This is a long post because it contains extensive, detailed analysis.

Below are two excerpts from Berne’s 1964 bestseller Games People Play: first his description of the game "Let's You And Him Fight", second of "Rapo", followed by Berne's own analysis of the latter, and finally I add my own reflections.

Eric S Berne (1910-1970), psychiatrist, best-selling author, proponent of "Transactional Analysis", a way of analyzing social interactions that appear to take place on one level but are really games played on another level.

Let’s You And Him Fight

Thesis. This may be a maneuver, a ritual or a game. In each case the psychology is essentially feminine. Because of its dramatic qualities, LYAHF is the basis of much of the world's literature, both good and bad.

1) As a maneuver it is romantic. The woman maneuvers or challenges two men into fighting, with the implication or promise that she will surrender herself to the winner. After the competition is decided, she fulfills her bargain. This is an honest transaction, and the presumption is that she and her mate live happily ever after.

2) As a ritual, it tends to be tragic. Custom demands that the two men fight for her, even if she does not want them to, and even if she has already made her choice. If the wrong man wins, she must nevertheless take him. In this case it is society and not the woman who sets up LYAHF. If she is willing, the transaction is an honest one. If she is unwilling or disappointed, the outcome may offer her considerable scope for playing games, such as "Let's Pull A Fast One on Joey."

3) As a game it is comic. The woman sets up the competition, and while the two men are fighting, she decamps with a third. The internal and external psychological advantages for her and her mate are derived from the position that honest competition is for suckers, and the comic story they have lived through forms the basis for the internal and external social advantages.

[...]

Rapo

Thesis. This is a game played between a man and a woman which might more politely be called, in the milder forms at least, "Kiss Off" or "Indignation." It may be played with varying degrees of intensity.

1) First-Degree "Rapo," or "Kiss Off," is popular at social gatherings and consists essentially of mild flirtation. White signals that she is available and gets her pleasure from the man's pursuit. As soon as he has committed himself, the game is over. If she is polite, she may say quite frankly "I appreciate your compliments and thank you very much," and move on to the next conquest. If she is less generous, she may simply leave him. A skillful player can make this game last for a long time at a large social gathering by moving around frequently, so that the man has to carry out complicated maneuvers in order to follow her without being too obvious.

2) In Second-Degree "Rapo," or "Indignation," White gets only secondary satisfaction from Black's advances. Her primary gratification comes from rejecting him, so that this game is also colloquially known as "Buzz Off, Buster." She leads Black into a much more serious commitment than the mild flirtation of First-Degree "Rapo" and enjoys watching his discomfiture when she repulses him. Black, of course, is not as helpless as he seems, and may have gone to considerable trouble to get himself involved. Usually he is playing some variation of "Kick Me."

3) Third-Degree "Rapo" is a vicious game which ends in murder, suicide or the courtroom. Here White leads Black into compromising physical contact and then claims that he has made a criminal assault or has done her irreparable damage. In its most cynical form White may actually allow him to complete the sexual act so that she gets that enjoyment before confronting him. The confrontation may be immediate, as in the illegitimate cry of rape, or it may be long delayed, as in suicide or homicide following a prolonged love affair. If she chooses to play it as a criminal assault, she may have no difficulty in finding mercenary or morbidly interested allies, such as the press, the police, counselors and relatives. Sometimes, however, these outsiders may cynically turn on her, so that she loses the initiative and becomes a tool in their games.

In some cases outsiders perform a different function. They force the game on an unwilling White because they want to play "Let's You and Him Fight." They put her in such a position that in order to save her face or her reputation she has to cry rape. This is particularly apt to happen with girls under the legal age of consent; they may be quite willing to continue a liaison, but because it is discovered or made an issue of, they feel constrained to turn the romance into a game of Third-Degree "Rapo."

In one well-known situation, the wary Joseph refused to be inveigled into a game of "Rapo," whereupon Potiphar's wife made the classical switch into "Let's You and Him Fight," an excellent example of the way a hard player reacts to antithesis, and of the dangers that beset people who refuse to play games, These two games are combined in the well-known "Badger Game," in which the woman seduces Black and then cries rape, at which point her husband takes charge and abuses Black for purposes of blackmail.

One of the most unfortunate and acute forms of Third-Degree "Rapo" occurs relatively frequently between homosexual strangers, who in a matter of an hour or so may bring the game to a point of homicide. The cynical and criminal variations of this game contribute a large volume to sensational newspaper copy.

The childhood prototype of "Rapo" is the same as that of "Frigid Woman," in which the little girl induces the boy to humiliate himself or get dirty and then sneers at him, as classically described by Maugham in Of Human Bondage and, as already noted, by Dickens in Great Expectations. This is Second Degree. A harder form, approaching Third Degree, may be played in tough neighborhoods.

