Say what you will about the dedicated PUAs (Pick-Up Artists) of the world: at least they sometimes actually talk to real human women. The guys in Reddit’s Seduction subreddit, I’m not so sure about.
It’s kind of sad, sometimes, to read the plaintive requests for advice on Seddit (as it’s known) from college guys who’ve fixated on some girl in some class of theirs, and want desperately to learn the secret formula to get into her pants. These aren’t guys who’ve mastered the art of “negging” women with clever little mini-insults (a favorite PUA technique); these are guys who haven’t quite grasped that you have to actually talk to a woman in order to ask her out.
Take this query, recently posted there:
My suggestion?
Write “coffee?” on your forehead, and stand in front of her. Point at your forehead if necessary.
So, yeah, I’ve been banned from Seddit.
Look, I feel for the guy. I’ve been that guy.
But just think of it from the point of view of the girl. Some guy you’ve never spoken to, some guy who doesn’t know a thing about you other than you make him feel funny in his pants, approaches you out of the blue and … slips you a note?
But really, the problem there isn’t the note. Well, part of the problem is the note, But the main problem is that college dude has never spoken to her before. As anyone who has watched Seinfeld knows well, “coffee” means “sex.” Going up to a woman you’ve never spoken to before and asking her out is a bit like saying “hi, you make me feel funny in my pants. I would like to put my penis in you. Perhaps we could chat a bit first. Though, clearly, I don’t care what’s in your actual brain, because here I am asking you out based on nothing more than the fact that you cause that aforementioned feeling in my pants.”
Pro-tip for lonely guys: remember that women are actual human beings also.
Now, this poor Sedditor got some good basic advice from the crowd there, basically boiling down to: figure out an excuse to talk to her before class, and see how it goes.
Now, Seddit may be mildly useful in giving this sort of basic advice to the truly hapless. But it doesn’t seem to be very good at getting across the notion that women are human.
Indeed, there was a strikingly similar question posted in Seddit a couple of days ago: a guy who wanted to ask out the only girl in his engineering class. His post, in stark contrast with the note guy, was bristling with PUA acronyms and lingo: the girl was an “HB8” (Hot Babe that he rated an 8 of 10 on the hotness scale); he was on the lookout for IOSs (Indications of Interest) from her, and so on and so on.
But his strategy was strikingly similar to that of the AFC (Average Frustrated Chump) with the note: he was going to walk up to her after class and ask her out for dinner. But he was planning to add one more “technique” to his approach: “kino.” In PUA-speak, kino means touch.
So, yeah, that’s what he learned from all his study of advanced PUA-oloogy: just start touching her! Women are eager to jump into bed with guys who come up to them out of the blue and start groping them. (The post itself was deleted after it got linked to in the ShitRedditSays subreddit, so no link.)
Trouble is, this guy is not the only one getting the message that Pick-up artistry is all about invading a woman’s personal space and “escalating” until she literally fights you off or given is. This is, in fact, the basic message of the PUA who calls himself Gunwich – a man who not that long ago (allegedly) shot a woman I the face after she refused his advances.
And, yes, pressuring a woman until she gives in, or up, is one way of getting in her pants. It’s also, you know, rape.
In recent days a number of Sedditers have posted advice that is little more than a how-to of date rape. A number of instances were pointed out in ShitRedditSays, and were deleted by the Seddit moderators. It’s clear this is damage control; a number of regulars on ShitRedditSays have been banned from posting in Seddit – many of whom had actually never posted there in the first place.
Here’s a discussion of one copy-and pasted date rape guide that got deleted before anyone made a screencap.
The Seddit mods say this is “fringe” stuff that doesn’t reflect how most Sedditors think. Then how is it that some of the creepiest comments get dozens of upvotes? Take this Sedditor’s advice on how to get inside a woman’s house (and then her pants) that I managed to screencap before it was deleted:
Now, there is plenty of PUA material that is not rapey. Manipulative, sure. Dopey, absolutely. But not rapey. A good Pick-Up Artist, in theory at least, should be able to tell when a woman is interested and when she isn’t, and move on when she isn’t.
But it’s clear that many Sedditors aren’t learning that whole “if she’s not interested, move on” thing. They’re learning: “if she’s not interested, pressure her and manipulate her, and wear her down. And be sure to touch her. Sorry, “kino escalate.”
They’re not learning empathy. They’re learning stupid human tricks. And, worse, they’re learning to ignore a woman’s “no,” to treat it as what PUAs call LMR – that is, Last Minute Resistance. And that’s pretty much a formula for date rape.
@Slavey
More misdirection. You know what I am referencing, right? That you failed to do math. That you failed to qualify your information about Jewish people. That you failed to qualify your statements about Spanish and Russian languages.
