actually creating a better world right now under our noses.

As you’ve probably noticed, pickup has a wide range of progressive and reactionary ideas. William Gibson once said “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Likewise, progressive pickup is already here, it just isn’t very evenly distributed.

The seduction community mirrors the gender norms and cavalier attitudes towards consent that are common in mainstream culture. At its worst, the seduction community is probably no worse than any other macho subculture, e.g. fraternities. At its best, the seduction community actually may advocate for certain progressive ideas much more effectively than either feminism or BDSM culture.

Wait, how could that be? Well first, note that the seduction community is big. There is a seduction lair in practically every major city in the world. Internet seduction forums have 10s of thousands of members. The seduction community has the ear of many men, including men who won’t listen to a word feminists say. Pickup gurus have a lot of credibility and influence with a non-trivial slice of the male population.

PUA gurus say a lot of busted stuff, but they also sometimes say progressive stuff. And when they do, they potentially have a big impact. The guru Juggler says that often when he makes an advance or request, he will tell women “you can say no.” Many men will be able to hear this advice from Juggler, while they would resist the exact same advice from feminists.

Pickup gurus have credibility with large groups of men on the subject of whether certain ethical practices are practical or not. Feminists, including pro-feminist men, lack this credibility because they burned it long ago. As a result, PUAs get 100x as many points as feminists for giving pro-enthusiastic-consent advice, because PUAs are probably changing a lot more men’s minds.

Feminists may be effective at changing minds when they have captive audiences of impressionable youths during high school and college anti-rape seminars. These encourage pro-consent attitudes, but are less successful at giving practical tools to achieve enthusiastic consent. People in the BDSM community can credibly give practical advice for what works in the BDSM community, but they don’t have credibility for what works in the mainstream.

It’s quite possible that PUAs have taught more men to value and practice enthusiastic consent than feminism and BDSM have. After all, it’s hard to understand and practice the concept of enthusiastic consent when nobody is enthusiastic about having sex with you, because you have no point of reference. Pickup can give men the tools to find enthusiastically consensual sex, after which they can say “I like that.”

Mystery’s M3 model (attraction, comfort, seduction) also contains pro-consent ideas. Like the concept of enthusiastic consent, the M3 model emphasizes that the other person’s mental state is important to monitor. The seduction community is probably the biggest thing telling men to constantly monitor the other person’s arousal and comfort levels outside the BDSM community. (As for feminism, it encourages monitoring comfort levels, but doesn’t give many any skills to monitor arousal.)

As another example of the concept of enthusiastic consent in the seduction community, check out of the concept of “g closing” (“girl closing”) vs. “number closing:”

Rather than thinking “I would like to get with that chick, how am I going to get her #?”, you must be thinking, “What should I be doing to get her to want to fuck me?”
[...]
If you get her number but don’t get her imagining fucking you, you are only making your job HARDER. Get her to want to fuck you when you first meet her. Then if you contact close, the follow up is more promising. Close the girl first, not her contact info.

He is advocating enthusiastic consent for getting a number, rather than merely getting a number through mere compliance. Why did I first hear this concept from a PUA, not from a feminist? The pragmatic language doesn’t change the fact that he is advocating a progressive and ethical practice. Actually, the pragmatic language makes the ethical practice more persuasive to many men.

For a final example, check out Riker’s 3 Rules, an idea invented in 1997 back in the old days of Speed Seduction, and which PUAs are still quoting. When Riker encountered female “last minute resistance” to sex, he would explain his following rules about sex:

a. I always use a condom.

b. This has to be something that you
(the woman) want to do.

c. This has to be something that you
(the woman) will look back upon
and be happy about.

He would put them in seductive language to hopefully get her thinking about sex with him in a positive manner, and he found that women would often change their mind and tear his clothes off.

Riker’s 3 Rules could be read as a powerful PR piece for enthusiastic consent. It encourages men to practice it and to value it. Riker drops a little persuasion on his PUA readers:

The coolest thing about all of this is that, unless you were a total dick or something, you would really believe in these points anyway. They are probably true. And the sincere delivery works wonders. Now, isn’t she lucky to have met such a stand-up guy?

In some areas, pickup mirrors the mainstream’s attitudes towards consent. In other cases, it’s probably in the top 3 sources of ideas about enthusiastic consent that are being widely spread. Feminism, BDSM, pickup, and what else? In some cases, the seduction community might actually rank #1 for effectively persuading men to adopt enthusiastic consent practices that work in the mainstream (even if their only motivation is to “get laid”), because of its greater reach and credibility in the eyes of many men.

The seduction community makes the world worse in some ways, keeps it the same in some ways, but also makes it better in other ways.

Clarisse May 20, 2011 at 4:16 am #

@HR, OK, now I see what you are getting at. I guess this is an avenue of influence that men can have over women’s attitudes towards consent. Some of the women in that thread mentioned hot experiences where men asked (though strangely, some of these women still insisted that they preferred that men not ask). Of course, the influence has to occur before a woman is too saturated with anti-consent attitudes towards masculinity. How typical do you think your response was?

I’m not sure, but I’ve gotten informal feedback from people who have read my relevant work who tell me they had similar experiences — where they had a partner or two who busted all their ideas about how sex “just happens”, who explicitly negotiated consent, and it changed EVERYTHING for them.

It’s an incremental process too, though. I’ve had partners that were less good about consent and partners that were more good about it. It’s hard to trace who affected what. There are some experiences that really stand out, but I doubt I can give those experiences all the credit.

Men learning to ask attractively could potentially teach women that asking can be hot. Unfortunately, present-day consent advocacy doesn’t seem very successful at this, and a lot of their language sounds like stereotypical posh British people asking each other out for tea, rather than people in a sexual situation. Oh, if only we had a group of men dedicated to figuring out what is attractive to women in the real world to help out with this ;)

yeah, as you know I’ve thought about this in the past. It does seem like hot consent check-ins would be part of ethical PUA.

* above sentence edited

Infra May 20, 2011 at 4:44 am #

@Clarisse:

I’m curious to know how the guys on this thread feel about how dudes change as they get older. I hear a lot of complaints from guys my age about how many women want to date older, but not a lot of acknowledgment that there might be reasons for it.

Actually, this relates to something that I was considering posting earlier on in regard to some of Hugh’s points, but it seemed too theoretical for the thread. The basic point, though, was that the differences noted in the studies might reflect a time component — a temporal logic — that’s more pronounced in female preference than in male, at least when considering younger individuals. With that in mind, things like the “psychology of the stranger” aspect of the FFM come into play: traits would become more important, not because female preferences work more on character than on appearance, but because they’re more in sync with the temporal/predictive element of female preference. The fact some commonly-referenced parts of pickup theory — the sequential structure of the M3 Model, ways to address flaking, the three-second rule, timing in regard to escalation, false time constraints and time dilation, etc. — often have an implicit, and sometimes an explicit, temporal component would support that, I think.

I think that the changes are more complicated than this, or can be (as I wrote earlier, exploration of sexual physiology and response was a pivotal element for me), but I think that part of it is related: age produces a greater sensitivity to the role played by time in many processes, helping to bring the two perspectives closer to sync (where, for women, regular menses might train this form of perception by a form of implicit learning, resulting in earlier development). I’m also inclined to think that this plays some role in the pairing of younger women with older men, though I’m not sure how much weight to give it: in terms of the temporal sense, older men might be closer peers to younger women than those men who are closer in chronological age. If temporal logic does play a significant role in female preference, that would be more than a trivial factor.

But like I wrote, that’s going out on a theoretical limb. Not sure how relevant it is to the main discussion here, except as a tangential speculation.

Lucky72 May 20, 2011 at 5:09 am #

(a) it seems likely to me that women are acting just as men would in a similar position; (b) most points about initiation dynamics culture could be made in gender-neutral language. Corollary: (c) we could be making these points in gender-neutral language and thereby avoid most of the statements that would annoy most feminists.

I don’t think you can take the two quotes and extrapolate them to all manhood.

My own experience is that it is way easier for a woman to initiate with a man, than vice versa. You can discount that experience, but I think many men will agree.

I’m not trying to suggest, that male and female behavior are driven by biology, but even if they are ‘only’ social norms, they are still incredibly strong.

And if most heterosexual women feel that men are more masculine when they initiate and escalate to kissing without asking, then that’s an issue men have with women’s dating preferences, not something that can be fixed in a gender neutral language.

And if I might add:
When feminists try to fix problems women have with men, the language is rarely gender neutral.

But when men have a problem with female preferences, suddenly we have to strain reality to make the language gender neutral?

I don’t accept this double standard, and I think it illustrates why many men have a problem with feminism in general (or more specifically the non equal rights part). Even though there are many different types of feminism, and I have read only a few feminists with as much empathy towards male issues as you Clarisse, somehow feminists can never work their way out of the notion that women are blameless.

Women have a lot of power (not all, granted) in the modern Western dating market, and female preferences are a big part of perpetuating some undesirerable parts of our social norms. And this has to be discussed in gender specific terms, just as problems with male preferences has to be dealt with directly (which is usually not a problem for feminists!)

P.S. – HR’s last few posts are outstanding.

Infra May 20, 2011 at 6:06 am #

Hugh wrote:

What I suspect would happen is that 1-10% of men would comply, and simply end up selecting themselves out of dating unless they were otherwise above-average in attractiveness or skill with women. These men would martyr their dating success, and change nothing. They could try to get more men to join them, but their arguments would lack persuasiveness as long as the majority of mainstream heterosexual women disagree.

Rather than changing female attitudes, they would simply intensify female competition over men without such scruples. The problem is that if men ask in the current system, they will be judged as insufficiently masculine and unattractive. Will women actually feel that they are missing out if some pussy guy can’t make a move without ruining the mood by talking? This is not an effective takeaway. There are still plenty more fish in the sea, especially for young conventionally attractive women.

If we add in, not just competition for the other men, but pressure exerted against the men who’ve changed in order to get them to return to the older forms of behavior… then isn’t this scenario already playing out? Looking back at the comments about asking for a kiss, the old discussions about nice guy stereotyping, complaints about “where are all the real men?”, the emergence of blogs like Hooking Up Smart, etc., wouldn’t it suggest that we’ve already passed the initial windows of opportunity, and that what we’re examining aren’t just things that people would like to change, but also the results that are already emerging from those changes?

If there are areas in which mainstream het female preference seems to be the driving force, and that preference seems to directly counter work on promoting the explicit negotiation of consent, isn’t it reasonable to consider the possibility that it is a counter? That there is a conflict — just one that’s played out indirectly, producing blowback by using the men who’ve been changed against the people who’ve changed them? (As I understand it, this is a common pattern in female violence, whereas male violence tends to be more direct; it wouldn’t be unique.)

Maybe that’s just a matter of the percentages being too low to hit a critical threshold. But if this is the case, and what we’re looking at are results from — or reactions to — attempts at correction, and not just problems in need of it, then maybe the approach needs some serious reconsideration. If nothing else, it may have underestimated the potential ability of mainstream het women to resist, or, more likely, failed to take into account the ways in which that resistance might occur… and ended up blindsided.

SnowdropExplodes May 20, 2011 at 8:59 am #

Given the theoretical bent that some of this discussion has taken, I think my post Initial concepts in the multivariate libido function satisfaction branch of mathematical analysis becomes relevant to this discussion (I am sure that Hugh could add to this fledgeling field!)

I am very strongly an Ask Culture type of guy, and often simply don’t pick up the subtle “feelers” of Guessers (to the extent that on one occasion I totally missed “those look nice” meant “please may I have one?” when ( was eating some little snacks). Even so, as noted, in practice I can guess pretty well about kissing. When it comes to consent negotiation vs implication, I think Clarisse’s point about the cost/benefit analysis and risk/reward calculations are a huge part. The risk of a kiss is quite low, both for the receiver and the initiator (you might, conceivably, get a cold sore, but that’s usually the worst possible outcome of that particular activity in and of itself; and as the initiator the worst you can realistically expect is a slap round the face for making an unwanted move). The reward is not that high either, but the cost/benefit analysis usually comes out in favour of a gamble.

But with escalating intimacy and physical contact come higher potential costs and higher rewards. The relative importance of asking for clearly-communicated consent before acting becomes higher as a result. As machina pointed out with the rhetorical suggestion of asking, “Anal fucking or asking for anal fucking?” (Presumably the means of “indicating” would be to touch the tip of the penis to the anus, and then allow her to make the necessary movement to confirm?) There’s always a boundary between what needs explicit consent and what doesn’t.

As I stated above, what I am looking to screen for in a partner is her ability to communicate clearly consent and non-consent (because that’s what my Ask Culture/Introvert personality needs) so I already de facto take myself off the market (which, as Hugh points out, is not a big “takeaway”, especially given my non-normative body shape and all that, but it’s all I’ve got – and I have to be comfortable with the situation too).

I wonder, too, if the way one asks for a kiss influences how it comes across? PUA/SC discussion seems to focus on manner quite a lot, saying that even the best lines delivered in a “weak” way will not produce results. Similarly, is it possible that women who report disliking being asked, do so because it is usually accompanied by a weak/insecure manner, rather than on the basis of the inherent nature of the act? I envisage an exaggerated version of this: the superhero rescues the heroine from a blazing building (or whatever) and as he carries her safely from the building and sets her on her feet, he leans in and whispers without hesitation, “Can I kiss you?” Would he look like a “pussy” then? As I say, exaggerated example, but in general, is it not likely that there is more flexibility here, based on circumstance and manner of asking, than is being suggested? (This would go some way to explain the observed instances of asking leading to/being part of “hot” experiences even for women who say they prefer not-asking.)

Men learning to ask attractively could potentially teach women that asking can be hot. Unfortunately, present-day consent advocacy doesn’t seem very successful at this, and a lot of their language sounds like stereotypical posh British people asking each other out for tea, rather than people in a sexual situation. Oh, if only we had a group of men dedicated to figuring out what is attractive to women in the real world to help out with this

There are plenty of feminist consent-advocacy websites out there that talk about how to make asking for consent sexy (including, IIRC, one called “consent is sexy”), including by using accounts of real-life examples.

Clarisse May 20, 2011 at 12:57 pm #

When feminists try to fix problems women have with men, the language is rarely gender neutral.

But when men have a problem with female preferences, suddenly we have to strain reality to make the language gender neutral?

Argh. Here’s my point …. When modern feminists who are TRYING TO TALK ABOUT THESE THINGS IN A WAY THAT ACTUALLY ENCOURAGES CONVERSATION do so, we try to use gender-neutral language and refocus the conversation on what PEOPLE do when possible. If YOU want to insist that we’re responsible for (a) what EVERY feminist has said EVER and (b) YOUR perceptions of what the feminist movement does, which incidentally seem to almost always be based on personal issues and include refusal to acknowledge the incredible work feminists have done in the past, you go right ahead. In the meantime, I’ll be over here having an actual conversation. I’ll let you know when I want to take your approach, and then I’ll play “burn the evil PUA” with HR and tell him he’s responsible for shooting women in the face.

Clarisse May 20, 2011 at 2:01 pm #

Also? It’s not “straining reality” to communicate in a way that acknowledges your biases and cultural problems.

Infra May 20, 2011 at 4:18 pm #

@Lucky 72:

My own experience is that it is way easier for a woman to initiate with a man, than vice versa. You can discount that experience, but I think many men will agree.

Count me as one of the men who doesn’t.

I mean, think about it. Men are usually coming at this with loads of advice on how to do it — some good, some bad, and some useless, some wanted and some unwanted — from peers and adults, both men and women, including friends, parents and acquaintances, not to mention media. We’re in a position to observe other men doing their approaches, and usually have years of background in at least making the attempt to approach, with varying levels of success and varying results, all of which feed into the learning process. Further, we’re doing this in a context that encourages it, if not demands it, even if it’s a context that also carries the expectation that, many times, we’re going to fail in the attempt (which, to a degree, blunts the impact of failing and makes things like playing the numbers game possible to tolerate). But even with that, we still manage to come off as awkward, presumptuous, entitled, etc. a lesser or greater amount of the time. Not to mention the dreaded “creepy.”

Compared to the context available to men, even conceding that it’s distorted, confusing and dysfunctional — the amount of advice, the support from the context, the ability to observe, the experience to draw upon… when it comes to those things, it would be an exaggeration to say that women even have table scraps. And that’s in addition to the issues involved with acting against gender expectations, and in addition to having to shed and act against advice that’s been drilled in for years, coming from the proceptive side of things. For the most part, they’re working in disadvantageous — in some cases, overtly hostile — territory, and doing so with essentially no compass, no map, no training, and greater risk of damaging psychological impact in failing, because they haven’t been brought up in a context that’s helped to prepare them for it.

In my experience both observing women approaching and being subject to those approaches (when I was younger, quite often), they often crash and burn. HARD. And they’re unprepared for it. More often than not, it isn’t easy, it’s difficult and humiliating, and many of those women simply decide that men can’t deal with women taking the approach role, and they give up, and rarely, if ever, approach again.

Infra May 20, 2011 at 5:56 pm #

@SnowdropExplodes:

Similarly, is it possible that women who report disliking being asked, do so because it is usually accompanied by a weak/insecure manner, rather than on the basis of the inherent nature of the act? I envisage an exaggerated version of this: the superhero rescues the heroine from a blazing building (or whatever) and as he carries her safely from the building and sets her on her feet, he leans in and whispers without hesitation, “Can I kiss you?” Would he look like a “pussy” then? As I say, exaggerated example, but in general, is it not likely that there is more flexibility here, based on circumstance and manner of asking, than is being suggested?

I’d be more inclined to see him doing something like pulling back a bit, with a slightly confused look on his face, and saying “This is the part of the script where we’re supposed to kiss, right?” But the standard superhero wouldn’t be the best model for it, though. Bruce Campbell’s “Jack of All Trades” is a lot better. ;)

Anyway, I think that you’re on point with the question of delivery, and I think that there are two ways of going about it that can prove successful. But that’s because neither of them is actually “asking” in the usual sense. The above is one of them: it’s a question, but it’s more of a one-liner than an actual query, and getting permission to go ahead with the kiss (or having the other person initiate the kiss instead) is basically the equivalent of getting a laugh. The other would be to use the question as a way of communicating something like “things are on the edge, now — give me a nudge and you’ll get what you want,” which isn’t asking for permission, but inviting active participation.

Key to both of those, IME, is that they neither respect boundaries nor violate them. They skirt them, instead, like skipping a stone on water. Instead of asking for permission (which can halt the momentum of the situation), they provoke the act of giving or refusing it (which allows the momentum to be preserved).

Infra May 20, 2011 at 8:21 pm #

To add to that last comment: it occurred to me, after further thought, that there’s a third situation, kind of a variation on the second, and one in which asking can come off as hypermasculine. (Unlike the other two, I’m not sure that this one could be used in a gender-independent way.) If Jack Stiles or Frank B. Parker (from 7 Days) could be considered representative of the one-liner style, the best example of this would probably be Ronon Dex from Stargate Atlantis, which is somewhat reflected in his character on the show (in his interaction with Melena in the “Sateda” episode, and in his relationship with Dr. Keller). It’s that there can be an undercurrent of “I’d like to kiss you… but I’d devour you” to it, so asking can come off as a way of signaling how excessive one’s masculinity might be, rather than indicating an absence or a weakness, and can indicate that it’s a matter of expressing desire in the right doses.

So, rather than hesitancy, it’s something that communicates self-control and self-awareness. But it only works when there’s a genuine projection of the idea that that control could be lost. (This also goes back to the “The Promise” video that I linked in the Ethical PUA thread, which reflects a similar inner conflict.)

Sam May 20, 2011 at 10:20 pm #

Everyone,

I’m so busy it’s hard to even follow right now, but let me say that I’m grateful that I think we’re actually getting back on track to *both* a better understanding of the structural elements we’re dealing with *and* appropriate broken down discusison. Picture me smiling.

I’m curious to know how the guys on this thread feel about how dudes change as they get older. I hear a lot of complaints from guys my age about how many women want to date older, but not a lot of acknowledgment that there might be reasons for it.

Statistically the female preference for older men is both marked and mild, I think about 3 years or so. I suppose there’s mostly three variable at play: One – actual differential personal development, especially in young people. Second, the male confidence that comes with more experience in life. Third, social convention. I have to say that I rarely get to know women my age. They tend to be off the market or not yet back on the market. Most women I meet are about 6-8 years younger than I am. Also, the age difference and expected additional experience probably increases the pressure to “know” rather than ask.

Infra, I think there’s definitely something to your fascinating temporal theory!

Snowdrop,

There are plenty of feminist consent-advocacy websites out there that talk about how to make asking for consent sexy (including, IIRC, one called “consent is sexy”), including by using accounts of real-life examples.

Really? I tend to share Hugh’s assessment of that aspect, particularly because they don’t seem to take a balanced approach of risk and reward, and whatever I’ve seen doesn’t take the male perspective into account – if it’s good it’s like Schrödinger’s rapist. It doesn’t come accross as saying, let’s make this better for everyone, it’s coming across as “guys, you need to fix yourself”.

And that leads to the reaction Hugh outlined. But we’ve been there.

So, by all means, if you have a list of pages that deal with this *positively* and usefully, do share. One of the best things about this I’ve seen isn’t explicitly feminist – http://www.charlieglickman.com/2010/10/sex-tips-for-men-how-to-ask-for-sex – and it was written as a reply to… Clarisse’s creep post.

