In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Why yes, I am several days behind in my Google Reader, why do you ask?

amandaw

In the middle of a rather marvelously frightening piece detailing the background of the now-infamous “Dimitri the Lover,” tigtog quotes PUA (see) Chris as saying:

As an aside, I find Community advice towards relationships preoccupied with power dynamics and the guy always having the upper hand

That’s one hell of an aside. It pretty much sums up the entire PUA community, of course, but it’s also a rather tidy wrap-up of how many men approach relations with women (intensified where sex is involved, but also family, work and social relationships) across mainstream society. Considering it came from a (quasi/former) PUA himself, I’m damn impressed.

16 thoughts on Why yes, I am several days behind in my Google Reader, why do you ask?

  1. It is a pretty excellent nutshell, isn’t it?

    To be scrupulous, I suspect Chris would make a strong distinction between himself as a one-time student of PUA rather than a guy who bought into being a PUA himself – he was a Lonely Guy, he kept apart from the weirdest cultish aspects of the seduction community (as he details in his article) and just learnt how to overcome his fear of approaching women, and now is happy being a bloke who, just like other well-adjusted adults, can enjoy an average dating/sex life and who has now found himself a partner. Ideally, that’s all that these communities would ever do for Lonely Guys, and wouldn’t that be great? Fewer lonely people?

    The disconnect comes between the (usual) original goal of new members – learning how to actually get dates and eventually a partner – and how so many of them end up focussing on shoring up their status with other Lonely Guys by aspiring to become a “player” instead.

  2. I’ve never really understood the whole PUA thing anyway, its always just seemed like a great way to become an asshole with herpes to me. Women don’t like me because I am ugly/uninteresting/generally unpleasant to be around (read: a schmuck) so I will trick the stupid bitches into liking me with a combination of emotional manipulation and abuse! What could possibly go wrong? Moo hoo haha!

    Of course the community is preoccupied with power dynamics and having the upper hand, they’re not looking for partners but real dolls with a pulse. The “confidence” gained comes from convincing yourself of your own superiority and learning how to spot the most emotionally vulnerable targets. Its the interpersonal equivalent to GHB.

  3. It’s endlessly irritating to me that these PUA assholes fail to realize Richard Bandler’s techniques work great …on crazy people. Any sane person can see their maneuvers coming a mile away.

  4. I dunno banisteriopsis… I am an honest person, I say that not as being good/bad it’s just the way it is and when I say honest that often means blunt. Honest and open to the point of making some people uncomfortable. I am extremely easily emotionally manipulated and even knowing they’re doing it isn’t always enough to make you stay away, unless you know they’re also malicious like that PUA bullshit.

    Case and point: I had a crush on my kickboxing trainer. So I told him. He was in a relationship, that was fine. Months later on camp we stayed up all night alone together playing chess and talking, flirting, he was quite touchy. So I asked, and was surprised to hear that yes he was still in a relationship. His way of motivating me to train was to be extremely negative, which made me an emotional mess, yet when spending time together recreationally he has discussed S&M with me, offered to buy me a collar, commented that he couldn’t come to my sex toy party with the other guys from kickboxing because there’s someone there he’s attracted to (in retrospect there were only 2 other women there and definitely not who he was talking about…), and said once “have you ever spent so much time fantasising about someone that you are scared to sleep with them in case it’s disappointing?”

    Despite sometimes hating him for his emotional manipulation of me I always melt in his presence. It’s pathetic but damn he pushes my buttons….

  5. William, the correct spelling is “Mwahahahaha.”

    Dana- What small, one-kickboxing school town do you live in? Get yourself another kickboxing instructor! For your own sake.

    Cheers!
    Babs

  6. Dana I totally know what you mean. I was assuming that you notice and don’t enjoy it.

    For a while I worked with a woman who was a master at emotional manipulation, and a psychopath besides. She told me flat out “I’m never going to have sex with you.” And then she’d lay into me about “what’s your favorite sexual position”, “I want to give you a blowjob right now”, “am I making you hard?” etc. Even after she admitted she was only doing it to make herself feel better, even after she poisoned her boyfriend and sent him to the hospital, and raged all over me or anybody else for the slightest thing, I was still willing to get down on my knees for her. That I knew she was manipulating me just made it hotter. I don’t pretend to understand why, but evil women women really get my motor going.

