The whole nice guy vs. nice guy(tm) debate is rather interesting in itself, I feel that many critiques of gender relations (feminist and otherwise) seem like low hanging fruit for rationality and should be discussed more here when not interfering with the primary objective. I mostly agree with the article you linked too (I’ve read similar texts on the phenomena from a female perspective in the past).
However let me just point out that game does make such nice guys (tm) genuinely nicer even if they don’t see it as such. I’m not sure how relevant this is to a debate about PUA, especially since there is overlaps between the PUA concept of a average frustrated chump and a nice guy(tm). There is even overlap in the kind of criticism and arguments both groups use against the demographic.
To explain what I mean let me just comment a few examples of the top of my head. From the wiki entry you link to:
Some aspects are due to the different socialisation of men and women:
that women are culturally trained to be gentle when rejecting men sexually, and that “you’d be a great boyfriend for someone else” and “you’re like a brother to me” may be signals that the woman knows of the attraction and is trying to gently let the man down and encourage him to find other people he is attracted to, rather than callous obliviousness
I have yet to see a example where any PUA system has advised against interpreting such a statement as anything but a polite statement of disinterest on the part of a woman.
Or:
A corollary to these criticisms are that no one owes you love or sex. Loneliness and unfufilled desires are tragic and painful but feminists argue that consent is the only ethical relationship underpinning, and that requiring mutual consent for relationships and for sex will mean that some people do not get their romantic or sexual desires fulfilled at any given time.
Is this really a view incompatible with PUA? There is s a culture in the PUA community where about any sense of bitterness and entitlement on the part of men who don’t achieve success in their pursuit of sex is derided. The whole mindset that women are the one making the wrong choice is itself anathema to the basic principle of finding what women reward and value and becoming more like that.
Even Roissy in DC who is far from a pretty picture is clearly in line with this: “No one owes you sex or love. Deal with it and stop bitching.”
Men’s Rights activists have formulated long lists of criticism of PUA and many even actively shun it because they claim that PUA is all about men conforming to female desires in behaviour far more than women conform to male desires of behaviour and proclaimed the whole thing gynocentric.
The whole nice guy vs. nice guy(tm) debate is rather interesting in itself, I feel that many critiques of gender relations (feminist and otherwise) seem like low hanging fruit for rationality and should be discussed more here when not interfering with the primary objective. I mostly agree with the article you linked too (I’ve read similar texts on the phenomena from a female perspective in the past).
However let me just point out that game does make such nice guys (tm) genuinely nicer even if they don’t see it as such. I’m not sure how relevant this is to a debate about PUA, especially since there is overlaps between the PUA concept of a average frustrated chump and a nice guy(tm). There is even overlap in the kind of criticism and arguments both groups use against the demographic.
To explain what I mean let me just comment a few examples of the top of my head. From the wiki entry you link to:
I have yet to see a example where any PUA system has advised against interpreting such a statement as anything but a polite statement of disinterest on the part of a woman.
Or:
Is this really a view incompatible with PUA? There is s a culture in the PUA community where about any sense of bitterness and entitlement on the part of men who don’t achieve success in their pursuit of sex is derided. The whole mindset that women are the one making the wrong choice is itself anathema to the basic principle of finding what women reward and value and becoming more like that.
Even Roissy in DC who is far from a pretty picture is clearly in line with this: “No one owes you sex or love. Deal with it and stop bitching.”
Men’s Rights activists have formulated long lists of criticism of PUA and many even actively shun it because they claim that PUA is all about men conforming to female desires in behaviour far more than women conform to male desires of behaviour and proclaimed the whole thing gynocentric.