Blaming the Androsphere for PUAHater Elliot Rodger's actions is akin to blaming the NAACP for the lynching of black men:
In Elliot Rodger's YouTube "manifesto", recorded before he killed six in Isla Vista, California, he said his actions were provoked by women who spurned his romantic advances in favour of men he considered less appealing.
This led to the creation of the #YesAllWomen Twitter hashtag, with women sharing stories of sexual harassment and assault as a push back against those who dismissed Rodger's views as the rantings of a mentally ill individual.
Another debate over gender and sex has arisen from Rodger's use of language often associated with the "pick-up artist" (PUA) community, and news reports indicate that he took interest in the techniques and views espoused by a subculture that seeks to offer advice on how men can be more successful at attracting members of the opposite sex.
This advice, critics say, objectifies women and may have fuelled Rodger's anger. Bustle's Sarah Hedgecock offers her take on the PUA world:
Dedicated to having sex with women determined to score at least 7 out of 10 on the PUA scale of attractiveness, these men trade tips for scoring "targets" (yes, that's code for "women") and becoming the dominant dudes they believe all women truly want to sleep with. These are the guys who try to pick women up by insulting - or "negging" - them. The beliefs that women control the sexual market, that one is owed sex for doing favours for women, that girls only sleep with jerks and that there is one true key to getting all the (straight, hetero, unattached) sex a man could want form the basic creed of the PUA community. Women, in PUA culture, are not humans deserving of respect; they are a necessary evil to conquer in the name of sex.
It would be very difficult to get the basic concepts of Game more wrong than Ms Hedgecock has managed to do. Let's consider her statements:
- Dedicated to having sex with 7+ women? Wrong. Game is all about setting reasonable targets; a gamma is never going to score an HB7+. It's about improvement no matter where a man begins.
- Trading tips? Fair enough. Check.
- Becoming dominant dudes that women want sexually? It's an exaggeration, but close enough. Check.
- Guys who try to pick up women by insulting them. Wrong. Some players neg. Others don't. Negging is just one tool in a very large toolbox.
- Believe that women control the sexual market. Check. They do.
- One is owed sex for doing favors for women? Wrong. That's literal delta anti-Game.
- Girls only sleep with jerks? Wrong. They PREFER jerks, but they'll reliably exchange sex for support once the Wall begins to loom.
- There is one true key? Wrong. Hence the size of the toolbox.
- Women are not humans deserving of respect. Wrong. Because women are human, they do not intrinsically deserve respect on the basis of possessing a vagina.
- Women are a necessary evil to conquer. Absolutely wrong. Who said anything about necessary? Now, they are societally necessary when taken in the collective, but the core of the player's abundance mentality is the understanding that no individual woman is necessary or irreplaceable.
Elliot Rodgers had two chances. God and Game. Either could have saved him. He rejected both. And so to blame either is absurd on its face.