Sam May 20, 2011 at 10:29 pm #

Oh,

and, again, since we’re back at stuff that hasn’t been answered: Clarisse, I wonder if your experience in BDSM, sexual activism and the SC, doesn’t give you a particularly useful perspective when it comes to unwrapping the female desire for playful masculine dominance, and the possibilities to perform it. Particularly since you’ve apparently found ways to satisfy your desire in that respect in ways that don’t require not asking. I wonder what “soundbites” you’d come up with if you applied your intuition, experience, and knowledge to coming up with something that both you (as someone more interested in explicit communication) and the women in the thread Hugh linked to would find appealing…

Motley May 20, 2011 at 11:33 pm #

Clarisse,

it seems like when men are in the receiving position, they act like women as described by PUAs.

For what it’s worth, I’ll second this, emphatically. And maybe take it a step further–I know I at least have put a lot of effort (less in recent years, for a variety of reasons) into being the one pursued rather than doing the pursuing–and I’m pretty sure that a PUA would recognize a lot of what I do as “shit-tests” and a “bitch-shield.”

So:

What it means in practice, however, is that (a) it seems likely to me that women are acting just as men would in a similar position; (b) most points about initiation dynamics culture could be made in gender-neutral language.

I think both of these are somewhat true, but I think issues of sexual scarcity are going to have a warping effect there.

And I said: Why?

Also, does it seem like a contradiction that you’ve been putting a huge amount of effort into demonstrating that men’s dating behavior is mostly driven by (some) women’s preferences, but then you say that women’s dating behavior can only be changed by other women?

I don’t know if this is the case everywhere–or if this is what Hugh is getting at–but in my experience, women talk to each other about the “mechanics” of relationships a lot more than men do. (And even men talk to each other about this more than men talk to women about it, and vice versa). To the extent that there are conversations about this in the mainstream (and there aren’t a lot), they’re generally between women. So if there’s going to be a significant change in the cultural conversation, it’s going to involve a disproportionately high number of women.

I’m curious to know how the guys on this thread feel about how dudes change as they get older. I hear a lot of complaints from guys my age about how many women want to date older, but not a lot of acknowledgment that there might be reasons for it.

I think there’s a lot of acknowledgment of what looks (from the outside) like the primary reason, though very little of the consequences of that reason. I mean, I have a lot more money than I did when I was in my mid-twenties. Lots more. But I don’t think this is just a matter of money in its own right being attractive–compared to a 25-year-old Motley, I basically live in a completely different world. I dress a lot better, I’ve been to more places, and I sure as hell take people out to nicer restaurants. I can’t imagine that all these aren’t factors. A decade or so ago, I wouldn’t have had much to offer a woman of my own age and economic status; to that same mid-twenties woman, though, my current self is basically a passport to a world she most likely doesn’t think she’ll ever see otherwise.
I’m probably a fairly extreme example, but I think the point stands. Older men tend to have more money, and that affects a lot about what it looks like they can bring to a relationship–and all those advantages apply, relative to myself from a decade previous before even getting to know me.

I’m not going to even try to guess whether that’s a more significant factor than the general personality changes that happen with time. An example of the latter–and I think this is a big one–is that most guys my age have seemingly stopped giving a damn about seeming “manly” in the way that they did when we were kids. (Or, more likely I think, just gotten better at it, and more subtle). I don’t think most women find immaturity very attractive; and there are a lot of perceived rules that only matter to relatively immature guys. The example I brought up earlier–in our teens and twenties, I think most guys are able to tell when or if they’re attracted to someone, but seldom why. (“She’s hot” doesn’t count). I mean, right now, I know a significant number of my peers can usually tell if a woman’s shoes, makeup, etc., make them more or less attracted, and almost certainly couldn’t have been able to do that a decade ago. (I could, maybe, but I’m not sure, and anyway I’m not a representative sample).
Knowing yourself matters, right? I suspect everyone’s at least partially aware that all sorts of things go wrong when you don’t know what you want, so a partner who does know what he wants gains a lot of perceived value.

There’s a flipside to this, though. In re: Sam’s

Most women I meet are about 6-8 years younger than I am.

Most of the women who approach me too, in the last five years or so, tend to be younger (either by a bit or a lot). I can’t shake the feeling that they’re looking to “trade” their youth (and the presumption of better looks, and whatever else) for what I’ve got that guys their own age haven’t. (Perhaps unfortunately for them, I’ve mostly passed the age where a girl who’s just out of grad school is interesting to me. Which causes some problems in terms of short-term relationships, since it means my wife and I don’t quite share the same taste in thirds. Not that I can really complain, of course.)

Tangentially, (and this is very tangential, since it’s tangential to something Clarisse mentioned some time in the last year or two), but a lot of other dynamics shift once you get into your thirties (it’s not just the guys)–around my age, women seem to’ve either gotten much more comfortable approaching, or to’ve decided that they have to.
Anecdotally, I don’t know what the average success rate is for the woman who chatted with me a couple nights ago, who seemed to take my (admittedly gentle) brush-off fairly well, but I can’t imagine that it’s worse than your average twenty-year-old guy’s.* (Though I’m going to guess that she, at least, probably didn’t get her hopes up, because I’m assuming she could see the ring).

*To be fair, if I were single and it were only my own preferences (and circumstances) she had to meet, I probably would’ve gone along with it rather than declining. Ah well.

Hugh Ristik May 21, 2011 at 2:32 am #

Clarisse said:

Also @HR — it seems like when men are in the receiving position, they act like women as described by PUAs.

Sometimes this may be the case, but (a) the prevalence is not necessarily the same and (b) the mechanism is not the same. For example, I don’t think the prevalence of men being turned off by women asking is as high as the prevalence of men being turned off by women asking.

And even if the prevalence is the same, the mechanisms are still often gender specific. Awkwardness applies to both genders, but other parts of the mechanism may differ. For instance, the madonna-whore complex can be a reason why men dislike being asked. Meanwhile, women might dislike being asked because they perceive it as weak and unmasculine.

Strangely, women asking may be viewed as overly aggressive, while men asking might be viewed as insufficiently assertive. These gender-specific mechanisms need to be addressed in gender-specific ways.

most points about initiation dynamics culture could be made in gender-neutral language

I think it depends on the context and what we are trying to accomplish. Sometimes we are trying to emphasize commonalities across human beings. In other cases, we are trying to delve deeper into people’s reasoning for a specific practice, which may vary by gender in motive or prevalence.

In case you hadn’t noticed, some feminists have a long history of shaming other women’s actions. See: everything sex-positive feminism has reacted against.

Right, and in this thread I criticize feminists both for criticizing mainstream heterosexual women incorrectly, and for not criticizing them enough. That’s because I think the “truth” is somewhere in between their perspectives (see my previous post where I explained what I agree with from each of their perspectives). I would like to see a more constructive dialectic between feminists and mainstream heterosexual women.

Yes, it will be tough reconciling their differences in perspective. It’s tough for women to reconcile them, and it’s tough for men who care about both perspectives. It’s like the classic image in cartoons of a little angel on one shoulder, and a devil on the other. The angel is saying “maybe you should ask,” and the devil is saying “nah, if you ask, she’ll just think you’re a wimp and it’ll ruin everything.”

Hugh Ristik May 21, 2011 at 2:34 am #

Clarisse said:

In terms of modern consent advocacy. I apologize in advance if I’m wrong, HR, but it seems to me that your experience with feminist consent advocacy is pretty much limited to a high school program. Is that correct?

No, but I’m glad you checked. As I mentioned last time we talked about this subject, I’m also talking about college programs. I mentioned Mike Domitrz’s program, which is presently running. So it’s quite possible that we’ve been exposed to different things, but what I’m critiquing is up-to-date.

A lot of modern feminist consent advocacy includes much of Yes Means Yes, which you just cited, and which is generally quite gender-neutral in the relevant essays, as I recall (such as Millar’s “Towards a Performance Model”)

Thomas uses gender neutral terms when explaining the basics of his “performance model.” But I just opened up my copy of YMY, and many parts of his essay are hardly gender neutral. For instance, he engages in common feminist discourse against male entitlement (exemplified by “Nice Guys”(tm)):

What straight men really need to learn is that women are humans, too, who get to make their own decisions about whether and with whom to have sex; and that nobody owes anyone sex.

If Thomas were to say that people of all genders and sexual orientations exhibit entitlement, and some sorts of heterosexual men just do it the worst, so he will focus on them, then that would be defensible. But without such an acknowledgement, he practically erases entitlement attitudes on the part of queer people and heterosexual women.

For another example, Thomas proposes that the “performance model” undermines the concept of the “slut.” He points out that a “music slut” doesn’t make sense. This is not a gender neutral analysis, since “slut” is generally applied to women, as criticized throughout YMY by many authors.

This is a gendered analysis that I thoroughly agree with! Yet as usual, the gender analysis centers male malfeasance and misogyny. Thomas could have argued that the “performance model” undermines the concept of the “wimp,” because it makes no sense to call someone a “music wimp” if they are simply trying to clarify what tempo you are playing it. This point would have flowed naturally from Thomas’ premises, but it was hidden from him due to his paradigm of male perpetration and female victimization.

As I’ve already mentioned, Julia Serano’s essay does tackle female preferences and wimp-shaming, but it’s pretty unique, and I’m still not quite sure what it’s doing in that book, given that cis men who make the same points are routinely excoriated by feminists. If Serano’s essay is being used to teach consent seminars, then I would be thrilled.

For a final example of Thomas showing a decided lack of gender neutrality, here is a quote from his last paragraph (emphasis mine):

Our children take their conceptions of sex from their parents first, and from the wider culture. If our boys learn from their preadolescence that sex is a performance where enthusiastic participation is normal and pressure is aberrant, then the idea that consent is affirmative, rather than the absence of objection, will be ingrained.

Whoa there… don’t our girls need to learn this, too? This is an example of a strange phenomenon I’ve seen in feminist consent activists, where they will sound gender neutral most of the time, but then they suddenly slip into gendered language, revealing their true sympathies and biases.

Here’s another example from the Consent is Sexy website that Snowdrop recommended. We can get 3/4 of the way down the about page reading gender neutral language, and then suddenly get clobbered with:

Are you man enough to accept “No”?
• Sure, it’s not always easy – but you don’t have to make it personal. She might have reasons for saying ‘No’ that have nothing to do with you. She may have strong beliefs about sex before marriage. She may feel she’s not ready for sex in your relationship. Or, maybe she’s just not feeling sexy.
• Respect, self-control, restraint, caring about the feelings of others – are true measures of a man of strong character.

The person who needs to read that page is assumed to be male, and to date women. But what if neither of those things are true? It’s not “if you are a heterosexual man, are you man enough to say ‘no’”? How about “are you woman enough to accept ‘no’?” or “can you accept your man as a man if he says ‘no’?” or “can you accept your man as a man if he asks for your consent?” Those messages are left out.

In all these cases, I fully support (a) gendered analysis of entitlement exhibited by people who are men, (b) getting rid of gendered slurs towards women that inhibit enthusiastic consent, (c) teaching boys to take consent seriously, and (d) understanding reasons why women might say “no” to men. What I would like to see is all these gendered analyses done for the other genders and sexual orientations, too. Sometimes the right way to do this is gender neutral language. In other cases, the right way to do it is to examine multiple gender analyses side-by-side (e.g. “slut shaming” alongside “wimp shaming”, “male entitlement” alongside “female entitlement”).

The feminist consent advocate organizations I’ve worked with in Chicago have programs that are not only friendly to male survivors

I do feel that feminist consent advocacy is becoming more inclusive of male survivors, at least linguistically, which is why I mentioned “telling women to seek men’s consent” as something that consent advocates “often” include. Many feminists having wrapped their heads around the idea of the importance of encouraging women to seek men’s consent, but few feminists are encouraging women to stop looking down on men for seeking women’s consent. That’s the blindspot I was talking about.

Hugh Ristik May 21, 2011 at 2:35 am #

Clarisse said:

argh tired …. I don’t have a lot of energy to be Feminism Defender. I never did, really. Why do these threads always make me that.

I don’t see this as being so much about feminism, but about the type of feminists who end up doing consent advocacy other than those named “Clarisse Thorn” and “Julia Serano.” There are feminists who acknowledge all the things that I’m trying to get acknowledged… the perspectives of these feminists just aren’t represented very well represented in consent programs, as far as I can tell. It’s similar to the case of pickup, where the good ideas are out there, and they just aren’t evenly distributed.

For example, your suggestion that women might screen for male body language reading ability for their own safety and comfort is not a perspective well-represented by current consent education, which spends a lot of time trashing nonverbal communication (see my old comment about Domitrz).

“Biggest enemies” is strong language that I don’t think you can defend. I will accept that mainstream heterosexual women’s preferences are playing a role, but you could convince me of that a lot more easily if you weren’t so invested in MHW being the biggest cause of problematic consent communication.

And I’m not going to, because I advanced it as something that I was wondering when I took certain feminist ideas and tried reversing the genders. I’m not “invested” in MHW being the biggest cause of problematic consent communication. I’m invested in the importance of considering particular areas where MHW might be a bigger barrier to progress.

For example, a study could come out tomorrow saying that 70% of women prefer not to be asked for a kiss, but only 35% of men do, and that most men don’t feel strongly about whether they ask or not as long as the kiss is well received. In this case, it could be reasonable to say that the biggest enemies of the particular practice of asking for a kiss are among mainstream heterosexual women.

Just like feminists should be able to talk about men more often holding entitled attitudes towards sex, I would like to be able to talk about women more often hating being asked for consent… regardless of whether either of those hypotheses turn out to be true.

Even a suspicion with 20-40% subjective probability of being true is a big deal when you have an important goal.

Hugh Ristik May 21, 2011 at 2:36 am #

Clarisse said:

And I said: Why?
Also, does it seem like a contradiction that you’ve been putting a huge amount of effort into demonstrating that men’s dating behavior is mostly driven by (some) women’s preferences, but then you say that women’s dating behavior can only be changed by other women?

First, I never said that women’s dating behavior can “only” be changed by other women. I said that women are “probably better positioned” to do so. Women may be in a better position to change men’s attitudes, but they aren’t the only ones in that position. As we agreed, men do have potential to change women’s attitudes about kissing by asking in a hot way, for instance.

I think the ability of men to change women’s preferences about masculinity is limited, because men protesting those preferences or refusing to fulfill them often just look like failures of masculinity who can be easily dismissed. Men asking women to like to be asked has some of the same problems that asking has: many mainstream heterosexual women will simply judge those men as unconfident and wimpy.

If some guys don’t want to be judged as wimps for asking, why should heterosexual women care? It would be kind of like fat women asking heterosexual men to stop devaluing them. Who cares what the wimps and fat chix think?

Why should people be moved by seemingly-self-serving pleas that the other gender find them attractive based on a characteristic that they currently judge as unattractive? Pleas to change one’s preferences could easily be abused.

In contrast, women can say that they find being asked attractive and confident, which has the potential to change other women’s minds via social proof. Also, women can say that they don’t want men to avoid asking by default.

Yes, men can prove with their actions that asking can be sexy, but that takes a certain amount of experience with women and skill, whether natural or learned. As for actual verbal argument, I don’t think men can do much to encourage mainstream heterosexual women to find men’s asking attractive, but I do think other women could offer convincing arguments. If I say “I ask, and the women I’m dating find it sexy” that’s probably going to less persuasive than Clarisse saying “guys ask me, and I find it sexy.”

Note that I’m not placing an obligation on women to change the attitudes of other women (because I’ve been burned by feminist arguments that men should police other men’s attitudes). I am trying to point out fruitful strategies for change for whoever chooses to take them up.

Infra May 21, 2011 at 4:33 am #

One thing that bears mention — and I’m a bit surprised that no one else has brought this up yet — is that examining the kiss as a focus of gender differences in sexual preference and behavior could be quite misleading: it isn’t just an intimate act, it’s a long-standing cultural icon, and also (as the first kiss, as well as the marriage kiss) often regarded as a defining intimate moment. But, stereotypically, this seems far more the case for mainstream het women than for mainstream het men. Accordingly, it would make sense that gender differences in regard to how a kiss is initiated, how it’s performed, in what circumstances it’s performed, etc. would show to an extreme not necessarily present with regard to other acts.

I’m not convinced that this is enough to establish that differences in relation to kissing should be treated as sui generis, but I do think that it’s enough to be wary of extrapolating too far from them, especially into general issues of initiation.

SnowdropExplodes May 21, 2011 at 8:15 am #

@ Sam:

I don’t have a list of links, unfortunately. I recall Figleaf @ Real Adult Sex talking about this (but can’t find the post(s) right now). I am sure sexgenderbody has discussed it also, but again, haven’t been able to find the posts quickly. I did find a link to another place that discussed it, and was the main thing I had in mind: Happy Bodies (although their original page, linked as “Consent is Sexy” there, does not seem to do very well in suggesting sexy ways to ask for consent; most of them fall into the “wimpy” trap, it seems to me).

It is definitely the case that most discussion of this has been like the Happy Bodies link – isolated situations of a line that some sex-positive feminist and/or consent advocate has seen, and they’ve thought, “that looks cool, I’ll blog about it”. I misremembered what the “Consent Is Sexy” website was, and assumed it was going to collect real examples of consent being sexy.

I think that website would be a great resource, collecting anecdotes from people where consent was asked and communicated in sexy ways – I thought it already existed, but if it doesn’t, then it should!

In short, it does get discussed, but perhaps not with the depth and frequency that would be helpful. The Charlie Glickman link isn’t about how to make it sexy, it’s just the mechanics of what to say. I noticed he asked for replies saying how it went, but there didn’t appear to be any comments like that.

Sam May 21, 2011 at 9:45 am #

Hugh,

“but few feminists are encouraging women to stop looking down on men for seeking women’s consent. That’s the blindspot I was talking about.”

I think feminists discussing this often don’t see this as a blindspot, and I remember reactions with their own version of the plenty-of-fish argument – “if you asked and she thought of you as a wimp, be happy you didn’t have to put up with her. Just move on.” Which is interesting, because it takes the woman’s behaviour out of a structural gender context and makes it individually bad behaviour, and as such nothing that feminism can legitimately critique. And at the same time it’s allowing to disregard the structural effect of this female desire on men, thus allowing to keep criticizing men when they complain about this blindspot in feminist critique.

“Just move on” is also a rather problematic statement given scarcity, but also given that one may actually *like* a woman who has those preferences as a person, *despite* those preferences and merely trying to find a way to make her happy.

Snowdrop,

thanks for the link.

Hugh Ristik May 21, 2011 at 3:53 pm #

Sam, agreed. Just because a woman has some sort of gendered consent attitudes in some area, it doesn’t make her some sort of horrible broken person who should be avoided like the plague. You have to look at the whole person.

Strangely, the feminists telling men they are lucky to avoid women with those preferences start to sound a lot like MRAs and Men Going The Other Way (MGTOW), who also feel lucky to avoid dating women. The only difference is the MGTOW want me to swear off all women, while those feminists only want me to swear off most mainstream heterosexual women (e.g. ~70% in the case of women who don’t like being asked verbally for a kiss).

P.S. Props to Clarisse for acknowledging the pressure on men to be confident and dominant and the Dream Girl article over at GMP.

Sam May 21, 2011 at 10:42 pm #

Hugh,

I’m not familiar with “Men Going The Other Way”. From the name I’d have thought that’s something connected to gay activism, but apparently it’s a male separatist movement? Crazy.

I also liked Clarisse’s article.

Clarisse,

“But I can definitely assure you that before I had any actual sexual partners, I knew how to give a good blowjob.”

Was that really such a bad thing? The first time I was with a woman, and she knew it, and she later asked me how I had learnt how to touch her down there and “give head” in a way that made her come. I told her that much of it was from porn, including educational porn. To continue with the music metaphor, I mostly tried to hit the right notes, and didn’t improvise or even write my own songs – so it was about as authentic as (hopefully) well sung karaoke. But you’ve gotta start somewhere, right?

Clarisse May 22, 2011 at 4:42 am #

@Sam — One of the best things about this I’ve seen isn’t explicitly feminist – http://www.charlieglickman.com/2010/10/sex-tips-for-men-how-to-ask-for-sex – and it was written as a reply to… Clarisse’s creep post.

Charlie Glickman is as feminist as they get. I’ve corresponded with him extensively and hung out with him a lot in person, and he works at the original feminist sex toy store — Good Vibrations in SFO. The post in response to my creep article may not be explicitly feminist, but one of his most recent posts is about how het cis men need to own their privilege.

On a general note (not meant as being about you, Sam): it really burns me that these manliness/PUA conversation threads on my blog seem to always look for ways to attack and blame feminism while not acknowledging that feminists are also some of the people who seem most concerned about these problems and who are working hardest to deal with them. And simultaneously not acknowledging the huge pushback we’re getting for it from, not other feminists most of the time, but from everyone else (I get hate mail and troll comments from non-feminist dudes, and I don’t get any of that from feminists — the worst I’ve gotten from feminists is stuff like Amanda Marcotte alleging patriarchy stockholm syndrome). And every time someone acknowledges feminists who are working and thinking about this stuff (like ME), we’re treated like some bizarre and magical exception.

That said, I’m much more open to comments like this from HR

There are feminists who acknowledge all the things that I’m trying to get acknowledged… the perspectives of these feminists just aren’t represented very well represented in consent programs, as far as I can tell. It’s similar to the case of pickup, where the good ideas are out there, and they just aren’t evenly distributed.

… than to most of the feminist-criticizing comments on these threads. Because HR has actually done things like, you know, read YMY.

back to @Sam — Clarisse, I wonder if your experience in BDSM, sexual activism and the SC, doesn’t give you a particularly useful perspective when it comes to unwrapping the female desire for playful masculine dominance, and the possibilities to perform it. Particularly since you’ve apparently found ways to satisfy your desire in that respect in ways that don’t require not asking.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since the beginning, as I think I’ve noted before. It’s very hard. For a while I was thinking that my preferences have altered towards men who don’t play blatant dominance games while flirting, like negs and shit tests — because I look for men who can have a serious conversation first now, and compartmentalize the dominance games. And to some extent this is true. But to some extent it’s also not true.

