Interesting and well-written article arguing against the PUA industry (please don't downvote, would rather like to hear Seddit's rebuttal against this article.)

AnotherSedditAccount · 2011-07-06T05:24:31+00:00

I only read about half of it and skimmed the rest.

Some of the stuff in there are pretty legitimate criticisms, and I believe things with which most people here already tacitly agree. For example, he mentions that "lay reports" (i.e. FRs) break up the interaction into little pieces that are supposedly enlightening, but really are just good interaction. Well, yes, that's the point. The problem for most guys that need help is that they are either not aware of what "good interaction" is supposed to be, or they somehow believe it won't work. I do agree that there is a strong tendency to overanalyze interaction in terms of "PUA principles", which tends to obfuscate the basic fact that you need to be just the right level of engaging and charming. The way I've seen this addressed on seddit is the idea that you should internalize the stuff you read and absolutely not think about any of it during the interaction.

My main point of contention with the article is that it appears to be advocating something that is not actionable. The author hammers the idea that it's women who should change their ways, not men. Ok, that is possibly a valid point, and a serious debate can be had on the subject. But it doesn't change the fact that society is not going to change on a whim any time soon, and in the meantime, if you're not doing the right things (intentionally or not), you won't have very much personal success. So he's not really advocating an alternative for PUA at all. Even if PUA is founded on a false premise, it is still something you can actually do, and it appears to work for many people.

Lnikm · 2011-07-06T14:04:40+00:00

Here's my take on seduction: tl;dr listen to the sensible stuff, ignore the rest, don't buy anything. Have a sense of healthy skepticism because the whole self help movement is full of lies.

Hey guys, so I've been here a while and this is my opinion: I'm sure some of you will disagree, and others will even be probably angry, but I'm just throwing out my opinion out there, these are valid concerns that I've had after being here for a very long time. I believe in some seduction methods, but I am also a skeptical person when it comes to all facets of life, if you are not a skeptical person, and do not feel like you would enjoy reading this, then please do not, because it may bother you.

Some seduction techniques are practical, actually, a lot of them are, but some take the "metagame" too far. An excellent analogy of this would be like the game starcraft, there are a lot of practical skills, but some people take the "metagame" far and forget what it's about. And a lot of the benefit you get after all the practical techniques(push/pull/etc) comes from the BELIEF that you can seduce. I think believing you can do something gives you a certain confidence about things. It's basically, "Do these things and you will become awesome" and whether those things are valid or not is irrelevant, as long as you believe you are, you really become confident.
Seduction is a numbers game. Basically, most of what seduction is based off of is approaching as many women as possible. Is it because of seduction, or is it because of the ideas of seduction which tell you to approach 4 women a day? From all these women, a couple are BOUND to take you up on your offer.
Seduction isn't so much about seduction as it is about self improvement, and believing you are awesome. Is believing you are awesome "fake" confidence? Maybe? Is there a difference between fake and real happiness? According to some psychologists, no. Does fake confidence drag in real confidence? I think so.
There are a lot of snake oil salesmen in seduction, a lot of these blog guys are completely anonymous, they could be fiction writers. There are also a lot of unskilled people talking about "theory" and stuff, yet they're probably not very skilled. For example, look at these guys they make a bunch of videos on youtube, yet their "in game" footage is terrible. Watching the infield video 1. Seriously the guy in the red's body language was terrible when he approached the girl. Leaned in, cross leggs, crossed arms. This is a small example of two people, but there are probably way more. There are definitely legit people but a lot of people also wanting to just make a quick buck by selling you their "theories." This self help consumerist market is just there for the money. I recommend reading SHAM the book about this. A lot of people from these programs just plagiarize from others, or are in it to make a lot of money. All these "millionaire" books are completely false. The only way to get rich from a self-help book is to write one. There are a lot of people out there trying to sell you happiness, happiness does not come from a book, not will it ever.
I've noticed a lot of the people who work in the seduction are at least average or above. Some of the users who post here about their success and post pics are actually quite looking.(thesacred for ex). I think looks do matter and there is a correlation between your attractiveness.

mhaom · 2011-07-06T11:36:05+00:00

The author's main point is that PUA skills are a "coping strategy" and that the real approach men should take is not to validate women's behaviour which is making seduction skills necessary.

