Over on PUA dirtbag Roosh V’s Return of Kings blog, a guest poster calling himself Emmanuel Goldstein (oh, how clever) offers a rather revealing take on the psychology of “players” and pickup artists like himself.
After justifiably mocking “nice guys” for assuming that “girls choose men like people buy houses” – that is, by carefully weighing pros and cons and looking for the best deal – he suggests that
[p]layers … are more like that sweet old lady with saggy arms wearing a hairnet at your local supermarket, handing out free, tasty samples.
Stay with him; it will all make sense, sort of, in a moment.
You’re not even looking at her, and she beckons you over to have a taste. Even though it’s junk food, you can’t resist. You avoid sweets, and here you are eating a tiny cinnabon. And really, she won’t mind if you take just the
tiptaste.Regardless, minutes later, you’re going home with a 96-pack of cinnabons – and you don’t even eat pastries! To be completely honest, the first time it happens, you’re a little jarred and confused about how the whole thing went down so fast. …
Now, imagine that that sweet old lady is actually a funny, strapping young man, and you buying those cinnabons is a woman agreeing to sex with him the night she met him. That confusion you felt after you bought a huge package of junk food? That’s how a girl might feel after her first one-night stand.
Yes, that’s right: Mr. Goldstein is comparing himself and his fellow “players” to supermarket pastry-pushers who cajole people into eating things they know they shouldn’t eat, and that they later regret eating.
And, oh yes, that are really bad for them:
If you remain unconvinced, just remember that our economy is in shambles because tens of millions of people bought homes they cannot afford, and that half of us are comically obese from eating too much junk food. That granny sample lady is looking pretty formidable right now.
Now, there are all sorts of things wrong with Mr. Goldstein’s analogy here. Sex isn’t pastry, for one thing, and for another, women (and everyone else) should be able to indulge in either of these pleasures without having assholes on the internet getting up in their business. (And, yes, PUAs, I’m saying that as a fat fatty.) I’m just trying to point out that by the terms of his own analogy, Mr. Goldstein is saying that sex with him is a shitty thing that’s bad for you.
This isn’t someone attacking PUAs for being miserable, self-centered sexual users who are only able to convince women to have sex with them through manipulation, leaving these women feeling shitty afterwards.
This is a PUA who ASPIRES to be such a miserable, self-centered sexual user he’s only able to convince women to have sex with him through manipulation, leaving these women feeling shitty afterwards.
In other words, PUAs are devoting their lives to making women feel bad about themselves. As a life goal, this seems a bit lacking.
“Best sex possible” dumbest definition of “best” I ever heard. I’ll take a compatably libidinous partner any day of the week.
Ugh, blizzard argleblarg. Just hiked a km though this crap to join friends for drinks. Found out the moment i arrived it’s been postponed 3 hours ’cause the special doesn’t start until then.
PUA guru, wowin’ the ladies: http://sfist.com/2013/02/05/rape_van_pick-up_artist_even_more_h.php
I used to think that, too, but it turns out they actually do mean “marrying up” (or “partnering up”) when they refer to hypergamy – the problem, as they see it, is that now that women are as free to choose their sexual partners as men are, women are being more choosy and gravitating toward high-status (read: wealthy) men, which makes it harder for a low-status man to land a high-value wife/partner/fucktoy.
I wonder if these PUAs haven’t developed any further than their days in the playground, competing with the other little boys for who had the best swap-card collection (or whatever it was in their childhood). It comes across exactly like they have to have something “better” than all the other little boys to establish the playground pecking order.
Shaenon – what a loser turd that fellow is. I’m glad he got LAUGHED AT when he was waving his bits around.
They truly make no distinction between having sex with another human being and watching porn, do they?
@emilygoddess – I dont know, I guess you could read it that way. But they can’t honestly believe that, if not for the “deregulation of the sexual marketplace,” they’d be high status males, can they?
@chibigodzilla no, they think that if women had to marry the first man they had sex with, they would have sex with the “nice” beta provider, and there’d be one woman for every man. But now that women are free to sleep around, they’re clustering around the “alpha assholes”, forcing poor Nice Guys to either fake alpha-ness by learning Game or go without sex.
“and there’d be one woman for every man.” How many supermodels do these idiots think there are in the world? Goodness knows they sure as hell think it’s worse than a death sentence to end up with an “average” looking woman, never mind an ugly or fat one.
@pillow in hell
Sorry I didn’t think of that. (Especially since now I remember that I already knew that. *facepalm*) I hope we get less snow than they’re predicting for your sake. 🙂
Ah no worries some gal. I think the worst of it is over.
the whole ‘best sex = sex with the most attractive people’ thing just reinforces my impression that most of these dudes have not had enough experience to figure out what their actual sexual preferences are
The “most attractive women” according to PUAs are women who do not want to have sex with them and have to be tricked, manipulated, or coerced.
I think that’s true in ALOT of cases! Clarisse Thorn (http://clarissethorn.com/blog/) has a book where she talks about how so many PUA ideas are just self-fulfilling prophesies – they think women like manipulation and bullshit because that’s what the PUA is offering, and the women who stick around and play are the ones who are into that…
SUCCESS!!
More and more, I am glad that I seem to live on a different planet than these people.
Yeah, but Clarisse is broadly sympathetic to some PUAs and awkward men, and Elana Clift is also sympathetic to socially awkward men who are likely to become PUA acolytes (like her brother.) In any case, Clarisse’s website has some PUA-oriented threads which include contributions from some of the pro-male contingent who discussed PUA, like myself, Sam Seaborn, HughRistik the problematic SnowdropExplodes. Clarisse herself is probably the only one who would pass the political correctness test, but if you can read what Sam Seaborn and HughRistik were saying about the devaluation of male sexuality in society vs. undertaking the initator’s role with one’s sexuality so devalued and understand it, you’ll see how & why Clarisse’s response was considered friendly to shy/awkward men, as is Elana Clift.
RE: Eurosabra
Never, ever invoke the name of SnowdropExplodes again. That person isn’t ‘problematic,’ but CREEPY as fuck and planned a rape.
‘Problematic’ is more and more becoming a euphemism for ‘horrible person who says and does horrible things,’ and I’m really growing to dislike it.
Can Eurosabra get banned already? I need a Silkwood shower after reading his shit.
He probably did violate several statutes and is probably criminally liable for the steps he took, with his confession online. Surprised there’s no ASBO involved.
Shut up creepy PUA. Go away creepy PUA.
So I got mostly moved over and my internet’s back up and running.
I’m sending warm thoughts up to my New England peeps.
Ugh, Snowdrop Explodes. He was part of a group of bloggers that I used to hang with and I never could figure out why most of the other women didn’t seem to realize how incredibly creepy he was.
I tend to agree with Thorn in that I think it’s possible to approach interpersonal interaction from a theoretical standpoint and still be ethical. (I’m particularly grateful for what Wayne Elise’s writings have done for my ability to initiate conversations with new people and be clear about my intentions.) I think Clarisse Thorn seems considerably more permissive about what she considers ethical, though, and/or who she’s willing to give the benefit of the doubt to.
I think she’s a special snowflake in desperate search of Chill Girl points.