I noticed while hanging out with Gareth Jones that one of the reasons I found him so attractive was that he blatantly played dominance games with me. (One example: I asked him for a drag on his cigarette and he made me say “Please”. Eventually we got to the point where I would look at him all big-eyed and say “Please” and he’d just hand me the cigarette.) This was interesting, because he was actually unlike both The Asian Playboy and Neil Strauss in this respect — they were both a LOT more friendly and low-key, whereas Gareth was quite shit-testy and neggy — and yet when I tested for actual SM interest, Gareth was negative and the other two were positive. (Maybe he’s closeted.)

On the other hand, Gareth genuinely annoyed me a few times, and neither NS nor TAP did. Comparing behavior to guys I’ve been involved with: NS and TAP both acted a lot more like partners I’ve had the most intense SM relationships and fallen in love with, whereas Gareth acted more like guys I’m highly attracted to but never quite trust enough to form a really intimate connection with (like Richard from my coming-out story).

Gareth is 26. NS and TAP are both in their 30s. Make of that what you will :P

A thing to keep in mind about SM is this, too. There is still a lot of implicit communication, and not everything gets negotiated. It’s a million miles more explicit than the typical vanilla encounter, but the majority of SMers aren’t regularly asking “Can I kiss you?” either. At least not in my experience. And, for the record, I am actually not really in the “asking for a kiss” camp myself — in that I don’t see asking as a requirement for ethical kissing.

There are acts that I think really should never be done without talking about them first, and I personally prefer to ask consent for a hell of a lot of stuff, including “basics” like hugging … but I’m not particularly interested in policing others’ kiss habits, and I frankly think making the kiss into a central example is a red herring in this whole conversation, partly for the reasons articulated by Infra in #482 and machina in #452.

Which actually brings me back to the thing about negs and freeze-outs and other LMR stuff. I’m pretty sure I care less about negs and kisses than I do about other stuff because they’re just milder, not because of personal preference. Which is not to say that both negs and kisses can’t be used in really bad ways (especially negs over a long period).

Was that really such a bad thing [that CT knew how to give a good blowjob before having sex]? The first time I was with a woman, and she knew it, and she later asked me how I had learnt how to touch her down there and “give head” in a way that made her come.

The point wasn’t that I have a problem with giving good blowjobs. I love giving good blowjobs. The point was that it’s completely fucked up that I was able to give good blowjobs by age 16 and didn’t figure out how to have an orgasm until my early twenties. Something is seriously wrong with a society where teenage girls are trained sexy dreamgirls and teenage boys often don’t have the first clue about how to find the clitoris. Fortunately, this is changing.

Clarisse May 22, 2011 at 4:43 am #

@HR — Sometimes the right way to do this is gender neutral language. In other cases, the right way to do it is to examine multiple gender analyses side-by-side (e.g. “slut shaming” alongside “wimp shaming”, “male entitlement” alongside “female entitlement”).

This is fair, and it’s true that these things all need to be addressed. But the thing that is missing from your analysis, I think, is a sense of how those conversations typically go. When you include a privileged group in a general conversation about oppression, 9 times out of 10 the privileged folks will basically dominate the conversation and it simply won’t be about everyone else. (Sorry for using scary feminist words like “privilege”, but it’s just true.) “What about the menz” is a sarcastic feminist in-joke, but it refers to a real phenomenon. As an example that doesn’t have much directly to do with feminism: in Africa, when doing focus groups for development work, I was encouraged to split off the women from the men and the youth from the adults and etc etc etc, because if you do (say) a qualitative survey with a group of kids and adults, the adults will just answer all the questions, and when the kids answer things they’ll have to mediate their answers for the adults who are present.

This is not just a problem of active oppression, it’s a problem of language, it’s a problem of people thinking their opinions matter and feeling confident enough to speak, and it’s problem of people having the ability to communicate to the (almost always privileged) person who is running the conversation. In ancient Rome, the underclasses spoke a completely different Latin from the upper classes — and they knew upper-class Latin (or they knew it enough), but the higher classes didn’t know lower-class Latin. This was not by design. It just happened, because that’s how privilege just happens. The less-privileged group has to learn the perspective of the more-privileged group, and the more-privileged group can walk away or fail to give a fuck pretty much whenever it wants.

It’s not quite that dramatic in the modern West, but it’s still happening. Among men vs. women, it’s a more slight phenomenon. But it’s very telling that PUAs — communities of men who band together in the struggle to understand the language of women — are an emergent and recent phenomenon, whereas female dating advice and makeup and such has been a massive industry forever, up to and including women historically self-administering poisons because it made them prettier (belladonna in the eyes and arsenic on the face: it really happened).

So here’s the point. It can actually be quite difficult to have these bilateral conversations openly in a way that they won’t be instantly dominated by men, who are then totally unapologetic about it, and refuse to accept any feminist critiques of how they’re acting. I think this problem is probably a lot less at this point than it has been in the past, especially among middle- to upper-middle-class nerd guys, which I’m guessing most guys on these threads are, and I think that’s why I’ve had a better experience with this stuff than a lot of previous feminists have. But these issues have to be acknowledged, and the history has to be acknowledged, for a critique to make sense. As Ampersand (of Alas! a Blog) — who is in fact male — once wrote about my initial “entitled cis het men” series:

There’s longtime experience, in feminist spaces, of men coming in and bringing these things up, but turning out to have a goal of either attacking feminism in general, or of dismissing women’s problems as relatively unimportant. They don’t often have a program for transforming society beyond “dismantle feminism and women should complain less because we should really be discussing men’s problems.” And these people, with very few exceptions, have no respect for the actual purpose of the forum they’re visiting, and if given the chance will dominate all discussions, and turn all topics into “what about the men/feminists suck.”

So feminists have become very defensive — and imo, they were right to do so, under the circumstances. Years of anti-feminists acting like that has, as the expression goes, “poisoned the well” — problems that (in my memory) were fairly routine topics of feminist discourse 20 years ago, have now become almost verboten.

In case you’re curious about whether my feelings about this have shifted over the past few years: yes, in some ways they have. As I’ve written about masculinity from a feminist perspective, I’ve found that feminists are typically reasonable about it; that I get trolled by men; and that feminist shorthands like “mansplaining” and “what about the menz” are unbelievably accurate in a number of circumstances. I remain committed to talking about masculinity and male personhood and all that good stuff, but I’ve become more understanding of the problems in those conversations and the difficulties with them.

In short, I’m fine with talking about wimp-shaming, but it has to not crowd out slut-shaming. I’m even okay with talking about female entitlement (as long as it doesn’t turn into “those feminist bitches”), but male entitlement has to still exist and be acknowledged. I think that behind these observations of mine are also some of the reasons why feminists have typically been unwilling to criticize the behavior of mainstream women. But simultaneously, for the record, this:

(Sam wrote), “if you asked and she thought of you as a wimp, be happy you didn’t have to put up with her. Just move on.” Which is interesting, because it takes the woman’s behaviour out of a structural gender context and makes it individually bad behaviour, and as such nothing that feminism can legitimately critique.

I think that attitude on the part of feminists is a critique. Apparently you want us to make a poster campaign or something, but it’s not like feminists are letting that behavior pass without comment when pressed. We’re condemning it.

ok, I need to go to bed.

Sam May 22, 2011 at 10:12 am #

Clarisse,

“Charlie Glickman is as feminist as they get.”

cool. I merely mentioned it because Snowdrop said that there was a ton of material about this by feminists as a reply to Hugh and me mentioning that it’s probably not something feminists do as real advice, beyond abstract demands.

“it really burns me that these manliness/PUA conversation threads on my blog seem to always look for ways to attack and blame feminism while not acknowledging that feminists are also some of the people who seem most concerned about these problems and who are working hardest to deal with them.”

I’d say that *some* feminists are among those people. Apart from that I’d actually agree with your observation, but I’d say it’s mostly a consequence of the fact that this conversation is happening on feminist turf, and there is feminist discourse hegemony. What about ze mehz may be still true in other respects, but with respect to gender it really feels more like it’s hard for guys to actually get their voices heard. So I suppose a bit of what you’re criticizing here is a consequence of feminism being dominant and guys feeling affected by it rather than other things that may also have affected them.

I’ll have to think about your playful dominance/kissing paragraph a bit… will get back to you about this.

“Something is seriously wrong with a society where teenage girls are trained sexy dreamgirls and teenage boys often don’t have the first clue about how to find the clitoris. Fortunately, this is changing.”

Yeah, although I’m not sure how common that is, to be honest. May be a greass is greener point yet again? I certainly experienced the pressure to know everything about female anatomy there is *while* at the same time being shamed about my potentially toxic sexuality. And I think being able to satisfy a woman still ranks *very* high on the “what it means to be a man” requirements list.

I think that attitude on the part of feminists is a critique. Apparently you want us to make a poster campaign or something, but it’s not like feminists are letting that behavior pass without comment when pressed. We’re condemning it.

Of course, it’s a personal critique of that one woman. And I suppose a lot of feminists actually don’t appreciate that kind of behaviour (at least rationally, I suppose some “nice guy” discussions are demonstrating that their emotional reaction is not always informed by their rational reaction), and yes, when pressed, they will condemn it. But it’s not putting her behavior in a structural gender context that acknowledges how this woman’s behaviour may lead men to behave in a certain way. This kind of behavior is not usually seen as a relevant gender variable. Remember those quotes from the Jason Katz interview/talk you once quoted? One of them was about how women should *actually actively* demonstrate that they (sexually) prefer different male behavior. I doubt a poster campaign would do much good, because I doubt a poster campaign will have much influence on sexual preferences and behavior that is a result of sexual preferences. But it should be acknowledged that those preferences are a variable that is influencing other people’s/mens’ behavior, and that criticizing men for their behavior to the extent that their behavior is a reaction to female behavior) without appropriately addressing the female behavior causing it, seems unfair.

machina May 22, 2011 at 10:54 am #

The point wasn’t that I have a problem with giving good blowjobs. I love giving good blowjobs. The point was that it’s completely fucked up that I was able to give good blowjobs by age 16 and didn’t figure out how to have an orgasm until my early twenties. Something is seriously wrong with a society where teenage girls are trained sexy dreamgirls and teenage boys often don’t have the first clue about how to find the clitoris. Fortunately, this is changing.

It reminds me of a guy I knew saying his girlfriend was great at blowjobs… because she came from somewhat traditionalist Dubai family and her father expected her to remain a virgin. Or “virgin” if you want.

Scootah May 22, 2011 at 5:43 pm #

@Hugh Ristik (#456)

Isn’t there a common critique of BDSM that it is not sufficiently progressive because it reinforces existing inequalities? Wouldn’t it be more progressive to ban Master/slave relationships and race play (to name just a couple) until after the revolution? Until then, those things only get in the way of us making a better world… right?

The only people I’ve ever heard critique BDSM on that level would also have critiqued all heterosexual sexual intercourse as rape.

Where the extreme edge of second wave feminism talked about restricting women’s freedoms and called it for the good of women (writers like Germaine Greer who critticised women who dressed sexually or who enjoyed sex with men while not wearing cardigans) – there’s a clear and obvious fallacy to the notion of restricting people’s right to engage in mutually consensual activities as part of a revolution towards freedom. Third wave feminism (more prominently characterized by ideas like the Slut Walk marches, or the notion that a woman should be able to dress and behave how she chooses, and if she wishes, enjoy sex as she pleases) is much more prominent in the idea that it is a woman’s right to adopt any sexual role she feels appropriate. There’s no credible argument that women’s freedoms should be limited for the sake of equality – just as there’s no argument that an african american who chooses to enjoy calling someone master shouldn’t be able to do so if they want to.

I think African American submissives or consensual ‘slaves’ are a much thornier issuer than the notion of BDSM reinforcing gender inequality.

Also, I’d argue that anyone who thinks BDSM reinforces existing inequalities probably hasn’t spent much, if any time around the public scene. There are MANY times when I feel that dominant women are more numberous and influential in the scene than dominant men. And submissive men outnumber dominant men at most BDSM events that I’ve been too.

Really, I think there is a lot of similarity between pickup and BDSM, because they both involve power dynamics. The main difference is that in pickup, these power dynamics are negotiated implicitly, while in BDSM, they are sometimes negotiated explicitly also. (Of course, that’s a lot because of the norms. If mainstream culture allowed for explicit communication to the extent that BDSM culture does, I’m sure PUAs would use it a lot more.)

I think the explicit vs implicit power dynamics are one of the healthiest things about BDSM and one of the things that has the most benefit for adoption outside of BDSM relationships. I also think that there’s huge benefit for explicit communication for PUA’s. I’ve seen very little PUA communication on topics like risk management and directing dynamic progression. My notable example is I know lots of PUA’s who could have turned an F-Close into a friends with benefits/fuck buddy hookup – but while they have lots of plans for getting laid, they have no plan for what happens after. The organic evolution of a hookup into something more is too risky for most PUA’s so it becomes very Barney Stintson esque in the escape/clean break mentality for a lot of guys.

Explicit negotiation might hinder the occasional attempt to fuck someone right now, but in terms of having fun sex partners on an ongoing basis – it’s a goldmine of opportunity.

Xakudo May 22, 2011 at 10:04 pm #

Clarisse:

it really burns me that these manliness/PUA conversation threads on my blog seem to always look for ways to attack and blame feminism while not acknowledging that feminists are also some of the people who seem most concerned about these problems and who are working hardest to deal with them.

What burns me is that these threads keep getting derailed with discussions of feminism at all, regardless of their validity.

Can we just say that feminism has a bunch of wonderful good and a bunch of horrible shit in it and be done with it? I mean, feminism is so varied that it really should not even all be under the same identity/label, so it is pretty much impossible to make generalized assertions about it (either good or bad) anyway.

I would much rather get on with actually talking about ethical pickup.

Xakudo May 22, 2011 at 10:37 pm #

Clarisse:

Gareth is 26. NS and TAP are both in their 30s. Make of that what you will :P

I would make of it about the same as I make of the fact that dating a 32 year old woman is way more awesome than dating women my own age or younger. ;-)

Age brings experience and–with it–wisdom, a certain kind of self-confidence, etc., regardless of gender.

However, I do think it is more pronounced in men. But I suspect a lot of that has to do with the particular masculinity boxes men tend to be pressured into by our culture when they are younger.

Something is seriously wrong with a society where teenage girls are trained sexy dreamgirls and teenage boys often don’t have the first clue about how to find the clitoris.

Absolutely. No disagreement.

However, you do make it sound awfully one-sided…

I would say there is also something seriously wrong with a society that robs men of a great deal of their sexuality by shaming them away from exploring anything other than their penis. Or that makes them feel deeply ashamed for reaching orgasm “too soon” (how fucked up is it that anyone should associate orgasm with shame, under any circumstances?).

But still, I absolutely agree. I do not mean this in a “this evens things out, so it is okay!” kind of way. Rather, I mean that since there is even more suffering, that actually makes it worse and more important to solve.

Clarisse May 23, 2011 at 3:39 am #

@Sam — But it should be acknowledged that those preferences are a variable that is influencing other people’s/mens’ behavior, and that criticizing men for their behavior to the extent that their behavior is a reaction to female behavior) without appropriately addressing the female behavior causing it, seems unfair.

I forget (I really do forget, I’m not trying to be snide) — are you one of the commenters who doesn’t think rape culture exists? If so, do you see that as at odds with this analysis?

@Xakudo — Or that makes them feel deeply ashamed for reaching orgasm “too soon” (how fucked up is it that anyone should associate orgasm with shame, under any circumstances?).

I mean, this shame wouldn’t exist if men didn’t typically stop participating in sex after they come. But I agree that the whole structure is busted. And we’ve sung this song before ;)

Agreed that I’d prefer it if feminism didn’t run the whole thread. It’s tiring and unproductive.

@Scootah — There are MANY times when I feel that dominant women are more numberous and influential in the scene than dominant men. And submissive men outnumber dominant men at most BDSM events that I’ve been too.

Really? Huh. This hasn’t been my experience at all.

I think the explicit vs implicit power dynamics are one of the healthiest things about BDSM and one of the things that has the most benefit for adoption outside of BDSM relationships. I also think that there’s huge benefit for explicit communication for PUA’s. I’ve seen very little PUA communication on topics like risk management and directing dynamic progression.

Agreed on the discussing explicit vs. implicit dynamics and risk management. Directing dynamic progression is part of some PUA discussions, though they’re a tiny fraction compared to the amount of stuff out there on basic pickup. It’s also really creepy how most PUAs frame discussions about ongoing relationships. They usually continue the “Never ever EVER lose control of the interaction” framework, discourage exhibition of vulnerability, STRONGLY discourage real conversation about preferences (beyond “That was unacceptable. Don’t do it again” type stuff) ….

Blackdragon is pretty prolific over at fastseduction, and witness how he feels about potentially having children:
http://www.fastseduction.com/discussion/fs?action=9&boardid=2&read=109322&fid=105

Here’s an interesting thread in the “playettes” section, where Blackdragon posted:
http://www.fastseduction.com/discussion/fs?action=9&boardid=2&read=108773&fid=31

To some extent I agree with a lot of this “outcome-independent” and “keep control of the frame” type of advice, but the mechanics are sometimes, um, kind of psycho.

Also note some of the commentary from women who enjoy dating “highly masculine men” (their words, not mine) on that thread. And then tell me men aren’t as fucked up, demanding, and hard to read as women are.

Our old friend Roissy has a post called “Dread” that I won’t link to because it’s ridiculously awful … it’s all about how to use dread as a manipulative tool. I especially recommend the bit at the end that he calls “Advanced Thermonuclear Option”. And by recommend, I mean that it makes me want to kill myself.

Anyway Scootah, I’m actually glad you brought that comment back into the discussion, because I’ve been meaning to get back to it. When I wrote:

But it takes a fundamentally different approach to gendered relationships than BDSM, poly, and feminism. The SC is about mating effectiveness right now. These other approaches are about making a better world, even if it means being less effective at mating right now.

I was being hasty. What I meant could be better described this way (section from my PUA chaser draft upcoming):

Can polyamory and S&M attitudes be incorporated into pickup artistry, or vice versa? I’m really not sure. PUA materials rarely talk about what actually happens during sex, or about how to honestly conduct a relationship, or about how to facilitate a loving and egalitarian dynamic rather than fighting to stay coldly in control at all times. On the other hand, S&M and polyamorous materials rarely talk about how to flirt, construct sexual tension and build up to an encounter.

Some PUA gurus teach physical sexual technique, or sexual communication, but the vast majority of conversations and materials have nothing to do with it. The notch in the bedpost strikes again: too many PUAs simply don’t care about a mutual experience. (This is another factor that can vary by misogyny level, though. Some PUAs promote maxims like “Always leave her better than you found her,” but many speak with incredible harshness about “using” women for a “pump and dump”.)

As J, the first PUA I ever met, told me: “A lot of my money comes from community guys who ask me for help deprogramming their pickup artist attitudes. They seduce a girl they really like and they want to keep her around, but they realize they don’t know how to relate to her.” Tactics like negging and responding to so-called shit tests can be fun, but even when they’re done in a non-evil way, how much can they possibly facilitate honest and intimate communication? The Game contains a striking moment when author Neil Strauss is hanging out with a bunch of smart PUAs, and realizes that while they’ve all got women at their beck and call, none of them have girlfriends. I heard similar tales from PUAs (and former PUAs) in person.

Clarisse May 23, 2011 at 3:48 am #

Note about above excerpt: HR, I do have a whole nother section about enthusiastic consent, including Riker’s Rules and that David Shade quote and some other stuff. But I maintain that the vast majority of the community really doesn’t get into sex ed or mutuality. And PUA detox is not something that I only heard about from J … in fact I believe Mark Manson has a post on it.

Hugh Ristik May 23, 2011 at 4:52 am #

Clarisse said:

Note about above excerpt: HR, I do have a whole nother section about enthusiastic consent, including Riker’s Rules and that David Shade quote and some other stuff.

Great.

But I maintain that the vast majority of the community really doesn’t get into sex ed or mutuality.

That’s a rather strong statement, and I’m not sure if either of us have access to sufficient data to confirm or disconfirm it. The majority of the community is probably familiar with Mystery’s M3 model, which emphasizes the need for attraction and comfort. That’s a lot more mutuality that many guys understand.

Even the practices that take risks with consent may actually have mutuality as a motivation. For instance, even something like continuing in the face of “token” resistance might have mutuality as a motivation if the PUA believes that she “really wants” him to do that. If she does, then his behavior is perfectly mutual. Doing a check-in would simply

The problem here is not necessarily a lack of interest in mutuality; the problem is that the PUA model of women is massively oversimplified.

Of course, the same scenario could occur with no interest in mutuality from a PUA. Or it could be the case where the PUA isn’t sure that she wants him to push past “token” resistance, but does it anyway, in which case he was negligent in determining mutuality.

PUAs can have the motivation for mutuality, but a lack of education about how to achieve it. The point is that miseducation about how to achieve mutuality and miseducation about women’s preferences do not necessarily indicate lack of interest in mutuality (though of course, often they do).

As for sex-ed, I think it’s difficult to say what proportion of PUAs are into it. I would not be at all surprise if PUAs are more into sex-ed than the male average.

I am perfectly comfortable encouraging more attention to mutuality and sex-ed in the seduction community. I just would like to see acknowledgment that PUAs have an above interest in mutuality and sex-ed, even though they also have an elevated rate of anti-consent ideas relative to the general population (though probably on par with other macho communities).