  7. The problem I have with these guys is, they assume the woman doesn’t know what they’re doing. They talk about it like big game hunting, completely negating the involvement of the women, other than as reflectors for their own supposed awesomeness. It doesn’t even seem to be about having lots of sex, so much as using and discarding as many women as possible.

  8. Babs: does the fact that we’re arguing over the spelling of something like that mean that this thread has jumped the shark 😉 Anyway, I’d argue that both “mwahahahaha” and “moo hoo haha” are acceptable spellings of the evil laugh we’re expressing. I’ve seen them both in print and the second one delivered deadpan in Transmetropolitan, which is what I was kind of thinking of when I used it.

    …wow, I am a nerd.

  9. The disconnect comes between the (usual) original goal of new members – learning how to actually get dates and eventually a partner – and how so many of them end up focussing on shoring up their status with other Lonely Guys by aspiring to become a “player” instead.

    I think this is because the PUA crowd’s *real* seduction targets are other men.

  10. It would be pretty fruitless to have a full out discussion about PU here. But just keep in mind that whenever a sentence starts out: “just seems to me….” it is probably going to be missing something. PU seeks to deconstruct human social interactions on both a macro and micro level. It is not an ideology but a body of knowledge that, when incorporated into one’s social interactions, can give an individual greater social success. It’s specifically tailored to giving men the tools to have social success with women. Many guys start out NiceGuys TM and end up actually realizing that women are people who don’t owe you anything but may enjoy your company if you can convey your personality positively. OF COURSE there are going to be guys like Dimitri, etc. But his existence doesn’t say anything about PU which is far from monolithic and very nuanced.

    Holla!

  11. It’s endlessly irritating to me that these PUA assholes fail to realize Richard Bandler’s techniques work great …on crazy people. Any sane person can see their maneuvers coming a mile away.

    The thing is that sane people are a minority and even tinier minority in the 20s or so age group that these people operate in so it works out quite fine.

  13. Sorry! I shouldn’t have said “crazy” people. That’s way too broad a term. Better to say “emotionally vulnerable and insecure.”

    Taking Bandler’s methods out a therapy setting and using them in the dating world is irresponsible and dishonest. I disrespect the hell out of anybody who tries to use this stuff on random people. They’re deliberately targeting vulnerable women to take advantage of. I guess it makes it easy to identify assholes more quickly….

  14. PU seeks to deconstruct human social interactions on both a macro and micro level. It is not an ideology but a body of knowledge that, when incorporated into one’s social interactions, can give an individual greater social success.

    Where “social success” = as many bed notches as possible, and as for not an ideology, all the PUAs’ online interactions are dripping with misogyny.

  15. Dana- What small, one-kickboxing school town do you live in? Get yourself another kickboxing instructor! For your own sake.

    lol a. He is overall a great trainer and our club is the best in our area by a long way. People started not wanting to fight our novice fighters because he trained us to fight for novice fights (first 1 or 2 you fight with 16 ounces, 1 1/2min rounds and no winner) just like any other fight rather than chucking you in cause you wanted to. Also it’s the only one not an hour out of my way (plus despite being a manipulative bastard he respects women, unlike some of the clubs where women don’t spar with the guys and shit like that).

    b. I haven’t been training for a while entirely because he did my head in, but I’m looking at going back. Some of the really good guys have started training together on a Monday for fun (separately! It amuses me that a lot of the fighters I really respect find Mark -trainer- really irritating) and I’ve been invited so that’s a good start 😀

    Dana I totally know what you mean. I was assuming that you notice and don’t enjoy it.

    Ah, fair enough. The whole thing is so unhealthy 😛

  16. I have a couple of friends who have read The Game and they try these things out at bars, mostly when they are way too drunk to stick to the points. One of the guys just wants the notches on the bedpost and has to constantly reinforce his ego with female attention. He comes from a family full of feminists and is way more liberal than I am ( I am fairly conservative, but enjoy listening to a variety of opinions), yet he doesn’t see that tricking women and treating them so disposablely is vile behavior.

    The other fellow who tries this is a lonely guy who really wants a girlfriend in the worst way, and sees this as a method to get into a relationship. It hasn’t been very successful for him. Unfortunately, he has a slew of other problems, so I think he sees this as his best chance of finding the right person.

    Both of them have tried to get me to read the pick up manifesto, but I have no interest nor patience to do these things. Some of the techniques are just embarassing. Besides, I have to sleep at night and how could I face my daughters after acting in a manner that I despise.

Comments are currently closed.