I’m going to be clear with you NWOslave. These are not things that are influenced by Feminism. Math has a logical framework, a static population is not existent in a time scale beyond a year. The information you were providing about Jews was demographically wrong by all accounts. Spanish and Russian are linguistically non-related.
This isn’t feminism. This is you being WRONG. There is nothing but facts on the table. Hence, you are ignorant and stupid. You can’t misdirect objective fact.
Slothy, why do you think the sex was consensual? (Also, it might help if you actually link to this story…)
I actually remember what the slaveman is talking about re. the Romulus and Remus rule of thumb thing. More here, in case anyone’s interested.
Bee said “In a survey of 1882 men, 120 self-identified as rapists. A majority of these rapists were repeat rapists, and also had high rates of other acts of interpersonal violence. Most incarcerated rapists have similarly high levels of repeat rape and other violent offenses; most incarcerated rapists also share high levels of anger at women, the need to dominate women, hypermasculinity, lack of empathy, and psychopathy. Many rapists have outlets for consensual sex, but rapists are interested in rape, not consensual sex.
I’ll close with this, The paragraph stated” the need to dominate women, hypermasculinity, lack of empathy, and psychopathy. ”
That is exactly why I absolutely unabashedly refuse to objectify women as objects.Sexual objectification of women by men leads to feelings of possessiveness over women and eventually male sexual assault as indicated in Bee’s paragraph.
If a sexy women walks in front of me . I earnestly will NOT look at her cleavage but look straight into her eyes and see her humanity. She is a person with fears,dreams, interests, she is someones daughter or sister or mother- Not a sex object. To possess.
Many men and even women are finally getting it. Tiger Woods was prominent in that he went to a popular sex addicteion treatment center.
This article is old but appropos http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4302347/
@Molly Ren
“Wait, wait, I got it! SLOTHY THINKS WOMEN JUST HAVE SEX IN ORDER TO HAVE POWER OVER MEN! He totally buys into NWO’s theory about how women just lie about rape in order to throw men in jail!”
No but I totally buy into the theory that 1 in 4 women are officially raped in college, plus an additional 90% who don’t even report it. Which pretty much means every woman is raped 2.5 times in college. Do I have that math correct? Lets see, a college with 1000 women means 250 women are raped in college. Tack on an additional 90%. Since 250 makes up the 10% which are reported an additional 90% = 2250 for a grand total of 2500 rapes. Yup, my math is good. Every woman in college is raped 2.5 times. Go-go gadget math. Damn you ladies are troopers.
I think I misread it the first time but here it is
http://manboobz.com/2011/09/02/is-seddit-teaching-date-rape/comment-page-6/#comment-56948
I thought that 1 in 4 statistic covered the women who don’t report it.
Do you mean this, Slothy? Because “pressuring” and “consent” don’t really go together.
NWO, you do nothing but complain about your life! I’ve never heard you talk about anything enjoyable–what a great weekend you had, how you saw an old friend and how awesome that was, or even that you ate a super-delicious burrito. From your comments here, your life seems to be one long string of hardships and injustice. And yet you would have us believe you are neither a failure nor lonely? Really? I mean, it’s good to have a positive attitude, I guess, but there’s such a thing as denial. Not a river in Egypt and all that…
All right, Slothy, we’re on the same page, then. From the story:
“It must be really nice, never having to have dealt with your boyfriend pressuring you and pressuring you and pressuring you, until you just couldn’t take it anymore and decided to lie back and think of England.”
I think “misread” is the understatement of the year. That doesn’t sound even remotely consensual.
Heres a nice bit of info.
“That’s because if you look at campus sexual violence through a victim-advocate lens, you have to believe vast legions of rapes and assaults go unreported. There’s no other way to explain why the Clery numbers are so low and the Justice Department’s so high. What’s interesting about the 2007 Justice Department report is that its researchers didn’t ask the 5,446 female students who took their online survey if they’d been sexually assaulted. They decided for the young women, who despite their on-campus training and support were deemed too ignorant to know.”
If the numbers are too low, lie. That’s the feminist motto. So if if all you fine feminists actually say, “no I wasn’t raped.” Big Daddy will lie for you. That way you’ll always be a “victim.” Thank you Big Daddy, for caring about women, take our money and make it better.
Samuel, the word you’re looking for capisce, not kapish.
@captainbathrobe
“NWO, you do nothing but complain about your life!”
This entire blog is about women complaining that men aren’t acting the way women demand they act. You are too damn funny.
So you’re what, giving in to peer pressure? I thought you were immune to that, NWO.
You mean read how you misrepresent everything people have been discussing here?
Why should I have to wake you up when you stated that sexing that causes PTDS isn’t rape?
Perhaps you’re not all that important. Or I just enjoy mocking people who are obtuse.
Someday maybe you’ll figure out no one is obligated to perform for you.