The seduction community has a wider variance for mutuality and consent. It’s similar to how feminism has a wide variance of views of men: women who are the most hateful towards men tend to be feminists, while women who are most empathetic towards men and understand men’s gender issues also tend to have some sort of feminist background.

Clarisse May 23, 2011 at 5:18 am #

The seduction community has a wider variance for mutuality and consent.

this is kind of something I’ve been trying to get at, so thanks for putting it so simply. but … “wider” than what? what is the SC being compared to in this context? did you just mean “wide”?

Xakudo May 23, 2011 at 7:34 am #

Clarisse:

I mean, this shame wouldn’t exist if men didn’t typically stop participating in sex after they come.

And men would not do that if not for cultural influences, which are reinforced by everyone, not just men. It does bother me greatly when people reduce complex social phenomenons to being “all about the menz”. (*cough*) Which is why I am being a bit nippy. Probably similar to how you get nippy when it is “all about the feminisimz”.

I will note that as I continue to bring up the lasting/stopping duality with women, I am actually getting mixed responses. Many women really actually do seem to want their partners to “last” for them, regardless. Part of this is, I suspect, because a lot of women enjoy intercourse more than clitoral-centric sexual discourse typically suggests*. And to that extent it is similar to when men get frustrated with their partner running out of lubrication quickly, I suppose. But part of it is, I also suspect, because a lot of women have this social norm ingrained in their heads just as much as guys do.

In any case, I do think the lasting/stopping duality is indeed a somewhat linked phenomenon, but I am increasingly seeing it as only part of the puzzle, since people (including women) do not always seem to respond to it in the way one would expect if that was all there was to it. In fact, I have gotten more positive responses from men than from women. But, small/selected sample size, grain of salt, and all that.

* In fact, I think clitoral-centric discourse is starting to rob many women in a similar way that penis-centric discourse robs men.

Sam May 23, 2011 at 8:37 am #

Clarisse,

I forget (I really do forget, I’m not trying to be snide) — are you one of the commenters who doesn’t think rape culture exists? If so, do you see that as at odds with this analysis?

I guess we never really sorted that out. I don’t think that rape is something that is promoted or merely condoned culturally in “the West”. I remember me reading a story from your masculinity in Africa reader that made me agree in the first followup thread that what was described there as rape culture.

So it really depends. If you’re saying that female desire for men to be dominant and aggregate female behavior influenicng men is part of rape culture, I’d agree with the observation, but I’d say it’s not a particularly useful term to describe the phenomenon. Or maybe I don’t understand what you’re trying to ask…

Infra May 23, 2011 at 9:59 am #

@Clarisse:

Some PUA gurus teach physical sexual technique, or sexual communication, but the vast majority of conversations and materials have nothing to do with it.

This, IME, is one of the areas where the public and private communities have marked differences. In those that have more… egalitarian attitudes toward the distribution of materials, so to say, there tends to be a hefty chunk of sex-ed stuff, including products from Penny Flame, Tristan Taormino, Midori, Violet Blue, Jack Morin, Jonti Searll, the Welcomed Consensus, Lee “Bridgett” Harrington, 2 Girls Teach Sex, et. al. Not that all of it is at that level, but there’s quite a substantial amount.

Not sure why that’s the case, though. It might be a result of the fact that the amount of material available tends to highlight the areas that aren’t covered in PUA instruction, or that the private nature of the communities is conducive to discussing more personal issues, or it might just be an effect of the distribution model. Or a combination of all three.

Infra May 23, 2011 at 11:48 am #

@Clarisse:

The point was that it’s completely fucked up that I was able to give good blowjobs by age 16 and didn’t figure out how to have an orgasm until my early twenties.

I’m convinced that this is a much more important thing than people generally realize. And not just in terms of the difference in body knowledge. I’ve become convinced that one of the major factors that affected my own sexual development was that I got kind of a male equivalent of the “sexy dreamgirl” form of self-education; I might have learned some visual aspects of sex through things like porn (it’s amazing how much of that a young boy could come across when scavenging for recyclables), but my main education, when I was young, came from coming across books like Douglas & Slinger’s _Sexual Secrets_, Jolan Chang’s _The Tao of Love and Sex_ and the translation of the _Kama Sutra_ that’s attributed to Burton. (In fact, I suspect that the section of the KS on “go-betweens” did more than a small amount to shape my understanding of seduction. If only implicitly. The fact that those books are dominantly/exclusively textual, not visual, probably also had a lot to do with it.) And that background, I think, ended up working back into affecting the visual aspects that I related to; otherwise, I don’t think that seeing Blake’s “Night Trips” or Ninn’s “Latex” would have been the pivotal experiences that they were for me, and I probably wouldn’t have developed the inclination to prefer films like “Fuck the World” and “Malice in Lalaland” over standard-issue porn flicks.

There’s only so much that I can say about how similar this might have been to what girls learn when they’re younger, obviously. But I think that there’s something about it that gives sex a cultural dimension that’s otherwise missing, or gets delayed in developing. I’m just not sure that I’d be able to put my finger on exactly how it works, other than to say that it allows for broad connections to be made.

—

Oh, and can I just add…

Blackdragon

[shudder]

The fact that that guy’s work has gotten popular? Very, very bad sign.

Clarisse Thorn May 23, 2011 at 2:33 pm #

Random link, this is so sad:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/03/4chan_using_fake_okcupid_profi.html

@Xakudo — yes, everyone reinforces these back & forths, and it sucks for everyone. As a note to the group: I think you’re reacting similarly to my comment as I reacted to your comment about prostitution on the 101 post.

@Sam — Or maybe I don’t understand what you’re trying to ask…

I was trying to get at, if you want feminists to acknowledge the overall effects of mainstream het women on the dating game, but you simultaneously resist the formulation of rape culture and reduce it to “individual behavior”, that feels like a contradiction to me.

@Infra — I know, Blackdragon is such a terrible person isn’t he? Not as bad as Roissy, but he’s of the same MRA/PUA unholy mix.

Xakudo May 23, 2011 at 3:04 pm #

Infra:

I’ve become convinced that one of the major factors that affected my own sexual development was that I got kind of a male equivalent of the “sexy dreamgirl” form of self-education; I might have learned some visual aspects of sex through things like porn (it’s amazing how much of that a young boy could come across when scavenging for recyclables), but my main education, when I was young, came from coming across books like Douglas & Slinger’s _Sexual Secrets_, Jolan Chang’s _The Tao of Love and Sex_ and the translation of the _Kama Sutra_ that’s attributed to Burton.

Ditto from me, actually. “The Joy of Sex”, and later on “The Guide To Getting It On” (great book, btw) provided me with a lot of sexual knowledge, and the latter actually helped–to a point–to ease some of my performance insecurities (e.g. realizing there are things other than intercourse I can do to please a woman). And this was all before I was 18, probably, and certainly before I had ever had sex.

Clarisse May 23, 2011 at 3:07 pm #

Well, the MHW thing and rape culture operate on different principles, I guess. The MHW argument is that social norms are centered on the preferences of women that feminists disagree with, whereas rape culture is about social norms disguising and excusing rape. But I intuitively feel as though there’s a connection between these two concepts, I’m just having trouble pinning it down.

Infra May 23, 2011 at 3:11 pm #

@Clarisse:

Re: your comment about the sexy dreamgirl shell, does this bit from a review of Latex (from IMDB) capture some of what you’re getting at?

The people he touches find inner peace once their dark secrets are out in the open, expunged of the guilt that made them easy to “read”, prompting the movie’s most memorable line: “Without the guilt, I would be blind.” Ironically, through the equation of physical interaction with suffering, Malcolm has become a mental impotent, unable to project himself into his own fantasies, symbolically wrapped up in latex.

It might be a darker version, or maybe not; but that was the kind of price that I ended up paying for the kind of perspective that I got. I may have ended up with a broader view of what sex could be, later on — those books, in spite of their flaws (notably, the homophobia in _Sexual Secrets_) helped to lay the foundation for that — but it’s worth noting that Malcolm Stevens was the first sexual character that I was able to identify with, and I think that the idea of one’s own pleasure taking a secondary position, and of first and foremost being able to please a partner before pleasing oneself, was a big part of producing that.

I still think that, in the end, it allows for connections to be made that wouldn’t otherwise occur. But to say that a scar can lead to insight doesn’t change the fact that it’s a scar.

I know, Blackdragon is such a terrible person isn’t he? Not as bad as Roissy, but he’s of the same MRA/PUA unholy mix.

He might not be as bad as Roissy, when it comes to content, but I think that Blackdragon is worse in a different way, because his stuff is steeped in burnout. That’s what concerns me the most about it: it’s an image of what pickup looks like once any hope that someone might have had is stripped from it.

His stuff shouldn’t be viewed as instruction — it should be viewed as a warning.

AB May 23, 2011 at 4:23 pm #

@Infra:

Count me as one of the men who doesn’t.

I mean, think about it. Men are usually coming at this with loads of advice on how to do it — some good, some bad, and some useless, some wanted and some unwanted — from peers and adults, both men and women, including friends, parents and acquaintances, not to mention media. We’re in a position to observe other men doing their approaches, and usually have years of background in at least making the attempt to approach, with varying levels of success and varying results, all of which feed into the learning process. Further, we’re doing this in a context that encourages it, if not demands it, even if it’s a context that also carries the expectation that, many times, we’re going to fail in the attempt (which, to a degree, blunts the impact of failing and makes things like playing the numbers game possible to tolerate). But even with that, we still manage to come off as awkward, presumptuous, entitled, etc. a lesser or greater amount of the time. Not to mention the dreaded “creepy.”

Agreed. My experience as a woman is that I have no idea about how to approach (a female poster here recently asked if there was any advice for women, and was told that all the “How to make yourself passively attractive in a way which will encourage men vastly below your own level of attractiveness to approach you” in women’s magazines counted as advice, but I agree with her that it doesn’t do much good if you want to be the one pursuing a relationship).

I also live in a world where a) I’m constantly told, especially by men, that all men are horndogs who’d be willing to bang all but the most ugly and pathetic women, and b) I know that realistically, I’m probably going to get rejected quite a lot if I approach. There’s very little to take the sting of that humiliation, even if I’m normally the one to reject.

SnowdropExplodes May 23, 2011 at 4:33 pm #

@ Infra:

…the translation of the _Kama Sutra_ that’s attributed to Burton.

I found a copy of this in a charity shop and thought I should read it to find out what makes it such a famous book. To be honest, So much of it seemed to me to be horribly agency-denying and muddying of communication of consent (especially for the woman). For a book that’s supposed to have been part of the big sexual revolution, I found it extremely normative and prescriptive! (In fact, for those reasons, I have so far only got about half way through it.)

When I was 15, the teacher in my “Social and vocational Preparation” class teaching sex ed advised the class to go out and buy “The Good Sex Guide” which was a companion to a television series (hosted, IIRC, by Toyah Wilcox, who was later the narrator on the Tellytubbies, but I digress). That was where my (self-)education started. (This teacher was also the one who canvassed the teachers’ lounge to find out what the best types of condoms were, when the class asked about that.)

AB May 23, 2011 at 5:02 pm #

@Hugh Ristik:

This is going to sound unfriendly because I was short on time and had a lot to say about a lot of issues.

This is a collective action problem. In practice, men don’t act as an organized bloc, and there is a lot of intrasexual competition between men, so we run into game-theoretic problems.

That’s not specific to men. I’d argue that men prefer women who watch Sex & the City, buy lots of shoes, are focussed on material wealth (especially when obtained through men) and traditionally shallow values in general, try to ‘betaise’ men, are insecure, send lots of mixed signals, expect men to guess their intentions, and care deeply about how they appear to outsiders. And women don’t act as an organized bloc either, so they’ll largely stick to the patterns which have been successful for them. But that doesn’t stop individuals and groups of women from trying to change that, and it shouldn’t stop men either.

Will women actually feel that they are missing out if some pussy guy can’t make a move without ruining the mood by talking? This is not an effective takeaway. There are still plenty more fish in the sea, especially for young conventionally attractive women.

Should men actually have any right to complain when they go after young conventionally attractive women? I have heard plenty of guys (including some here) say that the 10% most attractive men don’t have the issues that the SC is allegedly trying to help with, so why are men especially entitled to act like jerks just because the same holds true for women?

Oh, if only we had a group of men dedicated to figuring out what is attractive to women in the real world to help out with this ;)

Yeah, that would be great, but most men aren’t even considering to help give women a chance to figure out what they like, so what are the odds of such a group being created?

First, I never said that women’s dating behavior can “only” be changed by other women. I said that women are “probably better positioned” to do so. Women may be in a better position to change men’s attitudes, but they aren’t the only ones in that position. As we agreed, men do have potential to change women’s attitudes about kissing by asking in a hot way, for instance.

It sounds to me like you’re suggesting that women should be the ones to make all the primary changes, period (they’re “probably better positioned” to change the behaviour of other women and “may be in a better position” to change men’s attitudes too), and yet in post 464 you argued that the SC might be doing a better job creating a better world than feminism and BDSM because the guys in the SC could change men’s behaviour.

I think the ability of men to change women’s preferences about masculinity is limited, because men protesting those preferences or refusing to fulfill them often just look like failures of masculinity who can be easily dismissed. Men asking women to like to be asked has some of the same problems that asking has: many mainstream heterosexual women will simply judge those men as unconfident and wimpy.

If some guys don’t want to be judged as wimps for asking, why should heterosexual women care? It would be kind of like fat women asking heterosexual men to stop devaluing them. Who cares what the wimps and fat chix think?

Why should people be moved by seemingly-self-serving pleas that the other gender find them attractive based on a characteristic that they currently judge as unattractive? Pleas to change one’s preferences could easily be abused.

I’m glad that you acknowledge that the same thing holds true for women. But just as skinny and highly attractive women have a much better opportunity to go against this, so do men who can ask in the right way.

I think part of the reason the stereotype about the fat woman complaining about sexism never entered even my most sexist, nerdy circle of friends (apart from feminist-bashing not being an institution here like it is in the US) is that the most traditionally feminine girl in the group is fat, while I’m skinnier, more conventionally attractive, and often more femininely dressed, while also being more androgynous compared to her. It also helps that a couple of the guys have had feminist-minded girlfriends, one being very conventionally attractive, and the other one extremely sensual and charismatic. So those stereotypes died a hard and fast death right there.

When it comes to guys, one of the things that helped convince me that niceness wasn’t a weakness in men has been to hang out with a couple of guys who’re extremely thoughtful, caring, considerate, and physically unimposing, but who’re still attractive, confident, and relaxed. And I have no doubt that men who’re otherwise attractive, confident, and good with girls can do more than all the women in the world combined to change women’s perception of asking, it’s just that most of them aren’t interested in changing anything.

I think your refusal to acknowledge the reality of Nice Guys is blinding you a bit here. The majority of insecure guys are unattractive, and what’s worse, they’re also often unpleasant to be around. Many women come to despise such guys and equate them with everything uncomfortable and unsexy. It has less to do with the actual asking than it has with who’s asking (and to some extent, how they’re asking), and in my experience, guys who’re comfortable in checking for boundaries are the best cure against these perceptions a woman could want.

In contrast, women can say that they find being asked attractive and confident, which has the potential to change other women’s minds via social proof. Also, women can say that they don’t want men to avoid asking by default.

Why would it become so much more sexy to women to have men ask them just because they hear another woman say that it’s her preference? Unlike a reluctance to date conventionally unattractive people, I don’t think this is related to social pressure, since asking tends to take place in private (as one shallow teenage model I went to school with said “I want a man who looks macho but is still able to cry. He just shouldn’t do it in public.”). I think having attractive and confident men talking about how they ask first would be much more effective.

Yesterday, I visited a male friend who’s known as a player in our mutual surroundings and who’s always provoked some pretty sexual reactions in me. We talked about our mutual flirt and how far we should take it, and I told him that I wouldn’t mind him being more forward, and that I would be perfectly able to say no if it went too far for me. He answered that he didn’t doubt my ability to say no, but if it ever came far enough that I would need it, he would feel like it was a failure on his part.

For all that he’s able to get into physical contact with women quicker than most guys are comfortable with, that he considers having only one one-night stand a week on his vacation to be low, and that he doesn’t mind directly telling me that he wants to fuck me without doing the least to hide that he’s flirting with (and probably fucking) other women rather indiscriminately, he’s still more concerned about consent than most of the guys I’ve been with. And it doesn’t seem to harm his success with women at all.

Yes, men can prove with their actions that asking can be sexy, but that takes a certain amount of experience with women and skill, whether natural or learned. As for actual verbal argument, I don’t think men can do much to encourage mainstream heterosexual women to find men’s asking attractive, but I do think other women could offer convincing arguments. If I say “I ask, and the women I’m dating find it sexy” that’s probably going to less persuasive than Clarisse saying “guys ask me, and I find it sexy.”

Again, why would Clarisse be able to convince other women what is sexy? And why would she want to start telling other women what they’re supposed to be attracted to? Besides, it’s more a matter of showing than telling. I can say that I’m considered an attractive woman in the real world and that the discrimination of less conventionally attractive women bothers me a lot even though I’m not much of a target for it (unless my appearance is particularly sloppy), but how big an impression would that do? On the other hand, me and the feminist girlfriends I mentioned seem to have been rather effective in real life debunking the myth that feminism is for ugly prudes.

I actually think a guy saying that women find it sexy when he asks would be more convincing to women than a woman saying it, because I tend to believe people more when they mention a specific trait being attractive (such as a woman saying that she gained weight and still gets admiring glances from men) than when they try to convince people of their sexiness in the first place. But more than anything, I think guys who defy stereotypes in real life (nice guys who aren’t weak and spiteful, sluts who care about consent) do much more to debunk them than women do.

Note that I’m not placing an obligation on women to change the attitudes of other women (because I’ve been burned by feminist arguments that men should police other men’s attitudes). I am trying to point out fruitful strategies for change for whoever chooses to take them up.

Sorry to say this, but with your extensive focus on Things Feminism Is Doing Wrong, it doesn’t seem that way. I would actually appreciate it if, say, the arguments about why wimp-shaming was an issue would include more specific advise to women, such as asking them to speak out against it when they hear it.

Instead, what I get is either “I know it’s not the topic of the conversation and that no one here has actually done it, but wimp-shaming is such a huge problem in other places that we should talk more about it here than about whatever the original topic is (especially if the original topic comes even close to focussing on women’s experiences)” or “I don’t care whether or not you’ve ever experienced it, because somewhere on the internet, a feminist which you or may not know about has engaged in wimp-shaming and/or refused to acknowledge it, and she has only been debunked by 15 other feminists! This is a huge issue and feminism (and by extension, you, because I say so) should spend more time on it than all that insignificant women’s rights babble”.

It may be a difference in perspective, but compared to the criticisms you and Sam have made of feminism, I find the demands for people to speak up if they encounter injustices and abusive behaviour to be the height of courtesy. And compared to the way I’ve been treated by non-feminists in general, guys expecting me to ‘police’ other women’s behaviour when they are being sexist probably wouldn’t even register as a critique, because it’s just so mild compared to all the other shit.

Infra May 23, 2011 at 5:13 pm #

@SnowdropExplodes:

Daniélou’s translation is far superior, not least because of the cultural context it provides. But when it comes to the impact that the Burton version had on me, it’s probably important to note that I was reading these books when I was 12 or 13 — obviously, I didn’t get them through official channels — and had, for comparison, the porn that I’d found while collecting cans and such, which ranged from Playboy to Hustler to Puritan. At that age, and with explicit hardcore on the other end, the sections that dealt with the different ways of marking and striking, types of noises and the circumstances for them, related arts, use of go-betweens, herbal prescriptions and folk magic, body type descriptions and classifications, etc. were a massive contrast, and to this day it still highlights how specific the focus of most sex-ed materials are, combined with being somewhat scattershot. (I should also note that I was in a parochial school at the time, but one with a remarkably progressive sex-ed program, considering that it was the early ’80s.)

It’s difficult to underestimate the impact that it had — it wasn’t just a matter of techniques, it was a matter of being exposed to an entirely different approach, an entirely different framework for exploring and understanding things related to sex. That’s where its value was, and why I think that most versions completely miss the point. Most people who read the KS aren’t getting any idea of what the KS actually is.

(The same could be said of the other two books that I mentioned, though that would apply more to Jolan Chang’s than to Douglas & Slinger’s. And with regard to the latter, I think that it was the attempt to Westernize the ideas that did the most damage, producing most of the effect that I mentioned above. Chang’s did that too, to a degree. But not nearly as much.)

Infra May 23, 2011 at 5:37 pm #

(Bah. That should have been overestimate up there, not underestimate.)

@AB:

Yeah, I get what you mean about the combination of the stereotype that guys will be willing to have sex with just about anyone with the likelihood of rejection during an approach. Seems to me that when a lot of guys talk about how easy it would be for a woman to approach a man, they’re usually not thinking neutral — they’re thinking positive outcome first, then working backward. Not the same stereotype, exactly, but it’s still the assumption that willingness is the default.

Sam May 23, 2011 at 6:22 pm #

Clarisse,

“I was trying to get at, if you want feminists to acknowledge the overall effects of mainstream het women on the dating game, but you simultaneously resist the formulation of rape culture and reduce it to “individual behavior”, that feels like a contradiction to me.”

Why? “rape culture” emphasized only one aspect of structural influence. I don’t see how assuming effects of structural effects as such, which I have never disputed, are contigent upon the acceptance of *one* particular disputed effect. I do believe that men influence women’s behaviour, and that the threat of male violence is a particularly important element thereof, but I don’t think that equals a cutlure that suggests or merely condonces rape. I believe that every tool in the “manage male sexuality” toolbox is (and has been) about preventing rape, even if the motivation has not always been concern about sexual violence as such (that’s a rather modern notion).

machina May 24, 2011 at 2:32 am #

Sam, I think it’s important to note that Clarisse defined rape culture as “about social norms disguising and excusing rape” which I think is quite different from your definition, that society “suggests or merely condones rape”.

