PUA Travesty on Kickstarter

While I certainly don't agree that literally anything is "rape" nowadays in the minds of some deluded feminists, including talking to a woman, I do think that the concept of "plowing" has been taken way too far in the PUA community. If you persist when the woman objects to your advances, you certainly met the criteria for sexual harassment. For an extreme example, look at my 2011 post RSD is cool with date rape.

Quite recently, I've been told about a Kickstarter project that was eventually banned, but only after it reached its funding goals. First, thanks to all those who pointed this out to me: Assanova, B., and an anonymous commenter. I don't follow the PUA scene much these days, so I'm grateful when people tell me about various absurdities. To recapitulate the story, Tofu Tofu, a guy from the seduction section on Reddit put up a Kickstarter project with the title, "Above the Game: A Guide to Getting Awesome with Women". Looking for controversy to get some buzz going, he mixed his mental masturbation with a good dose of sexual harassment. Here's a quote:

All the greatest seducers in history could not keep their hands off of women. They aggressively escalated physically with every woman they were flirting with. They began touching them immediately, kept great body language and eye contact, and were shameless in their physicality. Even when a girl rejects your advances, she KNOWS that you desire her. That’s hot. It arouses her physically and psychologically.

Plowing is one of the most damaging PUA concepts

In the comments section of my recent article Hubris as the basis of the PUA scam, I had a discussion with Alek Novy about the existing social norms regarding approaching women, and what they imply for men.  In this article, I'm going to expand on it, and will eventually point out the overly harmful consequences of what PUAs call "plowing".

First, let's just recapitulate how Western society works: In order to spare women the negative consequences of feeling rejection, it's the task of the man to approach her. However, the woman can't be too blatant about her interest, so you normally get mixed signals. This is all to allow for plausible deniability on her part. Let's say Jill Average gets wet for Joe Buff and sees him at the college bar. Joe is there as well, and looks for some new chick to bang. Jill thinks that now her time has come and makes a "move", but Joe ignores her. Then, she can still say to herself, "Oh, no, I wasn't flicking my long hair to get the attention of Joe Buff. He just happened to walk past when I did it, and of course I did it with no reason at all."

Let's say Janet Stunner does the same and happens to be Joe's type. Janet flicks her hair, Joe sees this and realizes that Janet is looking for dick. He takes her home, and they have sex. However, by merely sending out a signal as apposed to approaching the guy, Janet can keep telling herself that she isn't just some slut who is willing to any fit guy. Again, plausible deniability protects the female psyche.

Hubris as the basis of the PUA scam

My wife recently skimmed my blog and remarked that I surely have a lot of bad things to say about women, and that I let men off easy. She pointed out that there were plenty of "fat, short, and ugly men hitting on young girls in clubs who consider themselves to be God's gift to women". She had a point, and as I thought more about this scenario, it dawned on me that without male hubris, in particular the failure to see yourself realistically, the whole PUA scam never would have gotten off the ground.

Let's first contrast hubris as it's present in both genders. Women may think that there is the proverbial knight in shining armor that will save them from their misery and accept them because they've got such fabulous personalities, even if they are physically unattractive and actually have rather obnoxious personalities. Not wanting to face reality, they keep pining after attractive guys, or fuck some average dudes, but it's all just to keep them busy until their own personal version of Mr Big steps into their lives. This normally doesn't quite work out so well, and the well-known result is that those women end up being rather desperate 30 year-olds or, in the worst case, single moms who no guy with options would go near.

But just as women delude themselves, so are there plenty of guys around who neglect the importance of looks, money, status. Before discovering PUA, they hoped that somehow some fabulous chick would accidentally end up riding their cock, and so they roamed bars and clubs just to ogle chicks, and also hit on any woman they meet through work, no matter how far out of their reach she may be. You know, maybe they'll get lucky by chance.

Who came up with the "sex is the greatest thing in the world" nonsense?

Did you ever watch any of those teenager movies like American Pie, or did you ever skim one of those magazines that are aimed at teens? Or did you just listen to what other people say? If so, then you may have gotten the idea that sex was absolutely fabulous, like, the totally best thing in the world. However, once you have had sex, you realized that it isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sure, it's nice, but it's hardly a step up from masturbation. I'd argue it's different, but not better or worse.

Sorry, that wasn't quite right. Sex can be worse than rubbing one out. I've had "lays" that were infinitely worse than my worst wank. I don't think I ever failed pleasing myself, but that's not something I could say of all the girls I've met. In fact, I've found myself questioning whether pulling girls just for sex was really worth it. I think any guy who has the option of being with many women --- this only applies to a minority of guys --- eventually gets to the point at which he'll simply get tired of sex. The reason why guys pursue meaningless lays, though, has often more to do with a sense of validation, but even that gets boring after a while.

Feminism as an excuse for being ugly

Apparently last month there was a three-day celebration of feminism at the University of Cambridge. The pictures on Facebook are well worth a look due to their concentrated stupidity. I just want to talk about one particular issue, and it might be a somewhat controversial one, at least in the mainstream media.

