In Defense of Pick-Up Artists
Geplaatst op 03-02-2023
Categorie: Lifestyle
I’ve been around the Manosphere for a while now. I’ve seen it grow and change, and sometimes it’s hard to believe how far it’s come. I knew from the beginning that we were onto something. We were ground zero of the resistance, secret defenders of truth, real humanists who cared about what would make people happiest, not what sounded politically correct. We were the fathers that most men never get to have nowadays. Some of you reading this were like that for me.
But lately we’ve become hyper-focused on politics and self-improvement. This might be a natural evolution of our worldview, a way to continue growing and become more of a movement. We’re all intelligent and very ambitious, in the sense that we don’t want to stand still and repeat ourselves. All of us continue to think about what comes next, and how we can keep it interesting. And so we’ve expanded further and further, testing the limits of what we can accomplish. We haven’t hit our ceiling yet.
But because of these changes, there is also a growing attitude of dismissiveness toward what brought us all here in the first place: having sex with women.
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It almost seems dirty to say it out loud now, doesn’t it?
There’s no clearer way to put it. The reason 99% of us are here today is because we wanted to get better with girls. We wanted to enjoy sexual relationships with women, and stop getting beaten down by an inhospitable social climate that left us feeling lonely and disrespected. We weren’t here to campaign for “Men’s Rights”– though many of us learned about those issues for the first time through the ‘Sphere– and it’s essentially a slur when the mainstream media tries to equate the Manosphere with MRAs. Being a men’s rights activist shouldn’t be anything to be shamed for, but it is deliberately used to paint us all with a broad, condescending brush. Fuck that.
We also weren’t here to get involved in politics. We had more pressing concerns– our basic needs were not being met. Unless a man has truly experienced rejection and a period of not being able to get girls (even while desperately wanting them), he will never understand. And women might empathize, but they ultimately cannot understand either. Oxygen doesn’t seem like a big deal to anybody who isn’t suffocating. We can’t blame them; it’s human nature. But most men today have been to these darkest depths at some point in their lives, marginalized by a skewed sexual marketplace, and so they’ve become our fellow travelers.
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I understand why most guys have stopped writing about game as much. We conquered it. The brain trust that we built over the years was a supercomputer of knowledge about how to get girls, thousands of synapses constantly connecting and improving. All the information is out there now, if someone wants to find it. Read the archives of my blog roll. And that wouldn’t even be the half of it. Sometimes I don’t know if I have anything new to add to that canon, and I’m sure other guys feel the same at this point. We have essentially mapped the female psyche, like scientists mapping the human genome.
The other avenue that allows guys to continue writing about picking up women is telling personal stories. These are sometimes called “field reports,” and like anything else associated with “PUA” lingo, I feel a slight tinge of embarrassment every time I say it (I’ll discuss that more in a moment). But this first-person diary style of writing has gone out of style as our bloggers’ profiles have grown, guys have come “out of the closet” and given up their anonymity, and others simply decide it’s no longer worth it to have so much personal information out there. There was a time when I had tons of stories posted, and at a certain point, it felt like more of a liability. I didn’t want to have to keep this side of my life a secret from people I got close to. Would you really want every girl you date to read a detailed journal of all your ups and downs– your innermost thoughts and doubts– and sexual escapades from years of your life? Would you want that out there for your family to read?
Some guys are still doing this, and I give them a lot of credit for it. Some others have gone to a “soft” version in which they give sparse past details but are still able to relate general tips and advice to their own lives. I’ll probably lean more toward that approach in the future. But the overall focus of the Manosphere has shifted away from getting laid, and toward a broader idea of “improving our masculinity and society.” That’s a noble goal, but it has also made us lose sight of the basics.
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The main reason I decided to write this post is the negative attitude I mentioned earlier that some people hold. There is a growing chorus that I believe is composed of mostly older guys, some “red pill” women, and religious Christians who essentially try to shame us for using game to sleep with women. These people consider themselves part of the Manosphere, they comment on our blogs and forums, and they pop up in our Twitter feeds.
The common thread between them seems to be that they have no desire to sleep with a lot of girls. Either they are an old man with low testosterone, a woman, or a young guy in a happy relationship. It is self-assuaging ego protection in most cases. But to a tee, none of them want to go out and get a lot of girls (at least not on a conscious level). That’s fine, but it’s a form of intolerance because they seem to have no conception that for other people, this is a viable life choice. They are the “virtuous” ones, they are the “real men,” and if you pursue a “PUA” lifestyle you’re a loser, in their view.