Sam May 24, 2011 at 4:08 am #

Machina,

I think it’s important to note that Clarisse defined rape culture as “about social norms disguising and excusing rape” which I think is quite different from your definition, that society “suggests or merely condones rape”.

is it? Maybe that’s a linguistic problem, but I’d say that “disguise and excuse” is a subset of “condone”. Isn’t it?

I don’t think that society as such is excusing rape, even if there may be a tendency to look for alternative explanations if a rape is alleged – but I’d suggest that *that* tendency is proof of the gravity that is socially attributed to such accusations, not proof that society is treating this subject with negligeance.

“Disguise” seems a be a bit trickier, because, as opposed to “excuse”, it seems to entail more of the consent discussion and its complexities (cf. the discussion in the followup thread about the film “where is your line”).

Clarisse May 24, 2011 at 4:27 am #

Still thinking about the rape culture connection, still not sure.

Infra, I think I understand, though of course I’m not sure. But I also think that higher self-awareness or particular kinds of resources can often make you vulnerable to guiding/teaching others without getting as much out of it, if that makes sense. (I’ve been noticing lately that I just feel exhausted by this one girl who’s asking me for help with her emerging BDSM identity. She’s got all this anxiety and she’s such a mess and I feel sympathy, but I’m just tired of the amount of emotional labor she seems to want from me. I should charge for life coaching or something.)

AB wrote,

That’s not specific to men. I’d argue that men prefer women who watch Sex & the City, buy lots of shoes, are focussed on material wealth (especially when obtained through men) and traditionally shallow values in general, try to ‘betaise’ men, are insecure, send lots of mixed signals, expect men to guess their intentions, and care deeply about how they appear to outsiders. And women don’t act as an organized bloc either, so they’ll largely stick to the patterns which have been successful for them. But that doesn’t stop individuals and groups of women from trying to change that, and it shouldn’t stop men either.

Right! And to build on this: Telling feminists that things would be better if feminist women would work on changing other women’s preferences is kind of like telling PUAs that things would be better if PUAs would work on changing other men’s preferences. (It’s not a perfect analogy, but I think the issues are similar.)

In terms of consent, I’ve been thinking about this, and I just don’t buy that consent is a problem best solved at the “supply side”. Knowing oneself and one’s preferences is a factor, of course, but having a person who respects one’s boundaries is a prerequisite.

AB also wrote,

I’m glad that you acknowledge that the same thing holds true for women. But just as skinny and highly attractive women have a much better opportunity to go against this, so do men who can ask in the right way.

And to jump forward from this, I’d argue that PUAs are actually in a way better position to influence mainstream het women than feminists are. Why the hell would a mainstream het chick listen to me? I mean, I’m an HB6/7 brunette who rarely even wears eyeliner (and I’m actually way more mainstream-looking, much of the time, than a lot of feminists I know). She’s much more likely to be influenced by a guy she’s very attracted to.

So actually, incorporating consent ethics into PUA is probably more likely to change both mainstream het men AND mainstream het women’s behavior. There is the problem of ensuring that PUAs are still attractive to mainstream het women, supposedly, but I’m not convinced this is as much of a problem as it seems. If it were a problem, then Riker’s Rules wouldn’t work as an LMR tactic.

(As an aside, I’ve actually thought about this before because I sometimes give my sexual communication workshop to very different audiences. Audiences that seem to like me: feminists, queer kids, fraternities. Audience that I really have trouble connecting with: sororities.)

Ok, so this got back to feminism. But I was actually thinking about that some more, too — that is, moderating the conversation …. I do think feminism is relevant here, I just … really want to avoid throwing blame around. I think feminist consent advocacy is relevant to PUA, and I agree that some PUA ideas can be helpful with feminist consent advocacy, and I’ve even consulted with PUAs about some of my feminist consent advocacy in the past. But I really want to avoid making this thread about feminist consent advocacy. It’s easy for me to get distracted and contribute to those derails, so I might not walk the walk like I should, but it seems like this is a fairly unique discussion of PUA stuff, and I’d rather not lose track of that.

SnowdropExplodes May 24, 2011 at 8:18 am #

@ Sam:

I believe that every tool in the “manage male sexuality” toolbox is (and has been) about preventing rape, even if the motivation has not always been concern about sexual violence as such (that’s a rather modern notion).

To a certain extent this is true, but it has an interesting counter-effect, which is to reveal the underlying assumption that men “naturally” rape (i.e. are unable to control sexual urges, etc), and therefore if a man rapes, then it was natural for him to do so and he cannot be altogether blamed for it (this also accounts for the “short skirt” “defence”, a police officer’s elucidation of which prompted the SlutWalk phenomenon in protest). Attitudes of this type are revealed to be held by something like 1/3 of all British people, meaning that in a jury of 12, it is quite likely (a little bit short of 80% of the time, if I’ve done my sums correctly) that at least 3 members will be swayed by a “short skirt defence” of some kind; meaning that even a majority “guilty” verdict is impossible to reach in those instances.

I would go so far as to say that this constitutes “condoning” rape, inasmuch as it means that rape typically goes unpunished. I don’t know off-hand the percentage of rape accusations that reach trial, that are acquitted (the commonly quoted figure of 6% is for total attrition from the initial complaint to the police, and a lot of cases are dropped before trial due to the victim choosing not to continue proceedings, or the police or Crown Prosecution Service deciding there is no case to answer).

The scripts around “short skirt defences” and so on, form a pattern of “excusing” rape; scripts surrounding the demand for an absolute, clear, and unequivocal “no!” in order to call something “rape”, and those like Ken Clarke’s recent remarks, to the effect that certain types of rape (e.g. “date rape”) are less serious, or don’t “really” count as rape (attitudes that are distressingly common in society), constitute disguising it. And personally, I do think that this adds up to society as a whole tending to condone rape.

machina May 24, 2011 at 6:23 pm #

Sam,

is it? Maybe that’s a linguistic problem, but I’d say that “disguise and excuse” is a subset of “condone”. Isn’t it?

It depends on how you’re using the words. You also said that rape culture was “suggesting” which, beyond it’s own meaning, gives a context to “condone”. Well, it gives a context if you are using words contextually rather than atomistically. Regardless, if you used those words to indicate the same meaning that Clarisse used her words then, miscommunication aside, they mean the same thing.

Sam May 25, 2011 at 7:47 am #

Snowdrop,

“but it has an interesting counter-effect, which is to reveal the underlying assumption that men “naturally” rape (i.e. are unable to control sexual urges, etc), and therefore if a man rapes, then it was natural for him to do so and he cannot be altogether blamed for it (this also accounts for the “short skirt” “defence”, a police officer’s elucidation of which prompted the SlutWalk phenomenon in protest).”

this is true, but it’s about (questionable) assumptions about the biological nature of men, not about cultural paradigms that “require” rape as an aspect of masculinity. I’d say that those assumptions about men are prevalent, which leads to the effect you’re describing, but I’d not say that that makes the culture a “rape culture”. If you’d say it’s a culture in which questionable assumptions about the nature of men and male sexuality exist, and those assumptions have problematic effects when it comes to rape-prosecution, I’d say that’s true – but I don’t think that “rape culture” is an appropriate term for this phenomenon. If you remember the story of the African who was forced by teenage peer pressure to rape a girl, that’s different, that’s rape as a cultural requirement of masculinity, and thus, I’d say rape-culture. So, remembering this TED presentation I linked to recently in the last masculinity thread, in which an American male feminist explained how he was in a similar situation when he was young – to the extent that *such* pressures exist, I’d say it makes sense to speak of a rape culture.

SnowdropExplodes May 25, 2011 at 8:24 am #

@ Sam:

I think I see your distinction, but I would argue that a culture that both makes sexual conquest (which is a distressingly common trope in society) synonymous with success at masculinity, and also diminishes the role of free consent (and communication of consent) in acquiring access to sex, adds up to putting pressure towards sex without consent (i.e. rape). This is a different “degree” of rape-culture than what you describe, but the same key element of providing social impetus towards committing rape – albeit in general we might suggest that in our culture it is not usually “intended” as rape. It just turns out to be sex without consent, which statement is not to go down the path of saying there are different degrees of rape that are more or less valid than each other.

And the idea that men are always and uncontrollably “up for it” promotes the possibility of rape-culture in the other direction as well. If a man always wants it, then whenever a woman wants it with him, he (logically) must also want it (even when he says he doesn’t). That there is currently much less of a social requirement for women to want sex for themselves (they’re only supposed to want it when men want it from them, and then they should put up a bit of resistance – see sex as conquest note above) is the main reason why this is not the same as the cultures you and I have outlined.

Sam May 25, 2011 at 12:36 pm #

Snowdrop,

I think I see your distinction, but I would argue that a culture that both makes sexual conquest (which is a distressingly common trope in society) synonymous with success at masculinity, and also diminishes the role of free consent (and communication of consent) in acquiring access to sex, adds up to putting pressure towards sex without consent (i.e. rape).

I disagree, I don’t think “free” – assuming you mean explicit/verbal? – consent is socially discouraged in any meaningful way quite the opposite, certainly not beyond observations that it is not usually an effective way to communicate because people are unlikely to react favorably. So I think the pressure on men is to conquer women, *and conquer their consent*, because conquest without consent is not conquest (insert my observations about Foucault and consent in ancient Greece). Consenual conquest aka seduction is synomymous with masculine/male success, not merely having sex – in terms of the Foster Wallace equation: any value transfer *must* be authorized ;)

So you could say that cultural demands on male studness coupled with female preferences about implicit communication lead to a situation in which miscommunication has a higher likelihood to occur. On the other hand, even Thomas Millar has written about how miscommunication is actually rare and “the predators” (equally rare) tend to know what they do and are repeat offenders. And I believe the only social operating license they have is one that is fundamental to every legal system, irrespective of the crime and irrespective of the prevalence of false alligations: in dubio pro reo.

This is a different “degree” of rape-culture than what you describe, but the same key element of providing social impetus towards committing rape – albeit in general we might suggest that in our culture it is not usually “intended” as rape. It just turns out to be sex without consent, which statement is not to go down the path of saying there are different degrees of rape that are more or less valid than each other.

I think there is a quite a difference between something that happens as a “cultural accident” and something that happens as an intended social practice. And since rape is dependent on the intention to rape (which in itself will not lead to procecution if the subjectively raped partner is himself/herself subjectively consenting) and/or a shared understanding of the lack of consent, and subjective lack of consent of *one* involved person, cannot logically constitute rape, there are certainly differing degrees of non-consensual sex not all of which constitute rape (in a meaningful, albeit non-legal, way).

And the idea that men are always and uncontrollably “up for it” promotes the possibility of rape-culture in the other direction as well. If a man always wants it, then whenever a woman wants it with him, he (logically) must also want it (even when he says he doesn’t).

Yes, I suppose if a guy went to a police station claiming he was raped by a women he’d be laughed out of the station.

“That there is currently much less of a social requirement for women to want sex for themselves (they’re only supposed to want it when men want it from them, and then they should put up a bit of resistance – see sex as conquest note above) is the main reason why this is not the same as the cultures you and I have outlined.”

No, even if there is similarity in effect, your argument is post hoc ergo propter hoc, in my opinion. As long as there is no social *intent* to prove masculinity by being sexual violent, I don’t think it makes sense to speak of a rape culture, even if the requirements on men to accurately guess and miraculously know are problematic, not least because they *can* lead to miscommunication, even if it doesn’t appear they usually do.

Since everyone has so much to gain from more explicit comunication about this, the question really becomes why such communication is not particularly common. I believe this has more to with fundamental human approach and communication patterns (keeping things ambiguous because preferences aren’t clear/stable over time, potentially not even at any given point in time) than with social pressures towards sexual violence.

So, I stand by the limited extent to which I find the term a useful and appropriate description of cultural pressures that I mentioned in my previous comment.

Infra May 25, 2011 at 1:01 pm #

@Sam:

Yes, I suppose if a guy went to a police station claiming he was raped by a women he’d be laughed out of the station.

IME, it’s “Yeah, that’s a textbook case. But given how things are, there really isn’t much that you can do.”

Being laughed out of the station would almost be better.

Anyway, I had a response to SnowdropExplodes’ comment (and the general issue) that I was considering posting, but since it might be too much of a derail, I’ve posted it at my place instead.

AB May 25, 2011 at 1:58 pm #

What does MHW stand for? I missed the reference and can’t find it anywhere.

Clarisse May 25, 2011 at 3:04 pm #

Mainstream Heterosexual Women, sorry. I started using it kind of reflexively.

SnowdropExplodes May 25, 2011 at 8:19 pm #

I don’t think “free” – assuming you mean explicit/verbal? – consent is socially discouraged in any meaningful way quite the opposite, certainly not beyond observations that it is not usually an effective way to communicate because people are unlikely to react favorably.

By “free”, I mean “articulated from one’s own interest/desire (which may be for any freely chosen reason, be it profit, emotion, or physical desire), and not tricked, coerced, or assumed.”

In my experience, masculinity is presented as requiring tricks, varying degrees of coercion (varying in subtlety and type of leverage), or being able to assume consent (which is the generalised case of the “shrot skirt defence” in rape cases). Conversely, women are actively discouraged from expressing free consent (because of the threat of the label “slut”, thus giving rise to LMR and ASD, and the sometimes questionable tactics to deal with those, again blurring the lines of free consent).

I think there is a quite a difference between something that happens as a “cultural accident” and something that happens as an intended social practice.

While that is true, it makes very little difference to the victim of rape. The use of the term “rape culture” is varied, but my preferred understanding that I have seen used, is to describe the way various social norms add up into an “unintended” norm of allowing rape.

…there are certainly differing degrees of non-consensual sex not all of which constitute rape (in a meaningful, albeit non-legal, way).

Seriously? Did you really just try to show that not all rape is rape? Can you give an example of “non-consensual sex” that does not constitute rape “in a meaningful way”? I don’t think I managed to follow your series of clauses and conjunctions but it seemed as though you were saying that, “It’s not “meaningfully” rape if the rapist doesn’t understand himself (or herself) as raping.” If that really is what you were saying then, I would say that it is certainly meaningful for the person who believes it was rape (i.e. the victim).

No, even if there is similarity in effect, your argument is post hoc ergo propter hoc, in my opinion.

I cannot see how you reach that conclusion.

As long as there is no social *intent* to prove masculinity by being sexual violent, I don’t think it makes sense to speak of a rape culture

On that, we are just going to have to disagree. I think it makes sense to speak of rape culture where there is a social intent to prove masculinity by having sex, and the means by which sex (or consent to sex) is obtained is considered relatively immaterial. I think it makes sense to speak of any culture that produces sexual violence as a consequence of the different pressures within it, as a “rape culture”, even if there is not any direct pressure towards “sexual violence”. I have tried to demonstrate why I think that this describes fairly closely the way sexuality is presented socially in Western cultures. You remain unconvinced, so we have to accept that our viewpoints are not going to come together on this point.

While I accept that you feel the terminology is inexact, the terminology is what it is; it is like the arguments I’ve seen that “fuzzy logic” should be called something else because it’s not “properly” logic. The facts are, it is called fuzzy logic, and it is called “rape culture”, because those are the terms that have stuck.

Sam May 25, 2011 at 9:21 pm #

Snowdrop,

“Seriously? Did you really just try to show that not all rape is rape?”

no I didn’t. That’s a tautology. I explained that not every non-consensual sex is logically rape.

We had the case of a couple in which the women asked for a performed rape at some point but wasn’t up for it when and how it happened. He thought he was doing what she wanted and had asked for, she felt she was actually raped. It’s an extreme example, but without at least being aware of the possibility of raping someone non-consensual sex is not rape. There are two versions o f reality and however painful the perspective of the victim is, it’s not the only perspective that counts, and it’s still not rape, it’s a painful accident if there was no understanding of the lack of consent in the subjective reality of the other person. Of course, in reality, this subjective reality will have to be deduced from external evidence.

Imagine yourself having explicitly consensual sex, and your girlfriend would silently revoke her consent. Her consent is a subjective state of mind, and logically doesn’t need to be externalised. Equally, her revoking her consent doen’t need to be externalised to be valid subjectively. So, after subjectivley thinking “no” you’d be raping her in her subjective reality, while you’d be blissfully unaware of her changed position and still believe in her explicit earlier statement of consent.

Now that’s a crazy example, but it goes to show that you / someone in that position needs to be aware of what’s going on to have the logical capacity to rape.

Should you somehow notice her withdrawal of consent, and not stop, you’d be raping her. But not before – even though the sex would still be non-consensual. You see the difference?

[Similarly, if you'd subjectively believe that your girlfriend is not consenting and you'd still have sex with her, while she may have subjectively consented, you'd still have raped her (of course, in this case she won't care, but you would still have subjectively ignored what you assumed with all due certainty to be her lack of consent, you would have raped her.)]

Btw, I argued this at some point in the manliness discussion, and Clarisse agreed with me, although she also correctly noted that it’s not going to matter for most practical matters and felt the argument may be therotically valid but politically/practically dangerous.

I cannot see how you reach that conclusion.

Because you only assume the subjective position of the victim. If only that perspective counts, everything that was subjective rape was also objective rape. As I explained above that is not necessarily the case. But with the inclusion of multiple perspectives, just choosing one assumes a priori causation when only the occurence can be verified.

“You remain unconvinced, so we have to accept that our viewpoints are not going to come together on this point.”

Probably.

“While I accept that you feel the terminology is inexact, the terminology is what it is; it is like the arguments I’ve seen that “fuzzy logic” should be called something else because it’s not “properly” logic. The facts are, it is called fuzzy logic, and it is called “rape culture”, because those are the terms that have stuck.”

Yeah, possibly. But not because of semantic accuracy. But if there’s only “take it or leave it”, I’ll have to leave it for the reasons I pointed out. I have also explained the extent to which I think the term could be usefully and, I think, correctly applied.

Infra May 25, 2011 at 10:41 pm #

@Sam:

The crucial issues that your analysis overlooks, IMO, are those of reckless endangerment and negligence. Your example of the negotiated rape scenario would fall into that category (e.g., were safewords or other safety protocols discussed beforehand?); so would situations involving intoxicants, and those in which signs of hesitation or the like were present, but not acted upon as signs to stop (which brings us into the realm of enthusiastic consent).

Even with my own experiences as background, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that all forms of sexual violation should be considered strict liability crimes (statutory rape, child molestation and similar being the exceptions). But I doubt that a strict requirement of mens rea would appropriately address the issues involved, either. (Nor would I agree that mens rea is necessarily sufficient in the absence of actual harm; the overall moral evaluation of that would weigh heavily toward the abhorrent, I’m sure, but that itself doesn’t make it criminal. There, we’re getting into the domain of what would and wouldn’t fall under the scope of CNC agreements.)

Hugh Ristik May 25, 2011 at 11:17 pm #

SnowdropExplodes said:

Seriously? Did you really just try to show that not all rape is rape? Can you give an example of “non-consensual sex” that does not constitute rape “in a meaningful way”?

The confusion between you and Sam is because the word “rape” is generally used to mean several different things:

1. Nonconsensual sex
2. Intentionally nonconsensual sex (i.e. men’s rea occurred)

As for an example:

Some men including myself in this thread have described the experience of women initiating unprotected sex without asking. Although I wanted to have sex with them, I never consented to unprotected sex (see the Julian Assange case). So, that sex was nonconsensual.

If “rape” simply meant “nonconsensual sex,” then I would be a survivor of rape. But I don’t see it that way. In context, I could tell that the women involved weren’t intending to make me have unprotected sex I didn’t want. There was negligence maybe, but there was no mens rea to do something nonconsensual to me.

I don’t think I managed to follow your series of clauses and conjunctions but it seemed as though you were saying that, “It’s not “meaningfully” rape if the rapist doesn’t understand himself (or herself) as raping.” If that really is what you were saying then, I would say that it is certainly meaningful for the person who believes it was rape (i.e. the victim).

This is about mens rea, and whether “rape” requires it or not. Legal scholars Husak and Thomas make a distinction between “acts of rape” (provisionally defined as “nonconsensual sex”), and “the crime of rape” (which also requires mens rea). In this way, it possible for an act of rape to occur without the perpetrator being guilty of the crime of rape if a reasonable mistake about consent occurred.

Husak and Thomas argue that the reasonableness of mistakes about consent should be judged by the empirical reality of how consent is communicated in the present, not by an ideal standard of how consent “should” be communicated.

Sam said:

So, after subjectivley thinking “no” you’d be raping her in her subjective reality, while you’d be blissfully unaware of her changed position and still believe in her explicit earlier statement of consent.

Now that’s a crazy example, but it goes to show that you / someone in that position needs to be aware of what’s going on to have the logical capacity to rape.

This is basically the argument that Husak and Thomas are making. They suggest that “consent” must be at least partially a state of mind, which consequently creates the possibility for miscommunication, especially given current norms for communication over consent.

Hugh Ristik May 25, 2011 at 11:32 pm #

Infra said:

The crucial issues that your analysis overlooks, IMO, are those of reckless endangerment and negligence.

I wouldn’t say that Sam is “overlooking” them. Actually, advocating attention to the state of mind of the initiator is important to recognize recklessness and negligence. It’s the strict liability notion of rape that destroys the distinctions between intentional, reckless, and negligent.

But I doubt that a strict requirement of mens rea would appropriately address the issues involved, either.