Ask yourself whether you have ever seen a good-looking feminist? I certainly haven't. I don't want to stoop as low as Roosh V with his post on the "ugliest feminists of America", but it's hard not to notice that the "intellectual" leaders as well as the typical follower isn't exactly the kind of woman you'd fantasize about having sex with. Somehow I get the impression that "feminists" like to influence other women to look less attractive, i.e. as unattractive as they themselves are. Why they do it I don't really know, but it could be that they are simply envious of better-looking women, which makes them want to work towards a future were all women are unattractive. This is all just conjecture, though, but I wouldn't know how else to explain this phenomenon.

Let's have a look at this picture:

Oh, it shouldn't?

Sleazy, how come gurus make money if they're so shit?

PUA shills haven't pestered me much recently, apart form some dude who tried to pollute my forum. However, quite recently there was a blog comment that had an angle I wasn't familiar with. Let me just cite the shill comment as a whole:

Yeah. Just out of curiosity, Aaron. A lot of people seem to say that speed seduction doesn't work. How would you explain that Ross (but also V Kelvin, RSD, and other "guru$") is still making money and have supporters?

(This comment appeared under Romance is for Losers.)

Please take a moment or two to let the previous quote sink in.

There are at least two good counter arguments. Let me start by questioning the premise, namely that PUAs make money and have fans. As I've shown in recent articles, interest in the big names of the PUA scene has dwindled dramatically. It's also a fact that there haven't been any big releases like 20-DVD sets in years. Also, many PUAs have moved on. David DeAngelo tried rebranding himself as Eben Pagan, Neil Strauss is back to writing about celebrities, and many of the B-team either quit or moved into self-help. Some seemingly well-established names like DJ Fuji are barely hanging on. His forum has something like 500 posts...

Romance is for Losers

A big mistake inexperienced men make is that they believe mainstream dating advice, and then there are of course those who believe the equally nonsensical advice of PUAs. It is not true, as PUAs claim it, that you can get any woman you want if you just used the right technique. However, following mainstream advice by being courteous, and not too pushy, taking girls out on dates, and waiting for at least two weeks before attempting to have sex with her will also guarantee that you won't get much action.

Plenty of girls don't mind if you waste your time or money on them, though. Why time? Well, it equals attention, and a plain average girl would rather have some average guy drooling over her than none. It doesn't mean that she can't wait to rip his clothes off, though. What guys who take girls out on dates don't realize is that there is a much faster route. It's just not necessarily available to them. Based on my experience, I am tempted to say that girls make the decision to have sex with you very quickly --- if they are attracted to you. Then there are guys that just don't do it for them at all. However, there is an unfortunate third category that can be exploited for material gains. This is where dating and diamond rings come in.

I found it quite startling that some girls were openly mocking the guys they were dating when they hung out with me. This also ruined any notion I had of women being kind. One particularly materialist bitch in London viewed some middle-aged guy as nothing but a walking wallet, and thought this was all good fun. Once she even asked what I think he should buy her next. I didn't quite manage to develop a lot of respect for that woman. However, I'm undecided whether that guy deserves pity or ridicule. He only has himself to blame since he should be perfectly aware of the fact that he's not getting anything in return. Still, it struck me that they were willing to fuck me so quickly, while they only dangled a carrot in front of some other guys.

Message from a Reader: The Consistency Trap

Below is a message from a reader: Max describes how he got caught up in PUA, and how he managed to free himself from the negative influence. Please pay particular attention to what he calls the "consistency trap".


Hi there. My name’s Max, and I was into PUA for a few years. Even though I learned through experience that it was unnecessary, it was your site and PUAHate which convinced me that it was really ridiculous. Weirdly though, I found it hard to let go of it. It took me a while to figure out what the issue was. I eventually realized it was something I call the consistency trap.

Basically, you can encounter PUA because you were searching for “solutions” with girls, either because you wanted more or because you feel bad. I was in the second category: at that time, I had been heartbroken by a girl I really liked and didn’t like me back. I felt awful, and discovering the PUA thing was a revelation: if I could just master “social dynamics”, be alpha and a master PUA, I could probably fix that! And moreover, this could enable me to make sure that I would never suffer from that again.

Do you find most women attractive?

In the discussion following Do women really hold all sexual power? an anonymous reader made the following statement:

Most men find most women somehow attractive (not my case, but so I hear).

I questioned this statement, and so did others. However, it is a position plenty of women and men seem to hold. Women think that men would fuck anything that walks and while the guys I personally know all have personal standards, they might still think that others are less discerning. However, it seems to be much closer to the truth that unattractive guys, as well as guys who don't know about their market value, might stick with a relatively plain looking woman. I do hope, though, that they find at least some attraction for them.

Please note that this myth is also used to justify this inane talk about male sexuality being worthless, which was at the core of the article I linked to above.