Their belief seems to be that “game” is only acceptable if it is used to acquire a monogamous girlfriend or wife, and then sustain that relationship. They try to act cool with the idea of “getting girls,” but their true colors can’t be hidden. These are the people who are always adding a caveat: “Yeah, that’s cool! But you’ll just use that knowledge on your awesome, beautiful, feminine girlfriend right? You’re not gonna be a loser PUA trying to bang sluts are you?!”
What they fail to understand is that men today have no choice. We are all here out of necessity, because our civilization has started to fall apart. The sexual marketplace has become skewed to the point where a very small percentage of men are able to monopolize a large percentage of desirable women. This is because humans’ more feral instincts have been unleashed as societal constraints and institutions like the church have been weakened. We are returning to the jungle, almost literally.
It’s funny listening to these guys give advice. “Just get a loving, sweet, feminine, sexy, 18-year-old Christian girlfriend like me, you fucking loser!” I don’t think they realize how naive they sound. I’ve been on hundreds (maybe thousands) of dates, and I’ve met two girls that come close to that description. One of them, I got into a relationship with. And if I hadn’t improved my abilities with women by dating all the other ones, she might not have been as strongly attracted to me. And I might not have recognized her positive attributes.
They would respond to this, “Well you’re not gonna meet them at the club! You’re just finding sluts to bang!” If you read all of our blogs, twitters, forums, etc. you will see hundreds of thousands of men who are desperately looking for that same ideal girl. Men are absolutely thirsty to find her. But the arena of human sexuality entails intensive competition. We don’t live in a utopian vacuum. Resources are limited, it’s zero sum. And so, we all must get by however we can.
The natural, and rational, reaction to this situation is to learn game. To become a “pickup artist.” What this really means– despite the negative connotation– is that a man takes active control of his sex life and decides to start maximizing the behaviors that garner positive reactions from women, and minimizing the negative. He also might actually discover new abilities, confidence, and more attractive ways to present himself physically (clothes, working out, hair style, etc.).
We’re all in agreement that society is not perfect these days. I’m not arguing that at all. But the problem is not just that people are having sex out of wedlock– that’s been going on for a long time. The problem is cultural. We don’t have institutions that guide people toward forming happy, (re)productive families anymore. I don’t want girls to wait until marriage to have sex. I really enjoy having sex with a lot of women! I will probably want to settle down and commit to a woman who has had minimal numbers of sexual partners and shown discretion in the way she has conducted her sex life. But I’m glad I have the tools to make me the guy they’re doing it with now.
But we also need to have girls worth committing to. That is not a problem that “PUAs” have caused. Our current crop of women has been Roont by larger forces than any of us can control. And we have done an admiral job of starting to turn that tide back.
And that is what game critics fail to see: even if we are sleeping with a lot of girls, by improving ourselves into the type of men who get a lot of girls, we are improving the world. Women’s attraction cues are God’s way of telling us how to be better men, how to become more than we are. And the vast majority of us end up in relationships– which are then infinitely happier and more harmonious because we understand women.
The happiest women I’ve met in my life– perhaps the only happy women I’ve met– have been the wives and girlfriends of “red pill” men. Being a “pickup artist” is only a matter of degree removed from being the alpha patriarch these critics seems to be asking us to be. It is a necessary gateway for most men. The truth is, you don’t go from being a nerdy Christian virgin to running a perfect, attraction-sustaining marriage. To do that, you would need the outside help of a church, and most churches these days ain’t gonna have the man’s back.
The bottom line is that by taking the “red pill,” a man is better equipped to someday run a harmonious family and instill better virtues in his daughters.* But even if he doesn’t choose to pursue a marriage and family (since there are so many other issues with that in today’s society), that is still a valid life choice for him. The red pill is about humanism, and also hedonism to an extent. Individuals do not create society, they inherit it. And there is no “right way” to live in the society we currently find ourselves in. A return to “conservative” social values is influenced by economics, and might happen on its own. The divorce rate is going to stay high as long as women are in the workforce, and are less involved in religious communities. So I can’t help but respect the different ways men have chosen to respond to our current situation. I will never tell men they have to do something, particularly when that option isn’t even viably available to a great proportion of them.
*There is always a competition between the mating strategies of men and women, and that is one of the ways these “critics” have not actually taken the red pill. Mother Nature has double standards. We should teach our sons game and encourage them to get girls, but also that they should decide for themselves whether to primarily look for hookups, relationships, or maybe hookups that lead to relationships. This is all a gray area today. But teaching your own daughter to be more selective and chaste, only having sex within the context of committed relationships, is an optimal strategy for her longterm happiness. Also, the poor quality of women today causes the most suffering of all– to both those women themselves, and to the disappointed men who have to put up with them. If women have something to offer men again, those men will leap over themselves to be the best men they can be.