According to Wikipedia, recklessness and negligence are other levels of mens rea. If so, the concept does indeed address them.

Nor would I agree that mens rea is necessarily sufficient in the absence of actual harm

Agreed.

Infra May 25, 2011 at 11:39 pm #

Hugh wrote:

If “rape” simply meant “nonconsensual sex,” then I would be a survivor of rape. But I don’t see it that way. In context, I could tell that the women involved weren’t intending to make me have unprotected sex I didn’t want. There was negligence maybe, but there was no mens rea to do something nonconsensual to me.

I’ve experienced similar situations, and I think that this highlights another issue (if one not necessarily implied by Hugh’s comment): whether or not something is called rape isn’t just a criminal matter, it’s also something that affects how (and if) a person is able to contextualize the event, come to terms with it, and recover from it.

The potential therapeutic value of the word — as something that allows the individual to take the emotional/psychological position necessary for successful recovery — needs to be considered in addition to its use in criminal contexts.

I wouldn’t say that Sam is “overlooking” them. Actually, advocating attention to the state of mind of the initiator is important to recognize recklessness and negligence.

His perspective allowed for the possibility of consideration, true. But neither was demonstrated in the analysis presented, and his examination of the negotiated rape scenario, where they were most relevant, entirely omitted them. That definitely suggests “overlooks,” to me. The other option would be omission, and I’m not about to assert that without good cause.

Regarding mens rea, yeah, I was going on an older understanding of that. I was about to note the correction in this comment, actually: the most accurate way of putting it is that focusing upon purpose and knowledge doesn’t cut it; other modes of culpability are involved.

Infra May 25, 2011 at 11:42 pm #

(“entirely omitted them” should have been more along the lines of “contained no reference to them.” Too tired to be writing about legal stuff, methinks.)

Clarisse May 26, 2011 at 1:53 am #

Back to the “preferences” of mainstream het women:

I think I’ve zeroed in on what I really don’t like about HR’s analysis of MHW’s behavior driving communication issues.

If women can only get sex by having sex that violates their boundaries, then they’ll probably settle for that, but that doesn’t mean they like it.

This is actually one of the areas where I think some feminist ideas of “false consciousness” (or at least, discussions around the concept) have it right. (This does not excuse the fact that false consciousness is sometimes used by feminists to dismiss me and others like me, e.g., BDSMers.) If a person has only ever had sex that violated their boundaries, they may not even realize what’s wrong, because they won’t have anything else to compare it to.

It’s not at all clear to me that unclear standards around communicating about sex serve women’s preferences any more than they serve men’s. Lots of men like having puzzles to solve and challenges to overcome. And also, I could very easily argue that men shore up unclear standards of communication because it makes it easier for them to push women.

I could also argue that if initiators (who are, yes, usually men) consistently behaved as though they would not punish receivers (who are usually women) for rejecting them, then rejections would get a hell of a lot clearer very quickly. Some “punishments” are reasonable in my book (e.g., I think it’s reasonable to say “I don’t want to date someone monogamously who doesn’t want to have sex”). Some social punishments are totally unreasonable; people of all genders have been known to lie, scheme against, or otherwise socially damage a person who rejected them.

I really don’t see why we can’t acknowledge that men act a lot like women, and boil PUA theory down into initiators and non-initiators. (Let me tell you, the more I read about so-called shit tests the more I recognize some SERIOUS fucking “shit tests” from past partners.) The more I think about this, the more I’m inclined to believe that it’s more a practical problem of supply-demand than anything else (even though I really hate how these economics metaphors make people act, but okay, I’ll go with it for now). Some people who are in demand give lots of shit tests, especially if they’re insecure or confused about what they want. If people who are in demand are usually women, and if women are basically trained to be both insecure and confused about what we want, then you get shit tests. Voila. It doesn’t have to mean that women want to be unclear.

There may be hormonal influences on supply and demand with sex. There are definitely social influences. It doesn’t make sense to make assertions about gendered preferences when it’s equally probable that these so-called preferences are shaped much more by situation than by, you know, actual preference.

Clarisse May 26, 2011 at 2:13 am #

Sam wrote,

And I believe the only social operating license they have is one that is fundamental to every legal system, irrespective of the crime and irrespective of the prevalence of false alligations: in dubio pro reo.

No, because there are plenty of crimes where society is totally inclined to believe the victim. When I’ve had things stolen or I’ve been mugged, no one acted like I was making it up, accused me of being hysterical, etc. — though it’s not like I had any evidence that anything was stolen, or that what was stolen belonged to me. But those kinds of accusations and implications are routine in rape cases, and they happen even when there is evidence of the crime. There’s a much larger bias in favor of dismissing what rape survivors say than what the victims of many other crimes say. Granted, victims of crimes where there is some other power differential (e.g., a lower-class black person who’s attacked by a white person) will also stand a low chance of getting justice, but that actually demonstrates how marginalized rape survivors are; it doesn’t disprove it.

I believe this has more to with fundamental human approach and communication patterns (keeping things ambiguous because preferences aren’t clear/stable over time, potentially not even at any given point in time) than with social pressures towards sexual violence.

There can be social pressures against (or fundamental human preference against) clear communication, and social pressures towards sexual violence at the same time.

Once again, I caution the guys on this thread who are nerdy and gender-theory-oriented from assuming that other guys are like them and have similar experiences. If women like me and AB don’t represent mainstream het women (though we have lots in common with them), you guys sure as hell don’t get to represent mainstream het men (though you have lots in common with them). Dudes in more typically masculine jobs, settings, or social circles might have really different experiences from you. Including considerably more social pressure towards sexual violence.

(Interestingly, the Sexy Dreamgirl piece was reposted to Jezebel, where it was picked up by a pro wrestler and anti-rape activist who’s been messaging me on Twitter all day. There’s an interesting perspective for you.)

Infra wrote, whether or not something is called rape isn’t just a criminal matter, it’s also something that affects how (and if) a person is able to contextualize the event, come to terms with it, and recover from it.

The potential therapeutic value of the word — as something that allows the individual to take the emotional/psychological position necessary for successful recovery — needs to be considered in addition to its use in criminal contexts.

This is true for all crimes. And most of society, actually. Taxes aren’t an abusive and recurring theft enforced by goons with guns; they’re rightful tribute to the government that protects us. Right?

I have no doubt that there are times (past and present) when survivors feel rape more or less strongly depending on the norms around the act. There are societies and cultures where rape is recognized and punished more, and societies and cultures where it is recognized and punished less. (I think we’re on the “more” end of the scale in the modern West, but we’re not perfect, and there are areas that are more imperfect than others. As long as adversarial gender roles, victim-blaming, and the commodity model all persist, rape culture will be around in some form too.)

Feminists and assault advocates put a lot of work into ensuring that the survivor’s experience and choices are respected. When I was trained, I was given three basic talking points to keep in mind for rape crisis counseling:

1) I believe you
2) It’s not your fault
3) You have options

Reflecting on why those talking points are necessary can be quite instructive.

Sam May 26, 2011 at 3:23 am #

Hugh,

thanks for clarifying my reply to Snowdrop with English legal terminology and even legal analsyis. I’m not a lawyer but I can usually express myself appropriately using legal terminology in German, but it’s more difficult in English.

“Legal scholars Husak and Thomas make a distinction between “acts of rape” (provisionally defined as “nonconsensual sex”), and “the crime of rape” (which also requires mens rea). In this way, it possible for an act of rape to occur without the perpetrator being guilty of the crime of rape if a reasonable mistake about consent occurred.”

I knew someone had thought about that before. Using “acts of rape” in *this* technical sense in cases of non-consensual non “crime-rape” sex may be a useful way to allow for the subjective victim to give a familiar label to their subjective experience – and thus allow for what infra calls “therapeutic value of the word”.

infra,

His perspective allowed for the possibility of consideration, true. But neither was demonstrated in the analysis presented, and his examination of the negotiated rape scenario, where they were most relevant, entirely omitted them. That definitely suggests “overlooks,” to me.

Yes, I reckon those aspects would need to be given more attention. Again, I’m not a lawyer and my main intention was pointing out a logical structure not specifically assigning behavior.

Clarisse,

“There’s a much larger bias in favor of dismissing what rape survivors say than what the victims of many other crimes say.”

I suppose I’d agree with the observation, but not the conclusion. I’d say that the larger bias is a consequence of the gravity of the alleged crime and its usually private nature (hence often causing she said/he said situations with not much other evidence).

Dudes in more typically masculine jobs, settings, or social circles might have really different experiences from you. Including considerably more social pressure towards sexual violence.

That’s certainly a possibility. But maybe they don’t. I think your point about our limits to speak for “MHW” or “MHM” respectively is correct, but it’s probably a necessary weakness of a gender discourse that’s about inclusion of marginal positions rather than explorations of the mainstream.

Infra May 26, 2011 at 3:56 am #

@Sam:

Using “acts of rape” in *this* technical sense in cases of non-consensual non “crime-rape” sex may be a useful way to allow for the subjective victim to give a familiar label to their subjective experience – and thus allow for what infra calls “therapeutic value of the word”.

Based upon what I’ve experienced and the experiences of those I’ve talked to: no, it wouldn’t. Not if that distinction needed to be made when labeling it. Being able to say that something was rape, full stop or was not rape, full stop is a way of re-establishing the boundaried that have been violated. If instead of “rape,” a person has to use “an act of rape (but not a crime of rape),” their ability to do that is compromised. It takes away its force, its solidity, and its recognition — all of which are required for setting that boundary back into place.

A major part of the therapeutic value comes from not only being able to make the choice of what to call it, but also being able to enact that choice by using the chosen words without qualification.

I won’t say that this is without problems — to go back the rape I mentioned above, the fact that I didn’t go through with charges, and that, accordingly, there was no conviction, limits my ability to use the word in reference to it, especially if it were to involve any description that could reasonably identify the woman in question. But that doesn’t change the fact that I needed to use that word, without qualification, in order to own — and, more importantly, overcome — that experience. If I’d continued to hedge my words about it, I’d be struggling with it far more than I am today. Just as I was before I decided that I had a right to call it by that name.

There are things that I call by the name of rape, and there are things to which I refuse to grant that name. But both of those cases involve the same thing: the language of the courts may belong to the courts, but my language belongs to me. Those words are not for others to decide.

Clarisse May 26, 2011 at 4:07 am #

@Sam — I suppose I’d agree with the observation, but not the conclusion. I’d say that the larger bias is a consequence of the gravity of the alleged crime and its usually private nature (hence often causing she said/he said situations with not much other evidence).

Why can’t the gravity of the alleged crime, and bias against rape survivors, both be factors?

Hugh Ristik May 26, 2011 at 4:38 am #

Clarisse said:

Something is seriously wrong with a society where teenage girls are trained sexy dreamgirls and teenage boys often don’t have the first clue about how to find the clitoris.

… and where some of those dreamgirls will look down on men for asking where it its.

Me: Help me find your clit…
Her: No, you have to find it

this is kind of something I’ve been trying to get at, so thanks for putting it so simply. but … “wider” than what? what is the SC being compared to in this context? did you just mean “wide”?

I mean variance in the statistical sense. Wider variances implies that the values are more spread out. The relevant comparisons are to (a) mainstream culture, (b) macho subcultures, and (c) feminism. The ideas about consent in the seduction community are highly spread out, some mirroring the worst of macho subcultures, and in other cases rivaling feminism.

Tactics like negging and responding to so-called shit tests can be fun, but even when they’re done in a non-evil way, how much can they possibly facilitate honest and intimate communication?

They don’t just “facilitate” honest and intimate communication, they are a form of honest and intimate communication (when done in a non-evil way, of course).

You can’t sit down and have a “talk” about everything. There are only so many “talks” you can have a day. Implicit and subtle communication are important tools to display boundaries and preferences.

PUAs get flak for their relationship tactics of “behavior modification” and using psychological reinforcement and punishment, and I . But what the hell are you supposed to do instead? Reward behavior you don’t like or punish behavior you do like? That’s hardly going to lead to a healthy relationship!

I would actually propose that healthy dating involves people communicating like/dislike of the other person’s behaviors. Communicating “like” gives positive reinforcement; communicating dislike gives punishment. Of course, particular ways of doing this can be unethical (some rewards or punishments might not be appropriate), but the essential process is sound.

This communication of like and dislike is a negotiation of the terms of the ongoing relationship and what its form is going to be. Each person sees if they can train the other to fulfill their preferences, and if the attempts by the other to train them are acceptable. If two people’s likes and dislikes line up well enough, then they will probably stay together. If not, then they will probably break up.

Hugh Ristik May 26, 2011 at 4:40 am #

Clarisse said:

So here’s the point. It can actually be quite difficult to have these bilateral conversations openly in a way that they won’t be instantly dominated by men, who are then totally unapologetic about it, and refuse to accept any feminist critiques of how they’re acting. I think this problem is probably a lot less at this point than it has been in the past, especially among middle- to upper-middle-class nerd guys, which I’m guessing most guys on these threads are, and I think that’s why I’ve had a better experience with this stuff than a lot of previous feminists have.

I know the sort of guys you are talking about, like people at The Spearhead who call me a “gender traitor.” That’s part of the reason I got into feminist criticism: I know who else is in the field, and I feel compelled to do better.

I would like to make a distinction about the sort of gender analysis that occurs, and who is introduced into the conversation. When I advocate multiple side-by-side gender analyses (e.g. “slut shaming” and “wimp shaming”), that’s not requiring that men be introduced into dialogue (or that particular men be introduced).

There is nothing preventing feminist women from mounting their own crusade against “wimp shaming.” And I’m not quite sure why they haven’t yet, since wimp shaming is so contrary to their goals. Of course, men’s perspectives might be helpful to understand wimp-shaming, but feminist women don’t have to invite men into the entire dialogue about how to make change, or they can be selective about which men they invite.

In short, I’m fine with talking about wimp-shaming, but it has to not crowd out slut-shaming.

Why would it? If we are talking about feminists discouraging wimp-shaming by mainstream heterosexual women, then how would it ever crowd out slut-shaming? Feminists would still be in charge of how this effort occurred, and I trust that they wouldn’t crowd out slut-shaming.

Yes, there are all sorts of political reasons that make it tough for feminists to have dialogue from men, and be open to feedback from them. There are the same problems with Schelling points that I mentioned in a previous comment about the difficulty of PUAs accepting ethical criticism.

In my last view comments, though, I haven’t really been focused on encouraging a bilateral dialogue. My focus has been on encouraging feminists to address attitudes in mainstream heterosexual women that they consider problematic, and which devalue communication over consent.

Such a goal is important purely for women’s interests (though it is also in men’s interests). Feminists can discourage anti-consent attitudes in mainstream heterosexual women (including, but not limited to wimp-shaming) without needing an extensive bilateral dialogue with men.

SnowdropExplodes May 26, 2011 at 8:34 am #

@ Sam:

Should you somehow notice her withdrawal of consent, and not stop, you’d be raping her. But not before – even though the sex would still be non-consensual. You see the difference?

Not really. If she does not communicate her change of mind, then I cannot know I am raping her, but I would still call it rape.

Suppose afterwards she says (or I find it in her diary by some chance, or something) that she stopped wanting it and wanted me to stop, but hadn’t said anything. I would feel as though I had raped her. I might feel resentment towards her for putting me in that position, but the overriding concern would be the fact that I had unwittingly caused her harm. It would almost certainly lead to a very difficult time in our relationship, and it might very well lead to it ending. I would also like to add that actually, the scenario posed is one that has a very strong psychological resonance for me, with the experiences and background that I have had relating to my sexuality, and that this is causing me a lot of mental pain to discuss. I have written already about how one of my “screens” for a potential partner is to be certain that she is able to articulate clearly her consent or lack thereof, and that is extremely important to me for just this kind of situation.

You’re constructing rape as an AND argument, but I definitely view it as an OR argument.

((X believes it is rape) AND (Y believes it is rape)) = rape

versus

((X believes it is rape) OR (Y believes it is rape)) = rape

@ H.R.:

If “rape” simply meant “nonconsensual sex,” then I would be a survivor of rape. But I don’t see it that way.

That’s fine if you don’t define it that way for yourself. But if that happened to me, then I would see myself as a rape survivor. To me, rape is exactly defined as “nonconsensual sex” (although when we get into the “consensual nonconsent” kink, things get a bit blurry), and attempts to define it more narrowly seem to be victim-blaming, or rape-apologism.

I’m in agreement with Infra’s approach regarding the position that there is more to “rape” than simply the legal definition of rape. I accept that it is always going to be the case that some things that I would call rape are not going to be punishable as rape in law, because of requirements like mens rea. However, I might argue that it is reckless and/or negligent, not to make certain of consent to the best of one’s ability – obviously, if a partner chooses to keep silent (by free choice rather than out of fear, for example) then in a legal sense I would not think that would be negligence.

SnowdropExplodes May 26, 2011 at 8:53 am #

To me, rape is exactly defined as “nonconsensual sex”

Actually, I think I need to change this slightly, because actually I define rape more by the consequences than by the act itself. That is, by the logical OR argument (in which the term “rape” is synonymous with “sex that is nonconsensual/violating-boundaries”).

Sam May 26, 2011 at 9:50 am #

Clarisse,

“Why can’t the gravity of the alleged crime, and bias against rape survivors, both be factors?”

they certainly can, I just think that the latter is a consequence of the former and the nature of the alleged crime – she said/he said *AND* usually involving some sort of personal emotional/sexual connection between the alleged perpetrator and the alleged victim, which is not usually the case in simple theft cases.

Sam May 26, 2011 at 10:08 am #

Snowdrop, infra,

re and/or. Infra said -

“I won’t say that this is without problems — to go back the rape I mentioned above, the fact that I didn’t go through with charges, and that, accordingly, there was no conviction, limits my ability to use the word in reference to it, especially if it were to involve any description that could reasonably identify the woman in question. But that doesn’t change the fact that I needed to use that word, without qualification, in order to own — and, more importantly, overcome — that experience. If I’d continued to hedge my words about it, I’d be struggling with it far more than I am today. Just as I was before I decided that I had a right to call it by that name.

There are things that I call by the name of rape, and there are things to which I refuse to grant that name. But both of those cases involve the same thing: the language of the courts may belong to the courts, but my language belongs to me. Those words are not for others to decide.”

I understand that need, and I think a lot of the miscommunication between feminists focusing on rape culture and people who are criticizing it is a consequence of perceiving “rape” from subjectively equally valid differing perspectives – alleged victim, alleged perpetrator, attempted reconciliation of subjective realities (as “objective” as possible).

Maybe we are looking at the limits of language to provide a means of effective communication in this respect, if the terminology used can reasonably mean so many different things.

Sam May 26, 2011 at 10:43 am #

Clarisse,

If women can only get sex by having sex that violates their boundaries, then they’ll probably settle for that, but that doesn’t mean they like it. This is actually one of the areas where I think some feminist ideas of “false consciousness” (or at least, discussions around the concept) have it right. (This does not excuse the fact that false consciousness is sometimes used by feminists to dismiss me and others like me, e.g., BDSMers.)

I think that’s a very, very problematic point. Of course, socialized preferences for something that’s not commonly assumed to be beneficial to an individual are probably quite common, not just in the realm of sexuality. But as *all* preferences are embodied, and there’s just no way to distinguish, you can either accept agency and preferences as such, or make ideologically based arguments about why something cannot be a real preference. In the latter case, there’s really nothing you could say or do to prove your agency to those critizising your sexuality as “false consciousness”. Believing you what you say about what you voluntarily *really* like is a matter of axiomatically accepting your agency, not about something you specifically say or do. Similar for everything else. That’s why it’s so easy and common to disregard indivduals when they talk about their preferences – you either accept free will as a principle, or you don’t. You either believe you’re living in the Matrix, or you don’t. And even if you’re wondering if you do, you’ll have to pick one of the two as a working hypothesis to function in reality.

I really don’t see why we can’t acknowledge that men act a lot like women, and boil PUA theory down into initiators and non-initiators.

I think that makes sense/is possible in a lot of respects with respects to social dynamics. But I would argue that there’s also a lot of aspects where things work differently based on gendered expectations. As Strauss mentioned in your interview – demonstrating sexual availability will likely work to make women more attractive, whereas this won’t work for men. Displays of dominance likely won’t work for women to the extent that they work for men. I like challenges as much as everyone, but I wouldn’t appreciate a woman that made me say “please” if I asked for a lighter, and I likely wouldn’t consider it flirting (she’d have to do that very well), whereas I think your experience in that respect is not too unusual.

So, while I think it’s important to emphasize that a lot of social dynamics aren’t gender-differentiated, it’s also important to notice that some are gender-differentiated.

Hugh,

You can’t sit down and have a “talk” about everything. There are only so many “talks” you can have a day. Implicit and subtle communication are important tools to display boundaries and preferences.

Agreed. It’s like learning a foreign language.

Motley May 26, 2011 at 6:51 pm #

Infra,

There are things that I call by the name of rape, and there are things to which I refuse to grant that name. But both of those cases involve the same thing: the language of the courts may belong to the courts, but my language belongs to me. Those words are not for others to decide.

To second Sam’s point–while I generally try to avoid arguments about what words are for, this sounds inconveniently solipsistic to me. (I might go so far as to say that I usually follow the exact opposite course). If the meaning of words isn’t chosen by consensus–if I’m free to define everything as I choose–then how do you tell what anything I say means?

I mean, when I ensconce about invertebrate, hoax narcoleptic allegro vole dispersant, trundle? :p

SnowdropExplodes,

You’re constructing rape as an AND argument, but I definitely view it as an OR argument.