Cynickal, I think Slothy may have realized that he’s the one who can’t read. 😛
Jesus, Sam from the future: You do NOT agree with me. Stop pretending we’re on the same page. We’re not even reading the same book.
@Molly Ren
“It must be really nice, never having to have dealt with your boyfriend pressuring you and pressuring you and pressuring you, until you just couldn’t take it anymore and decided to lie back and think of England.”
I wonder how many times men didn’t “feel” like it but did it anyways. Ya know why they didn’t consider it rape? Cause it’s not. Duh.
You’re like a radical liberal and conservative wrapped up into one person. I wanna fuck and fuck and fuck but not be shamed. And if you shame me my “feelings” will be hurt so go to jail. You hate freedom. You want to be free to do whatever you want, but at the same time you don’t want to be accountable for your choices. I wanna go have wild drunk sex, but if I feel slighted the next day it’s rape. Waah, waah, waah. I wanna fuck whoever and play fun hook-ups but if one of them bad old PUAs uses me and hurts my precious “feelings” that’s rape. Someone has to pay for my bad choices, I’m a victim. Always.
Samuel 2112:
I am 55 years old. I have spent a lot of years as a feminist, and one of the ways in which that shapes my life is that I refuse to submt to men telling me what to do–which you did, up above there, in all caps (which is considered very rude in internet communication).
I don’t spent a shitload of time talking about rape to and with men: I don’t care about men. I do not do my feminist work in the context of anti-rape activism for work–and I don’t fucking owe you or anybody else an explanation of my reasons for that decision, and for where I put my efforts in feminist work.
I am certainly not going to tell some dickbiscuit on the internet who has suddenly decided omg rape is horrible and erect penis penetrating woman is horrible (as if rape is limited to that, which it isn’t), and OMG what do YOU WIMMINZ think anything except beyond STFU and go spend some time reading all the feminist works on rape and rape culture and stop perpetrating the patriarchal heart that underlies rape culture which is the male assumption that you have a right to demand anything from women, from our bodies to our attention to our sympathies.
@ cpt b
NWO, you do nothing but complain about your life! I’ve never heard you talk about anything enjoyable–what a great weekend you had, how you saw an old friend and how awesome that was, or even that you ate a super-delicious burrito. From your comments here, your life seems to be one long string of hardships and injustice. And yet you would have us believe you are neither a failure nor lonely? Really? I mean, it’s good to have a positive attitude, I guess, but there’s such a thing as denial. Not a river in Egypt and all that…
the other thing i find fascinating about owlslave is that most of the long-term trolls are falling over themselves to point out all the positive* relationships they have with women, but owlslave is pretty much all seething hatred all the time. i dunno if thats more depressing or at least admirably honest of him
*where positive means ‘not total warfare’ i guess
NWO, honey, dearie, darling, consent works both ways. My roommate turns me the fuck on (that beautiful ass of his, dear God), but that doesn’t mean I can have sex with him without his consent. A lot of the things you described are douchey things to do (it is rude in the extreme to laugh at people who ask you out or use them for freebies, and I am against that) or even illegal (assault). As it happens, I am against all of them, except putting someone down as sexual offenders, which I think men should be allowed to do too. As it happens, there are female sexual offenders. Shocking, I know.
Also, yes, I’m a slut. Nine sexual partners over here. I am not sure why you have contempt for me for it. There are a lot of things I do that have more moral weight than my vagina. If a person is kind, holds to their ethical beliefs, creates art, seeks the truth, runs a business that provides useful goods or services… that matters more than whom they fuck.
I must say, I’m curious what possible method of determining whether sex was consensual is possible beyond both partners feeling that sex is consensual.
Slothy: Are you seriously suggesting that people can’t be pressured into having nonconsensual sex? Wow.
“I wonder how many times men didn’t “feel” like it but did it anyways. Ya know why they didn’t consider it rape?”
OOH! OOH! I KNOW! I KNOW! PICK ME!
…The answer he’s going for isn’t “our misandric society erases the existence of male survivors through sexist cultural narratives”, is it.
NWO, don’t change the subject. You claimed that you are neither lonely nor a failure. How is that remotely true?
Oh, is THAT what this blog is about? Fuck, I’ve been doing it wrong, what with my mocking of misogynists (and people who don’t understand contracts).
One more thing, slaveman: Rape is rape, and rape is a crime. Shaming is not rape, nor is it a crime. Feeling slighted sucks, but it’s not rape and it’s not a crime. Making bad choices also is not a crime (necessarily; although making the choice to commit a crime is arguably a bad choice), but if someone’s less than perfect choices create a situation where some predator abuses them, then the predator is still a criminal, bad choices or not.
Another addition for the Book of Learnin:
Law: People who make bad choices should be accountable for their actions, unless the choice they made was to rape someone, in which case, whatever. That whore probably deserved it, what with her flaunting and lack of accountability.
He’s also changing the subject from his failure with objective fact.