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I also want to briefly address the negative connotations of the term “PUA.” It has been a dirty word since the beginning. Almost nobody has wanted to wear this label, except for guys like Krauser who put it right in their name. But even Krauser is more interested in stopping the migrant invasion of his homeland these days than telling us about the latest 18-year-old Czech girl’s virginity that he took.
The reason most guys avoid the term PUA is because women have a visceral aversion to it. If a woman labels you a PUA, it’s over. She is closed off to you forever. To a woman, the idea of a man needing to consciously work hard at getting girls means he is a loser. She wants the man whose genes effortless carry sexual confidence and good looks to the next generation. And so, being labeled a PUA is mocked by women, and the liberal culture that tries to appease women by parroting all of their opinions. Naive men think this is a way to get in women’s pants, but eventually I assume these guys will realize it doesn’t work. Maybe in another century or so…
So next time you see a monogamous man mocking “PUAs,” ask him whether his girlfriend would say the same thing. The honest answer (whether he gives it to you or not) is a resounding yes. And it may only be on a subconscious level, but he is shaming them to raise his status with his girlfriend. He is being a good little boy and repeating the Approved Opinion.
If anything, this is the real “art” of pick-up artistry: appearing effortless, disguising your conscientiousness, and just coming off as real. The idea of “realness” or one’s authentic self is one of those myths that could only have been perpetuated by women. Women believe in a “real” self because they believe their feelings are reality. But is there anything more fluid and subjective than feelings? To a woman, whatever she feels in the moment is her “authentic” self– to suggest otherwise would be taken as an extreme insult by any woman.
But when men hear the phrase “just be yourself” they imagine an idea of a fixed, central identity that is buried somewhere in their soul. Women’s solipsistic perspective on this must necessarily include an unspoken subtext of “Just act like however you feel in the moment (so I can judge you).” A man who can disguise his emotions and intentions is powerful, and therefore is a threat to women. They want to be able to weed out the weak men, and if he disguises himself just well enough to seduce her, that is the worst-case scenario. If a woman is tricked by a man and then “discovers” he is not as attractive (high-value) as she thought he was, she might become stuck with a sub-optimal fetus parasitically growing inside her. Thank goodness we’ve protected Women’s God-Given Right to head down to Planned Parenthood and vacuum that little motherfucker right out of there.
If we are being generous in our interpretations, we can take women’s advice of “just be yourself” to perhaps mean “act without self-consciousness.” In this context, it’s actually good advice. You can study game at home, learn the theoretical reasons behind the dynamics, but you will only achieve strong success when you can just be in the moment, and put it all to work in a subconscious manner (or at the very least, appear to be doing so). This is part of the competence cycle in learning game.
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I’m sure this is a debate we will continue to have, but I am a “red pill fundamentalist” in the sense that I am sticking with what this was all originally about:
Our community is built around looking honestly at human nature. That’s it. We want to know the bare, naked truth. What really makes people tick? Why do they have sex? Why are they attracted to certain people rather than others? Why do they sometimes say things or behave in ways that appear contradictory or illogical? What factors shape their cultures and affect societal changes? Why do the dominant cultural narratives have so many holes in them?
To me, this is the definition of taking the red pill. This is the starting point– answering these questions with as much honesty as we can, through the experiences and studies of others, and through reaffirming it with all of our own interactions with the world.
Only after answering these questions can we decide what to do with that information. And I believe that there is no universal “right” answer– each person must decide for themselves how best to utilize it. There are valid debates to be had about whether we should put our own selfish interests first, or sacrifice to make a healthier society. Maybe there are also situations in which individual selfishness is the healthiest thing for society as well. These are fascinating discussions.
But the mistake I see being made is people being too quick to judge others, and conclude that their own lifestyle is the only valid choice. I believe they have good intentions, but the truth– as we’ve seen, and will continue to see– is a tangled web of complex fascination. The biggest fallacy of these “game critics” is to think that they have enough information to reach an absolute conclusion. But there is always another stone to turn over, another perspective to raise, and something they haven’t considered.
This is an exciting prospect to me. We are all continuing to learn, and starting to look for how things can truly be better in the future. But this complex problem is going to require complex solutions.
And it’s going to be a hell of a ride for all of us.