The art of pick up, is essentially a pragmatic field. We do what works, not what's right. For the author it may be morally wrong that women are allowed to ascend the social ladder they have, but that is extremely biased. It is a social evolution caused by the sharp increase in population.

Without going too much into theory and morality, I would love if the author's vision of the world came true. A world where women were less selective, a world where men would naturally be swarmed by women, a world where we could act on our sexual instincts as we wanted. It may have worked in a small tribe society in the past, but not societies with millions of people, such as the average modern city.

Tyler D once said something about this. Sure, he has critics. Sure he has people who say this stuff doesn't work. But at least he's doing something. Why don't the guys who complain so much, try to take some students and see what they can do. Instead of ripping on the guys who are actually trying to help their fellow males?

TofuTofu · 2011-07-06T15:55:13+00:00

OK, it's very well written.. With one MASSIVE glaring oversight...

His impression of frame is COMPLETELY wrong. It's not about doing X, Y, and Z to get girls. It's about doing X, Y, and Z to be the most awesome fucking version of yourself ever.

If your "frame" is to get your dick wet, and you never correct that over time... (It's fine to get into seduction to get laid at first, but eventually you must learn to focus on genuine self-improvement.) Then he's correct. PUA is a massive shame.

It seems that blogger quit before he came to that realization. It's kind of sad really.

tl;dr: transcend the need for pussy. Learn to improve yourself for no reason other than to improve yourself.

simonjp · 2011-07-06T15:36:20+00:00

Another double standard is, when a woman shows interest in you right away you have to play hard to get and qualify her to show her that you have standards, otherwise she'll think you're too easy. But nowhere do PUAs raise an issue with her expressing interest in you right away. So it's okay for women to be interested right away but it's not okay for a man, because that would mean he is easy and has no standards.

This is actually quite an interesting point - the reason this works is because it's not the norm. PUA don't say that a man being disinterested is 'playing hard to get' - it's just not what the girl is used to. She's not used to having to put any work in. It's the subversion of her usual interaction with men (pick me, pick me!) that highlights you as different.

frogma · 2011-07-06T16:33:14+00:00

I don't think it's worth rebutting the article, because a lot of the author's argument is based on flawed assumptions of how shit actually works.

He basically seems to be saying the current process of communication is shitty and that men shouldn't need to "play the game." I didn't see any part where he offered an alternative.

I think his main point was that you should just "be yourself" and "be confident," and we all know why that's a really shitty way of giving advice. If he wants to become a dating coach, I'd love to hear how his "method" is different from any other PUA's.

I think most people who argue against the community are forgetting something: What alternative is there to the community? Would they consider David Wygant an alternative? Because I don't- I consider him a PUA. A lot of Wygant's ideas are similar/identical to other PUA ideas. David Burns? Same thing. Mark Manson? Some differences, but essentially the same thing. There is no alternative to the community, so people who argue against the community might as well be arguing against the concept of dating as a whole. People bitch about it, but hardly ever do they give their own advice. Sup with that??

rubygeek · 2011-07-06T06:26:51+00:00

I skimmed the article.. and I've dismissed it as a lot of bitching and whining. Instead of taking responsibility, blame is being shifted onto the woman (ie: a woman can't take responsibility for her actions and flakes on you — The PUA interpretation: You didn't do enough to attract her). Well, duh, the industry is targeted towards guys. As guys who are trying to be better with women, the only actions that you can control are yours. It's easy enough to say, "oh well women tend to flake. so they're bitches." instead of saying "well.. maybe I didn't give them enough of a reason to not flake." Which one of those is more results orientated?

It's very simple. Guys are unhappy with their relationships with women. They try to improve it. The obvious question is how? The author of this article seems to suggest that what those guys should do is wait for women to change. I'm sure this works. (/sarcasm). If anything, what this author really addresses is the idea that PUA is a magical instant gratification pill that will get anyone who throws enough money at the problem laid.

Actually, having written a bit, I've decided to go back section by section.

Contradictory Messages Author's main message: "The first flaw is that it teaches you the very contradictory message that you have to learn to be masculine and be your own man while catering to women and their actions. So no matter what she does, it's up to you to calibrate it for best effect. [...] The second flaw is that the seduction community never or rarely addresses those things that women are doing wrong."

