It may have been a slight exaggeration to say that any girl within 2 sd of the mean will be approached but would you accept that overall women are much more likely to be approached by men than the other way around? I would think that’s a fairly uncontroversial claim. I can’t provide direct evidence for that if you doubt it but there is supporting evidence from studies of online dating. That paper found that the median number of first contacts for men was 0, the mean 2.3 and fully 56% of men received no first contacts. The figures for women were a median of 4, a mean of 11.4 and only 21% of women received no first contacts. My guess would be that real world first approaches are more heavily skewed than that because of the greater pressure of social convention in public situations that men should be the approachers.
Anyway, it would seem your main concern is the ethics of pick up. Specifically it seems to be dishonesty that concerns you. That brings us back to the original discussion of whether your image of the seduction community reflects reality. I think you’ve picked up on the most unethical/dishonest aspects and letting that blind you to the range of other approaches that fall under the general umbrella.
Dishonesty is not a requirement of pick up. Some people might advocate it but others will strongly advise against it. Neither is it the case that the main goal of pick up is a one night stand by whatever means necessary. Again, there are elements of the community that see that as the primary goal but they are probably in the minority. It’s mostly about finding things that work to improve the chances of a positive interaction with women. It’s up to the individual to decide whether any given technique is something they are ethically comfortable with and act accordingly.
I have to say, I went Googling for PUA next to words like “honesty” and “feminism” in the hope of finding a PUA community that was loud about ethical principles, and what I found was more exactly the opposite. What I read makes me want to press the work of sex-positive feminists like Susie Bright, Pat Califia, Carol Queen, Avedon Carol, or Greta Christina into the hands of everyone in the PUA community.
I have to say, I went Googling for PUA next to words like “honesty” and “feminism” in the hope of finding a PUA community that was loud about ethical principles, and what I found was more exactly the opposite.
In PUA lingo, the term for “honesty” is “direct game”: From a page by one Vin DiCarlo:
DIRECT GAME
I. Who can use direct game? Why use direct game? Direct game is a game based on value and self respect. It is based on honesty and disregard for societal constructs. It is completely absent of any takeaways intended to manipulate interest, direct invalidation, and disrespect. I would suggest that direct game can be used by anyone ESPECIALLY newbie’s because of it’s simplicity, efficiency and congruence with the newbie’s intentions. People also like direct game because it allows them to persist confidently without pretending to be hard-to-get.
In contrast, “indirect game” is the term for approaching someone without letting them know that you’re attracted to them, and the bulk of “material”-oriented schools focus on it, whereas “natural game” or “inner game” schools are more likely to also be “direct”.
The reason you don’t see much mention of honesty in relation to PUA, is because direct schools treat it as flat-out obvious, and indirect schools treat it as irrelevant, except where they’re making excuses for why an opening line like, “Did you see that fight outside?” isn’t “really” a lie.
I believe Soporno is the only trainer who makes sex-positive feminism a focal point in his work, although I don’t think he ever uses the word explicitly. Nonetheless, there are many natural game schools, although the google results for “natural game” are dominated by spam at the moment. TheApproach, CharismaArts, and UltimateNaturalGame are a few of the schools that are strongly or excusively “natural” in bent, and some, like Real Social Dynamics have a mixed bag of training, moving increasingly towards emphasis on natural/direct game and away from material except for overall logistics.
Viewed as an outsider, I’d say that the trend among established training companies is increasingly towards natural and direct game, away from indirect/material. In part, this is a response to the fact that “canned material” gets played out through overexposure, but also just because as the trainers get older and more experienced, they tend to get more mature outlooks on life. (A lot of these guys start really young!)
(The main reason I even follow the field these days is because competition in the increased emphasis on “inner” game aspects means that the PUGs are driven to innovate in the area of training people to believe in themselves and act confidently… which of course crosses over into my own area a bit. Back when the industry consisted mainly of Ross Jeffries, David D., and Mystery, there was really little of interest for me.)
I think it’s probably fair to say that the community is primarily ‘results driven’ - you won’t find a tremendous amount of normative ethics there. The most common ethical principle (if you can call it that) would be the idea that the ultimate goal is self improvement (inner game) - become the kind of person who is attractive without needing to rely on any kind of ‘tricks’ or dishonesty.