((X believes it is rape) AND (Y believes it is rape)) = rape

versus

((X believes it is rape) OR (Y believes it is rape)) = rape

There’s an interesting fourth permutation for the “OR” statement that I’m wondering about. You’ve addressed what happens if both parties think it’s rape, and if both parties think it’s consensual, and if the initiator thinks it’s consensual and the receiver thinks it isn’t.
In your opinion, what’s going on in the fourth case? Do you agree with Sam’s interpretation? (Hugh and Infra seem to be disagreeing with it, I think?)
(I don’t know if it’s immediately obvious why I’m asking.)

Sam and Clarisse,

Dudes in more typically masculine jobs, settings, or social circles might have really different experiences from you. Including considerably more social pressure towards sexual violence.

That’s certainly a possibility. But maybe they don’t. I think your point about our limits to speak for “MHW” or “MHM” respectively is correct, but it’s probably a necessary weakness of a gender discourse that’s about inclusion of marginal positions rather than explorations of the mainstream.

For what it’s worth, I’m with Clarisse here. I don’t know to what extent I’m closer to “mainstream” maleness than the rest of us here (though I suspect it’s more than a little), so obviously I feel a little weird about saying that. But there’s definitely some pressure there–though I’ve only a few times been in a position where the pressure was really overt. (And I think the sources aren’t always what I suspect Clarisse assumes, but I don’t think that matters much).

Clarisse,

There may be hormonal influences on supply and demand with sex. There are definitely social influences. It doesn’t make sense to make assertions about gendered preferences when it’s equally probable that these so-called preferences are shaped much more by situation than by, you know, actual preference.

I don’t see the distinction you’re making here. I mean, let’s talk about attraction: upper-class signifiers are considered attractive, in basically every human society. Right now, here, for guys, that pretty much means thin, tanned, white girls. Isn’t this–undeniably–shaped by situation? I think it is.
But I don’t think that makes the preference any less “actual” for people who have it. I like what I like, and so does everyone else, and all of our respective preferences are shaped by a variety external factors. Being able to identify some of those factors doesn’t suddenly mean you don’t really prefer what you prefer.
I mean, what if it could be proved that your preference for BDSM actually was directly a result of, say, the food you ate on your third birthday? Would that really change anything?

Also for what it’s worth:

Why can’t the gravity of the alleged crime, and bias against rape survivors, both be factors?

A-freaking-men. The world is not simple.
[stupid friggin' marketing-jackasses. This morning sucked.]

Infra May 26, 2011 at 8:00 pm #

@Motley:

To second Sam’s point–while I generally try to avoid arguments about what words are for, this sounds inconveniently solipsistic to me. (I might go so far as to say that I usually follow the exact opposite course). If the meaning of words isn’t chosen by consensus–if I’m free to define everything as I choose–then how do you tell what anything I say means?

Neither use of the word is novel. The only difference is that one use of the word is technical, and assumes evidentiary and procedural verification according to structurally-established standards, while the standards required with the other are not as precisely defined, and do not grant the status of being officially confirmed. The two uses don’t break down the sense of meaning anywhere near to the level of solipsism. Instead, they reflect variations on a core meaning, which is the case with words as a rule; words with singular meanings tend to be the exception, and that tends to hold across languages as well as within them. If solipsistic breakdown were the likely result of this kind of usage, then languages, as they currently exist in actual usage, wouldn’t exist and wouldn’t actually be usable.

In a way, this simply goes back to Clarisse’s point about lower- and upper-class Latin: rape survivors need to know both the therapeutic and the legal uses of the word, but those who are viewing the situation from the outside can get away with only focusing on the legal.

SnowdropExplodes May 27, 2011 at 5:10 am #

There’s an interesting fourth permutation for the “OR” statement that I’m wondering about. You’ve addressed what happens if both parties think it’s rape, and if both parties think it’s consensual, and if the initiator thinks it’s consensual and the receiver thinks it isn’t.
In your opinion, what’s going on in the fourth case? Do you agree with Sam’s interpretation? (Hugh and Infra seem to be disagreeing with it, I think?)

The short version, I suppose, would be that I think that any subjective rape is a rape; but for the purposes of law there has to be some objective measure as well. Infra’s use of Clarisse’s two-types-of-Latin example fits pretty well with what I am trying to say.

Specifically, where initiator believes it is non-consensual while recipient does not, then I would say that the initiator experiences hirself as committing a rape, and there is both mens rea (guilty intent) and reus actus (acting upon that intent). The law is tasked with protecting people, and the recipient does not feel attacked or the need of protection, so the law probably does not become involved.

I see three possible states of mind for such a situation on the part of the initiator:

1/. “I don’t care, and it doesn’t matter, that the other person doesn’t want this, because I want it.”

2/. “It matters that the other person doesn’t want this, because I care how they feel and want it to hurt them in some way.” (The desire to hurt the other person is thwarted because the other person actually does want it.)

3/. “It doesn’t matter that the other person doesn’t want it, even though I care about this person.”

In case 1, the initiator simply doesn’t care whether it is rape or not, and will feel less guilt than the others. However, zie probably knows that sex were the other person is not consenting is commonly experienced as harmful by that person, and is aware of the criminal status of such an act. This initiator knows that zie has committed a rape (even though in actual fact, the person was consenting). In case 2, if the initiator finds out that it did not hurt, there will presumably be a desire to find something else that does. If the initiator does not find out, there will certainly be a “knowledge” of having committed a crime against the recipient. In case 3, which is the hardest to picture for me, I imagine a lover who succumbs to an urge while believing it to be unreciprocated (even though it is). Here, we may expect remorse for the “crime” committed against someone who matters to the initiator. It is quite possible that this would change the relationship that the initiator had with the recipient, and I can imagine the initiator still feeling guilty about having raped the recipient, even after the recipient says, “You did exactly what I wanted you to do, and I enjoyed it.” This is because the knowledge of the guilty intent and action still sits in the mind of the initiator – knowing that, at the time, zie had not cared enough about hir partner to restrain the urge.

Thus, subjectively, it is a rape by the initiator, even though it turns out that there is no victim.

Sam May 27, 2011 at 9:06 am #

infra,

“In a way, this simply goes back to Clarisse’s point about lower- and upper-class Latin: rape survivors need to know both the therapeutic and the legal uses of the word, but those who are viewing the situation from the outside can get away with only focusing on the legal.”

I think “get away with” is a bit unfair, as it suggests at least negligence, whereas it seems to me that any emotional recognition (“understanding” in the Dilthey sense) of the word’s therapeutic value is dependent upon subjective experience.

Still, as you say yourself, the word’s “outside” meanind limits your ability to you use it for non-subjective purposes. So, to me, the question remains if it’s not possble to communicate more cleary by using different terminology for the different layers of reality.

Motley May 27, 2011 at 3:55 pm #

SnowdropExplodes,

I see three possible states of mind for such a situation on the part of the initiator:

I think your description is pretty good, but I think there’s a fourth, somewhere between 1 and 2 on the spectrum*: It’s entirely possible to know that the other person thinks they’re doing something voluntarily, and to simply disagree. (But I get that that’ll probably sound counterintuitive; I’m not entirely sure what I think about it).
It could be argued that this fourth option is basically a subset of 1 or 2 depending on the initiator’s mood, if we wanted to go into more detail. But that’s probably a different (or irrelevant) topic.

In case 2, if the initiator finds out that it did not hurt, there will presumably be a desire to find something else that does.

I’d say that’s absolutely right, in almost every case.

Thus, subjectively, it is a rape by the initiator, even though it turns out that there is no victim.

By that definition, I’ve had a wildly different life than by Hugh’s and Infra’s definition. Hmm.

*Tangentially, it occurs to me that you might not have meant 1-3 as a spectrum (or that if you did, you might’ve put it as 2, 1, 3). If so, then never mind this part.

Sam, Infra,

I think “get away with” is a bit unfair, as it suggests at least negligence…

I’m not so sure. I mean, it sounds like it’s in the same sense as “People who live in the tropics can get away with not owning a winter coat.” I’m not sure there’s any negligence implied there, assuming my analogy is accurate.

To skip back slightly, Clarisse and Hugh, this has been bothering me a little today:

Something is seriously wrong with a society where teenage girls are trained sexy dreamgirls and teenage boys often don’t have the first clue about how to find the clitoris.

… and where some of those dreamgirls will look down on men for asking where it its.

Me: Help me find your clit…
Her: No, you have to find it.

Something about this doesn’t ring entirely true to me.* I mean, it’s right there. It’s no effort at all to explain how to find in a way simple enough for anyone to understand–”move your hand up from the wettest parts, until you touch a lump and your partner moans and thrashes around–then stay right there, ’cause that’s it.”
It’s really not hard. (The process, not the lump.)
I’m more than a bit suspicious that being unable to find a clitoris takes more than simple ignorance (unless you’re sleeping with an unfortunate girl who’s some kind of mutant?). Like Clarisse said, to fail (as a culture) to give even this really minimal level of instruction takes a really high degree of not giving a shit–but on an individual level, not finding it out for yourself seems to take more than a passive ignorance; more like an active disinterest, which seems a bit paradoxical.

*Though I’ll admit it’s not entirely without anecdotal support in my own experience. I mean, I’ve had quite a few partners say they liked how I could find it (and most of the time I refrained from saying “Are you impressed that I can find your nose, too? ‘Cause it’s right there, right between your eyes and your mouth! Tadaa!”). At first, I mostly discounted it as bullshit (I figured it for an effort to say something minimally complimentary; I’ve found I have this innate reflex to discount compliments in bed as politeness-induced flattery).
So if that conversation Hugh put up actually happens (and I’m not saying I believe it does), I don’t imagine the tone to be playful. Seems a little like ordering the steak at a restaurant, and having the waiter ask you what steak is.

Hugh Ristik May 27, 2011 at 6:21 pm #

Motley said:

Something about this doesn’t ring entirely true to me.* I mean, it’s right there. It’s no effort at all to explain how to find in a way simple enough for anyone to understand–”move your hand up from the wettest parts, until you touch a lump and your partner moans and thrashes around–then stay right there, ’cause that’s it.”

I knew the general region it was supposed to be, but I wasn’t sure if I was hitting it. There was enough wetness that it was hard to feel the clit. Everything was just slippery. As for moaning, if she moans wherever you touch, then that doesn’t help you find the clit. Sometimes women will moan more with finger penetration than with clitoral stimulation (perhaps because when you do hit the clit, she is trying to relax and focus on it).

Nowadays I have a lot more sexual experience, and I don’t find it so difficult to find a clitoris. But for my younger, more inexperienced self, it wasn’t a trivial task, and I had good reasons to ask for confirmation at the time, though that might be hard to imagine for either of our more experienced selves.

“Help me find your clit” wasn’t just a directive to find the thing, I think I was also trying to get help for the angle/pressure with which to touch it.

Like Clarisse said, to fail (as a culture) to give even this really minimal level of instruction takes a really high degree of not giving a shit–but on an individual level, not finding it out for yourself seems to take more than a passive ignorance; more like an active disinterest, which seems a bit paradoxical.

If, during your first time trying to find a clit, it was easy, then good for you… but not every woman has the same anatomical placement, lubrication, and moaning responses that makes it easy for an inexperienced guy to find it.

So if that conversation Hugh put up actually happens (and I’m not saying I believe it does), I don’t imagine the tone to be playful.

It was playful and flirtatious. I respect her preference for me to find it, but her preference led to a lose-lose situation: she risked me not finding it (I don’t actually remember whether I did or not, that time, because it was years ago), and I got to experience stress rather than actually learning what I needed to learn. I just have to wonder if her preference was really so important that she needed to put performance pressure on me, rather than just telling me, given that she knew I was very inexperienced.

Clearly, either her own passivity, or my being in command (or something like that), was more important to her than teaching a less experienced person to please her.

This experience led my younger version to think of sex as me bumbling around trying to please the other person, trying to decipher her nonverbal responses with little explicit feedback. It taught me that my own sexual inexperience was unattractive, and I should hide it, while putting on a dreamboy shell of knowing what I was doing, hoping that I could learn fast enough to fill that shell.

I have learned, but I realize looking back, that I wasn’t the greatest lover to a few people. That saddens me, but what else was I supposed to do? I would try asking women for feedback, or to tell me what they liked, but most of the time it was like talking to a wall, even though most women I’m been with have been way more sexually experienced. Over time, I asked less and less for feedback.

I’m not saying it was their fault, because a preference to not teach me is valid, and perhaps they didn’t want to look critical (e.g. asking friends for fashion advice won’t give you any good answers, either, because the friendship gets in the way).

But the result of this system was that I had to learn through trial-and-error and deciphering nonverbal signals. These were some valuable skills, but I wish I could have learned in a way that didn’t involve throwing me in deep water as a way of teaching me to swim.

Hugh Ristik May 27, 2011 at 6:44 pm #

Also, Motley, you have a different personality than me, and you might not experience performance anxiety getting in your way.

Infra May 27, 2011 at 8:23 pm #

@Sam:

I think “get away with” is a bit unfair, as it suggests at least negligence, whereas it seems to me that any emotional recognition (“understanding” in the Dilthey sense) of the word’s therapeutic value is dependent upon subjective experience.

I’m using “get away with” in a pretty standard sense: to do something that would normally have consequences, but avoid suffering them, or be shielded from them. If someone has need of the therapeutic usage of the word but is denied it, that can negatively impact their recovery (see also “secondary victimization”); but if someone has no such need, they can eliminate, overlook and/or avoid the therapeutic usage with no ill effects. (To use Motley’s example, someone in the tropics can be without owning a winter coat without experiencing, as a result, a substantially increased risk of frostbite or hypothermia.)

Still, as you say yourself, the word’s “outside” meanind limits your ability to you use it for non-subjective purposes. So, to me, the question remains if it’s not possble to communicate more cleary by using different terminology for the different layers of reality.

The word’s legal meaning limits my ability to use it in an unqualified way in reference to the event. That’s different from saying that it limits my ability to use it for non-subjective purposes: the event is still objective, but hasn’t been confirmed through legal process in a way that would allow me to use “rape” instead of “alleged rape” (technically, “alleged [appropriate statute reference]“). These aren’t different layers of reality, but different positions with regard to legal confirmation.

Yes, it would be possible to change the terminology in order to make the communication clearer. But that’s where the above point becomes relevant: this cannot be done without negatively impacting the recovery of rape survivors, due to how using identical terminology operates in the therapeutic context. The important thing there is that some form of confirmation exists, even if it isn’t legal — and the use of separate terms undermines that.

Hugh Ristik May 27, 2011 at 8:45 pm #

The examination of intent in men’s rea is relevant to social and ethical contexts outside the law, regardless of whether it is relevant in a therapeutic context.

Infra said:

If someone has need of the therapeutic usage of the word but is denied it, that can negatively impact their recovery (see also “secondary victimization”); but if someone has no such need, they can eliminate, overlook and/or avoid the therapeutic usage with no ill effects.

I’m sure Sam has already granted the therapeutic use of the word. I think he is wondering what happens with the word outside a therapeutic context, regardless of if the context is legal or not.

Infra May 27, 2011 at 9:10 pm #

@Hugh:

I’m sure Sam has already granted the therapeutic use of the word. I think he is wondering what happens with the word outside a therapeutic context, regardless of if the context is legal or not.

Granted, but just as the discussion here highlights the fact that legal usage extends beyond the courtroom, so does the therapeutic context beyond the therapist’s office (which was the point of my reference to secondary victimization). Arguably, in most cases, it’s operating simultaneously in both.

It might be possible to draw the line in theory, but it’s questionable whether or not one would be able to draw it in practice.

Hugh Ristik May 27, 2011 at 9:15 pm #

Infra said:

The word’s legal meaning limits my ability to use it in an unqualified way in reference to the event. That’s different from saying that it limits my ability to use it for non-subjective purposes: the event is still objective, but hasn’t been confirmed through legal process in a way that would allow me to use “rape” instead of “alleged rape” (technically, “alleged [appropriate statute reference]“). These aren’t different layers of reality, but different positions with regard to legal confirmation.

Look at Sam’s example to Snowdrop for what he means about “different layers of reality:”

Imagine yourself having explicitly consensual sex, and your girlfriend would silently revoke her consent. Her consent is a subjective state of mind, and logically doesn’t need to be externalised. Equally, her revoking her consent doen’t need to be externalised to be valid subjectively. So, after subjectivley thinking “no” you’d be raping her in her subjective reality, while you’d be blissfully unaware of her changed position and still believe in her explicit earlier statement of consent.

Now that’s a crazy example, but it goes to show that you / someone in that position needs to be aware of what’s going on to have the logical capacity to rape.

Should you somehow notice her withdrawal of consent, and not stop, you’d be raping her. But not before – even though the sex would still be non-consensual. You see the difference?

First, this description is contingent on consent being fully subjective, which is still up in the air. Does the consent refer to a state of mind, a communication, or both? If consent and nonconsent partly depend on the communication, then it would be impossible to withdraw previously given consent without communicating that withdrawal (because “withdrawal of consent” would refer to a social act, not just a change of mind).

Snowdrop gave a rather Orwellian response:

Not really. If she does not communicate her change of mind, then I cannot know I am raping her, but I would still call it rape.

Suppose afterwards she says (or I find it in her diary by some chance, or something) that she stopped wanting it and wanted me to stop, but hadn’t said anything. I would feel as though I had raped her.

Several folks pointed out that the word “rape” can be important for a therapeutic context. If one of the partners in this scenario wants to use “rape” in a therapeutic context, then they are free to do so. But if you knew that this situation occurred between another couple, would you consider it to be “rape”?

If not, then the word is operating differently in different contexts, which is where Sam’s line of questions are coming from.

And remember, Sam’s example stipulates that the initiator couldn’t know any better. We are not talking about negligence or recklessness, unless recklessness or negligence include failing to badger someone during every second of sex to see if they have changed their mind about consent. We are also not talking about a situation where someone had deeply ingrained anti-consent ideas and didn’t know any better; we are talking about a situation where explicit consent occurred from the start. And I don’t think we are talking about a case of one partner “freezing up” or ceasing to respond, or I think Sam would have mentioned it.

Hugh Ristik May 27, 2011 at 9:32 pm #

Snowdrop said:

Not really. If she does not communicate her change of mind, then I cannot know I am raping her, but I would still call it rape.

Snowdrop, I find this suggestion rather Kafka-esque.

Do you believe that you did something morally wrong in Sam’s scenario? If so, what exactly did you do wrong, and what should you have done differently?

To recap what I think Sam was trying to get across (and move to the third person):

- They did not communicate that they wanted sex to stop
- They acted exactly the same way they act during consensual sex
- The initiator got explicit verbal consent
- No freeze-ups, or nonverbal communication of lack of consent or emotional or physical discomfort occurred; no Stockholm Syndrome or economic dependence

If the other partner withdrew consent and feels that they were raped, it might seem like they must have given some indication. In the real world, that would probably be correct. Yet Sam is deliberately giving a weird hypothetical example where the other person gave no such communication, and acted just like “business as usual” after initially giving explicit verbal consent.

So, what did the initiator do that was ethically wrong?

Infra May 27, 2011 at 11:01 pm #

@Hugh:

The problem that I have with the “different layers of reality” phrasing is illustrated well here:

So, after subjectivley thinking “no” you’d be raping her in her subjective reality, while you’d be blissfully unaware of her changed position and still believe in her explicit earlier statement of consent.

In this situation, the experience of violation may be subjective — but the circumstances within which that subjective experience occurred remain objective. Such events, especially considering the associative nature of memory, cannot be purely subjective; they cannot be “less real” than any other (especially considering that all objective experiences could be said to involve a subjective component insofar as the person is considered a sentient agent), although there can be elements of those events that can meet certain criteria better than others. I.e., there’s a difference between something existing as an objective event, subjectively experienced, and something existing as an event regarding which the subjective elements are in verifiable agreement with the objective elements — but this does not extend to classification of either event as being more or less real, or as existing on a different layer of reality.

If subjective and objective experience were separable (as they are in, e.g., hallucination), then I’d say that the levels of reality argument would have merit. But in the main, I doubt that this could be said to be the case.

But if you knew that this situation occurred between another couple, would you consider it to be “rape”?

Yes; I think that this is the kind of situation that Margaret Cho was writing about in her foreword to _Yes Means Yes_, and I agree with her use of the word there. But that would stop short of assigning fault, insofar as the withdrawal of consent was not communicated and was not likely to have been perceived, and I will grant that the idea that a rape could occur, while not involving culpability, might be a difficult concept to accept (even though this can and does occur with other types of injuries).

Sam May 28, 2011 at 1:41 am #

Infra,

Of course, person a’s experience is real, or objective *for person a*, just as the experience of person b is real, or objective *for person b*. Neither reality has a justified higher a priori claim to objectivity than the other.

“But that would stop short of assigning fault, insofar as the withdrawal of consent was not communicated and was not likely to have been perceived, and I will grant that the idea that a rape could occur, while not involving culpability, might be a difficult concept to accept (even though this can and does occur with other types of injuries).”

I’m sorry, but to me this sounds just like my argument made with the terminology reversed. Instead of saying that “rape” is a subset of “non-consensual sex” you’re arguing that “rape without culpability” is a subset of “rape”. The Venn diagrams of the two sets appear to be
congruent.

Defining rape as *injury* rather than as *assault* (which I believe is the common understanding) makes sense in the way you describe your perspective, as injury is not dependent upon assault, it can happen as an accident.

But I can’t help but wonder if the therapeutic value you refer to is not at least partially based upon at least a subjective assignment of culpability that goes beyond the demand for acceptance and recognition of injury.

If it doesn’t, I’m perfectly fine with defining rape as injury and thereby terminologically centering the subjective reality of the injured. But it would still be, I’d say, a rather uncommon use of the words and as such their use in this way without additional explanation would likely caue misunderstandings.