Antithesis. The man's ability to avoid becoming involved in this game or to keep it under control depends on his capacity to distinguish genuine expressions of feeling from moves in the game. If he is thus able to exert social control, he may obtain a great deal of pleasure from the mild flirtations of "Kiss Off." On the other hand it is difficult to conceive of a safe antithesis for the Potiphar's Wife maneuver, other than checking out before closing time with no forwarding address. In 1938 the writer met an aging Joseph in Aleppo who had checked out of Constantinople thirty-two years previously, after one of the Sultan's ladies had cornered him during a business visit to the Yildiz harem. He had to abandon his shop, but took time to pick up his hoard of gold francs, and had never returned.

Relatives. The male versions of "Rapo" are notoriously found in commercial situations: "Casting Couch" (and then she didn't get the part) and "Cuddle Up" (and then she got fired).

[Berne's] Analysis

The following analysis refers to Third-Degree "Rapo" because there the elements of the game are more dramatically illustrated.

  • Aim: Malicious revenge. Roles: Seductress, Wolf.

  • Dynamics (Third Degree): Penis envy, oral violence. "Kiss Off" is phallic, while "Indignation" has strong anal elements.

  • Examples: (1) I'll tell on you, you dirty little boy. (2) Wronged woman.

  • Social Paradigm: Adult-Adult. Adult (male): "I'm sorry if I went further than you intended me to." Adult (female) "You have violated me and must pay the full penalty."

  • Psychological Paradigm: Child-Child. Child (male): "See how irresistible I am." Child (female): "Now I've got you, you son of a bitch."

  • Moves: (1) Female: seduction; Male: counter-seduction. (2) Female: surrender; Male: victory. (3) Female: confrontation; Male: collapse.

  • Advantages: (1) Internal Psychological—expression of hatred and projection of guilt. (2) External Psychological—avoidance of emotional sexual intimacy. (3) Internal Social—"Now I've Got You, You Son of a Bitch." (4) External Social—"Ain't It Awful," "Courtroom," "Let's You and Him Fight." (5) Biological—sexual and belligerent exchanges. (6) Existential—I am blameless.

My Own Reflections

This post is already very long, so I won’t go into depth.

Let’s You And Him Fight. The purpose of this game is for the woman to get a reaffirmation of her own desirability by proposing herself as a prize to be striven for. As Berne outlines, the three outcomes are (1) if her favorite wins, she enthusiastically gives herself to him; (2) if the wrong guy wins, she reluctantly gives herself to him or possibly gets out of it by playing an escape game; (3) or, she walks away in disgust, hamstering to herself that only loser thugs would behave like such animals, and gives herself to an alpha who had the frame maintenance and common sense not to fall for her shit-test and get embroiled in the first place.

Although Berne doesn't spell out an antithesis to LYAHF it's not hard to infer: just refuse to fight over a woman.

Rapo. In brief, she gives you plausibly deniable IOIs, you respond with advances, she shuts you down. The purpose, again, is to prove to herself that she is still desirable, and depending on the degree to which the game is played, to underscore that desirability by rejecting otherwise suitable mates.

This game has become a subcultural obsession, especially in urban areas in the USA; hot 20-something party-girls in the clubs flirt shamelessly for the pleasure of flinging rejections in the faces of chumps who are only too happy to pay them any attention. But while this pathetic push-pull game drugs these women with a vain sense of self-empowerment, like any drug it takes its toll, and they wake up one morning to find themselves past a marriageable age.

Berne shrewdly notes in his analysis that one of the internal psychological advantages of the game is "projection of guilt", that the existential advantage is "I am blameless", and that an external social advantage is to win a game of "Ain't It Awful". The projection of guilt and the existential fantasy of blamelessness are behind a woman's passionate insistence that she is not a slut; rather she is pure as the driven snow and it was all the other guy's fault, or someone put something in her drink (that is, the bartender put alcohol in her drink), or something else off the standard list of exonerations.

In the game of "Ain't It Awful", described in another part of the book, players solicit commiseration from each other while trying to top everyone else's stories of woe. Currently, in some segments of society, rape is the trump card; and for this reason it is in a woman’s social interest to level false allegations or fraudulently to portray herself as a victim of rape. The payoff is instant lionization, purchased at the low low price of telling a simple fib, recited with a suspicious air of self-satisfaction, that often never gets repeated in person to the authorities, and in doing so, a woman's ego gets its narcissistic supply renewed.

One may expect Berne's antithesis to consist of running away, but while that is the best response to the third degree version of the game, the responses to the first and second degree versions afford a little more wiggle room to play along. And while frame-maintenance is important, the essential component of an effective response is skill in discerning sincerity in her complaints. For if she is being insincere, you know it’s just another shit-test and you are safe to play along, executing A&A or whatever counter-game suits the mood and fancy.

Berne's book covers much more than these two games, ranging from the manipulations of your typical alcoholic, to the secret agenda of the accident-prone party guest, to the ulterior motives underlying prodigious generosity of the typical Nice Guy. It is a revealing blueprint of stereotyped social interactions that makes up for a lot of inexperience in dealing with people.