They excuse this moral failing by saying “Everybody else is doing it, hence it’s okay for me to do it only more so”.
I find that those with any significant degree of PUA competence are not particularly inclined to try to excuse themselves to others. Apart from being an unhealthy mindset to be stuck in it sends all the wrong signals. They would instead bock out any hecklers and go about their business. If people try to shame them specifically while they are flirting or socializing they may need to handle the situation actively but it is almost certainly not going to be with excuses.
However it’s well-established in general societal morals that obtaining sex by deception is a form of non-violent rape. If you’re having sex with someone knowing that they are ignorant of relevant facts which if they knew them would stop them having sex with you, then you are not having sex with their free and informed consent.
Acting confident and suppressing nervousness is not rape.
Is there proper scientific evidence for this?
It is a third and fourth question added to a list. Unless the first two were supposed to be scientific proclamations this doesn’t seem to be an appropriate demand.
If not do you acknowledge that this is at least potentially a moral excuse of the same form as “Everyone else is doing it, so it’s okay for me to do it”?
No to the “if not” implication—not presenting proper scientific evidence wouldn’t make it an excuse. No to the equivalence of these questions to that form. Most importantly: nothing is an ‘excuse’ unless the person giving it believes they doing something bad.
and I think my naive folk-psychological guesswork is just as good as yours.
I really don’t think naivety is a significant failing of mine.
I find that those with any significant degree of PUA competence are not particularly inclined to try to excuse themselves to others. Apart from being an unhealthy mindset to be stuck in it sends all the wrong signals. They would instead bock out any hecklers and go about their business. If people try to shame the specifically while they are flirting or socializing they may need to handle the situation actively but it is almost certainly not going to be with excuses.
So far in this conversation those I have mentally labelled pro-PUA have inevitably introduced scenarios where both parties are using “seduction techniques”, which I think is a term which is dangerous since it conflates honest signalling with spoofed signalling, or by claiming (as you did) that the idea of spoofing social signals “barely makes any sense”. I take those arguments to be excusing the act of spoofing social signals on the basis either that all women also spoof their social signals and that two wrongs make a right, or that there is in fact no such thing as social spoofing and that hence PUAs cannot be morally condemned for doing something which does not exist.
Acting confident and suppressing nervousness is not rape.
In and of itself, it seems to me that at least potentially it is deliberately depriving the target of access to relevant facts that they would wish to know before making a decision whether or not to engage socially, sexually or romantically with the suppressor.
However unless you believe that pick-up targets’ relevant decision-making would be totally unaffected by the knowledge that the person approaching them was a PUA using specific PUA techniques, then concealing that fact from the pick-up target is an attempt to obtain sex without the target’s free and informed consent. If you know fact X, and you know fact X is a potential deal-breaker with regard to their decision whether or not to sleep with you, you have a moral obligation to disclose X.
I really don’t think naivety is a significant failing of mine.
″ In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know”.
Socrates
Edit in response to edit: I was asked what I thought the most important ethical questions were with regard to PUA, and answered that question with two ethical questions. You responded by asking two factual questions of your own, which if answered in the negative would make my second question redundant, and stated that your money (which since you are posting here I took to mean that you have a Bayesian conviction that your answer is more likely to be right than not) was on the answer to those questions being negative.
You must have some basis for that probability estimate. Saying that it’s not an “appropriate demand” to ask for those bases doesn’t solve the problem that without access to your bases we can’t tell if your probability estimate is rational.
It is also a category error to put ethical questions and factual questions in the same bin and argue that because my ethical questions are not “scientific proclamations” that this means you don’t have to provide support for your factual probability estimates.
I find that those with any significant degree of PUA competence are not particularly inclined to try to excuse themselves to others. Apart from being an unhealthy mindset to be stuck in it sends all the wrong signals. They would instead bock out any hecklers and go about their business. If people try to shame them specifically while they are flirting or socializing they may need to handle the situation actively but it is almost certainly not going to be with excuses.
Acting confident and suppressing nervousness is not rape.
It is a third and fourth question added to a list. Unless the first two were supposed to be scientific proclamations this doesn’t seem to be an appropriate demand.
No to the “if not” implication—not presenting proper scientific evidence wouldn’t make it an excuse. No to the equivalence of these questions to that form. Most importantly: nothing is an ‘excuse’ unless the person giving it believes they doing something bad.
I really don’t think naivety is a significant failing of mine.
So far in this conversation those I have mentally labelled pro-PUA have inevitably introduced scenarios where both parties are using “seduction techniques”, which I think is a term which is dangerous since it conflates honest signalling with spoofed signalling, or by claiming (as you did) that the idea of spoofing social signals “barely makes any sense”. I take those arguments to be excusing the act of spoofing social signals on the basis either that all women also spoof their social signals and that two wrongs make a right, or that there is in fact no such thing as social spoofing and that hence PUAs cannot be morally condemned for doing something which does not exist.
In and of itself, it seems to me that at least potentially it is deliberately depriving the target of access to relevant facts that they would wish to know before making a decision whether or not to engage socially, sexually or romantically with the suppressor.
However unless you believe that pick-up targets’ relevant decision-making would be totally unaffected by the knowledge that the person approaching them was a PUA using specific PUA techniques, then concealing that fact from the pick-up target is an attempt to obtain sex without the target’s free and informed consent. If you know fact X, and you know fact X is a potential deal-breaker with regard to their decision whether or not to sleep with you, you have a moral obligation to disclose X.
″ In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know”.
Socrates
Edit in response to edit: I was asked what I thought the most important ethical questions were with regard to PUA, and answered that question with two ethical questions. You responded by asking two factual questions of your own, which if answered in the negative would make my second question redundant, and stated that your money (which since you are posting here I took to mean that you have a Bayesian conviction that your answer is more likely to be right than not) was on the answer to those questions being negative.
You must have some basis for that probability estimate. Saying that it’s not an “appropriate demand” to ask for those bases doesn’t solve the problem that without access to your bases we can’t tell if your probability estimate is rational.
It is also a category error to put ethical questions and factual questions in the same bin and argue that because my ethical questions are not “scientific proclamations” that this means you don’t have to provide support for your factual probability estimates.
I certainly wouldn’t say is true either.