I’d also like to say that I’ve never heard the word “rape without culpability” before, which may entirely be lack of knowledge. But if your “injury” definition is what is implicitly used in feminist discussions about rape and not the generally used “assault” definition, then I’m not suprised people aren’t understanding each other despite the fact that their realities can be described by the same Venn diagram.

Infra May 28, 2011 at 3:14 am #

@Sam:

Of course, person a’s experience is real, or objective *for person a*, just as the experience of person b is real, or objective *for person b*. Neither reality has a justified higher a priori claim to objectivity than the other.

What I’m arguing, though, isn’t a question of the reality of person a versus the reality of person b. It’s that the division into subjective and objective realities is misguided, as opposed to identifying subjective and objective components. The reason why this becomes important is that it counters the objection that the experience was “all in his/her head,” which can be (and is) employed as a minimization tactic. Again, this relates to the subject of secondary victimization.

I’m sorry, but to me this sounds just like my argument made with the terminology reversed. Instead of saying that “rape” is a subset of “non-consensual sex” you’re arguing that “rape without culpability” is a subset of “rape”. The Venn diagrams of the two sets appear to be congruent.

That may be the case. However, what I’ve been arguing is that it is the ability to use the unqualified term that is important, not the resulting Venn diagram. Even conceding that the two arguments have the same underlying structure, their effects are markedly different, much as the subset of “machines with depressed ignition switches” may be different if, in one group, the machines were assembled first, then had their ignition switches depressed, while in the other, the ignition switches were depressed before they were assembled. (If the effect of depressing the ignition switch were to produce a spark, only one group would be running.)

Defining rape as *injury* rather than as *assault* (which I believe is the common understanding) makes sense in the way you describe your perspective, as injury is not dependent upon assault, it can happen as an accident.

I didn’t define it as “rather than.” As you wrote, injury can result from either assault or accident. The important element in using “injury” is that the involvement of detrimental effect is retained in view and under consideration, regardless of the type of cause.

Further, stating (or even implying) that rape involves or produces injury is different from defining rape as injury. I’m not redefining the word here; I was simply drawing a parallel with other circumstances within which injury can occur.

But I can’t help but wonder if the therapeutic value you refer to is not at least partially based upon at least a subjective assignment of culpability that goes beyond the demand for acceptance and recognition of injury.

Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t, and sometimes it has little to do with the partner involved (i.e., a survivor may hold an abusive past partner accountable, due to the influence that those events had upon the way in which they acted); it’s strongly dependent upon the particulars of the situation, and the importance of that assignment of culpability, which may also be self-directed, can vary during the process.

I’d also like to say that I’ve never heard the word “rape without culpability” before, which may entirely be lack of knowledge.

Not phrased as such, probably. But IME, it isn’t all that uncommon to hear something like “It felt like rape, but they weren’t to blame,” especially if one has dealt with a significant number of survivors. (I’ll just note that I’ve known a significant number, and I’ve heard it several times during the course of that — this doesn’t come from anything specific to feminist discourse, or even anything particularly related to it. That isn’t a pro or con statement; it’s just to say that the source, in this case, wasn’t related.)

Infra May 28, 2011 at 4:31 am #

Clarification to the above comment:

I think that I must have misread you on the injury/assault point. If what you’re referring to is the conception of rape as necessarily involving violence, threat of violence, or similar coercion, then I’d agree; but I’d say that if a broader definition of rape hasn’t superseded that, then it’s at least in competition with it, and is already along the lines of an “involves injury” definition (which is to say, unwanted sexual contact that causes a greater or lesser degree of psychological and/or physical harm).

Here, at least, that the act has caused significant physical and/or emotional distress (i.e., injury) is an explicit requirement for the lower degree offenses in the statutes, with manifest harm (or threat of harm) being an explicit requirement for the higher. Point being, the “involves injury” definition isn’t a novel or marginal one.

Infra May 28, 2011 at 7:27 am #

Apologies for the serial posting, but I wanted to look that up and double-check, and it turns out that what I wrote holds for second and first degree, respectively (though the criteria are more stringent than I recall, and other criteria can apply). But it doesn’t hold for third and fourth, which require only that contact occur without consent.

Looks like the old memories are starting to fog things up, if I’m making that kind of mistake.

Hugh Ristik May 29, 2011 at 6:15 am #

Infra said:

But that would stop short of assigning fault, insofar as the withdrawal of consent was not communicated and was not likely to have been perceived, and I will grant that the idea that a rape could occur, while not involving culpability, might be a difficult concept to accept (even though this can and does occur with other types of injuries).

Damn right it’s hard to accept a notion of rape without fault or culpability. I have several worries:

- the vast majority of people understand “rape” to automatically imply culpability on the part of the initiator. Therefore, use of the word “rape” in a no-fault situation will instead communicate to people that fault did occur. And it will be a redefinition. of the word “rape.” This is why Sam and I keep talking about different meanings of the word in difference contexts. Maybe the mainstream culture should accept whatever definition of rape that survivors advance, but for now, “no-fault rape” is a non-concept in the mainstream and its usage will interpreted as an accusation of rape.

The problem is that if you and Snowdrop believe that Sam’s hypothetical scenario was rape, and you go tell practically anyone else, then they will understand you to be making an accusation of culpability towards the initiator, even if you don’t intend one, because their definition of “rape” automatically requires culpability.

- anti-rape campaigns urge that people not rape. But if it’s possible to rape someone without being at fault, that would imply a case where it’s morally OK to rape someone?! And that rape isn’t always wrong?! This implication could weaken the stigma against rape. “Yeah bro, I raped her, but I wasn’t doing anything wrong…”.

- some survivors might use “rape” to always mean culpability, in which case a notion of “rape without culpability” would undermine what they are trying to communicate when they say “rape”. If a survivor says they were raped, they might not want the audience to wonder whether wrongdoing actually occurred or not, and they might not want to have to clarify that it was the kind of rape that’s wrong, rather than no-fault rape.

In short, I will grant that a concept of no-fault rape could be useful in a therapeutic context if people say so, but outside that context, I worry that it would lead to confusion, rape trivialization, stigmatizing initiators who haven’t done anything wrong, undermining prohibition against rape, and rape apologism due to the deeply ingrained present understand of rape as involving culpability. This is why Sam and I are talking about the possibility of different definitions of rape in different contexts, due to the merging of these incompatible definitions of rape being so problematic.

So, that’s my discomfort with a notion of rape without culpability. Do we need to be discussing it more in this thread, or has everyone explained their thoughts?

Infra May 29, 2011 at 7:23 am #

@Hugh:

One thing that I’d like to explain is that, when things get stirred up by discussing these issues, I sometimes revert to using terms in their legal senses without noting that (not convenient, but less inconvenient than flashbacks). That’s primarily how I was using the word “fault,” if that clarifies anything. I might be able to lay things out better now, given the breather; if any of this seems to contradict the way that I wrote things in the previous comments, I’d ask that you take that earlier disorientation into account.

That having been said:

It’s the issue of injury that’s pivotal, which is why I ended up getting hung up on it: one can injure another, feel guilt about causing it, remorse over the occurrence, empathy or sympathy with regard to the pain, and the desire to make good (if wanted and possible) even if no fault exists. One could also be held accountable, by others, for not having those feelings and responses, even if no fault can be assigned. It’s generally what people mean when they refer to “having a conscience.”

When you move from the idea that a rape can occur without fault — which, as you yourself noted in the case of Sam’s example, would have strict and unusual requirements, ones that may be unlikely to occur in actuality — to the idea that this allows for a situation in which rape becomes morally OK, you’re making a jump that requires “no fault” to trump “causes injury, even if I’m not at fault.” To make that jump is, practically by definition, to assume sociopathy as default. Regardless of the rhetoric, most people really aren’t.

A similar issue comes up with saying that the common usage of the word “rape” implies culpability. In the sense that there is no purely passive rapist, that’s certainly true; that no one trips and rapes someone completely by accident is widely and deservedly believed. But things tend to be less clear when we try to separate culpability resulting from involvement in an injurious act from culpability that justifies punishment (i.e., fault). That, in fact, is one of the issues involved in the difficulty in achieving a conviction, and it’s one of the factors involved in what I mentioned earlier, in regard to individuals seeking social, but not legal, remedy.

And it’s this issue that comes into play, I’d assert, with the concern about culpability always being involved when survivors are discussing their experiences. The idea that the other individual wasn’t a passive participant needs to be supported and preserved — but so does the survivor’s evaluation of that individual’s degree of culpability, which can range from involvement without knowledge (as when a change in consent was intentionally hidden) to fault in the extreme. To say that culpability exists as a simple binary doesn’t allow for this; it can damage recovery just as can the categorical assignment or denial of such.

I have no argument with the assertion that using the word “rape,” unqualified, can cause problems when the context isn’t specified (implicitly, by virtue of where and with whom it’s discussed, or explicitly, in broader discussions). But as I mentioned above, it’s likely that most uses of the word operate in the therapeutic and legal contexts simultaneously; it’s unlikely that this problem can be avoided.

So on the one hand, we have the option of restricting the use of the unqualified term to only one context, which could (and likely would) cause detriment to the other; on the other hand, we have the requirement of using a clarifying sentence when the use of the unqualified term might be unclear. To my view, the second is unquestionably the lesser evil.

Infra May 29, 2011 at 7:51 am #

To expand upon one point from the previous comment:

“The survivor’s evaluation of that individual’s degree of culpability” would be more accurately stated as “the survivor’s informed evaluation of that individual’s degree of culpability.” I’m not stating that the survivor’s initial estimation, which may be significantly colored by self-blame and other factors, need be determinative, but that the survivor’s considered conclusions on the matter need to be respected, and not determined for them. This is part of reinforcing the agency of the survivor, and of reinforcing their ability to regain their sense of that agency.

Sam May 29, 2011 at 10:17 am #

infra,

“which, as you yourself noted in the case of Sam’s example, would have strict and unusual requirements, ones that may be unlikely to occur in actuality”

it’s probably not very commmon, but I did read a story (via Hugo Schwyzer, I think) a while ago in which a woman explained how she first had consensual sex, then silently thought “no”, but still actively participated, and then got into it again, thinking “yes” again. Can’t reproduce the link though, sorry.

When you move from the idea that a rape can occur without fault … to the idea that this allows for a situation in which rape becomes morally OK, you’re making a jump that requires “no fault” to trump “causes injury, even if I’m not at fault.” To make that jump is, practically by definition, to assume sociopathy as default.

I don’t understand that argument. If something is done without fault it is morally ok in my book. Even though something that is morally ok *can cause injury *and regret on the part of the person who is not at fault**.
I don’t see how Hugh’s argument requires sociopathy in any way.

“But things tend to be less clear when we try to separate culpability resulting from involvement in an injurious act from culpability that justifies punishment (i.e., fault).”

But you’d end up with statements like “you raped me, but there was nothing you could do about it, it wasn’t your fault.” At which point I’d have to agree with Hugh about the effects on rape prevention that such a redefintion may have, because I don’t think that using the term in this way is very common.

“To say that culpability exists as a simple binary doesn’t allow for this; it can damage recovery just as can the categorical assignment or denial of such.”

No, but the survivor’s position is not the only one, though. And having a term that in one way or another always implies binary legal culpability (your fault) will probably make it more difficult for initiators without legal fault to emphasize because of the binary legal sword hanging over their heads in that case. Like in that case of the woman who wanted to perform her rape phantasy but when it didn’t work out the way she had wanted it told her boyfriend “you *actually* raped me”. She was (as she said) looking for a way to talk about what happened, talk about her injury, while he heard “you raped me” and probably thought about having to spend ten to twenty years in prison while she apparently wanted to hear “I’m sorry” and a discussion about their sexual (as I remember the story).

But as I mentioned above, it’s likely that most uses of the word operate in the therapeutic and legal contexts simultaneously; it’s unlikely that this problem can be avoided.

Maybe not.

So on the one hand, we have the option of restricting the use of the unqualified term to only one context, which could (and likely would) cause detriment to the other; on the other hand, we have the requirement of using a clarifying sentence when the use of the unqualified term might be unclear. To my view, the second is unquestionably the lesser evil.

But has anyone really tried using differentiated terminology?

Sam May 29, 2011 at 10:33 am #

Not sure where to post this… Here’s a study that appears to contradict the SC wisdom to smile around women…

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/05/24/science-smile-men-attractive.html?ref=rss

“While previous studies have shown that women are judged more attractive when they smile, the researchers believe this is the first study to show that men are judged less attractive when they appear happy.

They suggested it was because smiling men were judged to be more feminine and less dominant.”

Since this totally contradicts my experience, I think they missed a critical link – that attraction is a composite value and that the confidence through smiling aspect is likely dependent on the social context. Also, I think it’s pretty clear that pride will quickly translate into smiling…

Infra May 29, 2011 at 11:46 am #

@Sam:

I’m not saying that the situations don’t occur. In fact, the first time that I’d been having non-ejaculatory orgasms with a partner and wanted to stop, she’d reacted negatively (she wasn’t aware that I’d had any and didn’t understand why I seemed to have lost interest), so I allowed her to take over the active role (which she had already started to initiate) and continue anyway until I ejaculated; even though my desire was not to continue, I did not voice that at the time, and tried to avoid signaling it in order to keep from upsetting her.

Arguably, that could be considered to be a similar situation.

If something is done without fault it is morally ok in my book. Even though something that is morally ok *can cause injury *and regret on the part of the person who is not at fault**.

Noted.

Probably sets a limit on whether or not we’ll be able to come to an agreement on many of these points, though.

But you’d end up with statements like “you raped me, but there was nothing you could do about it, it wasn’t your fault.” At which point I’d have to agree with Hugh about the effects on rape prevention that such a redefintion may have, because I don’t think that using the term in this way is very common.

Actually, I’d say that this is one of the major areas that enthusiastic consent is designed to address; as I noted above, what’s being discussed here is much the same as what Margaret Cho wrote about in her foreword. It doesn’t result in breakdown, but in the identification of a problem not previously addressed, and in the development of solutions not previously implemented. In other words, in additional means and methods of prevention.

And having a term that in one way or another always implies binary legal culpability (your fault) will probably make it more difficult for initiators without legal fault to emphasize because of the binary legal sword hanging over their heads in that case.

I’ve read this through a number of times, so I don’t think that I’m missing anything. But let me make sure that I’m getting your argument straight, here, before considering any other comments: are you actually suggesting that the use of the word “rape” should be avoided, because it interferes with the initiating individual’s ability to empathize with the individual who has just experienced the violation?

Sam May 29, 2011 at 12:40 pm #

infra,

But let me make sure that I’m getting your argument straight, here, before considering any other comments: are you actually suggesting that the use of the word “rape” should be avoided, because it interferes with the initiating individual’s ability to empathize with the individual who has just experienced the violation?

I’m not saying it should be avoided because of that, if other reasons make it more appropriate to use it, but I do think the term actually limits the initiating individual’s ability to emphasize *in cases in which there is no fault*.

Even Snowdrop above said he’d feel like he raped her (with respext to my example), feel bad about that, but also resent her for putting him in the position.

And there’s always the legal layer. For an initiator to acknowledge “rape” when there is no fault is certainly problematic. Who knows what can happen later on? I doubt anyone would want to get in a definitional battle with a state attorney about what they actually meant when they acknowledged they raped someone – but without fault – and that they acknowledged the term in order to help their partner/victim? deal with the violation, not because they actually did anything deserving of legal punishment.

Clarisse Thorn May 29, 2011 at 3:01 pm #

I had a comment yesterday and got a virus halfway through typing it, because I made the mistake of visiting the Psychology Today website, of all places. that was awesome.

ANYWAY, #1: Please work hard to respect others’ experiences, especially in this conversation. This is a difficult environment for Infra to come out; be mindful.

#2: HR wrote,

But what the hell are you supposed to do instead? Reward behavior you don’t like or punish behavior you do like? That’s hardly going to lead to a healthy relationship!

I would actually propose that healthy dating involves people communicating like/dislike of the other person’s behaviors. Communicating “like” gives positive reinforcement; communicating dislike gives punishment. Of course, particular ways of doing this can be unethical (some rewards or punishments might not be appropriate), but the essential process is sound.

http://mindhacks.com/2011/02/26/a-victim-of-metaphor/

This study found that the metaphor used to describe a crime wave affected participants’ choice of tactics to deal with the crime wave. The difference in choice of tactics was very significant; indeed, it was greater than the difference between male and female respondents. When questioned later, only 3% of respondents recognized the role of the metaphor in their choice.

This is what I keep coming back to with PUA stuff, including the punishment/reward framework. Communicating like and dislike is an incredibly different metaphor, or frame if you prefer, from punishment and reward. You can make them into the same thing, but they don’t have to be.

Sam May 29, 2011 at 5:20 pm #

Clarisse,

yeah, framing is incredibly important. Just think of “limiting belief” vs “entitlement”, or the old reminder for questionnaire designers: 90% of people prefer flame broiled Burger, but 90% don’t like burgers fried over an open flame. You either have to stop that line of inquiry at some point, or you’ll end up denying free will (and agency), because preference strucutures will no longer appear even marginally stable.

At the same time, though, I just read an article about recent research on subliminal advertising which found that it has some influence, but *only* on those people who are looking for the advertised good anyway. So maybe our preference structures are actually more stable than the framing example suggests, but when it comes to *stuff we don’t know or care about too much*, we can be easily infuenced, particularly with respect to wording.

But in the end this is essentially another Duerrenmatt point – is knowledge of human psychology ethical if it *can* be abused? And what constitutes *use*? And what *abuse*, if the other person’s free willed actions are no longer acceptable as such?

Clarisse May 29, 2011 at 5:25 pm #

So maybe our preference structures are actually more stable than the framing example suggests, but when it comes to *stuff we don’t know or care about too much*, we can be easily infuenced, particularly with respect to wording.

This makes me more worried about the seduction community, because so many guys come to it thinking that they know little or nothing about the topic.

Sam May 29, 2011 at 6:36 pm #

Clarisse,

“This makes me more worried about the seduction community, because so many guys come to it thinking that they know little or nothing about the topic.”

That may be a valid point with respect to spam-email-marketing “get laid tonight with every girl you want to”, but in my opinion not really with respect to the spam marketing victim’s ability to influence women to do something the women don’t actally want to do, merely by playing push/pull, punish/reward. Even if, it’s still a Duerrenmatt point, as I said: everything’s dual use – you can use a shovel to build a canal to grow food for your family, or you can use it to hit your neighbour over the head and steal his food to feed your familiy. I know that’s the Charlton Heston point, but it’s valid with respect to most things that aren’t designed to kill people.

Clarisse May 29, 2011 at 7:01 pm #

I’m not arguing that pickup techniques can’t be useful tools, I’m arguing that the metaphors around them are totally fucked. I don’t care if someone sees a shovel as an object they use in order to dig a ditch, and I’m not concerned about that metaphor affecting the person’s relationship with the shovel, because the shovel doesn’t have feelings. But it’s a really big deal if people see each other as objects that they use to have sex rather than humans that they collaborate with, because that will affect the relationship. And no, I’m not sure what to replace the “punish/reward” and “target” frameworks with, but that doesn’t mean those frameworks aren’t fucked up.

Sam May 29, 2011 at 7:18 pm #

Clarisse,

“But it’s a really big deal if people see each other as objects that they use to have sex rather than humans that they collaborate with, because that will affect the relationship.”

Ok, I think now I’m starting to get your point… totally agree. I think one of the commenters on the feministe thread about ethical pickup made this point the best by asking: “are women NPC or PC in your game?” (before reading that I’d never heard those terms, btw).

“And no, I’m not sure what to replace the “punish/reward” and “target” frameworks with”

I’m a bit surprised… aren’t you one usually explaining how punishment can be an element of mutual pleasure? Didn’t you say how you were attracted by the “say please if you want a cigarettte”-punishment? As for “target”, some people in the incel forum I once participated in used the term “ood – object of desire”.

But I suppose that standard video game metaphor has its point for a lot of guys who are dealing with approach anxiety and really can’t be themselves at that point. It’s depersonalising it, particularly at the point at which it’s really not yet about *actual* mutuality, but about getting over yourself. I think that a familiar metaphor helps at that point, and I don’t think using it is unethical as long as there’s an understanding of the metaphor – at which point we’re back at: it depends on the people.

Clarisse May 29, 2011 at 7:33 pm #

Firstly, I also noted that Gareth Jones’s dominance games occasionally pissed me off. And secondly, you can see those games as a mutual flirting process, or you can see them as punishment and reward, and it won’t necessarily change how the games look from the outside — but I bet that perspective switch will change how you approach the relationship and communicate when you’re actually trying to have a real conversation rather than sharing a cigarette outside a nightclub. If people do “BDSM” that one partner isn’t into, and they don’t have a mutual conversation about it at some point, then it’s abuse, it’s not BDSM. Same principle applies.

Sam May 29, 2011 at 8:02 pm #

Clarisse,

“And secondly, you can see those games as a mutual flirting process, or you can see them as punishment and reward, and it won’t necessarily change how the games look from the outside … If people do “BDSM” that both partners aren’t into and don’t have a mutual conversation about it at some point, then it’s abuse, it’s not BDSM. Same principle applies.”

Right, but here it’s tease-level-”BDSM”, it’s playful juggling with power dynamics, in a way that, if done well, is supposed to be mutually beneficial, not antagonistic. If it looks and feels the same on the outside, the inside difference would be the npc/pc question, in my opinion? And while that is a decisive question, it’s really not one that can be addressed by looking at social “shovels”, in my opinion. The NPC/PC issue is much more fundamental.

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