If the sex-positive feminists you mention had advice that would actually produce positive results I imagine it would find a positive reception. I followed a link here to Greta Christina’s blog and didn’t find anything very enlightening there in the time I looked around it but if you have specific links to material you think is representative of the ideas you would like to spread please share them. My impression is that sex-positive feminists represent a very small percentage of women and so their views are not likely to be helpful in understanding how to relate better to most women. I am open to being persuaded otherwise though.
It may have been a slight exaggeration to say that any girl within 2 sd of the mean will be approached but would you accept that overall women are much more likely to be approached by men than the other way around? I would think that’s a fairly uncontroversial claim. I can’t provide direct evidence for that if you doubt it but there is supporting evidence from studies of online dating. That paper found that the median number of first contacts for men was 0, the mean 2.3 and fully 56% of men received no first contacts. The figures for women were a median of 4, a mean of 11.4 and only 21% of women received no first contacts. My guess would be that real world first approaches are more heavily skewed than that because of the greater pressure of social convention in public situations that men should be the approachers.
Anyway, it would seem your main concern is the ethics of pick up. Specifically it seems to be dishonesty that concerns you. That brings us back to the original discussion of whether your image of the seduction community reflects reality. I think you’ve picked up on the most unethical/dishonest aspects and letting that blind you to the range of other approaches that fall under the general umbrella.
Dishonesty is not a requirement of pick up. Some people might advocate it but others will strongly advise against it. Neither is it the case that the main goal of pick up is a one night stand by whatever means necessary. Again, there are elements of the community that see that as the primary goal but they are probably in the minority. It’s mostly about finding things that work to improve the chances of a positive interaction with women. It’s up to the individual to decide whether any given technique is something they are ethically comfortable with and act accordingly.
I have to say, I went Googling for PUA next to words like “honesty” and “feminism” in the hope of finding a PUA community that was loud about ethical principles, and what I found was more exactly the opposite. What I read makes me want to press the work of sex-positive feminists like Susie Bright, Pat Califia, Carol Queen, Avedon Carol, or Greta Christina into the hands of everyone in the PUA community.
In PUA lingo, the term for “honesty” is “direct game”: From a page by one Vin DiCarlo:
In contrast, “indirect game” is the term for approaching someone without letting them know that you’re attracted to them, and the bulk of “material”-oriented schools focus on it, whereas “natural game” or “inner game” schools are more likely to also be “direct”.
The reason you don’t see much mention of honesty in relation to PUA, is because direct schools treat it as flat-out obvious, and indirect schools treat it as irrelevant, except where they’re making excuses for why an opening line like, “Did you see that fight outside?” isn’t “really” a lie.
I believe Soporno is the only trainer who makes sex-positive feminism a focal point in his work, although I don’t think he ever uses the word explicitly. Nonetheless, there are many natural game schools, although the google results for “natural game” are dominated by spam at the moment. TheApproach, CharismaArts, and UltimateNaturalGame are a few of the schools that are strongly or excusively “natural” in bent, and some, like Real Social Dynamics have a mixed bag of training, moving increasingly towards emphasis on natural/direct game and away from material except for overall logistics.
Viewed as an outsider, I’d say that the trend among established training companies is increasingly towards natural and direct game, away from indirect/material. In part, this is a response to the fact that “canned material” gets played out through overexposure, but also just because as the trainers get older and more experienced, they tend to get more mature outlooks on life. (A lot of these guys start really young!)
(The main reason I even follow the field these days is because competition in the increased emphasis on “inner” game aspects means that the PUGs are driven to innovate in the area of training people to believe in themselves and act confidently… which of course crosses over into my own area a bit. Back when the industry consisted mainly of Ross Jeffries, David D., and Mystery, there was really little of interest for me.)
I think it’s probably fair to say that the community is primarily ‘results driven’ - you won’t find a tremendous amount of normative ethics there. The most common ethical principle (if you can call it that) would be the idea that the ultimate goal is self improvement (inner game) - become the kind of person who is attractive without needing to rely on any kind of ‘tricks’ or dishonesty.
If the sex-positive feminists you mention had advice that would actually produce positive results I imagine it would find a positive reception. I followed a link here to Greta Christina’s blog and didn’t find anything very enlightening there in the time I looked around it but if you have specific links to material you think is representative of the ideas you would like to spread please share them. My impression is that sex-positive feminists represent a very small percentage of women and so their views are not likely to be helpful in understanding how to relate better to most women. I am open to being persuaded otherwise though.