Well, duh. The author can't berate people for only being able to control their own actions. All an individual can do is change his or her own actions in order to elicit a response from other parties. The response from the other party will naturally be dependent on the party's own experiences and personalities. Being a dick to a girl who's been emotionally abused probably won't get you somewhere. Being a dick to a girl who has masochistic tendencies might. Lets just conclude that if a guy wants to get with a girl, he's obviously going to have to do something to attract said girl. Expecting that any girl should just naturally want a guy is ridiculous.

Another claim: "Game is basically a coping strategy for women's rotten behaviour."

If you have no personal boundaries or values, then yes. Although PUA generally teaches us to be alpha and have limits.

Pushing The Fear Buttons and Twisting Evolution Theory Author's main message: "Pretty effective marketing I'd say"

Author discards legitimate fears that people have for getting into PUA. The whole section is just a rant on other people making money off people's emotions. IMO, nothing really too different between PUA advertising and regular advertising. There are legitimate complaints and uncertainties men have which haven't been answered by anyone else. If someone provides answers (Learn hobbies, be funny and interesting dot-dot-dot because it helps you get women.), which when implemented in the field seem to work, then I don't really see a foundation for criticism based on the marketing campaign. There could be criticism that PUA doesn't really stress the WHY, but for the dude trying to get laid, it doesn't really matter that much does it? If M3 achieves an individuals goal of getting laid, then why does it matters why it works.

Buying Into Feminist Propaganda And Double Standards Author's main message: "But no, don't criticize women and don't criticize the social engineering that molds their behaviour. You can criticize GM and Chrysler for making shitty vehicles, and no one would say the problem is with you. But if you criticize women for their actions then the problem MUST be with you."

More bitching by the author. I'm really tired of reading this article by now... the author expects women to be something their not, and expects men to expect women to be something their not. Completely ridiculous at this point. yawn

Women's rotten behaviour is justified using some form of twisted evolutionary psychology argument, or deftly reframing the situation to always put the burden on the guy to get things done.

Lets put it this way. If a woman is down to fuck you, then you're good to go and non of the PUA shit applies. Unfortunately, that's almost never the case -- so all the shit he lists are things guys who are trying to fuck a girl need to consider. Failure to do so results in the guy sleeping with his hand in his dick. I don't see the room for complaining.

I stopped reading. The amount of whining and bitching is disgusting.

My own conclusions: simply stated, society says it's up to a man to lead the interaction. No amount of bitching will change this. Either accept it, and be a more awesome, charming, handsome, attractive man who is able to push the right buttons of various women (implicitly doing all the things the author rants against), or don't, and be a lonely sap who keeps hoping and praying.

My guess is the author paid a lot for PUA while never seeing result and now is bitter, but never failed to address his main issue: being a whiny, annoying fucker.

Lots of negativity in this post. Feel free to criticize, downvote, etc.. etc.. etc..

Dexter77 · 2011-07-06T09:14:53+00:00

Sounds like a sports review from a guy who is too lazy to exercise.

BourbonBreath · 2011-07-06T18:07:14+00:00

The first flaw is that it teaches you the very contradictory message that you have to learn to be masculine and be your own man while catering to women and their actions.

Eh, kinda? The former half is true. Having true self confidence, "being excellent" a la Tao of Steve, is essential to PUA. The latter, however, is a half-truth. There's tons of material here in seddit and in the printed world of PUA about figuring out which women just aren't worth it, and even more about punishing them for their bullshit. If all men were versed in PUA there would be no shit tests.

The second flaw is that the seduction community never or rarely addresses those things that women are doing wrong.

That is completely not our prerogative. We're here to pick up women- be it men who are trying to lay as many HB10s as possible, or men who are just looking to figure out how to get anywhere with girls. I see it like this: what does a mechanic care if a car company makes shitty cars? "I don't work on Kias because they constantly need repair." Jesus.

Whisper · 2011-07-06T20:53:52+00:00

While there are some generalizations, oversimplifications, and false dichotomies, he's largely right.

There is a tendency in PUA to regard the culture as a background and not think about it too much (as "Tyler Durden" says, "don't judge the terrain"), but one has to, sooner or later, ask the question:

Why is PUA/seduction just being explored now?

In other words, humans have been around for perhaps half a million years, and have had civilization for about ten thousand. Was everyone just clueless before that time?

If we think about this question, we are compelled to conclude that the terrain has changed, and that PUA is a response to that change.

In other words, there's a reason why men in the western world are suddenly having to read books by misfits in fuzzy top hats in order to get laid.

Now, it's understandable why PUAs are afraid to go down that road. Judging society carries a risk of looking weak or whiny, and certainly doesn't get you results in any short timeframe.

But by regarding the woman as "terrain", one makes a commitment to adapt to women, and raises no corresponding expectation that women must adapt to men. It makes the woman, no matter how childish and unreasonable, the measure of our success and value.

In short, successful PUA is, in some ways, bad inner game.

What he's trying to point out here, although in some respects he fails to see it himself, is that PUA is part of a larger issue.

Women in the first world have come to undervalue men.

That's why we have to work so hard on this stuff. Because of the perception in their minds that we come to the bargaining table with nothing. That we must start from zero, when they have value just by being women.

This leads to two conclusions:

In the short run, we must learn to work around this "terrain", tilted as it is, in order to get results.
In the long run, we must not simply accept and adapt to this as the "terrain", because that is beta, and bad inner game, and weak, and pathetic, and makes the problem worse.

Fu_Man_Chu · 2011-07-06T12:33:48+00:00

It's wrong right from the start, "If she wants cocky and funny you better be cocky and funny."

No that's not how that works. It isn't about what she WANTS it's about what works. Cocky funny is a frame, it isn't something you give her. It's perfectly reasonable to also fit who you already are inside of the frame "cocky funny".

The author of the article keeps making the mistake of thinking it's about giving girls "what they want" which leads me to believe whoever wrote this is a failed PUA. Someone who read all thew literature, maybe even took courses, followed all the gurus but never really wrapped his head around how it all works.

2011-07-06T07:48:53+00:00

I skimmed it after running into dumbass argument after dumbass argument. The most glaring that I happen to see was comparing PUA's to gymnasts or welders. There is very little elements of luck or interpersonal interactions (which is a large part of luck in game) in those two endeavors. This does not mean that they are actually legitimate hobbies, they are just different. What about professional poker players. They don't win every time, in fact I can beat a great poker player in any given hand, anyone could, shit, a trained dog could. That doesn't mean that I could win millions like they. Spending anymore time on this article just wastes my energy. It's almost fine trolling.

So yes, I will downvote this subsmission, because anyone dumb enough to take this serious for one fucking second is having a severe crisis of faith (terrible word, but I don't know how to describe this any other way). Guys, this shit works. I have nothing to sell. Torrent all the good stuff, and learn from it, it works. Trust those who have made it work. Don't listen to the bitter failures, those too weak to continue on. It's hard but worth it.

2011-07-06T16:53:00+00:00

The problem in the article, comparing the two diff pedestals (I'm at work) is that the "pedestal" espoused by the PUA community, is, for better or worse, mostly accurate.

That's the bottom line lol, and I've live a life, as has 99% of the people here, that proves incontrevirtably, (Sp?) through thousands of anecdotal and even hard evidence, that the 2nd "pedestal" is the word of "non-fiction"

If the writer is arguing against that, or arguing against how to deal with it, the arguer is wrong

2011-07-06T17:25:17+00:00

I really dislike when people make generalizations about the "PUA industry". It's really become incredibly diverse, and his criticisms only apply to a certain group of guys in the industry. A lot of his criticisms are more over generalized than what the PUA's are teaching.

What this guys is saying in this article is just as sound as what all the shitty PUA's teach.

I'm not going to break down all his arguments, because it's not worth my time, but very little of what he's saying actually applies. He's just coming up with general theories that generally apply to his argument, which is exactly what the shitty PUA's do.

rmbarnes · 2011-07-06T23:34:25+00:00

The interesting this is, if you read his free ebook: http://www.beyondroutines.com/

it sounds like most of the PUA stuff did work for him, but it just turned out that getting lots of women didn't make him happy:

A few years ago I started down the road of learning to pick up women. I had realized it was finally time to deal with this part of my life called "women". I was addressing my neediness you might say. I had subscribed to newsletters, listened to NLP, joined seduction forums, and met like-minded “wingmen”. I was becoming a pick-up artist. I was meeting women, going on dates, getting laid. This went on for a few years. But the problem was, even though I had experienced success the neediness didn't go away.

anon_anonymous · 2011-07-07T04:35:02+00:00

"It is for this reason that PUA methods are not a skill like any other, but rather the law of averages masquerading as a skill."

No, this is flat wrong and destroys the entire article. There are so many mistakes - showing too much interest too soon, oneitis, not approaching due to approach anxiety, not knowing what to say, not adding value via storytelling or humor to the conversation, not escalating, etc - that simply learning PUA and experimenting with it will fix.

That's not the law of averages. That's learned skill.

jerseykid · 2011-07-07T11:20:05+00:00

HA! what a joke: the article had a David DeAngelo advertisement right smack in the middle of it! [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3D2Wc2Wigl0/S4Q_2-vIjRI/AAAAAAAAAeo/7F74ymbRke4/s1600-h/David_DeAngelo_doubleyourdating_image_ad.JPG]

wesno · 2011-07-08T07:17:36+00:00

I wrote about this.

http://wesno.blogspot.com/2010/12/game-is-ultimately-reactive.html

sed_throwaway · 2011-07-06T07:07:25+00:00

I'd certainly disagree with "Interesting and well-written" on both claims. This guy's arguments are invalid, they are basically all False Dichotomies

I couldn't get more than halfway through the article, cringing after every sentence at the horrible leaps of logic it makes.

rubygeek · 2011-07-06T08:28:58+00:00

I just skimmed it, and what I saw seemed to be some of the most misogynist crap I've read in a long time. Given how a lot of feminist see PUA techniques as some sort of ultimate evil, it's ironic to see a criticism of PUA techniques criticize it on the basis that it's buying into a feminist agenda of maintaining some sort of imagined female superiority.

It doesn't help that he has an incredibly flawed idea of what is viewed as "good" pickup. E.g. he seems to believe that the goal is to do what the woman want, ignoring how much focus is on getting away from outcome dependence and focusing on abundance and moving on or punishing the woman if she acts in a negative way.

Supposedly we're all aiming at supplicating to a woman because we try to find out what ways we can best trigger attraction, ignoring the fact that a lot of these methods for triggering attraction rely on "hacks" that are aimed at evening the score and get the woman to if not chase you then at least meeting you on an even playing field.

In his view it seems anything that doesn't involve women doing what men wants means men are supplicating.

Some examples that are particularly ridiculous:

A woman can't initiate and lacks conversational depth — The PUA interpretation: She is testing your ability to "plow through" and lead.

No. The PUA interpretation is that she is more likely to not want to initiate or contribute conversationally with someone who has just approached her, but if she proves to still be dull and uninteresting once you've spoken to her a while, then, well, either drop her if you're looking for a girlfriend or fuck her and move on and let someone else deal with her lack of conversational skills.

The point here is that you can't reliably judge her conversational depth until you've created sufficient interest for her to have a reason to invest. Assuming someone "can't initiate and lacks conversational depth" because she won't instantly open up to you is provably flawed (proven over an over again by everyone who approaches a woman that'll appear uninterested and answer in single syllables but then open up later and be a fantastic conversationalist).

• A woman loses interest soon after talking to you — The PUA interpretation: You didn't stimulate her enough.

Well, duh. Whether going to the lengths necessary to stimulate her to the point where she will keep interest is worth it is an open question, but whether woman or man, if your conversation partner loses interest and you wanted to keep the conversation going, ultimately it is your responsibility: They don't owe you anything; if you can't get them interested, that is your problem. This applies in both directions - it's not just the mans responsibility. But if you're the one that's approached, then you're also likely the one that wants the conversation most initially, and then it has to be your responsibility to stimulate the other party.

Anything else would be childishly assuming that just because you started talking to someone they somehow owe you to get instantly interesting in whatever you've got to say.

A lot of is other interpretations of what a PUA would think in a situation is based on ideas about how it is useful to interpret the situation. It doesn't matter if the reason a woman resists is because you didn't bring the skills needed or not - what matters is that averaged over a lot of women, if you assume this and take failure to mean you need to improve your skills, you are more likely to be successful than if you treat her rejection as something else.

I see a lot of whining from some little pussy that don't want to step up. Since he likes to talk about spoiling babies: He is acting like a spoilt little child who wants to take his toys and refuse to play unless the other children are willing to play by his rules. Problem is, the other children have plenty of others to play with that aren't sitting in a corner and sulking.

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